Philippa Gregory 3-Book Tudor Collection 1 Read online

  The little faraway figure turned to his confessor. He bowed his head for a blessing and kissed the rosary. He knelt before the block and clasped it in both hands. I wondered what it must be like, to put one’s cheek to the smooth waxed wood, to smell the warm wind coming off the river, to hear, overhead, the cry of seagulls. Even knowing as he did that this was a masque and not the real thing, it must be odd for Uncle to put his head down and know that the executioner was standing behind.

  The executioner raised his axe. I looked towards the king. He was leaving his intervention very late. I glanced back at the stage. My uncle, head down, flung wide his arms, a sign of his consent, the signal that the axe could fall. I looked back to the king, he must rise to his feet now. But he still sat, his handsome face grim. And while I was still looking towards him there was another roll of drums, suddenly silenced, and then the thud of the axe, first once, then again and a third time: a sound as domestic as chopping wood. Disbelievingly, I saw the head of my uncle bounce into the straw and a scarlet gush of blood from the strangely stumpy neck. The black-hooded axeman put the great stained axe to one side and lifted the head by the thick curly hair, so that we could all see the strange mask-like thing: black with the blindfold from forehead to nose, and the teeth bared in a last defiant grin.

  The king rose slowly from his seat and I thought, childishly, ‘Dear God, how awfully embarrassing this is going to be. He has left it too late. It has all gone wrong. He forgot to speak in time.’

  But I was wrong. He did not leave it too late, he did not forget. He wanted my uncle to die before the court so that everybody might know that there was only one king, and that was Henry. There could be only one king, and that was Henry. And there would be a son born to this king – and even to suggest otherwise meant a shameful death.

  The court returned quietly to Westminster Palace in three barges, rowed up the river. The men on the riverbank pulled off their hats and kneeled as the royal barge went swiftly past with a flurry of pennants and a glimpse of rich cloth. I was in the second barge with the ladies of the court, the queen’s barge. My mother was seated near me. In a rare moment of interest she glanced at me and remarked, ‘You’re very pale, Mary, are you feeling sick?’

  ‘I didn’t think he would be executed,’ I said. ‘I thought the king would forgive him.’

  My mother leaned forward so that her mouth was at my ear and no-one could have heard us over the creaking of the boat and the beat of the rowers’ drum. ‘Then you are a fool,’ she said shortly. ‘And a fool to remark it. Watch and learn, Mary. There is no room for mistakes at court.’

  Spring 1522

  ‘I am going to France tomorrow and I shall bring your sister Anne home with me,’ my father told me on the stairs of Westminster Palace. ‘She’s to have a place in the court of Queen Mary Tudor as she returns to England.’

  ‘I thought she’d stay in France,’ I said. ‘I thought she’d marry a French count or somebody.’

  He shook his head. ‘We have other plans for her.’

  I knew it was pointless to ask what plans they had. I would have to wait and see. My greatest dread was that they would have a better marriage for her than I had made, that I would have to follow the hem of her gown as she swept ahead of me for the rest of my life.

  ‘Wipe that surly look off your face,’ my father said sharply.

  At once I smiled my courtier’s smile. ‘Of course, Father,’ I said obediently.

  He nodded and I curtsied low as he left me. I came up from my curtsey and went slowly to my husband’s bedroom. I had a small looking glass on the wall and I stood before it and gazed at my own reflection. ‘It’ll be all right,’ I whispered to myself. ‘I am a Boleyn, that’s not a small thing to be, and my mother was born a Howard, that’s to be one of the greatest families in the country. I’m a Howard girl, a Boleyn girl.’ I bit my lip. ‘But so is she.’

  I smiled my empty courtier’s smile and the reflected pretty face smiled back. ‘I am the youngest Boleyn girl, but not the least. I am married to William Carey, a man high in the king’s favour. I am the queen’s favourite and youngest lady in waiting. Nobody can spoil this for me. Not even she can take this from me.’

  Anne and Father were delayed by spring storms and I found myself hoping, childishly, that her boat would sink and she would drown. At the thought of her death I felt a confusing pang of genuine distress mixed with elation. There could hardly be a world for me without Anne, there was hardly world enough for us both.

  In any case, she arrived safely enough. I saw my father walking with her from the royal landing stage up the gravelled paths to the palace. Even from the first-floor window, looking down I could see the swing of her gown, the stylish cut of her cloak, and a moment of pure envy swept through me as I saw how it swirled around her. I waited till she was out of sight and then I hurried to my seat in the queen’s presence chamber.

  I planned that she should first see me very much at home in the queen’s richly tapestried rooms, and that I should rise and greet her, very grown-up and gracious. But when the doors opened and she came in I was overcome by a rush of sudden joy, and I heard myself cry out ‘Anne!’ and ran to her, my skirt swishing. And Anne, who had come in with her head very high, and her arrogant dark look darting everywhere, suddenly stopped being a grand young lady of fifteen years and threw out her arms to me.

  ‘You’re taller,’ she said breathlessly, her arms tight around me, her cheek pressed to mine.

  ‘I’ve got such high heels.’ I inhaled the familiar perfume of her. Soap, and rosewater essence from her warm skin, lavender from her clothes.

  ‘You all right?’

  ‘Yes. You?’

  ‘Bien sur! How is it? Marriage?’

  ‘Not too bad. Nice clothes.’

  ‘And he?’

  ‘Very grand. Always with the king, high in his favour.’

  ‘Have you done it?’

  ‘Yes, ages ago.’

  ‘Did it hurt?’

  ‘Very much.’

  She pulled back to read my face.

  ‘Not too much,’ I said, qualifying. ‘He does try to be gentle. He always gives me wine. It’s just all rather awful, really.’

  Her scowl melted away and she giggled, her eyes dancing. ‘How is it awful?’

  ‘He pisses in the pot, right where I can see!’

  She collapsed in a wail of laughter. ‘No!’

  ‘Now, girls,’ my father said, coming up behind Anne. ‘Mary, take Anne and present her to the queen.’

  At once I turned and led her through the press of ladies in waiting to where the queen was seated, erect in her chair at the fireside. ‘She’s strict,’ I warned Anne. ‘It’s not like France.’

  Katherine of Aragon took the measure of Anne with one of her clear blue-eyed sweeps and I felt a pang of fear that she would prefer my sister to me.

  Anne swept the queen an immaculate French curtsey, and came up as if she owned the palace. She spoke in a voice rippling with that seductive accent, her every gesture was that of the French court. I noted with glee the queen’s frosty response to Anne’s stylish manner. I drew her to a windowseat.

  ‘She hates the French,’ I said. ‘She’ll never have you around her if you keep that up.’

  Anne shrugged. ‘They’re the most fashionable. Whether she likes them or not. What else?’

  ‘Spanish?’ I suggested. ‘If you have to pretend to be something else.’

  Anne let out a snort of laughter. ‘And wear those hoods! She looks as if someone stuck a roof on her head.’

  ‘Ssshhh,’ I said reprovingly. ‘She’s a beautiful woman. The finest queen in Europe.’

  ‘She’s an old woman,’ Anne said cruelly. ‘Dressed like an old woman in the ugliest clothes in Europe, from the stupidest nation in Europe. We have no time for the Spanish.’

  ‘Who’s we?’ I asked coldly. ‘Not the English.’

  ‘Les Français!’ she said irritatingly. ‘Bien sur! I am all but French no