Philippa Gregory 3-Book Tudor Collection 1 Read online

  Of course we will have dancing here for Christmas, but that is not what I mean at all. What is the pleasure in dancing when everyone who sees you has seen you every day for a year before? What’s the pleasure in a feast when every boy in the room is as familiar as the tapestries on the walls? Where’s the joy in having a man’s eyes on you when he is your own man, your own husband, and he would come to your bed whether you dance prettily or not? I try a special turn and curtsey that I have been practising and it does me no good at all. Nobody seems to notice except my grandmother, who sees everything, and she calls me out of the line and puts her finger under my chin and says: ‘Child, there is no need to twinkle around like some slut of an Italian. We all watch you anyway.’ By which I am supposed to understand that I should not dance like a lady, like an elegant young lady, with some style; but like a child.

  I curtsey and say nothing. There is no point in arguing with my lady grandmother, she has such a temper she can send me from the room in a moment if I so much as open my mouth. I really do think I am very cruelly treated.

  ‘And what’s this I hear about you and young Master Dereham?’ she suddenly asks. ‘I thought I had warned you once already?’

  ‘I don’t know what you hear, Grandmother,’ I say cleverly.

  Too clever for her, because she raps my hand with her fan.

  ‘Don’t forget who you are, Katherine Howard,’ she says sharply. ‘When your uncle sends for you to wait on the queen, I take it you will not want to refuse because of some greensick flirtation?’

  ‘Wait on the queen?’ I go at once to the most important thing.

  ‘Perhaps,’ she says maddeningly. ‘Perhaps she will have need of a maid in waiting if the girl has been gently raised and is not known to be an utter slut.’

  I cannot speak, I am so desperate. ‘Grandmother … I …’

  ‘Never mind,’ she says and waves me away back to the dancers. I clutch at her sleeve and beg to know more; but she laughs and sends me to dance. As she is watching me, I hop about like a little wooden doll, I am so correct in the steps and so polite in my deportment that you would think I had a crown on my head myself. I dance like a nun, I dance like a vestal virgin, and when I look up to see if she is impressed by my modesty she is laughing at me.

  So that night, when Francis comes to the chamber door, I meet him on the threshold. ‘You can’t come in,’ I say bluntly. ‘My lady grandmother knows all about us. She warned me for my reputation.’

  He looks shocked. ‘But my love …’

  ‘I can’t risk it,’ I insist. ‘She knows far more than we thought. God knows what she has heard or who has told her.’

  ‘We would not deny each other,’ he says.

  ‘No,’ I say uncertainly.

  ‘If she asks you, you must tell her that we are married in the eyes of God.’

  ‘Yes, but …’

  ‘And I shall come to you as your husband now.’

  ‘You can’t.’ Nothing in this world is going to prevent me from being the new queen’s maid in waiting. Not even my undying love for Francis.

  He puts his hand around my waist and nibbles at the nape of my neck. ‘I shall be going to Ireland within days,’ he whispers softly. ‘You will not send me away with my heart breaking.’

  I hesitate. It would be very sad for his heart to break, but I have to be maid in waiting to the new queen, there is nothing more important than that.

  ‘I don’t want your heart to break,’ I say. ‘But I have to take a post in the queen’s household, and who knows what might happen?’

  He lets me go abruptly. ‘Oh, so you think you’re going to go to court?’ he asks crossly. ‘And flirt with some great lord? Or one of your noble cousins or someone? A Culpepper or a Mowbray or a Neville or someone?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ I say. It is really marvellous how dignified I can be. You would think I was my grandmother. ‘I cannot discuss my plans with you now.’

  ‘Kitty!’ he cries, he is torn between anger and lust. ‘You are my wife, you are my promised wife! You are my own beloved!’

  ‘I must ask you to withdraw,’ I say very grandly, and I close the door in his face and run and take a flying leap into my bed.

  ‘What now?’ asks Agnes. At the far end of the dormitory they have drawn the curtains around the bed, some boy and some loose girl are lovemaking, and I can hear his eager panting and her sighing.

  ‘Can’t you be quiet?’ I shout down the long room. ‘It’s really shocking. It is offensive to a young maid such as me. It’s shocking. It really shouldn’t be allowed.’

  Anne, Calais, December 1539

  In all this long journey I have started to learn how I shall be when I am queen. The English ladies that my lord the king sent to be with me have spoken English to me every day, and my lord Southampton has been at my side at every town we have entered, and has prompted me and guided me in the most helpful way. They are a most formal and dignified people, everything has to be done by rote, by rule, and I am learning to hide my excitement at the greetings, the music, and the crowds who everywhere come out to see me. I don’t want to seem like the country sister of a minor duke, I want to be like a queen, a true Queen of England.

  At every town I have had a welcome of people thronging in the streets, calling out my name and bringing me posies and gifts. Most towns present me with a loyal address and give me a purse of gold or some valuable jewellery. But my arrival in my first English town, the port of Calais, is dwarfing everything that went before. It is a mighty English castle with a great walled town around it, built to withstand any attack from France, the enemy, just outside the powerfully guarded gates. We enter by the south gate that looks over the road towards the kingdom of France and we are greeted by an English nobleman, Lord Lisle, and dozens of gentlemen and noblemen, dressed very fine, with a small army of men dressed in red and blue livery.

  I thank God for sending me Lord Lisle to be my friend and advisor in these difficult days for he is a kind man, with something of the look of my father. Without him, I would be speechless from terror as well as from my lack of English. He is dressed as fine as a king himself, and there are so very many English noblemen with him that they are like a sea of furs and velvet. But he takes my cold hand in his big warm grip and he smiles at me and says ‘Courage’. I may not know the word till I ask my interpreter, but I know a friend when I see one, and I find a small peaky smile and then he tucks my hand into the crook of his arm and leads me down the broad street to the harbour. The bells are pealing a welcome to me, and all the merchants’ wives and children are lining the streets to have a look at me and the apprentice boys and servants all shout, ‘Anna of Cleves, hurrah!’ as I go by.

  In the harbour there are two huge ships, the king’s own, one called the Sweepstake, which means something about gambling, and one named the Lion, both flying banners and sounding the trumpets as they see me approach. They have been sent from England to bring me to the king, and with them comes a huge fleet to escort me. The gunners fire off rounds, and the cannon roar, and the whole town is drenched in smoke and noise, but this is a great compliment and so I smile and try not to flinch. We go on to the Staple Hall where the mayor of the town and the merchants give me greetings in long speeches and two purses of gold and Lady Lisle, who is here to greet me with her husband, presents my ladies in waiting to me.

  They all accompany me back to the king’s house, the Chequer, and I stand as one after another comes forwards and says their name and presents their compliments and makes their bow or their curtsey. I am so tired and so overwhelmed by the whole day that I feel my knees start to weaken underneath me but still they come on, one after another. My lady Lisle stands beside me and says each name in my ear and tells me a little about them, but I cannot understand her words and, besides, there are too many strangers to take it all in. It is a dizzying crowd of people; but they are all smiling kindly at me, and they all bow so respectfully. I ought to be glad of such attention and not overwhelmed by i