A Love Most Dangerous (9 page)

I took a deep breath and made my way towards my own
chamber. My thoughts ran faster than my feet. I had turned onto a new path now,
and one which I doubted I could easily step off.

I bit my lip. How wise had I been in all this? I had
been prompted to seek the protection of the King from the attentions of Richard
Rich. But there was more to it than just this. I had long wanted to advance
myself in Court, wanted more for myself than my birth stars had given to me.
But how much did I actually want? How far was I prepared to go?

I knew that getting close to the King in any manner
was perilous. Becoming his lover might well prove deadly.

In truth I would have preferred to spend our time
reading poetry. But in my heart I knew that this had been a mere shadow play before
the real game commenced. Now I was in the midst of this game and I barely knew
the rules. Even if I was conversant with them I suspected the King would not
abide by them, would assume that he could break and bend them with impunity. He
did with everything else.

It was common knowledge that many men had grown
wealthy by favour of the King. What was less well known, or kept hidden, was
that many more had been beggared by him.

Every noble dreaded that the King would invite himself
to stay at his home a few days, every gentlemen feared a visit of only a few
hours. For the King never travelled anywhere alone. He travelled with much of
his court: servants, retainers, courtiers, bishops and entertainers. Providing
only one meal for this vast entourage would devastate most purses. A stay of
two or more days would send even the wealthiest scurrying to the money-lenders
or selling land or daughters to the highest bidder.

Some, the unlucky ones, had fallen like Icarus when
they got too close to the sun. One day they were the apple of the King's eye,
the next like cow-dung in the field. These men became something the wise kept
sharp watch for, to be shunned lest their new stench came to be associated with
them. Some of the fallen men fell still further of course, to the axe-man's
block.

And for women? For young women without kin or
connections? My mind went over the ladies who had appeared high in the King's
favour and those few who were rumoured to have shared his bed. None, save Queen
Anne Boleyn had fallen to the sword. But once one woman had been forced across
that dreadful line, what safety was there for others?

I reached my room and shut the door behind me, leaning
against it as if to block the outside world from entering. It seemed to me,
though I could not quite pin down the reason why, it seemed to me that the most
perilous dangerous course was to be a Queen, the next most dangerous to be his
mistress. Better that I remain his lover, a casual lover who would pleasure him
on occasion and rise a few steps higher in the Court because of this.

And this, of course, must be a secret kept from the
world.

The next morning I went down to the Great Hall for
breakfast and sat at the table. The maids near me shuffled away so that a space
grew between them and me. I glanced up. Philippa Wicks and Dorothy Bray looked
studiously the other way but they could not conceal the look of triumph upon
their faces.

My heart quailed. I really had become like the
cow-dung in the field, shunned and rejected.

My first thought was to act contrary to my resolve of
the night before. I would cry out: avoid me if you choose, do the worst that
you dare, for I am the King's lover and am high in his favour.

But immediately I thought better of it. For I knew
that were I to say this I would be the King's Harlot in their eyes and as such
I would become vulnerable to their venom. Better, I thought, to practise
haughty disdain and scorn them even more than they did me. Better to keep my
counsel and plot their discomfort and downfall at my leisure.

'This bread is delicious,' I said.

My voice echoed in the silent hall. None of the others
so much as looked up. I feared to speak again for I felt my voice about to
tremble and break. Yet I knew I must speak once more.

I took a sip of wine and a deeper breath. 'The
preserve, however, is tart. It is a shame to have things so tart and bitter at
the King's Court.'

I felt some of the Ladies flutter as my words hit
home. A moment later a few nodded in agreement and one or two even muttered at
the table.

I shot a glance at Wicks. The triumph in her face had
changed to bile.

Susan appeared and glanced around. She pointedly took
a seat beside me. I breathed a sigh of relief.

'What was that I heard?' she said brightly. 'Is there
something distasteful in the room?'

'The preserve,' said Lucy Meadows. She held up the
dish of preserve nervously. 'Alice said that the preserve is tart and bitter.'

'Then I shall take honey,' Susan said. She glanced
along the table to the dish of honey. 'Dorothy, my dear,' she said to Bray,
'please be so kind as to pass the sweet honey.'

Bray paused for a moment, as if debating whether or no
to ignore the request. With ill grace she passed the honey down the table.

'Thank you, my dear,' Susan said, pretending to ignore
Bray's bad humour.

She spread the honey lightly upon her bread and
offered the dish to me.

'Do try the honey, Alice. Dorothy has taken the
trouble to pass it to us. It is very sweet.'

I took the dish and nodded courteously towards Bray.
'Thank you so much, dear Dorothy,' I said. 'I appreciate your kindness. Such
thoughtfulness will not go unnoticed.'

Bray gave a smile as vicious as a snarl.

Philippa Wicks rose to her feet and fanned her hand in
front of her nose.

'Come Dorothy,' she said. 'It grows hot and
unwholesome here. Let us go see how the Queen is faring today.'

She swept out of the room without a backward glance,
her creature Bray chasing to keep up with her.

A sigh impalpable as a breeze fluttered through the
room. A low murmur commenced as the Ladies began to chatter amongst themselves.
One of the cooks brought out a platter of eggs soft scrambled and offered it
around. I helped Susan and Lucy to some before spooning a goodly portion upon
my own plate. I suddenly realised how hungry I felt. I had undergone fierce
exercise this last night and needed much sustenance to restore myself.

I paused in my eating for a moment and, as trial,
placed my spoon to Lucy's lips. She seemed surprised but ate the eggs from my
spoon, a blush warming her cheek.

I smiled to myself. I was changed and somehow Lucy had
sensed this. I remembered how I had dreamed of Anne Boleyn.

After we had breakfasted the three of us went into the
Ladies' Sitting Room. It was empty save for Mary who sat at the window looking
at the river below.

'You were not at breakfast,' Susan said to her. 'Are
you unwell?'

Mary smiled and nodded her head. 'I breakfasted early,
thank you. I was summoned to the Queen's Chamber in the small hours.'

'Is the child ailing?' Lucy asked.

'Not the child,' Mary answered, shaking her head. 'It
is the Queen who is unwell.'

Susan and I exchanged looks.

'How so?' Susan asked.

I felt the clammy hand of dread upon the small of my
back.

'It was a long labour and a difficult birth,' Mary
said. 'The Queen is exhausted and fretful.'

'She sent for you in the night?' Susan asked.

Mary nodded. 'She wanted me to sing to her, to calm
her and lull her to soft slumbers.'

I smiled. Mary had a voice as enchanting as a
skylark's.

'And did it work?' I asked. 'Did your songs conjure
her to restfulness?'

Mary nodded. 'She slept. I did not.'

She held her hand to her mouth to hide a yawn. 'I must
go to my bed shortly, if only for an hour or two.'

She looked up sharply, suddenly sensing something had
happened to us. 'Is anything amiss? Alice, Susan?'

Susan turned to me.

I took Mary's hand in mine and told her what had
happened at breakfast.

'It was terrible,' Lucy said. 'It was very cruel of
the other Ladies.'

'Not so,' I said. 'These little storms and quarrels
are commonplace at Court. You will grow used to it, Lucy. Besides, only two
were at the heart of it.'

'Philippa and Dorothy?' Mary asked.

I nodded. 'Who else would it be?'

Mary shrugged and stifled another yawn. 'If they paid
more regard to their duties they would not have such time for mischief.'

I hugged myself inwardly. Mary was proving a good
friend indeed, and not just to Queen Jane.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

King Henry Cannot Help but Hint

'You slept well, Your Majesty?' Nicholas Frost asked.

The King grunted.

'I'm glad to hear it,' Frost continued. 'A rested King
is a happy King.'

Frost bent again to the King's left ear and applied
the ear-stick to it. He worked thoroughly, methodically and gently. He burrowed
deep within the ear to clean out the wax but was careful, very careful, not to
cause his master any pain or discomfort. This was a twice weekly ritual. It was
one of the few personal duties which Frost could truthfully say he enjoyed. He
imagined this was how the court painter Master Holbein must feel when he
conjured the faces of lords and ladies upon the canvas. Painstaking, thoughtful
and with the realisation that, to a tiny extent, he had some real power and
mastery over his patron and master. Just as Holbein had the power to make the
King look exalted or grotesque so he, Nicholas Frost, had the power to make the
King hear better or to deafen him for life.

Of course, were he do the second his own life would
end in a spectacularly gruesome manner. It would not be wax which would be
picked out of Frost's body, it would be his innards and his vital organs. He
paused a moment in his work and regretted that the thought had ever entered his
mind.

'I've nearly finished, Your Majesty,' he said. He
worked away for a few moments more and then stepped back, very painterly, to
examine his handiwork.

'I've finished. Shall I get Your Majesty's breakfast
now?'

'In a moment, Frost,' the King said.

Frost watched as the King rose to his feet and leaned
backwards, stretching his spine in a most pointed fashion.

'We feel fatigued this morning, Frost,' he said. 'The
fatigue of a huntsman who has ridden over hills and dales until he has cornered
his quarry in a deep, dark vale.'

He beamed at the groom. 'Do we look fatigued?'

'Slightly, Your Majesty. Yet triumphant as well, as a
skillful huntsman should.'

'That is good. That is how it should be.'

The King looked at his servant. The fool has no idea
to what I am alluding. And if he did, what would he think? Would he be envious,
would he be impressed? Would he wish that he were King so that he could ride
any choice filly that took his fancy? A filly as beautiful as Alice Petherton? Oh
yes, I'm certain that he would.

  He clapped Frost upon the shoulder. I'm right, he
thought, the foolish man has not the slightest notion of my latest conquest.

Frost looked up with bland expression. He has slept
with her, he thought, the young girl, Petherton. That must be the reason for
this latest nonsense. Huntsman indeed. Bombastic, conceited monster. Devourer
of children. The poor sweet girl, what a trial she has ahead of her.

'Bring in my food,' the King cried. 'I am hungry this
morning, hungrier than I usually am.'

'Naturally, Majesty. Hard exercise is good for the
digestion. And riding, so the physicians tell me, is the best exercise to prick
the digestion.'

The King stared at Frost a moment, his mind suddenly
perplexed and suspicious. Then he dismissed the thought and his mind ran once
more on how ignorant a servant could be and how such ignorance was almost
always the thing which best commended them.

CHAPTER TWELVE

Maids with no Honour

13th October 1537

'I hate the bitch,' Dorothy Bray said. 'I hate her
more than I can say.'

Philippa Wicks strode on down the corridor, ignoring
her friend's words, indeed barely hearing them. She was too engrossed in her
own fretful thoughts, brooding that the situation she had set up with such care
had come undone so swiftly and so spectacularly.

'Shut up, do,' she snapped, even though she had not
heard what Dorothy had said.

'I was only saying how I hate Alice Petherton,'
Dorothy said in an aggrieved tone. 'I thought you hated her as well.'

Philippa did not see fit to answer. Her face gave all
the answer necessary.

'I'm thinking,' Philippa snapped. 'Be silent while I
think.'