The hall is a crush, the heat from the hearth and the volume of bodies almost overwhelming. I am glad now that Mother reminded me to bring my pomander, for in February people do not wash as often as they do in June. I am forced to wave it beneath my nose very often as I surreptitiously search the crowd for Francis.
I hear him before I see him. He is laughing. The king’s hand is on his shoulder, encouraging Francis to continue whatever risqué tale he is relating. From my safe distance I drink in his strange, rough beauty, and wonder if he will notice me tonight.
Mother falls straight into conversation with Uncle William and his party, giving me the freedom to let my eyes wander. Looking at the king today, you’d never imagine he has just emerged from three months of deep despair. He is magnificent, a head taller than any other man in the room. His doublet is just one shade lighter than the colour of his hair, and the gleam in his eye suggests that he is already in search of another wife, or mistress.
For a moment I imagine him noticing me, making me queen. I would be swathed head to toe in finery and jewels, and everyone at court would be falling over themselves to please me. I forget the miseries of his last three wives and think only of the benefits. But then Francis turns around, his eyes straying about the room. When they fall upon me he pauses; a smile flickers at the edge of his mouth and my world hesitates, seems to falter, hiccough a little. In a flutter of panic I realise he has taken leave of the king and is weaving his way through the crowd toward me.
“Mistress Neville.” He kisses my lips. My heart flips sickeningly as I try not to prolong the moment. A heartbeat later I remember to pull away and keep my eyes shyly on the floor. My mouth tingles from the contact. My fingers are burning in his palm. I cannot think of one intelligent thing to say.
“You look very fine.” He indicates my silk gown, my fine new sleeves. “One would almost think you were out to catch a husband.”
Beneath his penetrating gaze, I stammer and stutter like a fool, and it is not until he laughs that I realise he is teasing. I drop my head. I hate how he always mocks me.
“Come,” he says. “Margaret. May I call you Margaret? Do not sulk and deprive me of your pretty smile.”
I can do nothing else but obey. It reluctantly blossoms, spreading across my cheeks until I am beaming. I try to control it but it beats me, and a giggle splutters unbidden from my lips.
“That is better,” he whispers.
The room is crushed and we are forced to stand close together. I am not sure if his hand is intentionally placed so near to my breast or not. I can appreciate each crease on his lips, each lash around his eyes, and each curl of his beard. I want to know what it feels like to be kissed properly, and to my surprise I find myself imagining myself crushed in his arms, his mouth on mine, our bodies merging, melding into one.
He is speaking. I haven’t heard a word.
“I am sorry, Sir Francis. I misheard you.”
He bends closer, speaks directly into my ear, his breath whispering on my skin, the fragrance of his body rising. I put my pomander away.
“I said; it is damnably hot in here. Shall I ask your mother if I can accompany you outside? I am sure you must feel faint.”
I feel nothing of the sort but I let my head droop a little and try to look pathetic. “Yes, please,” I whimper. “I do feel a little odd.”
I am sure that if Mother wasn’t so heavily engaged in conversation with Sir Thomas she would never allow me to go off unaccompanied with a man like Sir Francis Bryan. She turns reluctantly away from Seymour, flushed and laughing, and waves a careless hand.
“Yes, yes. Of course. Don’t be long though, my dear.”
My fingers caress the soft velvet of his sleeve as he leads me through the crowd. The people part and close around us again as we make our way from the hall. But, instead of leading me outside, he stops by a small antechamber and slips through the door, drawing me in after him. I pull away, but the instant my hand detaches from his sleeve I find myself bereft.
I am struck dumb with shyness, and have no idea what I should say, what I should do, so I just stand and stare into the flagging embers of the fire.
He comes up close behind me. “How old are you, Margaret?”
I turn toward him. He places a knuckle beneath my chin and lifts my face to his. My cheeks are burning and my lips begin to tingle in anticipation.
“I am old enough to be wed.”
“But you’ve never been kissed?”
I shake my head but, of course, it isn’t true. I have been horribly kissed, brutally violated, and I know things a maid should never know. But I cannot tell him that. I would be shunned.
Once I had thought I would never take a husband. Never want to be kissed again. I had imagined myself entering a nunnery, sacrificing my life to God. But that was before I laid eyes on Sir Francis Bryan, before I became acquainted with the ‘vicar of hell.’ Now my Judas body cries out for male contact and there is nothing I can do to govern it.
“You are ripe for a husband.”
I open my eyes, look directly into his.
“So my mother tells me.”
He reaches out. A finger traces a line of fire down my cheek, along my jaw, and his thumb rubs torment into my lips. I close my eyes again, and sense his face lowering to mine.
His lips are soft and warm, gentle. My heart is fluttering and leaping like a teeming pool of small, silver fish. He swallows my ecstatic sigh, draws me closer. His hands travel over my body. My skin heats and glows, and burns beneath his touch.
It is nothing like that other kiss. That was revolting and for a while had made me want to die. This kiss is different. This man makes me want to live as dangerously as he. It goes on and on. I don’t want it to stop, yet I feel if it doesn’t I will cease to breathe. I will die of passion.
We overbalance, fall against the wall, his hands begin to wrench my skirts to my knees. My breath issues in gasps. I have never wanted anything so much. But, just as I feel his hand on my naked thigh and my insides begin to melt, a great sound of crashing metal wrenches us apart. My skirts fall. I lean breathless against the wall while he stands alert and ready to run.
“What was that?” I gasp when I can find my voice. He draws the back of his hand across his wet mouth.
“I don’t know; probably some idiot scullion dropping a tray.” He turns back to me but makes no move to resume our passion His face is solemn. I smile, shamefaced but happy, while he runs his hands through his hair.
“Margaret,” he says in a voice full of anguish, “I am a married man.”
My heart drops like stone down a well.
“But …”
“And I have to go away soon, very soon. The king is sending me on a mission to France.”
I step forward, too close to be maidenly, and let him see the depth of my longing.
“But you will come back. You won’t be gone forever.”
He turns reluctantly away. “As I said; I am a married man.”
“But, why did you …? You do not love her…”
He laughs, his teeth glinting white in the light of the fire. “And what are you saying, Margaret? You will be my mistress? Become just another in a long line of women? Don’t you know who I am? Don’t you think I have earned my reputation?”
I want to cry. Suddenly I am no longer a fiery, red-blooded woman ready to give herself to a lover. I am a little girl again, deprived of my favourite doll. My lower lip trembles.
“I don’t care.”
He takes my hand, courteously. All sign of our former passion quenched.
“Margaret. I thought I could use you, as I have all the others, but I can’t. I like you too much. Be glad of that. Come; let me take you back to your mother.”
“I am not a child, sir.”
He laughs a gentle laugh.
“Yes, you are. A maid who knows nothing of what you were offering me. And I am a cad who was ready to rob you of something irreplaceable. I refuse to do it. You see, I am not
really happy with my reputation but sometimes, I feel obliged to live up to it.”
He holds out his arm, and sulkily I lay my fingers on it and allow him to return me to Katheryn’s side.
1540 – 41 - London
In a few short years the king has won himself another queen. She is called Anne, like his second wife. Fresh from Cleves, she rides through London in the cold to wed the king, but in a few short months is put aside. Aunt Anne says she does not please him. He finds her fat and offensive to his nose. All the court are talking of it, the poor woman must be eaten up with humiliation. I find it astonishing that one as unwieldy as the king should find it in himself to criticise another. When, in the privacy of our chambers, I voice this opinion to Mother, she hushes me.
“You must never say such things, Margaret. The king is to be revered. He is handsome and virile, and you must never think otherwise. People have died for less.”
I look up, surprised. Of course, I would never be so silly as to speak openly before strangers, but I had thought us safe closeted together in our home.
King Henry is growing old. The golden prince is fading and emerging in his place is a tetchy old man. A man wracked with the pain of an ulcerated leg, and tortured with the knowledge that after a string of unsatisfactory wives, he has managed to produce just one legitimate son. There is no security in infants; the king needs a string of sons, sons who promise to grow into men. If he fails in this, the Tudor line will be extinguished.
Cromwell is to blame. It was he who pushed for the match with Cleves to strengthen England’s position against Spain. While Henry storms about the palace in a ferocious mood, Cromwell skulks in corners. Wisely, he keeps his head down and his policies within bounds, but no one is very surprised when, a few weeks later, the council turns on him. They strip him of his privileges and titles, and cart him off to the Tower. Restrained for so long under his office, the noblemen of the king’s council waste no opportunity to vent their spleen.
Thomas Cromwell does not make a brave prisoner. I cringe for him when I hear of how he rails against his fate, pleading with the king to show him mercy, revealing in gory clarity his lowly beginnings. But Henry is unforgiving. Escaped by the skin of his teeth from the unwholesome bed of Anne of Cleves, he is determined that someone will suffer for it. On the day he orders Cromwell’s death, the nation holds its breath to see who will be the next to fall.
With Cromwell dead, our home at Charterhouse is back in our possession and, amid the flurry of moving back in, we discover that England has a new queen. Queen Katherine this time.
She is a Howard, a niece of the Duke of Norfolk, and is just a few years older than I. Aunt Anne describes her as a slip of unsubstantial prettiness who somehow manages to soothe and heal our ageing, malodorous king. Rather her than me.
Against all these great events, I spend a miserable few years. All I can think of or dream about is Francis Bryan, who is still abroad on the king’s business. The tales of his debauchery in Paris fill me with grief; and the idea of him in another woman’s arms is almost as abhorrent as the thought of bedding one of the many suitors Mother insists on parading before me. She assures me I will not be forced to take a man I do not favour, but I feel her patience is beginning to stretch.
My prospective husbands range from spotty youths to elderly gentlemen, and I like none of them. Luckily, Father is so often away on business that the question of my marriage is allowed to drift. But, in October, worn out by the harsh weather in the north and the trials of campaign, Father returns home and takes directly to his sick bed.
“What is wrong with him?” I cling to the door frame watching Mother calmly plump his pillow and smooth his sheet.
“He is just tired; worn out,” she says, tiptoeing from the bed and ushering me out the door. “He is not as young as he used to be.”
“Is he going to die?”
“Oh no, not if I have anything to do with it. He will soon rally with good nursing and wholesome food.”
She shuts herself away in her still-room, preparing concoctions to soothe him, tonics to revitalise his flagging energy. In the downstairs parlour my brother John is waiting, and I steel myself to meet him. I pause on the threshold, at first not recognising the elegantly clad man in the shadows. He is staring from the window, unmoving; his frame taut, his shoulders braced. When he realises my presence he puts down his glass and moves into the light.
“Little sister.” He comes forward to greet me formally, and all the while I can feel him assessing me: my face, my clothes, my posture. “Quite grown up.”
He kisses my hand, laughs through his nose in a strange snuffling manner that reminds me of Father. John has grown; no longer the gangly boy but a sturdy, upright man. But I soon realise he is not as confident as he would have me believe. His palm is clammy. As quickly as is polite, I retract my hand and move to my favourite seat. Homer leaps onto my lap, turns circles, preparing to nest, and I let my fingers caress his soft short coat while John takes the opposite seat.
“Not married yet?” Something in his tone speaks of our unacknowledged secret and infers that I am soiled goods, unmarriageable and unwanted. I instantly bristle, preparing for a fight.
“Not yet.” My hand trails along Homer’s spine to his whip-like tail.
“But you’ve had suitors?”
“Of course.”
“And not one of them pleased you? Perhaps you are too picky, Sister.”
I do not intend to enter into an argument with him when our reunion is so fresh. Instead I turn the tables upon him.
“I understand you are betrothed to Lucy Somerset?”
“Hmm.”
“And does that please you? She is maid of honour to Queen Katherine, is she not?”
“Yes.”
“Is she pretty?”
“Pretty enough.”
I look down at the rhythmic stroking of my hand. Homer is transported in bliss, his eyes half-open, or half-closed, his nose tilted upward in a contented manner.
Questions and answers. Questions and answers. I am aware that my brother desires to know just one thing. Have I had a lover yet? I wonder why it matters to him.
I look up suddenly, surprising his brooding eye upon me, and he looks away, a slight flush creeping up from his jaw.
“You will have to bring Lucy to meet us. It will be easier for her if she makes our acquaintance before you are wed. She is to be part of the family, after all.”
“Hmm.”
“I get quite lonely for female company of my own age. Aunt Anne has tried to get me a place in the queen’s household but to no avail. She says I am on the list.”
“You need a husband.”
I stand up and Homer falls indignantly to my feet.
“I will take one when I meet a man I can abide.”
I cannot keep the annoyance from my voice. John stands too. We are nose to nose before the fire, just like when we were in the nursery, squabbling over some toy.
“I knew it,” he snarls. “It did affect you. You can’t bear the thought of a man in your bed, can you?”
If only that were so. If only I could honestly swear that I hated all men. If only I wasn’t committed to just one and his name wasn’t emblazoned on my heart. Tears prick behind my eyes. I try to blink them away. I look at the floor, the textures of the rush matting beneath my feet dissolving. I shake my head and John’s hand clamps upon my wrist.
“Did you never tell anyone about it? Not even Mother?”
“She is the last person I would tell, and what was the point? My abuser was dead. The only person to suffer from making the fact known would have been me.”
John says nothing. His former arrogance has melted away and I see now it was just a mask to hide his insecurities. I can see his face working as he tries to organise the thing he wants to say.
“I am glad you kept it a secret, if only for the sake of my own honour. I wanted to kill him, you know. I’m sorry I didn’t.”
“I know.”
/>
“But I did nothing. Do you know how I have suffered for that? I have lain awake of a night living it over and over. I was a coward. I should have killed him.”
Do you think I have not suffered? The words are almost on my lips but somehow I suppress them. I reach out and touch his sleeve.
“You were just a boy.”
“And you were a girl! When I think of it I …”
“Then don’t think of it. Shut it out. Move on, as I have done.”
Our eyes meet. His are hooded, dark, rimmed in shadow.
“You have moved on, forgotten it? I thought you hated men?”
I laugh, as if I mean it, as if I really have forgotten. “That was your idea. I am not averse to marriage. I have other reasons for not following up Mother’s proposals.”
“What reasons?”
My cheeks grow hot. I lift my chin and look him squarely in the eye.
“I love another.”
His face opens in surprise, his eyes round with curiosity.
“Love another? Who, for God’s sake? Is he wed already?”
I shake my head and turn away.
“Is he beneath you? One of the servants? One of Mother’s clerks?”
“John! No, of course not. He is just … not for marrying.”
“He doesn’t love you? Is that what you mean? Margaret?” He takes hold of my elbows, gives me a little shake. “Answer me!”
Homer begins to paw at my skirts, thinking it a game. John pushes him down, kicks him away, and the dog skulks beneath the table.
“It is not your business. You are my brother, not my keeper. If there were any benefit to you knowing I would tell you, but there isn’t.”
At that moment the door opens and Mother sweeps into the room, her face breaking into smiles when she sees him.
“John. How lovely to see you.” She holds out her hands and he is forced to leave my side to greet her.
“I will find out,” he growls from the side of his mouth as he passes. I watch them embrace and when Dorothy comes in with a tray of cups, we take our places before the hearth.
Intractable Heart: A story of Katheryn Parr Page 4
