Queen's Gambit: A Novel of Katherine Parr (25 page)

Udall bows, lifting his cap, wafting it in a
series of figures of eight decreasing in size. Some of the ladies giggle at this overly
extravagant gesture. Huicke exchanges a smile with Katherine. He sees her contentment,
has watched her flourish in her position these last weeks, aware of her, at last,
settling into the role. And she has done well. She’s even impressed the doubters
on her council with her fortitude. But he can see her enemies circling. They thought
this new Queen would lie down and roll over for them, help bring the King back firmly to
the old faith, but they have found her less easy to control than they had hoped. And now
she is made Regent.

‘How went the meeting?’ he
whispers.

‘I’m winning the council
over.’

‘If anyone can, you can,
Kit.’

Wriothesley, Gardiner and Rich go about the
palace with faces that would sour honey. There are bitter mutterings, too, about the new
royal will, making Katherine’s regency permanent. None of them like the idea of
that, but especially not Hertford. He’s supposed to be on Katherine’s side,
but allegiances are fragile in this court where everything is undecided. Hertford has
long had his eye on the regency, must be wondering how much longer he will have to lick
the elderly King’s boots before his little nephew is crowned. But now there is
this woman in the way, a woman who seems able to do no wrong in the eyes of the
King.

Huicke hasn’t had the heart to remind
Katherine that this power of hers is only by proxy, that the Gardiners and Wriothesleys
and Hertfords of this world do her bidding precisely because the King
will
return. She talks often of Mary of Hungary – her shining example as Queen Regent – a
respected ruler in her own right. But Mary of Hungary has the might of her brother the
Emperor behind her. Who would stand in Katherine’s defence – her own brother, who
is barely the Earl of Essex, and as powerless as all the other court preeners? If the
King were to go, they’d all turn on her in an instant; she’d be in the Tower
before she knew it. But Huicke will not be the one to interrupt her happiness by
reminding her of this. Let her enjoy it, while it lasts, he thinks, watching her laugh
easily at Udall’s ironic posturing.

Since Huicke’s transfer to the
Queen’s household as chief physician, no less, and with the King’s blessing,
people have begun to tease him about his friendship with Katherine – chancer, charmer,
toady, arse-lick, they call him. ‘A jackdaw knows a crow,’ he counters, but
he would never tell them of
his genuine fondness for her. The air is
too thin for friendship at court, so this is precious to him. Queen or not, he cares for
her, enjoys her contradictions, the drive to be good, tempered by the sheer will to win,
even at cards. She’s a fierce adversary and, above all, she is kind. He has seen
that, seen the way she treats the servants, with respect, always a kind word to the
stable lad and even a smile for the girl who takes down the slops. People at the palace
are too busy looking up to see what lies beneath, but not Katherine. And he will never
forget that kiss she placed on the back of his disfigured hand at Charterhouse. It seems
an age ago now, though it is barely eighteen months.

She leans over, whispering, ‘The
colour suits him, don’t you think?’

‘Purple – fit for a queen!’

Katherine snorts with suppressed laughter at
this.

Even Udall wouldn’t dare do it if the
King were here. No one can count on the King’s sense of humour. Huicke watches his
lover, with a throb of desire as he laps up all the attention, strutting about before
the Queen’s ladies, all eyes on him. Theirs is a fierce passion, but an unsteady
one. Udall can be cruel and only recently had refused to touch Huicke, saying,
‘You disgust me with your reptilian skin,’ and strutting off to find sport
elsewhere. But he had returned eventually, drunk and maudlin and begging forgiveness.
Those words hurt but, if Huicke is honest, he disgusts himself. Something fascinates
him, though, with Udall; how there seems barely a boundary in him between love and
hate.

As Udall strides over the floor, Huicke
cannot banish the image of him unclothed, the very maleness of him, his rangy
musculature, his smooth firm skin, so unlike his own. Naked, he looks like a farmhand
but his mind is the finest, sharpest,
subtlest Huicke has ever known,
and the most irreverent. As with Katherine, it is the contradictions he enjoys. She
talks of becoming both man and woman in order to rule. Huicke should know about
that.

‘Your excellent Highness, most
gracious Queen Katherine,’ Udall announces. ‘I humbly present to you the
first performance of my comedy
Ralph Roister Doister
.’

Lady Elizabeth sits beside Katherine,
holding hands with little Meg Neville who is on her other side. It is one of
Katherine’s triumphs, to have brought all the royal children together. How the
King resisted over Elizabeth. She had talked endlessly to Huicke about it, how it pained
her to think of the girl alone out at Ashridge.

But here she is. She is still young but is
threaded through with her father’s charisma; he is there in her indelibly, in the
way she holds her head, the directness of her gaze, in the determined set of her jaw.
Katherine has taken charge of her education, and says she has the kind of cleverness, a
curiosity for things, that would never be happy with the usual spoon-fed learning that
is dished out to girls. She likes to grapple with the new and, like her brother, she is
growing up more or less in the new faith. If Gardiner were aware of the extent to which
they are immersed in reform, he would be horrified and find some filthy scheme to put a
stop to it.

Katherine’s little dog skitters up to
Elizabeth, climbing on to her knee. Without looking, she sweeps him away with her hand.
She is clearly not one to be beguiled by a pair of big wet eyes. Katherine pats her own
lap and he jumps up, snuggling into her skirts.

The room hushes as Udall begins to recite
his prologue. Huike has heard some of it before, read some of the early drafts, the
usual verses about mirth lifting the spirits, but he
doesn’t
know the play. Udall has been distinctly secretive about this one. A player enters,
describing Ralph Roister Doister as a man who falls for every woman he meets, giving
rise to a snickering among the ladies. Then on comes Roister Doister himself, garbed up
in elaborate brocade and sporting an ostrich feather in his cap the size of a
horse’s tail.

‘It’s Thomas Seymour,’
cries out Sister Anne, rousing a peal of giggles from the younger girls.

‘Look at the size of his
feather,’ shrieks someone.

Huike glances to Katherine, who has a
determined smile scored across her face, but there is an angry flush in her cheeks and
her jaw is clenched. The player preens and poses, waving his arms about and then,
raising a gale of laughter, talks of wooing a rich widow, while pulling out a mirror and
admiring himself in it. Then on comes the object of his affection, Mistress Custance, a
pretty boy done up in red: a red wig, a red dress, round red cheeks. It is clearly meant
to be Katherine, for red is her colour, all her pages are liveried in scarlet.

‘He is brazen, that lover of
yours,’ whispers Katherine, raising her eyebrows.

In spite of Katherine appearing to retain
her humour Huike feels anger rising through him. How could Udall do this? He surely
knows the circumstances – but perhaps not. The affair was never common knowledge, only
ever gossip and speculation. It is only Huicke who truly knows the extent of
Katherine’s feelings for the man, even Sister Anne is in the dark. They watch as
the story unfolds of Roister Doister’s inept and unwanted wooing of Mistress
Custance, who is already promised to a certain rich merchant, conveniently abroad, named
Gawyn Goodlucke.

Huicke glances to Katherine. Her smile is a
rictus. Her foot taps the floor nervously. He tries to imagine what it feels
like to have your secret life laid bare so the whole court can pick
over the bones of it. She must be thinking it is he who has been loose-tongued, he who
has revealed her private world to his lover. He cannot bear the idea of losing her trust
again. He squeezes her hand.

‘I had no idea, Kit.’

‘These things have a way of getting
out. The King knew enough to send him away. The rumour mill was grinding. I trust you
still, Huicke.’

Udall has turned Katherine’s most
precious and painful memory into a joke before the whole court and a dangerous joke at
that, for if the King were to hear of it … It makes Huicke’s gut crunch
up in fear. But he has to admire Udall’s gall. If Thomas Seymour were here
he’d string him up. But he is not here, nor is his brother; he left for France
earlier. And, thank God, nor is the King. For if the King
were
here he
wouldn’t be laughing. This as good as depicts him as a cuckold. But then even
Udall wouldn’t have risked this performance were the King here to see it.

The evening creeps by excruciatingly.
Katherine sits beside him, welded to the spot, as the puffed-up Roister Doister digs out
the path of his own humiliation.
I know she loveth me but she cannot speak
, he
bellows.

Huicke leans in towards her, whispering,
‘I wish I had known of this, Kit. I would have stopped it.’

‘He means only to make us
laugh,’ she replies, still smiling her ambiguous smile. Her resilience is
remarkable.

‘And it’s Seymour he’s
ridiculing, not you. He always loathed the man. I never knew why. Some ancient slight, I
suppose.’

The boy actor stands alone on the floor,
absurd with his rouged cheeks and scarlet skirts, too long for him, dragging,
tripping him up, his gestures overblown – a hand, big and mannish,
thrown across his breast, his mouth aghast, eyes wide and white, voice shot through with
desperation. He talks directly to the audience, taking them into his confidence,
dropping his voice so they have to lean in and stop their laughter to hear him.

How innocent stand I
, he lisps,
in this deed of thought? And yet see what mistrust towards me it hath
wrought
.

The laughter stops, leaving the room
momentarily silent. There is an uncomfortable truth beneath the humour – even the
innocent can fall. Meg sits still as a stone with a hand over her mouth. Sister Anne
hides her face behind her fan, but her eyes betray her thoughts. If her sister falls,
her family will tumble with her. Even Stanhope, who has whinnied loudest of them all, is
silenced, though she loathes her brother-in-law and would gladly see him humiliated.
Only Elizabeth laughs blithely. Is she too young to understand, or is she as callous as
some say?

The ridiculous plot continues to unfold. The
grave moment is gone and the mirth returns. Katherine smiles on and on as the thing
moves towards its happy conclusion.

‘Your Udall is a loose cannon,
Huicke,’ she says. ‘What was it Aristotle said? “In comedy the good
end happily and the bad unhappily.” I wonder where my destiny lies.’

Huicke doesn’t know how to
respond.

Katherine grips his hand and draws herself
closer to his ear, whispering, ‘Can I truly trust him? He knows much about my
reading habits. Talk to him, Huicke. Tell him if he is not more careful I will send him
away. Make him understand there are limits to my goodwill.’

‘I promise to do so, Kit,’ he
replies.

The players are taking their bows to a
spirited applause. Udall enters to a cheer and Katherine throws him a purse
which he catches deftly, arm aloft. Huicke’s anger still
simmers, though Katherine seems blithe as anything.

She calls out, ‘Magnificent, Udall!
You had us utterly enthralled.’

People leave their seats, milling about, and
cups of wine are handed around. Huicke hangs back, allowing Katherine to congratulate
the players and talk to her ladies. Her unerring poise astounds him; there is nothing of
her exterior that reveals her inner world. She is smiling, chatting with the Dudley boy
and his mother. She takes Meg’s hand and pulls her over, introducing her to the
boy. She has mentioned a match between those two, now he thinks of it.

Meg dips into a polite curtsy, but instead
of a brief look at him, as manners dictate, she stares at him rigidly. Then, rising out
of her curtsy, her cup topples, drenching his yellow hose in crimson wine. He jumps
back, looking at his mother who has a hand over her mouth. They both seem to be
wondering if the spill was deliberate. That is certainly the impression Huicke has.
Katherine calls over a page who leads the boy away, his flustered mother following. She
turns to her stepdaughter, but Meg has slunk away and is sitting in a corner with
Elizabeth.

They are close enough that Huicke can hear
Elizabeth say, ‘Bravo, Margaret Neville. That is how to deal with unwanted
suitors.’

There are some things about women Huicke
will never fully understand.

‘What is this?’ asks William
Savage. He holds the paper with the very tips of his fingers, as if it might give him
the pox. He sounds impatient, angry even.

Dot wants to snatch back the prayer, return
it to the stand in Katherine’s chamber; pretend this never happened. But
she is here now and finds a kernel of determination. ‘I hoped
you might read it to me,’ she mumbles.

‘You mustn’t give me things like
this where people can see,’ he spits.

They are on the stone steps leading to the
watching chamber, standing on the small landing where the stairs turn. People pass up
and down constantly, shouldering past one another and leaving fragments of conversation
in their wake. There is a window and the sun casts diamonds through it on to the grey
flags. Dot can hardly bear to look at him. He holds the paper close to his body and
turns towards the light to read it.

‘Oh,’ he says, ‘it is just
the Queen’s prayer. Why didn’t you say?’