Brazen (2 page)

T
HE
GREAT
HALL
CLAMORS
WITH
MU
SIC
,
BOOT
FALLS
,
AND
T
HE
collective voices of the hundred or so wedding guests. The mud carried in from the outside lies flat on the floor, leaving slick spots and the smell of earth. The food keeps coming, delivered first to the king and queen, then to my husband at the king’s right.

And then to me, where I sit next to my father, just below the queen.

“What do you think of him?” Father asks.

I look down at the table, tracing the edge of it with a crumb of bread.

“He’s handsome.”

Father puts his fingers beneath my chin and lifts my face to his.

“It would serve you well to notice more than that.” His voice is gentle, but carries a hidden steel. Like a dagger swathed in velvet. “He may be a bastard, but at least he’s a boy. We expect great things. From both of you. You are the triumph of the Howards, Mary.”

He releases me when he sees my mother approaching, and excuses himself quickly, leaving an empty chair and a half-full plate beside me.

My mother, still wearing black and an expression of deeply felt pain, kneels before the king, barely acknowledges the queen, and departs without giving me a first glance, much less a second.

Her absence should alleviate my discomfort, but I feel little relief. She is no longer watching me, but I am still on display.

“Congratulations, Cousin.”

My thoughts made me forget that the queen sits beside me. I turn and bow my head, almost falling into her lap.

“Thank you, Your Majesty,” I stutter.

She pulls me close and kisses me lightly on the cheek. She is only ten years older than I am, but the kiss is more motherly than anything I’ve ever received from the Duchess of Norfolk.

“May your marriage make you happy.” The queen glances at the door my mother passed through. “And free.”

“I don’t know that I’ll ever be free,” I blurt, and immediately regret my words. It isn’t my place to contradict the queen. But she laughs.

“You remind me of myself at your age,” she says.

There are some people who make an impact as soon as you meet them. Lodge themselves in your mind. Embed themselves in your very soul.

Anne Boleyn is one of those people.

I am not. I can’t even keep the attention of my new husband, who has not looked at me since we stepped into the hall.

Queen Anne is dark and poised and beautiful. I am clumsy enough to fall off a chair without moving, and my hair is the color of brass. She says exactly what is on her mind, while for all my love of words, I am afraid to use them at all.

“Thank you,” I manage.

I want to smile. I remind her of herself?

The queen angles her body so she can speak to me more intimately. She wears a tight bodice that presses her breasts flat, tapering to a narrow waist. Her skirts are pleated at the hips to give an impression of curves. The peacock-blue damask only serves to make her coloring more striking.

“Your mother.” Her voice is barely audible over the clamor of the wedding feast. “Is it true she opposed the match?”

When Mother found out that my father and Anne Boleyn had collaborated to marry me off to the king’s son, she liberally employed the words
bastard
for my husband and
whore
for the queen.

She used worse for me when I acquiesced to Father’s wishes.

“You will be sucked into the mire of Tudor refuse,” she spat. “And if you deliberately defy me, I will be only too happy to watch you drown in your own muck.”

I can barely meet the queen’s eye.

“My mother . . . has firm opinions.”

The queen laughs. “I can read equivocation as easily as I can understand Latin, Mary. Your mother opposes the match.” Her dark eyes search my face. “What can she do about it?” She is truly looking for an answer this time. An honest one.

“Nothing, Your Majesty.” The wedding is over.

“Nothing? She’s the daughter of the Duke of Buckingham. The wife of the most powerful nobleman in the country.”

“Forgive me, Your Majesty, but my grandfather is long dead, and my father hasn’t spoken to my mother in years.”

“A woman without male allies is a woman powerless, is that it?”

Her gaze penetrates me. She’s daring me to speak my true mind.

The truth is that my mother has no allies. My brother avoids her. Father keeps a deliberate distance—even going so far as to lock her in her room. And yet the strength of her judgments unbalances us all.

“Power undetected is not the same as power
less
,” I tell her.

“Well said, Cousin.” The queen sits up again, our conversation open to the public.

“And what are your feelings, Mary?” she asks. “About your marriage.”

I feel we have walked out onto a thin pane of ice over the Thames, the frigid blackness waiting to draw me under if I make a misstep. Above, all is blue sunshine and cheery laughter. But the water below moves swiftly.

“It is a great honor,” I say finally. “For me and for my family.”

“But you do not love him.”

The little smile tugs at the corner of her mouth.

“I do not know him, Your Majesty.”

That, at the very least, is the truth.

“Do you know who you are?” she asks. “Perhaps that is more important.”

“I am a Howard,” I say automatically.

“Not anymore,” she says steadily. “You’re a FitzRoy.”

As if by the single swing of an ax, I am separated from the one truth that always held me secure. My father’s name, my brother’s name.

“You are more than a Howard or a FitzRoy or a wife or a daughter,” the queen continues.

“My life is defined by those things.”

“But
you
are not.” The queen looks out over the crowd to where her brother, George, stands with Henry Norris and the poet Thomas Wyatt. The three men must be at least thirty years old—Norris is probably older—yet they maintain the air and attitude of adolescents. “I am a Boleyn. And the Boleyns always stick together.” She turns back to me. “But I am also Anne. Able to make my own choices and speak my mind and fall in love, against all odds.”

I glance at the king, his lips red from the wine, and back at my cousin, whose face has begun to show the seven years they spent fighting Queen Katherine, the country, and the pope for their right to marry. I wonder if love is worth the fight.

“What does love feel like, Your Majesty?” I ask.

“It’s like music only plays when you’re together,” she says, not even pausing to think. “Like the very air tastes of strawberries. And like one touch—one look—could send you whirling like a seed on the wind. My brother’s wife said that once, and I still believe it to be true.”

I like the idea of
love
tasting like strawberries, but can’t quite find it as I roll the word around on my tongue. So I nod, as if I understand. And wonder at the undercurrent of sadness in her voice.

She smiles at me and adds, “I hope we’ve stacked the odds in your favor. If Fitz is anything like his father, loving him will be a daily adventure.”

Behind her, the king leans back, one hand on his belly, the other resting on the table beside hers. Their little fingers touching. He catches me staring and lifts her hand to kiss it.

I turn to look for Fitz. He has moved to sit with my brother, both of them leaning lazily against the wall, their feet up on stools, boot soles out. As if nothing in their lives has changed.

He doesn’t look at me. My husband has not come within ten feet of me since we left the chapel. We’ve never even had a conversation.

The bridecup is passed. When it reaches me, it is slippery from the lips of all the others. The bridecake is consumed. And the evening starts to feel like fantasy—the atmosphere that comes with the overconsumption of celebration and wine and the underconsumption of reality.

Fitz wanders the room, greeting guests. I watch the way he walks, his movements completely uncalculated. The way he stands, his weight resting on one foot, cocked, as if ready to try anything next—running, dancing, riding.

I wonder if he’s ready for this marriage.

“We must bed them!” George Boleyn stands by the fire, goblet raised, his dark eyes and narrow face alight with mischief and something not entirely innocent.

I can’t move. A wedding—and banquet—is one thing. But the thought of getting into bed with a complete stranger makes me feel as if my skin is creeping with a thousand tiny feet. Especially when the process is to be done in public.

I look for rescue. My father has already left. Hal is part of the cheering throng around Fitz.

The king frowns

“So be it.”

There is no rescue.

I
STAND
UNSTEADILY
,
REACHING
F
OR
THE
TABLE
. E
ITHER
IT
’
S
TIPPING
or I am.

Fitz is in the corner, surrounded by men. He is by far the youngest of them. Hal is nearly seventeen. Francis Weston—also already married—is a few years older than that. George Boleyn and Thomas Wyatt and Henry Norris are all thumping on Fitz and whispering in his ear, and he’s laughing and gesturing until he catches me watching.

He stops altogether and blushes like a redhead. Like a boy. He’s not ready for this, either. The other men roar.

I turn around quickly, pretending I’m going to my chamber to get ready. Pretending my heart isn’t crawling out of my throat.

I don’t have to pretend relief when my friend Madge Shelton throws her arms around me. She’s two years older and half a lifetime wiser than I am, but we’ve shared a bed in the maids’ chamber since Queen Anne’s coronation, making her the closest friend I have at court in more ways than one. She, too, is the queen’s cousin—on the Boleyn side—so in a way, we’re also family.

“This is going to be fun!” Madge crows.

I can’t return the smile. All those men. Watching.

“It’s humiliating,” I tell her, not looking at the raucous crowd behind me.

“It’s just blessing the union,” Madge says. “It’s not like they’re going to take you through it step by step.” I can taste the laughter just under the surface of those words.

Rumor has it that Madge had an affair with Thomas Wyatt, who has been married for at least ten years and publicly separated from his wife for almost that long. All I know is that early on in our friendship, there were a handful of nights she didn’t spend in our bed. When I finally asked, she said his heart wasn’t in it. Whatever that means.

Queen Anne approaches and we curtsy.

“Your Majesty,” Madge says, “your permission to attend the duchess in her chamber?”

The queen smiles broadly. “Of course, Mistress Shelton.”

And she winks. The queen winks at us. Then she turns and leaves the hall.

Madge pulls me up the broad stairs and down a gallery.

“Where are we going?” I ask.

“To his apartments, of course.” Madge negotiates a cluster of maids by the chapel. “There’s a dressing chamber that leads into them. We’ll get you ready there.”

“How do you know all this?” I ask, trying to keep up in the rabbit warren.

Madge pauses and whispers in my ear. “I make it my business to know
everything
about the handsome men of the court.” This time she laughs out loud. More like a cackle.

She slips into a plainly decorated room, pulls me in behind her, and closes the door. I back up to it, flattening my palms against the oak, and scan the room for another exit. There is a door, just opposite. I hear shuffling and laughter percolating through it.

“I don’t think I can do this.”

“Of course you can!” Madge says. “It’s your duty.” She shakes her head and waggles the little volume of Chaucer she always keeps hanging from the chain at her waist. “No, actually, it’s
his.
The Wife of Bath says that man is a debtor, and must yield his wife his debt.”

“A debt doesn’t sound very romantic,” I say. Madge is always going on about the romance of Chaucer, but I don’t entirely see it. Of course, I’m not a poet. Not like my brother. All I do is play with words.

Reading Chaucer always makes me doubt myself.

“The debt isn’t romantic,” Madge says, unpinning my hood and gently unweaving my hair from its plait. “It’s purely sexual.”

The thought makes me want to cross my legs. I’m not ready for this. Not ready for marriage. Not ready to be a duchess.

I don’t even know if I deserve to be.

I press myself harder against the door.

“I don’t know how to do this,” I admit.

Madge drops her hands to my shoulders and looks me in the eye.

“You don’t have to know how,” she says. “You just do.”

“I don’t know how to be married!” I cry, and then look away from her. “And I don’t know how to be a duchess.”

“Learn by example.”

I laugh hollowly. “The only two duchesses I’ve ever known are the king’s sister—God rest her blackened soul—and my mother. The only marriage I’ve ever seen up close is my parents’ disaster.” Every interaction between them ended with my mother’s fists and my father’s abandonment.

“You can learn about marriage by watching the queen and king.” Madge runs her fingers through my hair, pulling skeins of it over my shoulders. “You know, he said he’d rather beg alms from door to door than give her up. That’s true love.”

It was like a romantic ballad. What they went through—falling in love, being kept separate by rules and the Church of Rome. And what she became. My cousin, Anne Boleyn—a nobody. A queen. The woman with the most loving husband in England.

“They are perfect together.”

“Yes,” Madge says dreamily. “And when he looks at her—have you seen it?”

“It’s like his gaze is a nod. As if he agrees not only with everything she says but with everything she is.”

“We could all aspire to have someone love us that much.”

“That kind of love can change your life.”

Madge bites her lip and lets me go. Something in her stance—in the way she holds herself so tightly—keeps me in my place.

“What is it?” I ask.

“Now that you are a duchess, will you forget about me?” she asks. Her voice, normally full and resonant, is nothing but a thin whisper. I am so stunned, I can’t even answer.

“You’ll be dining with the queen and probably sleeping in her room, and all the women will want to be like you and all the men will want to be
with
you, and I’ll be . . .” She looks dejectedly around the plain, empty room, the sickly light from the candle not enough to reach the corners.

“You’ll be happy,” she says. “And I’ll still be me.”

Her body feels like wood when I wrap my arms around her, but after a second, her shoulders relax a little and her hands release their fists.

“What would I do without you?” I ask. “I don’t know what I’m doing! I don’t even know how to kiss a boy, much less”—I swallow for effect—“anything else.”

I hold her at arm’s length and look into her eyes. “Whom else can I talk to?”

“I’m sure someone will be willing to be your friend,” Madge grumbles, but I see a smile beginning on her face, and her voice is stronger. Louder. More Madge.

“I don’t want another friend. I certainly don’t need another
best
friend. I’ve got you.”

Madge decided we would be friends when I first set foot in court and we were assigned to be bedmates. I decided we would be inseparable.

“What about your husband?”

I tell Madge the same thing I told the queen. “I don’t even know him.”

“In the biblical sense?” Madge smirks.

There’s a loud thump from the next room, and Hal’s shout travels clearly through the door. “Take his boots off!”

I move back to the other exit.

“Surely it’s not required . . .” I leave off the rest of my sentence. I didn’t imagine we’d have to remove our clothing before the bedding ceremony.

“Wouldn’t that shock them all?” Madge says. “Maybe you should, just to see their faces!”

“It’s not
you
parading yourself in front of the most important men in the court.”

“But I would!” she cries. “And we’ll put a veil on me and he’ll think I’m you! And it will incite him to lust after you for years and years and he’ll never stray, just like the knight in the Wife of Bath’s tale.”

“I think you just want to get my brother’s attention.”

“I love his poetry,” Madge says quickly.

I leave the safety of the door to tug at the hem of her hood, and she squeaks.

“It’s true!” she cries, edging away from me in a crouch, giggling. “His shoulders are poetry. His legs are poetry. His face is poetry.”

“Hold your tongue, Madge; he’s my
brother
!”

“His ass is poetry!”

Madge turns to run and I chase her, tripping over the end of my train.

Our laughter is suddenly echoed from the bedchamber on the other side of the door by the kind of laughter that comes with ribald jokes. It rocks the walls and douses my giggles.

The door flies open and the glaze of candlelight blinds me.

“Like a startled deer!” a voice shouts.

“Like a lamb to slaughter,” says another.

“Be gentle with her, FitzRoy.” I recognize Wyatt’s voice.

Madge pushes me into the chamber. “Go make him love you.”

Even completely dressed, I feel naked beneath their stares. My skirts are huge. The pink brocade bodice binds me so tightly I can feel the pounding of my heart against it.

The men bow. All of them. Hal stands first and smiles. He’s been through it all himself. Under similar circumstances.

Then I realize he is looking over my shoulder. At Madge.

A giant tester bed piled with damask and fur dominates the room. Gorgeous and barren.

Fitz is pummeled forward from the crowd. They’ve removed his boots and stockings, his bare feet vulnerable on the wooden floor.

“Enter and enjoy!” George Boleyn calls, and bows to the howl of laughter that follows.

His wife, Jane, brings a stool and places it at my feet. When she straightens, she whispers in my ear.

“Tonight is just for show,” she tells me. “You have time to fall in love.”

I think of how she told the queen that love tastes of strawberries and try to smile before taking her hand to climb into the bed, Fitz beside me.

We don’t touch.

The priest flicks his holy water and bows his head. He mutters his Latin and gives us his blessing.

Then comes the moment when everyone should leave the room. When we should be left alone to do what married couples do. Fitz starts to climb back out of the bed.

“Give her a kiss, Your Grace!” Wyatt says. Ever the tempter and purveyor of young love.

Fitz turns to me, eyebrows raised in question. Not a challenge—a request for permission.

I nod. Just a tiny bit. Thinking of the suggestions the men made that I never heard. Thinking of his body so close to mine, both of us burdened with layers of velvet and damask and heavy gold braid. Both of us watched so closely—our audience half hoping to see us fall into each other’s arms, while half afraid that we will.

And I am excruciatingly aware of my lips. Are they too dry? I daren’t lick them. What do I do with my nose? How do I turn my head?

My husband leans into me, the mattress tipping us toward each other like the concave mouth of a vault. Our shoulders touch and we both startle back, laughing nervously. The crowd roars.

Fitz leans forward again and raises his left hand to my face, partially sheltering us from the gaze of the spectators. I close my eyes.

“You’re beautiful.”

My eyes fly open. He smiles and leans ever so slightly closer. His words taste like bridecake and hippocras fruit and cinnamon and sweet wine. I wonder if his mouth tastes of the same.

The mattress lurches, and my nose thumps his painfully. I lean back, rubbing my nose, trying to blink away the tears that burn the corners of my eyes.

My brother worms his way between us, flinging himself back onto our pillows and putting his hands behind his head.

“Enough of that, children,” he says with a grin. “There will be no kissing and cuddling in this bed tonight.”

Fitz groans and falls back, mimicking Hal’s posture, both of them looking up into the folds and drapes of the canopy. They look like brothers, so easy in each other’s presence. Even their facial expressions mirror each other—Hal’s wide eyes and long nose, Fitz with his soaring eyebrows and tiny mouth.

“By decree of your parents—and the king—you are forbidden to consummate this marriage,” Hal declares to the canopy as the rest of the company in the room mutter and judge. “At least until such a time as you are deemed of an age to be emotionally, physically, and morally mature enough to do so only for the production of an heir and not for any fun whatsoever.”

Despite the wedding, the banquet, and the bedding ceremony, we are not allowed to sleep together. Which is a relief.

Half the room bursts into guffaws and the other hisses. A hand reaches in to pull Hal from the bed.

“All of you out, now.” The priest. Of course.

“You can resist everything but temptation,” Hal declares, shaking off the hand and leaning in close to us. “But I can find a way to allow you to indulge it if you wish.”

He waggles his eyebrows at Fitz, and I have to look away. My own brother.

“Because a marriage isn’t really a marriage until it’s consummated.” Hal’s voice lowers even more. “I should know.”

We’re all too young. At the mercy of our parents. And the boys—the boys are too valuable.

“Think on it!” Hal cries as the priest pulls him bodily from the bed. He stumbles exaggeratedly, steadying only when he falls into Madge’s arms.

Hal isn’t allowed to sleep with his wife. But that doesn’t stop him from sleeping with other girls.