The King's Damsel (31 page)

“I know of the impending birth. The queen’s apartments here at
Eltham are to be turned into a nursery for the new heir.” Princess Mary grimaced. “The roof timbers have already been painted yellow. I am not certain why. The prince is to have a great chamber, a dining chamber, an arraying chamber, and a bedchamber.”

“The king longs to see his elder daughter.” I hoped that I spoke the truth. “He is willing to forgive you for any words you previously spoke in haste. Time and time again, I have seen someone mollify King Henry with gentle words and a subservient manner. Would it be so difficult to play the courtier?”

When she turned her nearsighted gaze on me, I saw that there were tears in her eyes. She opened her mouth to speak, but a flurry of activity from one of the staircases prevented her.

I wished I knew some of Maria’s Spanish curses when I recognized the queen’s groom, Dickon, and others in Her Grace’s livery. Queen Anne and her ladies could not be far behind.

“Stay,” I begged the princess. “Speak with your stepmother. If you make an overture toward her, she will accept it.”

The look Princess Mary sent my way was as cold as the Thames during a hard freeze. Skirts rustling, she hastened out of the chapel, pausing only long enough to make her obeisance before the altar. She left by a side door just as Queen Anne reached the bottom of the spiral staircase.

I remained where I was, head bowed, hoping to blend into the shadows. Unfortunately, my height alone was sufficient to make me stand out, not to mention that the queen had already noticed my absence.

Queen Anne had come to hear Mass. It was not until the priest had completed the ritual that Her Grace’s liveried servants came for me. I had no choice but to accompany them up the staircase and into the private closet at the top. As soon as I entered that small room, Queen Anne dismissed everyone else except her sister.

“You were speaking to the Lady Mary,” the queen said in an accusatory tone of voice.

I sank into an especially deep curtsey, pressed down by the weight of her displeasure. She could do far more than box my ears if she chose to, and she already had cause to dislike me. Ever since the king had singled me out for his flirtation, she’d been suspicious of my loyalty. If I wanted to keep my post at court—and my freedom—I had to convince her that I had not gone behind her back to conspire with her enemy.

“I went to the chapel to pray and found the Lady Mary there before me!” The hateful form of address left a bitter taste on my tongue.

The queen fixed her steady, black-eyed stare on me. In that moment, I knew that nothing I could do or say would return me to her favor. Despite that conviction, or perhaps because of it, I made one last attempt to pave the way for a reconciliation between father and daughter.

“The Lady Mary has learned humility during her time in Princess Elizabeth’s service. If Your Grace were to persuade the king to let her return to court, I am certain she—”

“That girl has been a thorn in my side for years,” the queen snapped. “Why should I do anything to please her? Why should I listen to
anything
you suggest, Tamsin Lodge? You, who would have betrayed me with the king had I not intervened.” She began to pace, both hands resting on the rounded belly where her child was growing. “I should turn you out, send you back to your stepmother and that charming husband of hers.”

The threat sent a chill clear through me.

“Surely there is no need for that,” Lady Mary Rochford interrupted. “Perhaps my eyes deceived me, but I thought I saw the Lady
Mary curtsey to you, Anne, before she so precipitously fled the chapel.”

I had to bite my lip to keep from contradicting the queen’s sister.

“Why did you not say so at once?” the queen demanded. “It will please the king greatly if she accepts me. I am even prepared to offer her my friendship in return, for His Grace has given me no peace since she refused to take the oath. We will set her up in her own household once she does. Somewhere far from court,” she added in a mutter. Then she called for pen and ink and wrote a brief note to her stepdaughter.

There was no time for any reply from Princess Mary before the queen and her entourage left Eltham to return to Greenwich, but that evening Lady Shelton, the queen’s aunt and Madge’s mother and the person in charge of Princess Elizabeth’s household, sent a message to her niece.

“Ungrateful chit!” Queen Anne crumpled Lady Shelton’s note and tossed it into the rushes. She looked as if she wanted to hit something, and when the linnet that lived in a cage in her presence chamber began to sing its pleasant song, she ordered that it be removed from the room.

“At least she did not banish the poor thing from court,” Bess Holland whispered.

The other maids of honor giggled. The peacocks that had been sent to the king from the New Found Land across the Western Sea had annoyed Queen Anne by being too noisy in the early morning when she wished to sleep. She’d insisted that they be kept elsewhere. To humor his pregnant wife, the king had ordered that bird coops be built at Sir Henry Norris’s house in the village of Greenwich and moved the peacocks there, together with a pelican that had also been sent to him from the New World.

I did not laugh with the others. My place at court felt as precarious as that pelican’s. People, too, could be banished. And they could be locked in cages.

I waited until Her Grace was distracted by the king’s arrival to retrieve Lady Shelton’s letter from the rushes. Late that night, after I was certain that all the other maids of honor were soundly asleep, I smoothed it out and began to read, careful to shield the single candle that gave me sufficient light to make out the words.

At dinner, Lady Shelton related, the Lady Mary had declared in a loud voice that the queen could not possibly have sent the message she’d received that day because Her Grace, Queen Catherine, was far away from Eltham. The messenger, she’d continued, should have said that the missive came from Lady Anne Boleyn. Then she’d stated, in no uncertain terms, that she would acknowledge no other queen but her mother, nor esteem any as her friends if they were not also Catherine’s. The obeisance “Lady Anne” had witnessed, she’d declared, had been made to the altar, “to my maker and hers,” and not to any earthly creature.

Thus rebuffed, it was no wonder Queen Anne was so angry.

T
he summer progress of 1534 was shorter than usual, to accommodate the queen’s great belly. The riding household traveled to The Moor, Chenies, and Woking, but then returned to Eltham, where the queen took up residence in lodgings near her daughter and studiously avoided encountering the Lady Mary. The king went off on his own to visit Guildford, where the rest of the court was to join him in a few days’ time.

Deprived of her husband’s company, Queen Anne fretted. She was an emotional woman at the best of times, quick-tempered and subject to fits of nervous laughter. Now she clung to her favorite little dog, Perky, scorned the company of any of her women save her cousin Madge and the young Countess of Worcester, for whom she had developed a particular affection, and demanded, with increasing heat, to know why her sister had not yet rejoined the court.

Lady Mary Rochford had left in June to visit her two children. She had a daughter, Catherine, and a son named Henry. Some said his father was the king himself, but His Grace had never acknowledged him. That made me think it unlikely, since King Henry had
been overjoyed to claim Henry Fitzroy, if for no other reason than to prove that he could sire a son.

It was after we moved on to Guildford, in the first week in August, that disaster struck. With no warning, the queen gave birth to a premature, stillborn boy. When she realized what had happened, she became hysterical, sobbing and laughing and beating on her pillows until she finally sank into an exhausted sleep.

King Henry felt the death of his heir as deeply as the queen did. Perhaps more deeply. I saw the stunned expression on his face when he came to her chamber and was told what had happened. All the light went out in his eyes. Then he turned away, shoulders hunched, so that Queen Anne’s ladies would not see the tears flowing down his cheeks and into his beard.

When he had recovered himself a little, he went to his wife’s side. Uncharacteristically, His Grace was at a loss for words.

The queen was not. She screamed at him. “This is all your fault, Harry! You forced me to go on progress. I did not want to. You know the common people hate me!”

At first the king did his best to calm her. He knew she was not herself. But His Grace had never been known for his patience. When he finally lost his temper, his voice boomed out loud enough to shake the tightly closed shutters.

“Silence! You will not speak that way to your liege lord!”

As if she suddenly realized how rash her accusations had been, Queen Anne shrank back on the pillows. She whimpered. So did Perky. Huddled together in the huge bed, they stared up at the massive figure of King Henry through startlingly similar large black eyes. His Grace loomed over them, fists clenched. For one terrible moment, I thought the king might strike his wife.

“Good day to you, madam,” His Grace said through clenched
teeth. “I will speak with you again when you have recovered your health.”

I do not know what impulse drove me but, when he stormed out of the bedchamber, I scurried after him. Catching them by surprise, I pushed past his gentlemen and dared to catch hold of the royal sleeve. When His Grace turned with a snarl, I threw myself to my knees, head bowed. I landed hard, jarring my entire body, and barely managed not to cry out.

“Tamsin,” the king said in surprise. “Why have you followed me?”

“To beg a word with Your Grace, if it pleases you.”

My head was still bowed, so I could not see his facial expression. I held my breath, waiting for his response. It came out in a whoosh when a large, heavily beringed hand appeared in my field of vision. I took it and let him pull me to my feet. I am not at all certain I could have stumbled upright without His Grace’s assistance.

After a moment’s hesitation, the king tucked my arm through his and led me into a nearby gallery where we could walk and talk without being disturbed.

“Well, Tamsin?” he asked when we had gained a little distance from his attendants.

“I . . . I acted rashly, Your Grace. It is just that I felt so badly. About the baby. I wished you to know that you have my sympathy for his loss.”

Such darkness clouded his expression that I abruptly stopped speaking, fearing I had offended him beyond forgiveness. My words had been heartfelt, but it was not my place to commiserate with a king.

There was another long silence and then, to my surprise, he replied with equal honesty. “This is not the first time I have suffered such a loss.” I could hear the anguish underscoring every word. “Has
it begun again? Stillbirths and miscarriages and only a single living daughter?”

I had no answer to give him. He was thinking of all the children he and Queen Catherine had lost. There had been a son, I remembered, who’d lived only a few days. How many others had never drawn breath I did not know, but their loss had taken a toll on the king. This latest blow was all the more difficult to bear for what it had cost him to marry Queen Anne. He’d torn England apart, claiming that his first marriage was cursed by God to be childless—or close enough, since most people believe a female is incapable of ruling—and now his new wife had twice failed to give him the male heir he needed.

At that moment, I pitied the king. I even pitied the queen. But I also knew that I would never have a better opportunity to advance Princess Mary’s cause. For the first time, there seemed to be a true lessening of the king’s infatuation with his second wife.

“Your Grace?” I said, tentatively, when we had walked up and down the gallery a half-dozen times in silence.

“Yes, Tamsin?”

“You have two healthy daughters who—”

He cut me off before I could finish. “And there will be sons.” He patted my hand. “I have said so often myself.”

That had not been what I intended to tell him. I’d meant to suggest that his older daughter should come to court, restored as heir apparent. Uncertain how to broach the subject, I waited too long. His Grace brought my hand to his lips for a kiss and, bidding me farewell, left me there in the gallery.

A certain coolness persisted between the king and his queen for the next few days. On the seventh of August, King Henry resumed his progress into the Midlands while Queen Anne remained behind to recover her health. Her Grace’s sister was still, unaccountably,
absent, but their mother was with the queen and so was Queen Anne’s brother, Lord Rochford.

Once Queen Anne realized that she might have lost the king’s goodwill, she became determined to rejoin the royal progress as soon as possible. To this end, she followed the advice of her midwife and rested for a few weeks, but less than a month after she lost her child, she was reunited with her husband at Woodstock in Oxfordshire.

King Henry greeted his queen with apparent warmth, but his eyes lacked any sparkle when he looked at her. It did not take me long to come to a decision. If I was to influence the king in his daughter’s favor, I must take advantage of this opportunity.

This royal manor was one of the largest, a modern and comfortable palace that boasted extensive stables and kennels, a park that had been fenced in for a menagerie by King Henry I, and a lover’s bower set in the middle of an intricate maze. There was room to house the entire court, since Woodstock could accommodate up to fifteen hundred people for two months or more.

At my first opportunity, early on a sunny summer morning, I stationed myself on a prominent bench near the entrance to the maze, quills, inkhorn, and papers surrounding me. His Grace was in the habit of walking in the gardens every day. I heard his approach long before he caught sight of me, but I pretended to be too engrossed in my work to notice him.

“Whatever are you doing, Tamsin?” the king asked.

Feigning surprise, I nearly upset the inkpot. His Grace caught it deftly before any of the dark black ink could spill. Then he put a hand on my shoulder when I attempted to rise to make my obeisance to him.