The Boleyn Bride (8 page)

My jaw dropped. In my cosseted and sheltered existence, I had never seen a woman smoke before.

“Coltsfoot,” she said in a nigh incomprehensible Irish brogue. “To ease me asthma,” she added, blowing a puff of foul smoke right in my face.

A poultice reeking of lavender and weeping down her wrinkled cheeks into the dingy, sagging folds of her neck was tied over her brow, “for the misery in me head,” she explained. In her other hand, the one not encumbered with a clay pipe, she clutched a large golden goblet of crab-apple wine, which a doctor whose name I didn’t catch had recommended for some indistinguishably uttered ailment the old blue-haired witch was afflicted with, which hopefully, for my sake, would carry her off to sleep perpetually in her tomb very soon.

As she ushered me inside, she took from her overskirt a pretty little enameled box with a design of pink and white water lilies and offered me a pinch of lily root snuff. “There’s naught better for clearing the head,” she said and then frowned when I declined and said with the most frigid, stiff-backed politeness I could muster that my head was
quite clear
and that I
never
partook of snuff, ending with a sniff that I hoped indicated that I did not think much of those who did.

I felt a tugging at my skirt and heard a fiendish gibbering and leapt back as a hairy little goblin climbed Lady Margaret’s skirt and began dancing on her shoulders and gleefully pulling the pins from her hair and flinging them every which way. A monkey! I pressed a hand to my pounding heart and sighed with relief. I had thought it was the old witch’s familiar! But, no, it was her beloved pet. “Prince Piddle Pants, like another son he is to me,” the crazy old crone introduced him to me, beaming with pride, though the creature in question wore no pants, probably because he soiled every pair that was put on him, hence the name. She acted as though she were presenting me to royalty and, when I failed to respond in the expected manner, glared daggers at me and barked loudly like a mongrel cur that God, or perhaps the Devil, had gifted with speech. “
Curtsy!
Where’s your manners, girl? Do you not know to curtsy when you’re presented to a prince?”

I spun around and stared at my husband. Surely he did not expect me, the Duke of Norfolk’s daughter, to curtsy to a
monkey?
When I was at court, in the daily presence of the royal family, even they did not expect us to bow and curtsy to their pets, yet this Irish heiress, the Earl of Ormonde’s daughter, who, by her look and manners I surmised had been stolen at birth by gypsies before being restored to the bosom of her noble family just in time to marry Thomas’s father, expected me to curtsy to a monkey, a most undignified creature who had just proven I was right about how he had acquired his name by unleashing a thick yellow stream of urine over his mistress’s velvet-clad shoulder and her clanking, tangled cascade of necklaces.

Thomas leaned near and whispered into my ear, “My lady-mother is getting on in years, and we must humor her little whims and caprices if we want a peaceful house, Elizabeth.” With those words, he put a hand upon my shoulder and, with a subtle downward jerk of his chin, pressed down hard, compelling me to do my duty and dip my knees. So I forced a frigid smile and curtsied to that god-awful creature and her pet.

I nearly vomited on the threshold, so overwhelmed was I by the commingled odors of monkey urine, lavender, coltsfoot, crab apple, aged and unwashed flesh, a hint of dying rose perfume, and dirty hair. I teetered and reeled for a moment, vainly trying to steady myself as the undaunted Lady Margaret cackled, “Perhaps your wife is breedin’ already, Thomas?” and slapped me on the back to propel me over the threshold. I felt even sicker at the thought, though I knew this was what was expected of me. When the golden wedding ring was slipped onto my finger, I became an expensive broodmare; it was the role every wife assumed, and I must accept and endure it as best I could, as every woman must.

To my surprise, the interior of Hever
Castle
was far superior to the exterior; it permeated an air of comfortable luxury, warm instead of chilly as one would expect in a larger, statelier abode like the ones I was accustomed to. Everywhere polished woods gleamed; there were diamond-paned windows and even some stained glass, fine tapestries Thomas boasted that he had brought back from diplomatic missions to Brussels and the Low Countries, and a quantity of good gold and silver plate displayed on gleaming tabletops and inside elegant, carved wooden cabinets and cupboards. Not a speck of dust did my discerning eye spy. The candles were of beeswax instead of rank tallow, and strewing herbs gave the air a pleasant scent as did the applewood logs glowing and emanating a toasty warmth from the large, elaborately carven fireplace. Well-trained servants in clean and impeccably tailored liveries hovered at the ready to take my cloak and gloves and offer me a cup of mulled wine and sugar wafers. At least I would not be
entirely
deprived of comforts. I sighed gratefully and let the cloak fall from my shoulders onto the floor.

 

Weary from the road, we retired early. But Thomas did not spare me. Even if I might already be breeding, he was taking no chances in leaving my womb to languish empty. So the bull was in again.
Bull-In
. He rode me relentlessly, without passion or fervor— it was a business transaction for both of us, and he was very eager to ensure the succession of his line; he wanted to do all that was possible to ensure I was pregnant before he rode back to court.

The next morning I found I could not rise. A dark depression had fallen over me and lay heavy as a stone upon my breast.

I was trapped. I was Thomas Bullen’s wife, his broodmare, and nothing but death could set me free. Through this marriage, which had brought my husband esteem and glory, I had fallen far from the star I was meant to be. I was a diamond lost, buried in bucolic mud.

Here I was stuck in rustic Kent, queen of my husband’s larder and laundry, empress of the stillroom, storerooms, and stables, instead of shining bright in London, dancing, splendidly appareled, satin-shod and diamond-bright, at masques and balls, drawing every eye. I would even have been content in god-forsaken Wales amidst ice, naked trees, and bleak marshes—after all, it would not be forever. London would soon enough beckon, and then I would be attending Princess—someday Queen—Catherine, winning her friendship and favor, bathing her fingers in rosewater and brushing her long golden hair out at night, sitting above the salt at the royal table, and being courted and admired.

I refused my breakfast tray. When Matilda insisted that I
must
eat something, I threw it across the room. I lay there contemplating the dark wooden pillars of my marriage bed, carved to depict the Seven Deadly Sins, grotesque, leering, and ugly, until I could no longer bear the sight of them and ordered the sniveling, anxiously hovering Matilda to draw the sapphire and silver damask bedcurtains shut tight around me, to block out the morning light streaming through the diamond-paned windows, and envelop me in darkness as black as my own hopeless soul. I had no desire to get up and play my unwanted role of lady of the manor, so I simply refused to do it and went back to sleep.

My husband came in around noon and found me sleeping. He grasped my dark hair, wound it around his fist, and jerked me awake. My knees banged hard against the floor, bleeding through my shift, and the pain in my scalp brought tears to my eyes.

Tightening his grip upon my hair, Thomas yanked me to my feet and drew my face close to his, staring hard into my eyes.

“You
will
get up and order my house, mistress!” he said, thrusting me toward my maid as he barked an order at her to get me dressed.

“A lady leads by example,” he said, “and you will
not
lead my servants into laxity and sloth!”

His fists found my ears and his palms stung my cheeks, and I could not hear his retreating words, so loud was the ringing that filled my head, nor whatever rubbish that sniveling fool Matilda was spouting as she nervously hovered and fidgeted, darting a hand out to wipe the blood away with her apron as though she were afraid to touch me.

As she was lacing me into my buff velvet gown, the same one I had worn the day I found out I was betrothed to Thomas
Bull-In,
Lady Margaret staggered in with a knowing cackle and Prince Piddle Pants capering on her shoulder and shoved a poultice made from the exquisite shy little white flowers of Solomon’s seal onto my swollen ear, making me wince and cry out at the sudden throbbing pain that nearly made me faint.

“It takes but a day or two to cure any bruise, black or blue, gotten by falls or woman’s willful carelessness in stumbling upon her husband’s fists,” she trilled, and even had the audacity to wink before she shuffled out in what were clearly a man’s old well-worn cracked leather slippers several sizes too large for her dirty feet.

3

A
nd so my life began. I swallowed my pride and let my inner fire be doused. I stopped fighting. I smiled and traipsed gracefully through my days, always beautifully dressed, kind and stern by turns with the servants as the moment warranted, and smiling and gracious to our guests, ensuring their every comfort and need was met. I ordered my husband’s house and took my ease, reading, embroidering, or playing my lute in the gardens when spring and summer came, walking aimlessly through the fall of autumn leaves in a billowing cloak until the nip of winter drove me back indoors again to brave the loathsome company of my mother-in-law and Prince Piddle Pants.

Yet long before the seasons changed, I, that slim and beautiful, beguiling sylph of a girl, had become a matronly mother-to-be and efficient and proper housewife.

After ensuring that I knew my place and would behave myself accordingly, my husband rode away to London again to rejoin the court. With a glad heart I waved him off. Happy beyond words to be rid of him, I privately toasted his departure by drinking alone in my chamber the better half of a bottle of cherry wine pilfered from my mother-in-law’s secret store she kept hidden beneath her bed just so I could hear her running about shrieking that the fairies had taken it and we must purify the house with salt and have the priest in to bless it.

 

Four months later, word reached me that Prince Arthur was dead. Princess Catherine was a widow of uncertain future and means. There was quite a bit of ungentlemanly haggling about the unpaid portions of her dowry between her father, King Ferdinand of Spain, and her father-in-law, King Henry of England. But absent from the court, it all meant little to me. I felt so remote from it all, it might all have been happening in Turkey.

By then, I was well into my first pregnancy and didn’t really care about the world and the fact that there were other people in it besides my fat and swollen miserable self.

“You’re not the first woman to be pregnant.” Lady Margaret found cause to waggle a finger and scold me nigh every day with Prince Piddle Pants perched on her shoulder and aping her antics. But I went on acting as though I was, making extravagant, unreasonable, and irrational demands that kept the household in a frantic uproar as they rushed about to fulfill my every fancy for the sake of their master’s unborn heir. Lady Margaret had swung her sewing needle dangling from a length of thread over my stomach and was certain that I was carrying a boy. “And I,” she stoutly declared, “am
never
mistaken!”

I had great fun thinking of ridiculous things to have an unbearable craving for, like roast duckling candied in marzipan, pickles rolled so thickly in cinnamon and sugar I could not catch even a glimpse of the green beneath, sugar-glazed piglet stuffed to bursting with candied figs, capon stuffed nigh to bursting with strawberries and cream, rare and bloody roast beef crowned and glazed with quinces, and sugar sculptures of myself in the guise of water nymphs and classical goddesses that I promptly shattered and burst into tears whenever I spied even the slightest imperfection. One day before the sun rose, I crept out and gathered all the eggs I could find and dyed them blue with woad and red with madder before I replaced them safely in the nests beneath the hens. What a fit Lady Margaret had crossing herself and running about screeching that the fairies had been at work during the night. And another day while my mother-in-law was napping, I gave Prince Piddle Pants a henna bath so that she awakened to find what she thought was a little red devil capering at the foot of her bed and pissed herself in terror even as she crossed herself and reached for her rosary. Then, just as suddenly, I grew bored with it all, ceased all my pranks and capricious cravings, and settled down to calmly await the birth of my baby.

 

Nearly bursting at the seams with his increasing importance, and the growing reliance and trust that the Crown, and the Tudor men who wore or would one day wear it, bestowed upon him, Thomas came home long enough to have our portrait painted. When he was abroad representing English interests at the court of the Archduchess Margaret of Austria, he had admired a portrait of a wealthy Bruges merchant and his green-gowned, swollen-stomached wife with her devoted little dog at her feet standing amidst the opulent trappings of luxury and status. With the rapidity of lightning, he decided that we should be painted in like manner.

In somber-hued velvets and sable, Thomas stood rigidly at my side, stiff-backed with his own self-importance. I wore the same sapphire velvet gown banded in black with gold lovers’ knots and black velvet hood I had worn the day I witnessed Princess Catherine’s triumphant progress through London; it was still nearly new after all, and though the bodice fit a trifle too snugly, the skirt flowed smoothly as a placid blue waterfall over the round ball of my belly.

Before we assumed our pose for the portrait painter, Thomas, like a man putting the collar on his newly acquired pedigreed bitch, fastened round my throat the heavy, wide golden collar with the Bullens’ ornate, raging ruby-eyed bull. I
hated
its constricting weight and the way it bit into my flesh, but the gracious, docile smile upon my face gave nothing away.

As the artist posed me, with one hand clasping the flowing folds of my skirt demurely over the small round mound of my stomach, to show the petticoat of pomegranate satin I wore beneath, which was richly embroidered with roses of gold and silver, I caught a glimpse of myself in my silver mirror—a highborn sixteen-year-old bride, an emblem of success, a trophy of sorts my husband preened and prided himself over winning, a bitch wearing her master’s collar replete with his golden insignia, her belly and breasts swelling with certain proof of her fertility, the first of many pups he planned she would whelp, so that his name would be sure to endure another generation.

Behind us, my sapphire and silver bed shimmered and the grotesquely carven figures of the Seven Deadly Sins grimaced and leered over my shoulder, and light poured in through the diamond-latticed panes of the window to illuminate a pair of gleaming golden bowls piled high with oranges, rising like pyramids, studded with cloves, snowy blossoms, and glossy green leaves.

My husband
adored
oranges as a symbol of wealth and opulence. He liked people to know he could afford them and to share his bounty with those he deemed important enough to deserve a seat at his well-appointed table. Never mind that eating them made his chest ache with a deplorable burn that kept him awake all night guzzling tonics his old witch-bitch lunatic of a mother brewed in a cauldron, incomprehensible gobbledygook spewing from her mouth like some foul incantation as she threw in handfuls of pulverized elm bark, licorice, chamomile, dandelions, peppermint, rosemary, juniper, whole cups of red wine and honey, and a baby lizard for good measure, while Prince Piddle Pants gibbered and danced on her shoulder like one of Satan’s imps. But to Thomas Bullen—or
Boleyn
as he was by then styling himself—image was
everything;
discomfort be damned.

Ferdinand, a handsome and most sensual gardener with bronze skin, sleek black hair, a devilish mustache, and dark dagger of a beard, was specially imported from Seville to do nothing but nurture my husband’s precious oranges in a specially built hothouse. Each tree was planted in its own silver tub emblazoned with the fierce Bullen—I mean
Boleyn!
—bull crest, cooed over, and pampered like a royal infant, even serenaded with Spanish love songs and lullabies. The precious fruit they bore was kept in locked boxes in the larder to which only I, as lady of the house, had the key lest the servants pilfer themselves a rare and costly treat.

Thomas delighted in displaying the fruit elegantly arranged in gilt bowls, piled in pyramids punctuated with black cloves and orange blossoms, and serving our guests orange slices and orange water to wash their fingers or cleanse their palates between courses. Our cook was famous for preparing a bitter orange sauce for our meat, fowl, and fish. Marmalade made from the best bitter oranges of Seville always graced our table, and curls of orange peel crowned our otherwise bland custards, imbuing them with a lively touch of color and a hint of zesty citrus flavor, which our guests always pronounced “a heavenly delight!” Whenever he hosted hunting parties, Thomas would order our cook to fry orange slices to garnish the fresh kill or spear them raw and juicy to the roasting meat as it spun on a spit.

Every year the two of us, clad in orange from head to toe with accents of black and gold and embroidered or silken petaled snowy orange blossoms, presided over a ball to celebrate the precious yield from my husband’s orange trees and dazzled our guests with a menu of sumptuous dishes sauced, spiced, garnished, or flavored with oranges, with a massive orange cake rising out of the midst of it all, decked with candy orange blossoms and candied orange slices.

Around our feet as we posed, a fluffy little white dog, with a tail like a jaunty plume curling over the brim of a gentleman’s round velvet cap, yapped and pranced. It was all I could do not to kick it across the room and scream for the servants to take it away. Thomas had brought it home from Austria as a gift for me, not out of any genuine husbandly affection, mind you, but for outward show, to impress those who beheld me with my new pet, the breed being then quite uncommon to our English shores. It yapped and broke wind constantly, and whenever Thomas was about I could not wait for him to depart so I could banish that yapping, stinking snowball to the kennels.

Thomas tarried only long enough to approve the artist’s sketches, then left me to pose alone and rode back to London as the King had need of him. But I didn’t care; I was glad to see him go, and even gladder to know that the artist had a penchant for pregnant women, and we were of one mind about that beastly little dog. He dallied at Hever with me as long as he dared, creeping down the corridor to warm my bed at night and enlivening dull afternoons when I grew weary of posing and he of mixing his pigments and wielding his brushes. But he had other commissions awaiting him in London, and, all too soon, he had to go, and I was left alone with my mother-in-law and the servants again, screaming inside and sitting on my hands to keep from tearing the hair out of my scalp when Lady Margaret taught Prince Piddle Pants to ride “like a gallant knight” upon the back of that endlessly barking and farting ball of white fluff, and my ears were brutally assaulted for
hours
with the shrill cacophony of the chattering monkey, the yapping dog, and the witchy cackle and gleeful encouragement of my mad mother-in-law.

 

As the spring flowers bloomed so did the baby inside me, making me miserable with swollen feet and ankles, aching legs marred by sore protruding veins, and ugly blemishes and unsightly blotches upon the porcelain pale perfection of my complexion. My hair lost its luster. And every day I watched and wept as my formerly trim waist grew thick and stout and my formerly flat stomach even more grossly protuberant. I felt so ungainly and ugly; for the first time in my life, I wished I were invisible. How could God do this to me? He had taken my beauty away when it was all I had!

In unlaced stomachers and skirts with extra panels sewn in, I waddled around in a pair of plum velvet house slippers—the only shoes my swollen feet could abide—graceless as a duck. I didn’t go a-Maying that year; I was too fat to fit into my green gown, and I couldn’t bear to disfigure it by sewing in panels when I could not find fabric to match that exact same shade of green. No, far better that I keep to my chamber; I was too unsightly even for me to look upon, and I could not bear to see the gloating triumph in the other women’s eyes. So I stayed at home and watched all the pretty peasant girls traipsing off to the fair, to gather May flowers and dance around the Maypole with amorous gallants with whom they would retreat into the greenwood afterward. How I envied them and wished I could be one of them! What I wouldn’t have given for just
one hour
with a lusty gallant clutched tight between my thighs! But then I thought of his eyes looking down upon the disgusting sight of my aching milk-filled breasts, swollen full-moon stomach, and mottled, pimpled thighs and veiny limbs, and I barely reached my chamber pot before I vomited.

My daughter was born in deep summer’s hottest days, in the bed of the Seven Deadly Sins, with their carved faces leering and jeering at me through the hazy waves of pain. I cursed Eve and the child for causing me such agony. Oh what torture! The way it stretched and burned, I was certain my pretty pink cunny would never delight a man again. After this ordeal, I was sore afraid it might not be such a pretty and pleasing sight anymore and I would have to keep it hidden. But when it was all over and I held Mary in my arms for the very first time, I instantly dried my tears and forgave her everything—she was so beautiful! “This must be just like Helen of Troy’s mother felt!” I exclaimed with a radiant smile as I admired my perfect little girl.