Philippa Gregory 3-Book Tudor Collection 1 Read online

Katherine, I notice, kneels to pray but does not close her eyes, I would swear she does not say so much as a Hail Mary. She clasps her long white fingers together and she kneels and draws breath but there is no thought of God in her mind. No thought of anything at all, would be my bet. There is never much in that pretty head. If she is praying for anything it is for sables like Queen Anne had for her betrothal.

  Of course she is too young to be a good queen. She is too young to be anything but a silly girl. She knows nothing of charity to the poor, nothing of the duties of her great position, nothing about running a great household, let alone running a country. When I think that Queen Katherine was named regent and commanded England I could laugh out loud. This child could not command a pet dove. But she is pleasant and agreeable to the king. The duke her uncle has coached her pretty well in obedience and politeness, and it is my task to watch for the rest. She dances very prettily for the king, and she sits quietly beside him while he talks to men old enough to be her grandfather. She smiles when he addresses a remark to her, and she lets him pinch her cheek or hug her waist without grimace. At dinner the other night he could not keep his hands off her breasts and she blushed but did not pull away when he pawed at her before all the company. She has been raised in a hard school, the duchess is known for a heavy hand with her girls. The duke will have threatened her with the axe if she does not obey the king in thought and word and deed. And, to do her justice, she is a sweet thing anyway, she is glad of the king’s presents, and glad to be queen. It is easy for her to be pretty and pleasing to him. He does not ask for much now. He does not want a wife of high intelligence and moral purpose like Queen Katherine. Nor one with a wit of fire like Anne. He just wants to enjoy her slim young body and get a baby on her.

  It is as well the court is not here, in these early days of their marriage. Her family and those who profit from the marriage can look away from him pulling her about, her little hand lost in his grip, her determined smile when he stumbles on his bad leg, her rosy blush of embarrassment when his hand wanders to her crotch under the dinner table. Anyone who was not profiting from this mismatch wedding would find it disturbing to see such a pretty child dished up for such an old man. Anyone speaking honestly would call it a sort of rape.

  Fortunate then, that there is no-one here who would ever speak honestly.

  Anne, Richmond Palace, 6 August 1540

  He is to visit me for dinner. Why, I cannot think. The royal groom of the household came yesterday and told my steward that the king would have the pleasure of dining with me today. I asked those ladies who are still with me if anyone had any news from the court, and one of them said that she had heard that the king was at Oatlands Palace, all but alone, hunting to take his mind off the terrible betrayal of Thomas Cromwell.

  One of them asked me if I thought the king was coming to beg my pardon and to ask me to come back to him.

  ‘Is it possible?’ I ask her.

  ‘If he was mistaken? If the inquiry was mistaken?’ she asks. ‘Why else would he come and see you, so soon after the end of the marriage? If he still wants to end the marriage, why would he dine with you?’

  I go outside to the beautiful gardens and walk a little way, my head buzzing with thoughts. It does not seem possible that he should want to take me back, but there is no doubt that if he has changed his mind he can take me back, just as easily as he could put me aside.

  I wonder if it would be possible for me to refuse to go back to him. I would want to return to the court and to be restored to my position, of course. But there is a freedom to being a single woman that I might learn to enjoy. I have never in my life before been Anne of Cleves, Anne by myself, not a sister, not a daughter, not a wife, but Anne: pleasing myself. I swore if I was spared death then I would live my life, my own life, not a life commanded by others. I order dresses in colours that I think suit me, I don’t have to observe my brother’s code of modesty, nor the court fashions. I order dinner at the time and with the food that I like; I don’t have to sit down in front of two hundred people who watch every single thing I do. When I want to ride out I can go as far and as fast as I like, I don’t have to consider my brother’s fears or my husband’s competitive spirit. If I call for musicians in the evening I can dance with my ladies or hear them sing, we don’t always have to follow the king’s tastes. We don’t have to marvel at his compositions. I can pray to a god of my own faith in the words that I choose. I can become myself, I can be: me.

  I had thought that my heart would leap at the chance to be queen again. My chance to do my duty by this country, by its people, by the children who I have come to love, and perhaps even to win my mother’s approval and to fulfil my brother’s ambitions. But I find, to my own amusement, as I examine my thoughts – and at last I have the privacy and peace to examine my thoughts – that it may be a better thing to be a single woman with a good income in one of the finest palaces in England than to be one of Henry’s frightened queens.

  The royal guards come first, and then his companions, handsome and overdressed as always. Then he comes in with a touch of awkwardness, limping slightly on his sore leg. I sink down in a low curtsey and I can smell the familiar stink of his wound as I come up. Never again will I have to wake with that smell on my sheets, I think, as I step forwards and he kisses me on the forehead.

  He looks me up and down, frankly, as a man appraising a horse. I remember that he told the court that I smell and that my breasts are slack and I can feel my colour rising. ‘You look well,’ he says begrudgingly. I can hear the pique behind his praise. He was hoping I would pine with unrequited love, I am sure.

  ‘I am well,’ I say calmly. ‘Glad to see you.’

  He smiles at that. ‘You must have known I would never treat you unfairly,’ he says, happy at the thought of his own generosity. ‘If you are a good sister to me then you will see I shall be kind to you.’

  I nod and bow.

  ‘Something’s different about you.’ He takes a chair and gestures that I may sit on the lower chair beside him. I sit and smooth the embroidered skirt of the blue gown over my knees. ‘Tell me. I can judge a woman just by the look of her; I know that there is something different about you. What is it?’

  ‘A new hood?’ I suggest.

  He nods. ‘It becomes you. It becomes you very well.’

  I say nothing. It is French-cut. If the Howard girl has returned to court he will be accustomed to the very height and folly of fashion. In any case, now I no longer wear the crown, I can wear what I please. It’s funny, if I was of a mind to laugh, that he should prefer me dressed to my own taste, than when I tried to please his. But what he likes in a woman he would not like in a wife. Katherine Howard may discover this.

  ‘I have some news.’ He looks around at my small court of companions, his gentlemen standing about. ‘Leave us.’

  They go out as slowly as they dare. They are all longing to know what will happen next. I am certain that it will not be an invitation to me to return to him. I am certain that it will not be; and yet I am breathless to know.

  ‘Some news that may distress you,’ he says to prepare me. At once I think that my mother has died, far away, and without a chance for me to explain how I failed her.

  ‘No need to cry,’ he says quickly.

  I put my hand to my mouth and nip my knuckles. ‘I am not crying,’ I say steadily.

  ‘That’s good,’ he says. ‘And besides, you must have known it would happen.’

  ‘I didn’t expect it,’ I say foolishly. ‘I didn’t expect it so soon.’ Surely they should have sent for me if they knew she was gravely ill?

  ‘Well, it is my duty.’

  ‘Your duty?’ I want so much to know if my mother spoke of me in her last days that I hardly hear him.

  ‘I am married,’ he says. ‘Married. I thought I should tell you first, before you hear it from some gossip.’

  ‘I thought it was about my mother?’

  ‘Your mother? No. Why would it be about y