Anne Boleyn: A Novel (21 page)

So he was requested to attend her immediately...he dawdled at the table, wondering if he dared ignore her and not go. Then he remembered savagely that his own wife had been sent from court not long before because that bitch complained of her to the King, and he had had to beg for her return.

“Madame!”

She raised her head and considered him coldly.

“My good uncle, you’re late.”

“I had other business to attend to,” he answered shortly. “What is your business?”

He was gratified to see her needle shoot viciously into the linen square and stay there, embedded like a tiny dagger.

“My business,” she said deliberately, “is the King’s; you’ll come to realize that in time. I want to discuss our journey to France. His Grace has gone hunting, and I want something settled for him on his return. Here is a list of the ladies I wish to accompany me on the journey; orders to prepare themselves should be sent out as soon as possible.”

Norfolk said nothing, but he had begun to smile vindictively.

One of the women moved forward and handed him a paper; he looked up and saw that it was another niece of his; she had been one of Catherine’s maids of honor, and now that the Queen had left the court, the girl spent most of her time at home in Wiltshire. She had come to Greenwich at the request of her brother. Sir Edward Seymour, who was a great favorite of the King’s. But her visits were always short.

“Thank you, Jane.”

He put the list in his doublet without looking at it. Edward Seymour’s sister retired into the background. She was small and she moved very quietly, Norfolk glanced round at the others; Margaret

Wyatt was there, so was Meg Shelton. And Jane Rochford. He saw her narrow face watching Anne, and the expression of tight loathing surprised him. Anne had been tormenting her, no doubt; they’d always hated each other, and Rochford made no secret of his indifference to his wife. She would be pleased to hear what he was going to say.

“While we’re on the subject of your accompanying the King to France,” he remarked, “I may as well tell you of some difficulties which have arisen. His Grace was anxious for King Francis to present you to his Queen.”

He paused, and Anne looked up.

“Well? What of it?”

“The Council received an answer from the French Ambassador this morning,” Norfolk continued smoothly. “The Queen of France is indisposed, and cannot make the journey.”

Francis was immoral and unscrupulous enough to connive at anything for his own advantage, but he refused to insult his wife by forcing her to meet Henry’s mistress. That was the reason behind the excuse, and Norfolk knew that Anne knew it. The color crept slowly up into her face. He stood in front of her, one hand jauntily on his dagger belt, and smiled.

“I’m sorry to hear it,” she said stiffly.

“I suggested to M. De La Pommeraye that the King’s sister, Queen Marguerite of Navarre, might meet you instead,” he continued. “But it seems King Francis had already proposed it to the lady and she is too occupied to join him.”

Anne flung the embroidery aside and stood up. She swung on the women standing listening. “Get out; this isn’t for your ears!”

“Don’t fret, sister,” the voice of Jane Rochford said as she passed her. “Someone will be found to meet you...”

When they were alone Anne advanced a step toward him, her hands clenched into fists, blazing with anger so that she could hardly speak.

“How could you,” she choked, “how could you say that and humiliate me in front of them!...Did you hear that whey-faced bitch? ‘Someone will be found to meet you’! So the Queen of France won’t meet me, and neither will Marguerite of Navarre! Wait till the King hears this!”

“De La Pommeraye made an alternative suggestion,” Norfolk interrupted and she quietened immediately.

“The Duchesse de Vendome is willing to come.”

“Vendome! Vendome? Do you know what you’re saying?” she cried out. “He forgets, and so do you, my Lord, that I lived in France for eight years. I know the Duchesse de Vendome; she’s the worst whore in France! Are they trying to insult me? Or was this your idea?” she demanded suddenly.

He was no longer mocking her; he was squinting at her and his face was cruel with hatred.

“I don’t have to insult you,” he retorted. “The suggestion came from France. Send a whore to greet a whore! That’s what they think of you and that’s what you are! You’re the King’s whore, whether or not he makes you twenty Marchionesses and decks you out in his wife’s jewels!”

‘Til tell him what you say,” she panted.

“Wag your tongue till it falls out!” he snarled at her. “He’s got what he wants now; see how much heed he’ll pay to you in a month or two! Ah, by God, if I’d known how you’d set yourself up, you ill-born slut, I’d never have helped you on in the beginning!”

“You helped yourself,” she shouted. “You thought to use me to get rid of Wolsey, and you did! And you thought you’d have a cringing woman ready to whisper your words into the King’s ear, ready to put her hands under your feet and push you higher in the Council and the Kingdom! That’s what you wanted from me, that’s why you urged the King to marry me. Your niece as Queen of England! Wasn’t that the truth, Uncle? You wanted the power and the honors for yourself; you’ve begrudged every favor Henry’s shown to my family. Oh, you’ve made a potboy out of my father, crooking your finger to see him come running, but you’ll never master me! I’m where I am through my own efforts, and by God’s blood and death I’ll keep what I’ve won without any of you!”

“You’ll have to, from now on,” he warned her. “I’ve done with you and your ambitions. I’ll do the King’s will, don’t hope otherwise, but as for you, Madame...Look to yourself!”

“I will,” she shouted after him as he strode to the door.

“And look to the King, too,” he jeered over his shoulder. “He’s gone hunting near his daughter Mary’s house!”

“Your Grace! Your Grace, they’re coming. You can hear the sound of the horns down the valley!”

The speaker had put her head round the door; she was flushed and breathless after running from the parapet walk on the top of the house all the way down the staircase to the landing and the Princess Mary’s rooms.

“Come in, Agnes.”

The voice was quite deep, contrasting with the small straight figure of the heiress to the throne of England, who stood in the middle of the room. She wore a dark green velvet dress and a three-cornered headdress bordered with small emeralds; her hair was drawn back from a middle parting, and it was exactly the same red as her father’s; the pale pointed face was lightly freckled, but the fine gray eyes were her inheritance from Catherine. She had the King’s small features and she had shown the promise of beauty long before she was sixteen. It was a promise that illness and anxiety were delaying, for now she was too thin and too pale, and there were circles under her eyes from sleeplessness and fits of bitter crying. But forlorn and threatened with disinheritance though she was, banished from her father and now separated from her mother, she had a firm dignity of her own.

“How far down the valley is the hunt?” she asked. Her woman Agnes curtsied quickly and then closed the door behind her.

“About a mile, Your Grace.”

“Then they shouldn’t be long,” Mary Tudor said. “I know how hard my father rides.”

She had been too young to hunt with him, and when she was old enough her mother’s lady in waiting had claimed that honor. But she could remember watching the hunt set out from the steps of Hunsdon and Richmond, and seeing her father’s horse bound away under his spur, far ahead of the others. As a child she worshiped him. He was so tall and splendid, and he used to take her on his knee and feed her sweetmeats till she was sick, and laugh and kiss her, scratching her skin with the rough golden beard round his chin. Those were her early memories, and her mother was always in them, smiling in the background at her husband and her daughter, sometimes taking the child away from him herself, and chiding him for spoiling her.

Later she remembered the court ceremonies; Mass on Easter morning, when she walked in procession to the chapel, with a long train born by a lady in waiting, and her own retinue; banquets given in honor of some foreign dignitary, where she came forward with the King, and they bent to kiss her little hand; and the jousts held in the tiltyard at Greenwich, where she watched the contestants from a tower, and had nightmares afterward because she dreamed something had happened to her father.

There were music lessons, with Henry listening while she played the lute or sat at the virginals, painfully trying to please him, because he was so accomplished himself. But she had no real talent; she played woodenly, however hard she studied, and as she grew older, her voice developed its gruff deep tone, and that spoiled any prospect of singing. But he loved her; he was affectionate.

“Shall I go back and keep watch, Your Grace?”

“No, Agnes, it’s too cold now to stand about on the parapet walk. Fetch me a cloak and I’ll go up in a few moments.”

It was more than a year since she had seen her father; it seemed like a lifetime. Chapuys the Spanish Ambassador had sent word that the concubine—^his only name for Anne—had become the King’s mistress at last, and that therefore her influence was sure to wane in time. Let the Queen and the Princess send the King fair words and wait, and above all, let him see Mary as he passed her house that day, and see her smiling and submissive. He might be softened enough by the sight to stop and let her come to his stirrup and speak to him. That was Mary’s hope. For that reason she had dressed in his favorite Tudor green and waited ready, more than two hours before he was expected. It was also the hope of her household, who loved the rejected child. Maybe the King would see his daughter waving from her lonely place of exile and be moved to speak to her. But he might not. Mary was near tears again, and her head ached intolerably as it always did in times of stress.

Her temperament was Henry’s, without his vein of odd, secretive deceit; her temper blazed and her tears flowed, and in the old days she clapped her hands and laughed as heartily as a boy. 6ut her stubborn, uncompromising honesty was wholly Catherine’s legacy.

She spent hours praying in the chapel, and Catherine’s letters urged her to trust in God and the power of his Sacraments; she heard Mass every morning of her life, and as her material troubles increased she clung more and more to the consolation of her religion. And to the advice of the Spanish Ambassador Chapuys, whom she trusted blindly because her mother did, and through him the distant figure of the Emperor. Charles had their interests at heart; he was fighting their cause at Rome, and so far he had prevailed, for the Pope had not granted the iniquitous divorce and never would. Let the Princess Mary follow Chapuys’ advice, and maintain her rights to the English throne.

The high winding note of a huntsman’s horn came through the open window, and the pain pulsed in her head. They were only a few minutes away. Agnes was at the door again, holding a long velvet cloak; she drew it round her and fastened the clasp with shaking fingers. Then she ran up the stairs and out onto the parapet walk on the roof. There was a cold wind blowing and it whipped some color into her pale cheeks. The height made her suddenly sick as she bent over the low wall to look down; the road ran winding past the house, and there were riders straggled across it, raising clouds of yellow dust. The horn sounded again.

“Madame, Madame,” one of her ladies cried, “if they sight the stag now, they’ll gallop past without seeing us!”

“With God’s Grace, they won’t,” Mar}’ answered shakily. “See, the horses are slowing.”

The house was low-built; if the King passed at an even pace he would be sure to see the group of women and look up.

She stared, shielding her eyes in the effort to distinguish him from the others, but her headache and short-sightedness made it impossible.

“Can you see my father?” she implored. “He should be in the forefront.”

“He is; there, I see him!”

“Quick, take off your cap. There’ll be no mistake if he sees that red head!”

Mary wrenched it off, bringing some of her hair down round her shoulder where the wind caught it, and blew it wildly round her head like a banner.

It was not the King who saw them first, but Henry Norreys.

He urged his horse alongside Henry’s and pointed.

“Your Grace...Look, up on the roof there. It’s the Princess and her household.”

The King’s horse jumped under a violent tightening of the rein. He followed Norreys’ finger and saw the women standing on the roof of the manor house they were approaching.

“I’d no idea it was their park we were crossing,” he said in a flat voice. “God’s body, of course, it’s Mary’s house. And there is Mary,” he added.

His expression and tone gave nothing away; only his gloved hands betrayed him, dragging at the rein till his horse curveted in protest, and Norreys did not notice them.

“Shall I give the order to gallop, Sire?” he offered.

The King looked at him.

“You’ll pass the word to slow down to a walk. And ever}’ man doffs his cap.” He touched his spurs to the horse and pushed ahead of them all.

Mary stood by herself now, trying to keep the red strands of hair from blowing across her face. Twelve months, he thought, his head turned upward; his horse had slowed to a walk. He had thought of her differently since then, angrily, because she had defied him and taken her mother’s part. He had forgotten that she was so slight; she looked even younger in that plain green cloak, straining to see him; he knew how bad her sight was, and suddenly drew his horse nearer the house.

The cavalcade moved forward slowly, the harness jingling in the silence, and the King came directly below his daughter and stopped.

His face was a blur to her, and her heart beat so hard she felt faint; she didn’t know if he were angry or if he even recognized her. Agnes, Agnes, she thought wildly...if only I dare call her...she could tell me how he looked...The company had stopped with him but she could distinguish no details, only colors; the courtiers in brilliant doublets over their buff breeches and high boots, the huntsmen dressed in the same Tudor green she wore herself. And the King, her father.