The Taming of the Queen Read online

  I go to my own rooms in the day and I am able to work on the liturgy with my ladies. In the afternoons Thomas Cranmer often comes in, and we work together. It is not a long piece, of course, but it is intense. It feels as if every word must be weighted with holiness. There is not a spare line or a false note from beginning to end.

  In May, the archbishop brings me the first printed copy, bows and lays it in my lap.

  ‘This is it?’ I say almost wonderingly, my finger on the smooth leather cover.

  ‘This is it,’ he replies. ‘My work and yours, perhaps the greatest work that I will ever do. Perhaps the greatest gift that you will ever be able to give to the English people. Now they can pray in their own language. Now they can speak and trust that God hears them. They can be the people of God, indeed.’

  I cannot lift my hand from the cover; it is as if I am touching the hand of God. ‘My lord, this is a work that will last for generations.’

  ‘And you have done your part in it,’ he says generously. ‘Here is a woman’s voice as well as a man’s, and men and women will say these prayers, perhaps they will even kneel side by side, equals in the sight of God.’

  SAINT JAMES’S PALACE, LONDON, SUMMER 1544

  We have days of sunshine and the king gets stronger. He is pleased with his campaign against Scotland, and in June we go to the rebuilt Saint James’s Palace for the wedding of his niece, my lady-in-waiting and friend Margaret Douglas, to a Scots nobleman, Matthew Stuart, the Earl of Lennox. Here the king can walk in the garden and he starts to move more easily and even takes up archery, though he’ll never play tennis again. He watches the young men of the court and I know that he eyes them as if they were still his rivals though he is far older than they are, older than their fathers, and he will never strip off his jacket and dance in his lawn shirt again. Especially, he watches the handsome young bridegroom Matthew Stuart.

  ‘He’ll win Scotland over for me,’ Henry says in my ear as the bride and groom walk handclasped down the aisle. Henry’s niece throws me a naughty wink as she goes by. She is a most unruly bride, openly relieved at finally being allowed to marry aged nearly thirty years old, after two scandals, both of them involving young men from the Howard house. ‘He’ll win Scotland for me and then Prince Edward shall marry the little Queen of Scots – Mary – and I shall see Scotland and England united.’

  ‘That would be wonderful if it can be done.’

  ‘Of course it can be done.’

  The king heaves himself to his feet and leans on the arm of a page as we process down the aisle. I walk by his side and we go slowly, an ungainly trio, towards the open chapel doors. There is to be a great feast in honour of this wedding, which promises so much for the safety of England.

  ‘With the Scots on my side it leaves me safe to take France,’ Henry says.

  ‘My lord husband, are you really well enough to go yourself?’

  The smile he shows me is as bright as any young captain in his army. ‘I can ride,’ he says. ‘However weak my leg is beneath me when I am walking, at least I can sit on a horse. And if I can ride at the head of my army I can lead them to Paris. You’ll see.’

  I look up to protest – half the Privy Council have come to me and begged me to support their appeal to the king that he does not go to war himself; even the Spanish ambassador says that the emperor advises against it – when I see, among the hundreds crowding into the chapel, the turn of a dark head, a profile, a jewel in a hat, and, from under the brim of the hat, a quick glance at me, and at once, in a moment, I know my lover, Thomas Seymour.

  I would know him anywhere. I recognised him by the back of his head. The king has stumbled and is cursing the page for failing to support him, and I step back and grab Nan’s arm and grip it tightly as the dimly-lit chapel swims around me and I think that I am going to faint.

  ‘What is it?’ she demands.

  ‘A gripe,’ I say at random. ‘In my belly. Just my monthly course.’

  ‘Steady,’ she says, watching me, so she does not notice Thomas and he has the sense to step back, out of sight. I take a few dizzy steps, blinking. I cannot see him but I can feel his eyes on me, I can feel his presence in the little chapel, I can almost smell the haunting scent of his clean sweat. I feel as if the print of his naked chest is on my cheek like a brand. I feel as if anyone looking at me could know that I am his lover, I am his whore. One night I lay beneath him and begged him to swive me all night, as if I were his field and he a plough.

  I dig my fingernails into the palms of my hands as if I would draw blood. The king has commanded another page to help him and he has one on either side as we walk on. He jarred his leg and is fighting his pain and unsteadiness and not looking at me. No-one has observed my moment of faintness. People are watching him, remarking that he is stronger than he was but still needs help. Henry glowers from right to left. He does not want to hear anyone suggest that he is still not well enough to ride at the head of his own army.

  He nods for me to come beside him. ‘Fools,’ he remarks.

  I twist my face into a smile and I nod, but I don’t hear him.

  The trumpets sound a great brassy shout as we come into the great hall and I remember the taste of Thomas’s mouth, the way he bites my lips in a kiss. I have a sudden memory, as sharp as if it were happening right now, of him taking my lower lip in his teeth and nibbling it till my knees go weak and he has to lift me to the bed. Henry and I walk in state through the bowing court to the raised dais. I can see nothing but Thomas’s face in candlelight. Two men come either side of the king to heave his great bulk up the two shallow steps and then seat him on his throne, his leg propped. I take my seat beside him and turn and look over the heads of the court, through the wide-open entrance door to the inner courtyard where the afternoon is shining rosy on the new red bricks.

  I take a breath. I wait for the moment, which must come, which must be now, when Thomas Seymour comes forward to make his bow.

  There is a movement at my side. Princess Mary takes her seat beside me. ‘Are you all right, Your Majesty?’ she asks me.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘You’re so white . . .’

  ‘Just a little gripe,’ I say. ‘You know.’

  She nods. She is seldom free of pain herself and she knows that I cannot be excused from this feast or even show any discomfort. ‘I have a tincture of raspberry leaves in my room,’ she offers. ‘I can send someone to get it for you.’

  ‘Yes, yes, please,’ I say at random.

  My gaze rakes the room. He has to step forward and greet the king before the servers come in with the endless parade of courses that make up the bridal feast. He has to come and bow and then take his seat at the table for the noble lords of the court. And everyone will watch him bow to the king, and then everyone will see him bow to me, and nobody must remark that I look pale. Nobody must know that my heart is pounding so fast that I think Princess Mary will hear it over the clatter of the court pulling up the benches and stools to the trestle tables and taking their seats.

  I wonder if his nerve will fail. I wonder if his reckless laughing courage will fail him this once, and he won’t come in to dinner at all. Or is he outside now, nerving himself to walk forward? Perhaps he cannot greet me as a courteous acquaintance, perhaps he cannot bring himself to congratulate me on my wedding and my rise to greatness? But he knows that he will have to do it, so surely now would be better than later?

  Just when I think he is taking so long that he must have given some excuse and gone away, I see him, weaving his way between the tables, ahead of the servers, a smile to one man at one side and a touch on the shoulder of another, moving through the crowd with people calling his name and greeting him.

  He stands before the dais, and the king looks down at him. ‘Tom Seymour!’ he exclaims. ‘I’m very glad you’re back. You must have ridden hard. You had far to come.’

  Thomas bows. He does not look at me. He smiles up at the king, his easy, familiar smile. ‘I rode like a ho