With these words his voice darkened, and he dropped the length of gleaming silver as he made his way toward the door of the queen’s bedchamber. I quickly picked up the shimmering, snakelike bands.
“Instead of lace, could you not trim the neck of the bodice in this?” I asked Mr. Skut, holding out the woven strand.
“It is not customary to trim a wedding gown in such an adornment—” the dressmaker began, then quickly added, “But of course if the king advises it—”
I handed the silverwork to one of the assistants, who began to measure it.
“I shall need more,” Mr. Skut said.
“And more you shall have,” was the king’s last utterance as he strode from the room, in search of his wife.
TWELVE
“Here, little Pourquoi. Here, little one.”
Anne went from room to room in her suite of apartments, calling and whistling. Her favorite lapdog was nowhere to be found.
“Someone stole him, I know it!” she cried, growing more and more exasperated and fretful as she searched and called frantically. “Someone who hates me!”
It was no use reminding her that Pourquoi had run away at least a dozen times, being a nervous creature, ever in search of escape, and that he had always been found.
“Jane! Anne! Bridget! Help me!”
Obedient to her demand, we fanned out into adjacent rooms, calling for the little dog and clapping our hands and whistling. I saw Bridget raise her eyebrows and smile, as if to say, what can we do but humor her?
We were no longer in Queen Catherine’s much diminished household; Anne Cavecant, Bridget and I and a dozen others who had served the queen now served Mistress Anne Boleyn, who had won out in her clamorous urgings that she be given a household and staff of her own. The king had granted her wish—partly, I felt sure, in order to humiliate Queen Catherine, who persisted in maintaining her marital rights and relied on her nephew to defend them.
I felt at times like a shuttlecock being tossed between opponents in an endless game. My services, and those of the other women, were hostage to the shifting tides of power; sometimes the queen appeared to be in the ascendant, sometimes Anne. But at the moment we served Anne, and so it fell to us to help her try to find the missing Pourquoi.
Calling and whistling, I went into a small room with windows looking out on the privy garden. A workman stood at one of the windows, carefully removing a section of decorative glass. He bent to his task, long fingers stretched delicately across the fragile surface. A pane bearing Queen Catherine’s badge and emblem were being replaced by another with Anne’s white falcon.
He turned to look at me as I entered the room. His gaze was calm, open—and admiring. The look in his brown eyes was warm. He smiled.
“Mademoiselle,” he said, his voice as warm and pleasant as his glance. He was tall and lean, well-built and with a workman’s strong muscles whose outlines were plain beneath his laborer’s smock.
As soon as he spoke I felt drawn to him, charmed and mesmerized by the sound. Though he was a common laborer, a glazier though evidently a skilled one—and I a gentleman’s daughter I felt no barrier between us. I took a step toward him, then another, and returned his smile.
“Have you seen a little dog?” I heard an unaccustomed softness in my own voice.
“No, mademoiselle. But if I see him I will come and tell you.”
There were dozens of workmen repairing and improving Anne’s suite of rooms just then. Stonemasons, carpenters, joiners and painters. The sounds of hammering, scraping and shouting surrounded us. Yet it was as if the noise suddenly ceased. I no longer heard it. I was content to stand where I was, looking into the man’s welcoming brown eyes.
“May I trouble you for a drink of water, mademoiselle?”
He spoke with an accent. His voice was soft, musical. Bemused, I turned and went into Anne’s bedchamber. A pitcher of watered wine was kept beside her bed. I poured out a cupful and took it back to the glazier. He drank it thirstily, at one draught, then wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. I watched him drink, admiring his throat, the perspiration along his jaw and on his arms and hands, the dark hair that fell in waves to his shoulders.
He held out the empty cup and as I took it, our hands touched. Once again I noticed his long slender fingers. Neither of us withdrew from the slight, soft touch. His hand was rough. I felt heat rising from my fingers where they pressed against his. Heat, and an excitement I had never felt before.
Reluctantly, after what seemed a very long time but was probably only a moment, I pulled my hand back, only to hear the glazier say, “I sometimes forget my tools and have to return for them quite late at night. If I were to do that, should I find you in the courtyard?”
I did not hesitate. “Yes,” I said, and with a smile left him.
Dazed by what had just happened, I went to rejoin the search for Anne’s little dog, who was at length discovered cowering under Queen Catherine’s prie-dieu, taking refuge from the priest I had seen at St. Agnes’s, Father Bartolome.
“Get away from my dog!” Anne shrieked when we entered the queen’s apartments. The entire search party had gone there together at Anne’s command, after Griffith Richards had sent word that Pourquoi had found his way to Queen Catherine’s suite.
The black-robed priest was kicking with his fierce-looking boots underneath the low kneeling bench, where the whimpering Pourquoi had tried to hide himself. When the priest heard Anne’s command he looked up at her—a most un-priestly look—and resumed his kicking, harder than ever so it seemed.
I hate to see any animal being attacked or mistreated, and at once I rushed to the prie-dieu and, narrowly avoiding the menacing boots, reached under it and brought out the trembling little dog. I handed him to Anne, who snatched him out of my arms and ran out of the room.
Father Bartolome was staring at me. I scrambled to my feet, my gown and petticoats a hindrance. No one helped me.
“I see it is the little reader of Lutheran books!” the priest exclaimed, his black eyes stony. “The one who comes as a pilgrim to see the wonder-working nun at St. Agnes’s, so she can repeat to the king’s accursed mistress what she has seen! You are nothing but a spy!”
“And you are nothing but Ambassador Chapuys’s creature!” I burst out.
“I am the queen’s new confessor,” Father Bartolome announced gravely, suddenly altering his tone of voice, his expression, his posture. He became the reverent, beneficent man of God.
“It is only too evident to me what you are,” I retorted, “and I shall make it known!”
* * *
He was there, waiting in the moonlit courtyard of the palace, when I made my way along the quiet hallways and by the least used, least guarded stairways to the outside. Sleepy guardsmen reclined on benches, there was no night watchman to be seen.
“Mademoiselle!” I heard his urgent whisper. “Over here, mademoiselle!”
He was under the eave of the brewhouse, so deep in shadow that all I could make out was the tall, lean length of him, a thin cloak covering his shoulders, his hair brushing the sides of his narrow, handsome face, his eyes bright even in the dimness.
He held out his hand and beckoned me into the shadows. I went to him gladly. In an instant I was enfolded in his strong arms, pressed against him, his chest against mine, his lips kissing my ear, my neck, my throat.
“You are here!” he murmured. “I wasn’t sure you would come.”
I could not resist, I wanted to say, but I could not speak, his mouth was on mine and I felt a force rise up within me that overpowered me completely.
“Ma chère mademoiselle, mon ange, ma fleur, ma petite—”
He lifted me up and carried me into the brewhouse, lit only by a single candle, burning beside a mound of straw covered by a blanket. When he laid me down I reached for him, wanting him beside me, wanting his mouth on mine again, and soon I was lost in his embrace.
So easily, so naturally, did I leave girlhood behind that nig
ht and not with dear Will, but with a stranger. By the time the candle guttered and went out, I had blossomed into womanhood, my body’s bloom as inevitable as the unfolding of a flower. He told me his name: Galyon. He called me his love. He promised we would meet again.
* * *
I found King Henry in the tiltyard, mounted on Coeurdelion, his favorite warhorse, with Henry Fitzroy on his pony trotting beside him. He was trying to teach the prince to jump, assuring him that the pony already knew how, that all the boy had to do was touch his spurs to the beast’s flanks and hold on.
But Fitzroy could not bring himself to attempt the jump. Time and again the king encouraged him—even dared him—and time and again the prince turned the pony’s head sharply at the last minute and avoided the hazard.
“By all the saints, boy, how will you fight the French if you can’t jump a hedge no higher than a snake’s garter?”
There was no answer. Fitzroy hung his head.
“I hurt, father,” he managed to say at last, his voice weak. “My stomach hurts.” And he cupped his hands over his velvet doublet where the pain was.
The king wheeled Coeurdelion and spurred him to gallop. The great horse thundered down the length of the tiltyard, his hooves raising dust and his thick blond mane flying. Then the horse wheeled again and returned the way he had come, stopping suddenly and with a great whinnying just short of the prince on his frightened pony.
“You hurt?” Henry shouted. “You have a bellyache? Pah! My head is about to split open, my leg feels like some damned villain stuck a lance in it and as for my balls—” He swore graphically, then grunted. “As for my balls, well, you’ll know about that pain soon enough, when you’re older. Fight the pain, boy! Learn to fight the pain, or you’ll never fight the French!”
“My tutor says we must fear the soldiers of the emperor, not the French,” the prince managed to say.
“I’d like to see your tutor put on armor and take the field,” was the king’s sarcastic response. “His bones would turn to water before he took a step, right enough, weakling that he is.” He paused, then added, “Though he isn’t hired to be a soldier, he’s hired to teach you Greek, and that he does very well.” King Henry, who had a good deal of learning himself and admired scholars, was quick to modify his comments.
While I watched, the king tried again to convince his son to be bold and jump the low hedge, but the effort failed, and in the end Henry got down off his horse and slapped the pony on the rump, sending the boy away toward the stables.
It was then that he caught sight of me, and beckoned me over to where he was standing.
“Oh, that boy, that boy,” he was saying to himself, shaking his head. “Between the boy and the lawyers and the women, like two cats squabbling—”
I assumed that by “two cats squabbling” he meant Anne and Queen Catherine, but I had nothing to say to that, and so was silent.
“What is it, Jane?”
“If Your Majesty pleases, it is about the silver mesh trim for my gown.”
“Yes, of course. You need more of it, I take it.”
“Mr. Skut requires more, Your Majesty.”
“I shall have it sent to him tomorrow.”
“Thank you, Your Majesty.” I hesitated. “There is one other thing.”
“Yes?”
“The queen’s new confessor, Father Bartolome. He isn’t what he seems.”
“Oh?” There was amusement in his king’s eyes.
“He is Ambassador Chapuys’ man. A spy.”
“Of course he is. But then, better the devil you know, eh? Is it not so? All Spaniards ought to be sent to the bottom of the sea, as Anne loves to say!”
“Not all Spaniards,” I said stubbornly. “Not my former mistress, the queen.”
The king frowned. “Watch your words, girl. Learn from your brother and bend with the wind. Right now the wind is not in the queen’s favor. Indeed, a tempest is brewing. A tempest that, if I’m not mistaken, will blow the queen clean away. Or send her to the bottom of the ocean!”
THIRTEEN
By the time Mr. Skut brought my finished wedding gown to the palace and I tried it on, I was feeling ill at ease about marrying Will, and all because of Galyon.
Not that the gown was any less lovely than the last time I had seen it—in fact it was lovelier than ever, with the glittering silver trim all in place and the sleeves tied on properly and the elegant, whispering petticoats and undergarments spread out to their full extent, their length barely sweeping the rushes on the floor.
“We’ll have to shorten that skirt,” Mr. Skut was saying, indicating to his assistants how much of the shimmering pale blue satin would have to be hemmed. “You’re not a very tall girl, are you,” he added, more to himself than to me.
“And when is the wedding?” the dressmaker asked me presently, in a brighter tone.
“I don’t yet know. We are waiting until our home is ready.” Will had been repeatedly assured by his father that Chevering Manor would be ours, but first Arthur Dormer had to find a house and land near London, and move out of his former residence, and that was proving to be difficult. So we waited.
I could not help thinking that the delay was providential. Maybe I wasn’t supposed to marry Will. Maybe I was supposed to wait for Galyon. After all, this was not our first delay; in the beginning there had been Will’s parents’ refusal to permit the marriage, because of my father’s seduction (I preferred to think it a seduction) of Will’s sister. Then had come my decision not to run away to the Spice Islands with Will aboard the Eglantine, and the ship’s foundering. And now there was the matter of the house, our house, that was not yet ours, and might not be for some time.
Providence, I had always believed, worked to bring about good results we cannot foresee. It governed our lives and determined our destinies. So when Will’s father ran into problems time and again in acquiring a new residence, I had to believe it was more than coincidence. I had to believe that the hand of the divine was at work.
How else to explain the number of times Arthur Dormer had tried, and failed, to become the owner of a property worthy of his new standing at court?
If only I had never seen Galyon, there at the window, and felt the irresistible force of his presence! If only I had not gone to meet him in the darkness, and felt the roughness of his hands, the softness of his lips, the press of his muscular body, the long, lean strength of him. Had I never known what deep and joyous pleasures he could arouse in me, I would surely have been content to go on as I was. But now that I did know, could I ever be content again?
“I do believe you are more slender than when this gown was first fitted,” Mr. Skut was saying. “We shall have to take it in.”
I was not surprised to hear the comment, for I had been eating little, the excitement of my meetings with Galyon had taken away my appetite. We had only been together a few times since our first midnight meeting, but each time the attraction had been stronger than the time before. Each meeting had left me eager and impatient for the next—and at the same time unsettled, out of balance with myself. I felt at times as though I was basking in the delicious warmth at the end of a long summer season, waiting for the weather to break and the storms and cold to come rushing in.
For of course my dalliance with the alluring glazier could not be anything but a fleeting, rapturous dream. A passing wonderment. Here I was, after all, preparing for my marriage to my long time love and best friend. Preparing to leave the court with its poisonous quarrels, harms, traps set for the unwary, its ever unfolding intrigues. I would marry Will the gentleman farmer, mild-mannered and sweet. We would begin our new life together. The fleeting season of joy with Galyon would pass, and the storms and perils of real life would begin.
But with Will I would never know rapture. Of this I felt certain. How could I marry a man who could not share with me all that I had discovered with Galyon?
And what disturbed me at least as much, how could I keep to myself the secret of
my betrayal? I had always confided in Will, I had never lied to him. But this secret I had to keep. I would never, ever, tell him about Galyon. This troubled me, and as so often happened, Bridget Wingfield read my mind.
“You are not yourself, Jane,” she said when she came upon me one afternoon when I had been brooding over my dilemma. “Are you worried about becoming a wife?”
I sighed—and she took my sigh as acquiescence. She sat down beside me.
“Are you worried about the pain of becoming a mother?”
I nodded—though the pain of childbirth was not, in fact, in my thoughts.
Bridget moved closer to me.
“I have heard the most alarming story, just a few days ago. From a midwife who has delivered hundreds of babies. She told me about a healthy woman whose monthly courses ceased—but her belly did not swell.”
“But if her belly did not swell, then where was the child?”
“In her side,” Bridget whispered.
I had never heard of this. I wanted to hear more.
“Her side swelled, a little,” Bridget went on, “and then she got very sick and died.”
“And she did not have the sweat, or the plague?”
Bridget shook her head slowly.
“How horrible.”
“The midwife says it can happen. A sign of an unnatural child.”
“A child not meant to be born,” I said, thinking, a child whose death was decreed by providence.
We were both silent for a time. These were solemn matters.
“To be sure,” Bridget went on eventually, “there is no reason for you to fear such a terrible outcome. I believe it to be quite rare.
“I was nervous and unsure before my marriage too,” she said. “All was arranged by others. Richard was much older. I barely knew him. I never had the chance to choose him, because the choice was never mine to make.
“I liked him,” she went on, “I did not love him, of course—how often do married people love one another? And if they do, how long does it last? But I thought that Richard and I could be content together. I was sure he would never be cruel to me.”
The Favored Queen: A Novel of Henry VIII's Third Wife Page 12
