Philippa Gregory 3-Book Tudor Collection 1 Read online

  By luck, when I get there the outer presence chamber is unusually empty, so many people have gone home. So Thomas Culpepper is almost alone, playing at dice, right hand against left, in the window-seat.

  ‘Are you winning?’ I ask him, trying to speak lightly.

  He leaps to his feet as he sees me, and bows.

  ‘I always win, Your Grace,’ he says. His smile makes my heart skip a beat. It really does, it truly does, when he tosses his head like that and smiles I can hear my heart go: thud-thud.

  ‘That is not a great skill if you are playing alone,’ I say aloud, and to myself I say: and that’s not very witty.

  ‘I win at dice and I win at cards but I am hopeless at love,’ he says very quietly.

  I glance behind me, Katherine Tylney has stopped to talk to the Duke of Hertford’s kinsman and is not listening, for once. Catherine Carey is at a discreet distance, looking out of the window.

  ‘You are in love?’ I ask.

  ‘You must know it,’ he says in a whisper.

  I hardly dare think. He must mean me, he must be about to declare his love for me. But I swear if he is talking about someone else I shall just die. I can’t bear him to want someone else. But I keep my voice light.

  ‘Why should I know it?’

  ‘You must know who I love,’ he says. ‘You, of all people in the world.’

  This conversation is so delicious I can feel my toes curling up inside my new slippers. I feel hot, I am certain I am blushing and he will be able to see.

  ‘Must I?’

  ‘The king will see you now,’ announces the idiot Dr Butt and I jump and start away from Thomas Culpepper, for I had utterly forgotten that I was there to see the king and to make him love me again. ‘I’ll come in a minute,’ I say over my shoulder.

  Thomas gives a little snort of laughter, and I have to clap my hand over my mouth to stop myself giggling too. ‘No, you must go,’ he reminds me quietly. ‘You can’t keep the king waiting. I’ll be here when you come out.’

  ‘Of course I am going at once,’ I say, remembering that I have to seem upset at the king’s neglect, and I turn away from him in a hurry and dash into the king’s room, where he is lying on his bed like a great ship stranded in dry dock, his leg stuck up into the air on embroidered cushions and his big round face all wan and self-pitiful; and I walk slowly towards his big bed and try to look anxious for his love.

  Jane Boleyn, Hampton Court, March 1541

  The king is sliding into some kind of melancholy, he insists on being alone, shut away like some old dying smelly dog, and Katherine’s attempts to make him turn to her are doomed since she cannot sustain an interest in anyone but herself for more than half a day. She has gone to his room again but this time he would not even let her in, and instead of showing concern, she tossed her pretty head and said that if he would not let her in she would not visit again.

  But she lingered long enough to meet Thomas Culpepper and he took her walking in the garden. I sent Catherine Carey after her with a shawl and another well-behaved maid to give them the appearance of decorum, but from the way the queen was holding his arm, and chattering and laughing, anybody could see that she was happy in his company and had forgotten all about her husband lying in silence in a darkened room.

  My lord duke gives me a long, hard look at dinner but says nothing, and I know that he expects me to get our little bitch serviced and in pup. A son would raise the king from his melancholy, and secure the crown for the Howard family forever. We have to do it this time. We have to manage it. No other family in the world has had two attempts at such a prize. We cannot fail twice.

  In her pique Katherine summons musicians to the ladies’ chamber and dances with her women and the people of her household. It isn’t very merry and two of the wilder girls, Joan and Agnes, run down to the dining hall and invite some men from the court. When I see they have done this I send a page for Thomas Culpepper to see if he will be fool enough to come. He is.

  I see her face as he comes into the room, the rise of her colour, and then how quickly she turns away and speaks to little Catherine Carey at her side. Plainly, she is quite besotted with him and for a moment I remember that she is not just a pawn in our game, but a girl, a young girl, and she is falling in love for the first time in her life. To see little Kitty Howard at a loss, stumbling in her speech, blushing like a rose, thinking of someone else and not herself is to see a girl become a woman. It would be very endearing if she were not Queen of England and a Howard with work to do.

  Thomas Culpepper joins the set of dancers and places himself so that he will partner the queen when the couples pair off. She looks down at the ground to hide her smile of pleasure and to affect modesty, but when the dance brings them together and she takes his hand her eyes come up to him and they gaze at each other with absolute longing.

  I glance round, nobody else seems to have noticed, and indeed half the queen’s ladies are making sheep’s eyes at one young man or another. I glance across at Lady Rutland and raise my eyebrows, she nods and goes to the queen and speaks quietly in her ear. Katherine scowls like a disappointed child, and then turns to the musicians. ‘This must be the last dance,’ she says sulkily. But she turns and her hand goes out, almost without her volition, to Thomas Culpepper.

  Katherine, Hampton Court, March 1541

  Every day I see him and every day we are a little bolder with each other. The king still has not come out from his rooms, and his circle of physicians and doctors and the old men who advise him hardly ever come to my rooms so it is as if we are free in these days – just us young people together. The court is quiet with no dancing and no entertainment, since it is Lent. I cannot even have dancing privately in my rooms any more. We cannot hunt, nor boat on the river, nor play games, nor anything amusing. But we are allowed to walk in the gardens, or by the river after Mass, and when I am walking Thomas Culpepper walks beside me, and I would rather walk with him than dance dressed in my best with a prince.

  ‘Are you cold?’ he says.

  Hardly, I am buried in my sables, but I look up at him and say: ‘A little.’

  ‘Let me warm your hand,’ he says, and tucks it under his arm so that it is pressed against his jacket. I have such a longing to open the front of his jacket and put both my hands inside. His belly would be smooth and hard, I think. His chest may be covered with light hair. I don’t know, it is so thrilling that I don’t know. I know the scent of him, at least, I can recognise it now. He has a warm smell, like good-quality candles. It burns me up.

  ‘Is that better?’ he asks, pressing my hand to his side.

  ‘Much better,’ I say.

  We are walking beside the river and a boatman goes past and shouts something at the two of us. With only a handful of ladies and courtiers before and behind us, nobody knows that I am the queen.

  ‘I wish we were just a boy and a girl walking out together.’

  ‘Do you wish you were not queen?’

  ‘No, I like being queen – and of course I love His Majesty the king with all my heart and soul – but if we were just a girl and a boy we could be strolling to an inn for some dinner and dancing, and that would be fun.’

  ‘If we were a girl and a boy I would take you to a special house I know,’ he says.

  ‘Would you? Why?’ I can hear the entranced giggle in my own voice, but I cannot help myself.

  ‘It has a private dining room and a very good cook. I would give you the finest of dinners and then I would court you,’ he says.

  I give a little gasp of pretend shock. ‘Master Culpepper!’

  ‘I would not stop till I had a kiss,’ he says outrageously. ‘And then I would go on.’

  ‘My grandmother would box your ears,’ I threaten him.

  ‘It would be worth it.’ He smiles and I can feel my heart thudding. I want to laugh out loud for the sheer joy of him.

  ‘Perhaps I would kiss you back,’ I whisper.

  ‘I am quite sure you would,’ he sa