The Other Boleyn Girl Read online

  “I tried! God knows, Henry! I tried! I bore you a son, that he did not live was no fault of mine. God wanted our little prince in heaven; that was no fault of mine.”

  The pain in her voice shook him, but he moved away. “You had to give me a son,” he repeated. “I have to have a son for England, Katherine. You know that.”

  Her face was bleak. “You have to reconcile yourself to God’s will.”

  “It is God himself who has prompted me to this,” Henry shouted. “God himself has warned me that I must leave this false marriage of sin and start again. And if I do, I shall have a son. I know it, Katherine. And you—”

  “Yes?” she said, as quick as her own grayhound on the scent, all her courage suddenly flaring up. “What for me? A nunnery? Old age? Death? I am a Princess of Spain and the Queen of England. What can you offer me instead of these?”

  “It is God’s will,” he repeated.

  She laughed at that, a dreadful sound, as wild as her crying had been. “God’s will that you should turn aside from your true wedded wife and marry a nobody? A whore? The sister of your whore?”

  I froze, but Henry was gone, pushing past me out of the door. “It is God’s will and my will!” he shouted from the outer chamber, and then we heard the door slam.

  I crept backward, desperate that she should not know that I had seen her cry, desperate that she should not see me, whom she had named as his whore. But she raised her head from her hands and said simply:

  “Help me, Mary.”

  In silence I went forward. It was the first time in the seven years that I had known her that she had asked for help. She put out her arm to be dragged to her feet and I saw that she could hardly stand. Her eyes were bloodshot with crying.

  “You should rest, Your Majesty,” I said.

  “I cannot rest,” she replied. “Help me to my prie dieu and give me my rosary.”

  “Your Majesty…”

  “Mary,” she croaked, her voice hoarse from that dreadful gape-mouthed whimpering. “He will destroy me, he will disinherit our daughter, he will ruin this country, and he will send his immortal soul to hell. I have to pray for him, for me, and for our country. And then I have to write to my nephew.”

  “Your Majesty, they will never let a letter reach him.”

  “I have ways to send it to him.”

  “Don’t write anything that could be held against you.”

  She checked at that, hearing the fear in my voice. And then she smiled an empty bitter smile that did not reach her eyes. “Why?” she asked. “Do you think it can be worse than this? I cannot be charged with treason, I am the Queen of England, I am England. I cannot be divorced, I am the wife of the king. He has run mad this spring and he will recover by autumn. All I have to do is get through the summer.”

  “The Boleyn summer,” I said, thinking of Anne.

  “The Boleyn summer,” she repeated. “It cannot last more than a season.”

  She grasped the velvet upholstered prayer cushion of the prie dieu with her age-spotted hands and I knew that she could hear and see nothing in this world any more. She was close to her God. I went out quietly, closing the door behind me.

  George was in the shadows of the queen’s public rooms, lurking like an assassin. “Uncle wants you,” he said shortly.

  “George, I cannot go. Make an excuse for me.”

  “Come on.”

  I stepped into the shaft of light streaming in through the open window and I blinked at the brightness. Outside I could hear someone singing and Anne’s carefree ripple of laughter.

  “Please George, tell him you couldn’t find me.”

  “He knows you were with the queen. I was ordered to wait until you came out. Whenever that was.”

  I shook my head. “I can’t betray her.”

  George crossed the room with three swift steps, got hold of me under my elbow and marched me toward the door. He went so fast I had to run to keep up with him and as he strode down the stairs I would have lost my footing but for his vice-like grip on my arm.

  “What’s your family?” he demanded through clenched teeth.

  “Boleyn.”

  “What’s your kin?”

  “Howards.”

  “What’s your home?”

  “Hever and Rochford.”

  “What’s your kingdom?”

  “England.”

  “Who’s your king?”

  “Henry.”

  “Then serve them. In that order. Did I say the Spanish queen once in that list?”

  “No.”

  “Remember it.”

  I struggled against his determination. “George!”

  “Every day I give up my desires for this family,” he said in a savage undertone. “Every day I dance attendance on one sister or the other and play pander to the king. Every day I deny my own desire, my own passion, I deny my own soul! I make my life a secret to myself. Now you come.”

  He pushed me through the door of Uncle Howard’s private room without knocking. My uncle was seated at his desk, the sunlight falling brightly on his papers, a posy of early roses before him on the table. He glanced up when I came in and his keen gaze took in my rapid breathing and the distress in my face.

  “I need to know what passed between the king and the queen,” he said without preamble. “A maid said you were in there with them.”

  I nodded. “I heard her cry and I went in.”

  “She cried?” he demanded incredulously.

  I nodded.

  “Tell me.”

  For a moment I was silent.

  He looked at me once more and there was a world of power in his dark piercing gaze. “You tell me,” he repeated.

  “The king told her that he is seeking an annulment because the marriage is invalid.”

  “And she?”

  “She accused him of Anne, and he did not deny it.”

  A flame of fierce joy leaped into my uncle’s eyes. “How did you leave her?”

  “Praying,” I said.

  My uncle rose from the desk and walked around to me. Thoughtfully, he took my hand and spoke quietly. “You like to see your children in the summer, don’t you, Mary?”

  My longing for Hever, for little Catherine and for my baby boy, made me dizzy. I closed my eyes for a moment and I could see them, I could feel them in my arms. I could smell that sweet baby smell of clean hair and sun-warmed skin.

  “If you serve us well in this I shall let you go to Hever for the whole summer while the court is on progress. You can spend all summer with your children and no one will trouble you. Your work will be done, I will release you from court. But you must assist me in this, Mary. You must tell me exactly what you think the queen plans to do.”

  I gave a little sigh. “She said that she would write to her nephew. She said she knew a way to get a letter to him.”

  He smiled. “I expect you to find out how she sends letters to Spain and to come and tell me. Do that and you shall be with your children a week later.”

  I swallowed my sense of treachery.

  He went back to his desk and turned to his papers. “You can go,” he said carelessly.

  The queen was at the table when I came into the room. “Ah, Lady Carey, can you light another candle for me? I can hardly see to write.”

  I lit another candlestick and put it close to her paper. I could see she was writing in Spanish.

  “Would you send for Señor Felipez?” she asked me. “I have an errand for him.”

  I hesitated but she raised her head from the paper and gave me a little nod so I curtsied and went to the door where a manservant was on guard. “Fetch Señor Felipez,” I said shortly.

  In a moment he came. He was a yeoman of the ewery, a middle-aged man who had come over from Spain when Katherine was married. He had stayed in her household and despite marrying an Englishwoman and siring English children, he had never lost his Spanish accent nor his love of Spain.

  I showed him into the room and the queen