The Taming of the Queen (35 page)

‘But you won’t go on board, will you, my lord?’

‘Twelve,’ he says, not answering me but pursuing his thoughts about his refitted ship. ‘She was always a mighty ship and now we’re going to use her like a weapon, as Thomas says. He’s quite right, she is like a floating castle. She has twelve port pieces, eight culverins and four cannon. She can stay far out at sea and bombard a land-based castle with guns as big as they have. She can shoot from one side and wheel around and shoot from the other while the first are reloading. Then she can grapple a ship and my soldiers can board them. I’ve put two fighting castles on her upper deck, fore and aft.’

‘But you won’t sail in her with Sir Thomas?’

‘I may.’ He is excited at the thought of a battle. ‘But I don’t forget that I have to keep myself safe, my dear. I am the father of the nation, I don’t forget it. And I would not leave you alone.’

I wonder if there is a way that I can ask which ship Thomas will command. The king looks at me kindly. ‘I know you will want to see that all your pretty things are packed. My steward shall tell yours when we will leave. We should have a good journey; the weather should be fine.’

‘I love going on progress in the summer,’ I say. ‘Shall we take Prince Edward with us?’

‘No, no, he can stay at Ashridge,’ he says. ‘But we can call on him as we come back to London. I know you will like that.’

‘I always like to see him.’

‘He is studying well? You hear from his tutors?’

‘He writes to me himself. We write to each other in Latin now for practice.’

‘Well enough,’ he says, but I know that he is at once jealous that his son loves me. ‘But you must not distract him from his studies, Kateryn. And he must not forget his true mother. She must live in his heart before anyone else. She is his guardian angel in heaven, as she was his guardian angel on earth.’

‘Whatever you think, my lord,’ I say, a little stiff at this snub.

‘He is born to be king,’ he says. ‘As I was. He has to be disciplined, and well taught and strictly raised. As I was. My mother was dead in my twelfth year. I had no-one writing loving letters to me.’

‘No,’ I say. ‘You must have missed her very much. To lose her, when you were so young.’

His face compresses with self-pity. ‘I was heartbroken,’ he says huskily. ‘The loss of her broke my heart. No woman has ever loved me as she did. And she left me so young!’

‘Tragic,’ I say softly.

There is a knock at the door and the grooms of the servery come in with a table groaning with food. They place it at the side of the bed and heap a plate for the king as he points to one dish after another.

‘Eat!’ he commands me, his mouth full. ‘I can’t dine alone.’

I take a small plate and let them serve me. I sit by the fireside on my chair and nibble on a few pieces of pastry. The king is served wine. I take a glass of small ale. I cannot believe that I will see Thomas Seymour within the week.

It is a long two hours before the king has finished with the food and he is sweating and breathing heavily by the time he has eaten several slices of pie, some meats, and half of a lemon pudding.

‘Take it away, I am weary,’ he announces.

Quickly and efficiently they load the table and carry it out of the room.

‘Come to bed,’ he says thickly. ‘I will sleep here with you.’

He tips his head back and belches loudly. I go to my side of the bed and climb in. Before I have the covers spread over us he has let out a loud snore and is fast asleep.

I think I will be wakeful but I lie in the darkness and feel such joy as I think of Thomas. Perhaps he is in Portsmouth, perhaps sleeping on board his ship in his low-ceilinged wooden admiral’s cabin, with the candles rocking gently on their gimbals on the walls. I will see him next week, I think. I may not speak to him, I must not look for him, but at least I will see him, and he will see me.

The dream is so like my waking life that I do not know I am dreaming. I am in my bed and the king is sleeping beside me, snoring, and there is a terrible smell, the smell of his rotting leg, in my bed, and in my room. I slip out of bed, careful not to wake him, and the smell is worse than ever. I think, I must get out of the room, I cannot breathe, I must find the apothecary and get some perfume, I must send the girls out to the garden to pick some herbs. I go as quietly as I can towards the door to the private galleries between his room and mine.

I open the little door and step out, but instead of the wooden floor and scattered rushes and the stone walls of the gallery I am at once on the narrow landing of a stone staircase, a circular staircase, perilously steep. I put one hand on the central column and start to climb upwards. I must get away from this terrible smell of death, but instead it is getting worse, as if there is a corpse or some rotting horror just around the curve of the stair above me.

I put a hand over my mouth and nose to shield me from the smell and then I give a little choke as I realise that it is my hand that smells. It is me that is rotting; and it is my own stink that I am trying to escape. I smell like a dead woman, left to rot. I pause on the stair as I think that all I can do is to fling myself downstairs, headfirst down the stairs, so that this decayed body can complete the task of dying and I am not locked in with death, twinned with death, mated with death, decay in my own body at my fingertips.

I am crying now, raging at the fate that has brought me to this, but as the tears run down my cheeks they are like dust. They are dry as sand when they run into my lips and they taste like dried blood. In my desperation and with all the courage I can find, I turn on the step and face down the steep stone stairs. Then I give one despairing scream as I dive downwards, down the stone staircase, headfirst.

‘Hush, hush, you’re safe!’

I think it is Thomas who has caught me up, and I cling to him, shuddering. I turn to his shoulder and press my face against his warm chest and throat. But it is the king holding me in his arms, and I recoil and cry out again for fear that I have said Thomas’s name in my nightmare and now I am in real danger indeed.

‘Hush, hush,’ he says. ‘Hush, my love. It was a dream. Nothing but a dream. You’re safe now.’ He holds me gently against his fleshy comforting side, soft as a pillow.

‘My God, what a dream! God help me, what a nightmare!’

‘Nothing, it was nothing.’

‘I was so afraid. I dreamed I was dead.’

‘You are safe with me. You are safe with me, beloved.’

‘Did I talk in my sleep?’ I whimper. I am so afraid that I said his name.

‘No, you said no words, you just wept, poor girl. I woke you at once.’

‘It was so terrible!’

‘Poor little love,’ Henry says tenderly, stroking my hair, my bare shoulder. ‘You are safe with me. Do you want something to eat?’

‘No, no,’ I give a shaky laugh. ‘Nothing to eat. Nothing more to eat.’

‘You should have something, for comfort.’

‘No, no, really. I couldn’t.’

‘You are awake now? You know yourself?’

‘Yes, yes, I do.’

‘Was it a dream of foretelling?’ he asks. ‘Did you dream of my ships?’

‘No,’ I say firmly. Two of this man’s wives were accused by him of witchcraft; I’m not going to claim any sort of second sight. ‘It was nothing, it meant nothing. Just a muddle of castle walls and feeling cold and afraid.’

He lies back on the pillows. ‘Can you sleep now?’

‘Yes, I can. Thank you for being so kind to me.’

‘I am your husband,’ he says with simple dignity. ‘Of course I guard your sleep and soothe your fears.’

In a moment he is breathing heavily, his mouth lolling open. I put my head against his bulky shoulder and close my eyes. I know that my dream was the dream of Tryphine, the maid who was married to a man who killed his wives. I know it was the smell of dead wife on my own fingers.

It is a most delightful day, like a painting of a summer day, the sun bright on the blue waters of the Solent, the brisk wind scuffing little white caps on the waves. We have climbed to the top of one of the defensive towers overlooking the harbour and, now that they have hauled the king up the stone stairs and he can see everything, he is delighted with the world, standing astride at the sea wall, hands on his hips, as if he were an admiral on his own ship, the court around him abuzz with excitement and anxiety.

I cannot believe that everyone is joyous, as if we were about to watch a joust on a summer day, as if this were the legendary Field of the Cloth of Gold – a struggle between France and England to be the most glamorous, the most graceful, the most cultured and the most sporting. Surely everyone knows that it is nothing like that today? This is not playing at war but the hours before a real battle. There can be nothing to celebrate and everything to fear.

Looking behind me, over the open fields of Southsea Common, I see that though the court is putting a brave face on it, I am not the only one to be anxious. The yeomen of the guard are already prepared for the worst, their horses saddled and held on tight reins by their pages, ready for mounting and galloping away. The guardsmen are already in armour, with only their helmets to put on. Behind them, the great baggage train that always follows the royal court everywhere – petitioners, beggars, lawyers, thieves and fools – is slowly dragging itself away – the baggage train always knows which side will win – and the people of Portsmouth are fleeing their own town, some of them walking under a burden of household goods, some riding, and some loading up carts. If the French defeat our fleet they will sack Portsmouth and probably fire it as well. The king’s court seem to be the only ones who expect triumph and are looking forward to a battle.

The many bells of the town churches are tolling as our ships get ready to sail out of the harbour, the hundreds of noisy peals scaring the gulls, who circle and cry over the sea. There are about eighty ships, the greatest fleet England has ever assembled, some on the far side loading crew and weapons, some ready to go. I can see them unfurling their sails to our right, deeper in the harbour, the rowing boats and the galleys busy about them, taking ropes and preparing to haul them out of port to the sea.

‘The greatest navy ever mustered,’ the king declares to Anthony Browne at his side. ‘And ready to fight the French in the new way. It will be the greatest battle we have ever seen.’

‘Thank God we are here to see it!’ replies Sir Anthony. ‘What a great chance. I have commissioned a picture to show our victory.’

The painter, hurrying with his sketch book to record the sailing from the harbour, gives a low bow to the king and starts to outline the view before us, the tower where we are standing, the harbour to our right, the ships slowly emerging, the sea before us, the fluttering pennants, the cannon rolled out at the ready.

‘I’m glad that my husband is not on board one of the ships,’ Catherine Brandon remarks quietly.

I look at her pale face and see a reflection of my own unease. This is not a masque, this is not one of the expensive spectacles that the court loves; this is going to be a genuine sea battle fought between our ships and the French in sight of land. I will see what Thomas faces. I will have to watch as his ship is bombarded.

‘Do you know who is commanding which ship?’ I ask her.

She shakes her head. ‘Some new admirals were named last night at dinner,’ she says. ‘The king has honoured his friends with commands so that they can take part in the battle. My husband wasn’t very happy at new men being put in command the night before they have to fight. But he is overall commander of land and sea, and, thank God, he stays on land.’

‘Why, are you afraid of the sea?’

‘I am afraid of all deep water,’ she confesses. ‘I can’t swim. But then nobody in armour can swim. Few sailors know how and none of the soldiers would be able to stay afloat in their heavy jackets.’

I stop her with a small gesture. ‘Perhaps nobody will have to swim.’

There is a ragged cheer from the quayside as the king’s newly-refitted ship
Mary Rose
spreads her beautiful square sails and throws out ropes to the galleys to drag her out to sea.