Love, Remember Me (11 page)

"I shall not marry but for love, Philip," she told him.

"I am much too young for love," he said, "and I thank God for it. Master Culpeper, who is Mistress Howard's cousin, is most smitten with her. When the king was being fitted for his wedding clothes, he offered Culpeper some velvet for a doublet, and he begged another piece for Mistress Howard, I am told. She had the very gown she wears today made from it. The fool has next to nothing, and would have done better to keep the extra material for himself for another doublet. Love. Pah!"

"I think it most romantic of him," Nyssa said with a smile, and then turned at the sound of the princess calling her younger brother's name. Giles came forward with a goblet of hot spiced wine for his mistress. "She is very fond of Giles," Nyssa noted.

"Aye," Philip concurred. "The little turniphead seems to have a knack for being a courtier without being arrogant."

Brother and sister both watched amused as the princess fondly pinched their little brother's rosy cheeks. Giles was the only one of their siblings who was a blond, and with his light blue eyes he looked like a cherub. It was obvious that the Princess of Cleves doted on him, much to his embarrassment, but Giles was far too clever a boy to show anything but his good side to his mistress. Still he squirmed under the lady Anne's fingers, murmuring, "
Madame!
"

It needed no translation, and she laughed, saying to Hans in her own tongue, "He is a little angel, and I cannot resist him."

Hans translated, and Giles flushed at the giggles that erupted from the maids of honor. Cat Howard blew him a kiss, and the pretty Elizabeth FitzGerald winked at him. He was saved from further teasing by Dr. Kaye, the queen's almoner, who came to announce that the king was near.

"Her highness must change into the dress she is to officially greet the king in," Lady Browne said. "Come, maids, you are far too idle. Fetch the princess's gown and jewels."

The dress was of red taffeta embroidered with raised cloth-of-gold. It was made in a Dutch fashion with a round skirt and no train, but it was nonetheless pretty and elegant. A serving woman sponged Anne's arms, chest, and back with warm rose water. It had already been noted that the Princess of Cleves had a slightly stronger than usual body odor, and her women, knowing how fastidious the king was, sought to overcome her unfortunate difficulty as best they could. Once the gown was settled upon her, Nyssa brought forth a beautiful parure of rubies and diamonds. There was a necklace and pendant ear bobs. A caul held her thick blond hair in place, and on her head she wore a velvet cap encrusted with magnificent pearls.

"The king is in sight, madame," Kate Carey said.

The princess was escorted outside, and she blinked at the sunlight after the dimness of her pavilion. She was helped onto a snow-white palfrey which was richly caparisoned with a cloth-of-gold and diamond coverlet, and a saddle of finely tooled white leather. Her own personal footmen were mounted, and liveried in rich clothing embroidered with the Black Lion of Cleves. Young Hans von Grafsteen led them, carrying a banner with that same lion on it.

Anne rode to meet her future husband, and the king, seeing her approach, stopped and waited for her arrival. When she had reached him, he doffed his bonnet gallantly to her with a brilliant smile, and for a moment Anne of Cleves saw him as he once was: the handsomest prince in Christendom. She smiled back at him as Hans translated his official words of welcome. Some of those words, she realized to her surprise, she had actually understood.

"I will greet his majesty first in English, Hans, and then you may act the part of translator," she said.

"Yes, madame," the boy replied.

"I thank his majesty for his goot velcome," Anne said. "I vill try to be a goot vife to him, and a goot mutter to his kinder."

The king raised an eyebrow slightly at her thick but understandable speech. "I was told the Princess of Cleves did not speak any language but her own," he said to no one in particular.

"Her highness is trying hard to learn your tongue, Your Grace," Hans explained. "Lady Nyssa Wyndham is teaching her, and the other maids of honor as well. The princess is eager to please Your Grace."

"Is she?" the king said dryly, and then remembering the cheering crowds about them, he leaned forward and embraced his bride, to the delight of the people. Together they smiled and waved as they returned to the magnificent pavilion, the trumpeters going before them; the Privy Council, the archbishop, and all the great lords both English and from Cleves, following them. "
A Flanders mare
," the king murmured beneath his breath. "
I am to be mated to a Flanders mare
."

The royal couple shared a loving cup before the pavilion, and then the princess was transferred into a carved and gilded chariot for her processional journey to Greenwich. With her sat Mother Lowe, Anna's old nurse and now appointed mistress of her Clevion maids, and the Countess Overstein, the ambassador's wife. The ducal arms and the Black Lion of Cleves were carved upon the sides of the chariot. Behind Anne came less ornate open chariots carrying the ladies of the future queen's household and all of her personal servants. An empty litter draped in crimson velvet and cloth-of-gold was also carried in the procession. It was a gift from Henry to his new queen. Bringing up the parade were the Princess of Cleves's serving men, all in black velvet and silver, riding identical large bay horses.

The citizens of London crowded their route, and where it wound along the river, the Thames was filled with barges and small boats of every description, some seeming unfit to float, and all filled to overflowing with people anxious to get a look at their new queen. All the London guilds had barges, newly painted, and decorated with the royal arms of England and the ducal arms of Cleves. The guild barges carried minstrels and choirs of young children singing the royal praises and welcoming Princess Anne to England. The king and his bride stopped to listen and praised the performers greatly.

When Anne alighted in the inner courtyard of Greenwich Palace, the guns of the tower sounded a salute. The king kissed his bride and welcomed her to her new home. In the Great Hall the king's guard all stood at attention as the royal couple entered, and they tipped their lances in greeting as they passed by. Henry then led Anne to her own apartments, where she was to rest until the banquet that night.

Anne, though she appeared serene and regal to those watching her, had been astounded by the warm and spontaneous welcome she had received from the English. "They are good people, Hans, are they not?" she said for the third or fourth time. "Still, for all the king's outward good manners and apparent affection toward me, he does not like me."

"How can you be certain, madame?" the boy asked her.

Anne smiled sadly. "I have no experience with a lover, Hans, but I know men well enough to be certain that when they cannot look you directly in the eye, there is something wrong. The painter Holbein has made me something I am not. The king fell in love with Holbein's portrait, but me, nein, he does not like. He marries me for political reasons, and nothing more. Were it not that he wished to tweak the noses of the French king and the Holy Roman Emperor, I should not be Queen of England."

Henry Tudor would have been very surprised to know Anne of Cleves's thoughts. He was miserable over his impending marriage. The princess was not at all what he had imagined, and he did not see himself as others saw him. In his heart and mind he was still young, handsome, and vital. After the banquet that night he again sought out Cromwell, but Cromwell just sighed and sought to put a good face upon the matter.

"She is most regal, Your Grace. The people like her," he said.

"The lawyers have found nothing?" the king demanded, ignoring Cromwell's attempt to ameliorate the situation.

Cromwell shook his head. He was becoming more and more anxious about his personal safety and that of everything he had built up over his years of service to England. He remembered his former master, Cardinal Wolsey. Wolsey's failure to obtain the Princess of Aragon's cooperation in the king's Great Matter had cost him his life. He would have been executed had he not died on the road to London, summoned from exile in York.

Wolsey had tried hard to placate Henry Tudor, but even his gift of Hampton Court Palace had not soothed the royal ire. Now Henry once again had that same look in his eyes, but this time his wrath was directed at Thomas Cromwell, and for the first time in his life Cromwell did not know what to do. Henry was a man capable of patience where revenge was concerned. A quick execution would be preferable, Cromwell decided.

The king went to his bedchamber and angrily sent his gentlemen fleeing for safety. Pouring himself a large goblet of red wine, he sat himself down in a chair and sipped slowly, glowering fiercely.

"You are like a lion with a thorn in its paw, Hal," his fool, Will Somers, said quietly, coming to sit at the king's knee. Will's wizen-faced little monkey, Margot, was cuddled in the crook of his arm. She was very old now, and bald. Her dark fur was streaked liberally with gray and white. She chittered softly, looking up at Will for reassurance.

"Keep that beast away from me," the king growled.

"She has few teeth left, Hal," Will said, stroking the monkey gently.

"If she had but one, it would still find my fingers," the king grumbled. He sighed deeply. "I have been badly handled, Will."

Will Somers did not dissemble with his master. "She is not like her portrait, Hal, I will admit. There is a slight resemblance, but that is all. Still, she seems a fine lady, and most royal."

"If there was a way out of this marriage, I would take it, Will," the king said. "She is a damned gross Flanders mare!"

"The lady Anne is taller than you are used to, Hal, but perhaps being able to look a woman in the eye will prove a novelty you will enjoy. She is big-boned, aye, but she is not a fat woman. You must remember that you are not in the full flush of youth yourself, Hal. You are fortunate I think to have such a fine princess for a wife."

"Were this charade not so far gone, I should send her home," Henry Tudor said grimly.

"That would not be like you, Hal," his fool chided. "You have ever been the most elegant and genteel of knights. I have always been proud to serve you, but I should not be proud if you were unkind to this poor princess who has done you no harm. She is far from her homeland, and lonely of heart. If you send her away, who will have her to wife? The shame would be unbearable, and besides, her brother, Duke William, would be forced to declare war on you. France and the Empire would laugh themselves sick at your expense, Hal."

"Will, Will," the king said pitifully, "you are the only one who speaks the truth to me. I should have sent you to Cleves, except that I could not get on without your company." He sighed deeply, and draining his large goblet, arose heavily. "Help me to my bed, fool, and then stay with me. We will talk on other, happier times. Do you remember Blaze Wyndham, Will? My sweet little country girl?"

"Aye, Hal, I remember her well. A gentle and good lady." Will Somers allowed the king to use him as a crutch, and led him to his bed, where he lay down. The fool and his monkey sat at the foot of the royal bed.

"Her daughter is at court now, Will. A sweet girl, but not at all like her mother. Lady Nyssa Wyndham is a wild English rose. She is one of the Princess of Cleves's maids of honor. Her mother asked me for her appointment."

"Which girl is she?" the fool asked his master. "I know little Kate Carey, Bessie FitzGerald, and the two Bassetts. There are two I do not know. Mistress Auburn Curls, and a beauteous dark-haired wench."

"Nyssa is the dark-haired girl. Her eyes are her mother's, though. The other little wench is Catherine Howard, Norfolk's niece." He chuckled. "Mistress Auburn Curls. It is most apropos, Will. Mistress Howard does have rather charming curls. She is a very pretty girl, is she not? God's foot! Any one of those maids would suit me far more than the Princess of Cleves! Why did I listen to Crum? I should have looked about my own court, and taken an English wife. Was not my own sweet Jane an English rose of good stock?"

"Ah, Hal, have you lost your taste for variety?" the fool gently teased the king. "I do not believe you have ever had a German. At least not in my time with you. Did you have one before I came to serve you, Hal? Is it true what they say about German women?"

"What do they say?" the king demanded suspiciously.

"I do not know." The fool chuckled. "I have never had one."

"Nor will I," the king said. "I do not think I can bring myself to couple with her, Will. God's blood, I should have married Christina of Denmark or Marie of Guise instead of this Flanders mare!"

"Hal," his fool admonished sternly, "how convenient your memory is. Marie of Guise was so anxious to wed with you that she hastily pledged her troth to James of Scotland when she learned you were seeking a wife. I suppose she prefers the Scots summers to ours. As for the beauteous Christina, she told your ambassador that had she two heads, one would be at your disposal, but as she had not, she preferred to mourn her late husband another year or two. You are not as fine a catch as you once were, Hal. The ladies are wary of your treatment of your past wives. You are lucky to have the Princess of Cleves, although I am not so certain she is lucky to have you."

"You tread dangerously, fool," the king said in a low voice.

"I speak the truth to you, which is more than those about you will do, for they fear you, Henry Tudor."

"And you do not?"

"Nay, Hal. I've seen you naked. You are but a man like I am. But for an accident of birth, Hal would be the fool and Will the king."

"I think I am a fool," Henry Tudor said, "that I allowed others to choose a wife for me, but there is no help for it now, is there, Will?"

Will Somers shook his grizzled gray head. "Make the best of it, Hal. The lady Anne may surprise you yet." He slipped off the bed, Margot clinging to his neck, and pulled the fur coverlet up over his master. "Go to sleep, Hal. You need your sleep, and I do too. Neither of us is as young as we once were, and the next few days will be full of pomp and circumstance, and too-rich food, and too much wine. You never do anything by halves, and so you will outeat and outdrink us all, and then you will suffer for it on a grandiose scale."