Philippa Gregory 3-Book Tudor Collection 1 Read online

  He gives me the most rueful sweet smile, bows and steps to one side.

  He limps from the arena and the victor of this first joust takes a slow canter around the outside circle, his lance held upright, acknowledging the shouts from the crowd who have won their bets on him. I look back at my ladies and Lady Lisle is gazing after the young man as if she adores him and Katherine Howard, with a cape thrown around her costume, is watching him from the back of the box.

  ‘Enough,’ I say. I have to learn to command my ladies. They have to behave as my mother would approve. The Queen of England and her ladies must be above question. Certainly the three of us should not be gawping after a handsome young man. ‘Katherine, get dressed at once. Lady Lisle, where your husband his lordship?’

  They both nod, and Katherine whisks away. I sit back on my throne while another champion and his challenger ride into the ring. This time the poem is very long and in Latin, and my hand creeps to my pocket where a letter rustles. It is from Elizabeth, the six-year-old princess. I have read it and re-read it so often that I know I have her meaning, indeed, I almost have every word by heart. She promises me her respect as a queen and her entire obedience to me as her mother. I could almost weep for her, dear little girl, creating these great solemn phrases and then copying them over and over until the handwriting is as regular as any royal clerk. Clearly, she hopes to come to court and indeed, I do think that she might be allowed to enter my household. I have maids in waiting who are not very much older than her and it would be such a pleasure to have her with me. Besides, she lives all but alone, in her own household with her governess and nurse. Surely the king would prefer her to be near us, to be supervised by me?

  There is a fanfare of trumpets and I look up to see the riders drawn to one side and saluting as the king limps across the arena to the front of my box. The pages spring to open the doors so that he can mount the steps. He has to be heaved up by a young man on either side. I know enough about him by now to know that this, before a watching crowd, will make him bad-tempered. He feels humiliated and self-conscious and his first desire will be to humiliate someone else. I stand and curtsey to greet him, I never know whether I should put out my hand or reach forwards in case he wants to kiss me. Today, before the crowd that likes me, he draws me to him and kisses me on the mouth and everyone cheers. He is clever at this; he always does something to please the crowd.

  He sits on his chair and I stand beside him.

  ‘Culpepper took a hard knock,’ he says.

  I don’t quite understand this so I say nothing to it. There is an awkward silence and clearly it is my turn to speak. I have to think hard to find something to say and the correct English words. Finally I have it: ‘You like to joust?’ I ask.

  The scowl he turns on me is quite terrifying, his eyebrows are drawn down so hard that they almost cover his furious little eyes. I have clearly said utterly the wrong thing and offended him very deeply. I gasp, I don’t know what I have said that is so very bad.

  ‘Excuse me, forgive …’ I stammer.

  ‘I like to joust?’ he repeats bitterly. ‘Indeed yes, I would like to joust, but for being crippled with pain with a wound that never heals, that is poisoning me every day, that will be the death of me. Probably in a matter of months. That makes it agony to walk and agony to stand and agony to ride, but no fool thinks of it.’

  Lady Lisle steps forwards. ‘Sire, Your Grace, what the queen means to say is, do you like to watch the joust?’ she says quickly. ‘She did not mean to offend you, Your Grace. She is learning our language with remarkable speed, but she cannot help small errors.’

  ‘She cannot help being as dull as a block,’ he shouts at her. Spittle from his pursed mouth sprays her face but she does not flinch. Steadily she sinks into a curtsey and stays down low.

  He looks her over but does not tell her to rise. He leaves her in her discomfort and turns to me. ‘I like to watch it because it is all that is left for me,’ he says bitterly. ‘You know nothing; but I was the greatest champion. I took on all-comers. Not once, but every time. I jousted in disguise so that no-one did me any favours, and even when they rode as hard as they could I still defeated them. I was the greatest champion in England. Nobody could defeat me, I would ride all day, I would break dozens of lances. Do you understand that, you dullard?’

  Still shaken, I nod, though in truth, he speaks so fast and so angrily that I can understand hardly any of this. I try to smile but my lips are trembling.

  ‘No-one could beat me,’ he insists. ‘Ever. Not one knight. I was the greatest jouster in England, perhaps in the world. I was unbeatable and I could ride all day and dance all night, and be up the next day at dawn to go hunting. You know nothing. Nothing. Do I like to joust? – good God, I was the heart of chivalry! I was the darling of the crowd, I was the toast of every tournament! There was none like me! I was the greatest knight since those of the round table! I was a legend.’

  ‘No-one who saw you could ever forget it,’ Lady Lisle says sweetly, raising her head. ‘You are the greatest knight that ever entered a ring. Even now I have never seen your equal. There is no equal. None of them in these days can equal you.’

  ‘Hmm,’ he says irritably, and falls silent.

  There is a long, awkward pause and there is nobody in the jousting arena to divert us, and everyone is waiting for me to say something pleasant to my husband, who sits in silence, scowling at the herbs on the floor.

  ‘Oh, get up,’ he says crossly to Lady Lisle. ‘Your old knees will lock up if you stay down for much longer.’

  ‘I have letter,’ I say quietly, trying to change the subject to something less controversial to him.

  He turns and looks at me, he tries to smile, but I can see he is irritated by me, by my accent, by my halting speech.

  ‘You have letter,’ he repeats, in harsh mimicry.

  ‘From Princess Elizabeth,’ I say.

  ‘Lady,’ he replies. ‘Lady Elizabeth.’

  I hesitate. ‘Lady Elizabeth,’ I say obediently. I take out my precious letter and show it to him. ‘May she come here? May she live with me?’

  He twitches the letter from my hand, and I have to stop myself from snatching it back. I want to keep it. It is my first letter from my little stepdaughter. He screws up his eyes to stare at it then he snaps at his pageboy who hands him his spectacles. He puts them on to read but he shades his face from the crowd so that the common people shall not know that the King of England is losing the sight of his squinty eyes. He scans the letter quickly, then he hands it with the spectacles to his page.

  ‘Is my letter,’ I say quietly.

  ‘I shall reply for you.’

  ‘Can she come to me?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Your Grace, please?’

  ‘No.’

  I hesitate, but my stubborn nature, learned under the hard fist of my brother, a bad-tempered, spoiled child just like this king, urges me on.

  ‘So, why not?’ I demand. ‘She writes me, she asks me, I wish to see her. So why not?’

  He rises to his feet and leans on the back of the chair to look down on me. ‘She had a mother so unlike you, in every way, that she ought not to ask for your company,’ he says flatly. ‘If she had known her mother she would never ask to see you. And so I shall tell her.’ Then he rises to his feet and stamps down the stairs, out of my box, and across the arena to his own.

  Jane Boleyn, Whitehall Palace, February 1540

  I have been expecting this summons to confer with my lord the duke at some stage during the tournament but he did not send for me. Perhaps he too remembers the tournament at May Day and the fall of her handkerchief and the laughter of her friends. Perhaps even he cannot hear the trumpet sound without thinking of her white-faced and desperate on that hot May Day morning. He waits until the tournament is over and life in the palace of Whitehall has returned to normal and then he tells me to come to his rooms.

  This is a palace for plotting, all the corridors twist r