The Unfaithful Queen: A Novel of Henry VIII's Fifth Wife (18 page)

I watched Lady Anna’s face as the request was made, and saw there the transformation from irritation to annoyance to hostility. Her jaw was tight, her eyes narrowed.

“Why must you always do this to me, Buren, just when we have dined, when you know I will feel least likely to refuse! It is not right!”

She did not look at the two old people, but glared at the servant, who was far from young himself. She sniffed and sighed in exasperation, then swore—an oath the nobleman from Frisia did not translate.

“Very well, Buren, give them a few coins if you must. But take them away!”

“May I give them the food that remains on the table?”

“You may not! What would I have to feed my dogs?”

The poor man and his wife murmured their thanks and followed the servant back out of the room, leaving us openmouthed. By us I mean we English. The Clevans appeared to take Lady Anna’s dismissiveness and lack of generosity for granted. Still, I hoped she would show some redeeming qualities to make up for her uncharitableness; after all, each of us has both faults and virtues.

She brightened when we taught her to play cards, especially the English game called “cent” or hundred. She liked to gamble, she liked risk. Her face grew animated when she won and she seemed to relish the feel of coins in her hand. I taught her to say the English words “I won” and she repeated them with childlike pleasure.

We English maids of honor were given the task of helping to plan Lady Anna’s traveling wardrobe. Her chamberers laid out the garments she possessed for us to choose from. There were several dozen gowns, mostly black. It was explained to me that Lady Anna was still in mourning for her late father, who had died the previous year.

“But the English court is not in mourning,” I managed to convey, in my halting French, to a helpful French pastry cook who served as interpreter. “Bright colors are preferred there, crimson and tawny and peach and lilac. And shiny, light silks and bawdkins.”

There was, just then, a craze for all things new at the English court. Fashions changed quickly. New styles—French sleeves, bell-shaped skirts, embroidered petticoats, the list was endless—set off an instant demand for copies. Seamstresses and dressmakers were kept busy far into the night preparing fresh garments for both women and men.

Looking at Lady Anna’s dour black worsted gowns and black velvet partlets, with only a touch of russet or purple trim to relieve their somberness, made me realize that what was needed was a whole new wardrobe.

I cannot say, looking back on those cold weeks in Schwanenberg, that I actually liked Lady Anna, for in truth I did not. But I felt sorry for her. She had no idea how to prepare herself to meet the very critical English courtiers, or how sadly lacking in youth and liveliness she would appear to them. She would look twice her age, I thought, in her own dark, shapeless gowns.

I set about to change that, insofar as I could. A silkwoman was sent for, and half a dozen seamstresses. I wished for Master Spiershon, or for a clever Frenchwoman who knew what was being worn at the court of King Francis. But time was limited. The silkwoman was able to provide lengths of brocade and gleaming bawdkins, cloth of silver and brilliant velvets, ribbons and trims. Each of us—myself and Charyn and Malyn—sacrificed our own most attractive gowns (trusting that they would be replaced) to donate more yards of cloth and trims and even a few jeweled buttons.

Lady Anna put on her new garments and walked in them in front of her pier glass. Her legs were long, she walked with great strides, like a man. When I tried to persuade her to try on a saucy French hood, to replace the style she was accustomed to that was quite unflattering, she balked. But I could tell that she liked all the attention she was receiving, and I saw how she picked up the skirts of her new gowns and swished them back and forth in front of the pier glass, enjoying the play of light on the shiny fabrics and the beauty of their colors.

I saw that I had pleased her.

“Kom,” she said to me when we were departing from Schwanenberg, our large traveling party with its escort of soldiers, its carts of provisions, spare horses, chests and trunks. “Kom wit me.” She smiled and pointed to herself, then to the coach in which she was to ride. “We speak, ja?” She wanted me to ride with her, and I agreed.

I had been teaching her a little English—she knew no language beside her own—and she wanted to learn more. I climbed into the coach, a large wooden vehicle with thick wheels and a sturdy undercarriage, covered entirely in cloth of gold.

It was a clumsy thing, and rattled terribly as we went along the rutted roads. I imagined how King Henry would laugh when he saw it. But it shone in the fitful wintry sunshine, and announced the high birth of its occupant, leaving the peasants who lined the roadway quite awestruck.

Here was the golden coach of Lady Anna of Cleves, it seemed to say. The lady who will soon be Queen of England.

*   *   *

All the way to Calais, far to the south, we spoke, Lady Anna and I, and by the time we arrived at the gates of the walled town Lady Anna had learned quite a bit of English and I quite a bit of the Clevan dialect. She was able to address the English in Calais in their own tongue, relying on a written message we had created together. She pronounced most of the words correctly enough to be understood, and when she finished the brief speech, she was loudly acclaimed.

A grand banquet was given in her honor on the day after our arrival, with three courses of thirty-three dishes each. So great was the feasting and entertainment offered to Anna that servants had to be sent across the water from Whitehall to help out. The banqueting hall was crowded, with steaming platters carried in from the kitchens in an endless stream. Wine was poured, flagons of ale drained, fantastic shapes formed from marchpane brought to the long tables.

Curtains screened the serving tables from the immense hall. I had been sent to request more sugar-bread for Lady Anna from one of the servers maintaining the tables, and had just parted the curtain when I heard a ripping sound.

I looked—and there was a sandy-haired, blue-eyed, freckled man with an embarrassed smile on his face, standing behind one of the tables. He had torn his maroon velvet doublet on a protruding sharp-edged board, and was examining the gaping hole the board had made.

“By the teats of the Virgin!”

Seeing me, he regretted his outburst. “Pardon, mistress,” he hastened to add. “I—”

“Yes, I see. You need help.”

I was adept with a needle and thread, in my years at Horsham I had patched my own garments over and over again, and sometimes helped the other girls with their embroidery. I sent a valet to find my sewing box and in the meantime, talked with the charming sandy-haired man, who had the most delightful smile.

“Tom Culpeper,” he said, his friendly face open, unguarded.

“My mother’s name was Culpeper, before she became a Howard,” I told him, pleased at the thought that we might be related—though hoping the family links were not too close. “My grandfather was Sir Richard Culpeper of Hollingbourne. I am Catherine Howard. My father was once Controller of Calais.”

“We are cousins then. And you are the kindest of cousins to offer me your help.”

“I have just come with Lady Anna and her party from Dusseldorf.”

“You are of her household then.”

I nodded, then added, “Ja, I am her maid of honor” in my best Clevan speech.

He laughed, a most pleasant laugh. Then, lowering his voice, he asked, “And now that you have taken her measure, what think you? Is she meet to be the king’s wife? Is she comely? I have not yet seen her.”

“I must be loyal,” I whispered.

“No, you must be truthful,” he whispered back.

Just then the valet arrived with my sewing things and I set about to repair the gaping hole in the rich soft velvet.

All around us servants were coming and going, weaving in and out of the crowd around the serving tables. There was a clatter of silver and the jabber and murmur of talk. Yet as I bent to take my first stitches all the disturbance seemed to melt away, all the sound retreated. It was as if we were alone.

“Promise me you won’t poke a hole in my chest,” I heard Tom say. “I must be fit for the jousting.”

“In this cold?”

“In the cold, rain or shine, we joust tomorrow, in honor of Lady Anna.”

I looked up at him briefly, and our eyes met. I found it hard to lower my eyes to my sewing.

“I hope you will do well, and unhorse many rivals.” I could hear the emotion in my voice.

“I will—if you will give me some token of yours—to wear on my sleeve.”

Impulsively I untied my silk stomacher and, ripping away a piece of the silk, folded it and handed it to Tom. He kissed it and tucked it away.

I went on with my sewing, my head close to his chest, my stitches far less small and neat than usual. I felt unsettled, all my composure shattered. I tried to concentrate on mending the rip in Tom’s doublet. I tried my best.

“There,” I said at last. “That ought to do, for now.”

He looked down at my handiwork.

“Neatly done. But I am still waiting to hear about Lady Anna.”

“Very well then. Help me find a platter of sugar-bread.”

He looked puzzled but did as I asked. When we had found the sugar-bread I said “Follow me” and led Tom out through the curtains into the grand hall. We made our way to where Lady Anna sat, surrounded by her ladies. She smiled at my approach.

Tom placed the platter of sweet bread before her with a murmur of “Your Ladyship.”

“Who is this handsome one?” she asked me in Clevan.

“One of King Henry’s gentlemen,” I said in reply. “He will compete in the lists tomorrow.”

Bowing, Tom withdrew—but not before he had smiled at me and murmured, “Until tomorrow, Mistress Catherine.”

I took my seat at the table, and reached for a slice of the sweet bread. But I could only eat a bite or two. I had no appetite. My head swam. All I could think of was, I will see him tomorrow, I will see him tomorrow. I could not wait for the day to end.

*   *   *

When Tom rode out onto the muddy jousting field on the following day, rain clouds darkened the sky and soon it began to pour.

“Surely they can’t mean to hold the joust in this weather,” I said to Malyn, who was sitting next to me. We were shivering, our cloaks folded about us. We sat under a tentlike awning, along with hundreds of others waiting for the jousting to begin, all of whom, I felt sure, were cold and uncomfortable.

“They must,” Malyn told me. “Lady Anna wants to watch English jousting. They have nothing like it in Cleves.”

“But why not put it off until tomorrow?” I was concerned about Tom. What if his horse slipped and fell in the mud, and landed on top of him? It had happened to King Henry once, I knew; while jousting in the rain, his warhorse had stumbled and fallen on him. He had lost all sense for many hours.

“She may have to make the crossing to Deal tomorrow,” Malyn said. “She could go any day—just as soon as the tides are favorable. So the jousting must go on.”

I looked up at the sky. It seemed to be growing darker by the minute. But the heralds were riding onto the tiltyard, and announcing the first challengers. We cheered for the combatants as they rode onto the muddy ground, their horses’ hooves throwing up mud clots to stain their brilliantly colored caparisons. There were twenty jousters. I could not tell which one was Tom.

With the first passes it was evident that the contest would be a dirty, confused jumble of men and horses. The thunder of hoofbeats was muffled by the sloshing of puddles, instead of the splintering of thick oaken lances we watched lance after lance slide off the wet mail and fall harmlessly into the ooze below. Horses faltered, falling to their knees in the mire. Collisions left jousters shaking their befuddled heads in confusion.

“Why don’t they stop it?” I cried. “Why doesn’t someone stop it!”

But Lady Anna, sitting not far from us, was clapping her hands in pleasure. How could the sorry entertainment be stopped, when it was clearly offering her such delight?

Then came the moment I had been dreading. Two weary jousters, lances weaving unsteadily as they rode through the muck toward one another, collided in an explosion of wood and metal, their longsuffering mounts whinnying in pain and fear. Both horses fell—and only one rider managed to get to his feet, covered in mud, and stagger away.

The other lay where he fell, motionless.

Lady Anna was laughing and cheering, but others looked on in shock and worry. Grooms came forward to stand around the injured rider, stooping over him, talking to one another. Still he lay where he was.

Minutes passed. Rain began to fall, hard rain that pelted noisily off every surface. I could not stand the suspense any longer. I got to my feet and made my way onto the tilting ground, knowing full well that no women were ever allowed there. No one stopped me, however, as I made my way, sloshing through the rain and mud, to where the unknown man lay as if lifeless.

As I approached, one of the grooms lifted the fallen man’s helm. Despite the dirt on his cheeks, and darkening his hair, I could tell who it was: Tom Culpeper.

NINE

DAY
after day we waited, there in Calais, for the storms to abate and the tides to be favorable. Lady Anna fretted, she was used to riding and vigorous walking and did not like being confined in the crowded walled town with little to do but play cards with her ladies.

There were no more jousts. Apart from the injuries to the jousters, the horses suffered greatly, and well-trained chargers were costly to replace. We prayed daily for a swift, fair crossing, but each new dawn brought rain and storms, and we prepared ourselves for yet another delay.

For me, however, the rainy dawns brought hope—and renewed delight. For Tom had revived, his injured leg and arm were healing, and he and I were growing closer and closer the more time we spent together.

For the first few days he was confined to bed. I visited him and brought him comfits, and he urged me to stay on, saying that my companionship made him feel better. We talked about our Culpeper relatives, he told me of his childhood spent in the royal court, first as a page to King Henry and later as a groom and then a gentleman of the privy chamber. The court had been his life, he said. He knew its ways, its pitfalls. He had seen many a man rise high only to tumble back fatally.