Philippa Gregory 3-Book Tudor Collection 1 Read online

  I took her soft hanks of hair in my hand and plaited them.

  ‘Ow,’ she complained. ‘You’re pulling.’

  ‘Well, you’re nagging,’ I said. ‘Leave me to do it my way, Anne. I’ve not done so badly so far.’

  ‘Oh that.’ She shrugged her white shoulders and smiled at her reflection in the mirror. ‘Anyone can attract a man. The trick is to keep him.’

  The knock at the door startled us both. Anne’s dark eyes flew to the mirror, to my reflected image looking blankly back at her.

  ‘Not the king?’

  I was already opening the door.

  George was standing there, in the red suede doublet he had worn at dinner, the white fine linen shirt gleaming through the slashings, the red cap embroidered with pearls on his dark head.

  ‘Vivat! Vivat Marianne!’ He came quickly in and closed the door behind him. ‘He asked me to invite you to take a glass of wine with him. I’m to apologise for the lateness of the hour, the Venetian ambassador has only just left. They talked of nothing but war with France and now he is filled with passion for England, Henry and St George. I’m to assure you that you’re free to make your choice. You can take a glass of wine and come back to your own bed. You’re to be your own mistress.’

  ‘Any offer?’ Anne asked.

  George raised a supercilious eyebrow. ‘Show a little elegance,’ he reprimanded her. ‘He’s not buying her outright. He’s inviting her for a glass of wine. We’ll fix the price later on.’

  I put my hand to my head. ‘My hood!’ I exclaimed. ‘Anne, quick! Plait up my hair.’

  She shook her head. ‘Go as you are,’ she said. ‘With your hair down around your shoulders. You look like a virgin on your wedding day. I’m right, aren’t I, George? That’s what he wants.’

  He nodded. ‘She’s lovely like that. Loosen her bodice a bit.’

  ‘She’s supposed to be a lady.’

  ‘Just a bit,’ he suggested. ‘A man likes a glimpse of what he’s buying.’

  Anne untied the laces at the back of my bodice until the boned stomacher was a little looser. She tugged it down at the waist so it sat lower and more invitingly. George nodded. ‘Perfect.’

  She stepped back and looked at me as critically as my father had looked at the mare he had sent to the stallion. ‘Anything else?’

  George shook his head.

  ‘She’d better wash,’ Anne suddenly decided. ‘Under her arms and her cunny at least.’

  I would have appealed to George. But he was nodding, as intent as a farmer. ‘Yes, you should. He has a horror of anything rank.’

  ‘Go on.’ Anne gestured to the jug and ewer.

  ‘You two go out,’ I said.

  George turned for the door. ‘We’ll wait outside.’

  ‘And your bum,’ Anne said as he closed the door. ‘Don’t skimp on it, Mary. You’ve got to be clean all over.’

  The closing door cut off my response which was not that of a young lady. I washed myself briskly in cold water and rubbed myself dry. I took some of Anne’s flower water and patted it on my neck and hair and on the tops of my legs. Then I opened the door.

  ‘Are you clean?’ Anne asked sharply.

  I nodded.

  She looked at me anxiously. ‘Go on then. And you can resist for a bit, you know. Show a little doubt. Don’t just fall into his arms.’

  I turned my face away from her. She seemed to me quite unbearably crass about the whole matter.

  ‘The girl can have a bit of pleasure,’ George said gently.

  Anne rounded on him. ‘Not in his bed,’ she said sharply. ‘She’s not there for her pleasure but for his.’

  I didn’t even hear her. All I could hear was the thud of my heart pounding in my ears and my knowledge that he had sent for me, that I would be with him soon.

  ‘Come on,’ I said to George. ‘Let’s go.’

  Anne turned to go back into the room. ‘I’ll wait up for you,’ she said.

  I hesitated. ‘I might not come back tonight.’

  She nodded. ‘I hope you don’t. But I’ll wait up for you anyway. I’ll sit by the fire and watch the dawn come in.’

  I thought for a moment about her keeping a vigil for me in her spinster bedroom while I was snug and loved in the King of England’s bed. ‘My God, you must wish it was you,’ I said with sudden acute delight.

  She did not flinch from it. ‘Of course. He is the king.’

  ‘And he wants me,’ I said, hammering the point home.

  George bowed and offered me his arm and led me down the narrow stairs to the lobby before the great hall. We went through it like a pair of interlinked ghosts. No-one saw us pass. There were a couple of the scullions sleeping in the ashes of the fire and half a dozen men dozing head-down on tables around the room.

  We went past the top table and through the doors where the king’s private rooms began. There was a set of broad stairs richly hung with a beautiful tapestry, the colours drained from the bright silks by the moonlight. There were two men at arms before the presence chamber and they stood aside to let me pass when they saw me with my golden hair let down and the confident smile on my face.

  The presence chamber behind the double doors was a surprise to me. I had only ever seen it crowded with people. This was where everyone came to have sight of the king. Petitioners would bribe senior members of the court to allow them to stand here in case the king noticed them and asked them how they did, and what they wanted of him. I had never seen this big vaulted room other than packed with people in their most handsome clothes, desperate for the king’s attention. Now it was silent, shadowy. George pressed his hand on my cold fingertips.

  Ahead of us were the doors to the king’s private chambers. Two men at arms stood with pikes crossed. ‘His Majesty commands our presence,’ George said briefly.

  There was a short chime as the pikes clashed, the two men presented arms, bowed, and swung the double doors open.

  The king was seated before the fire, wrapped in a warm robe of velvet trimmed with fur. As he heard the door open he leaped to his feet.

  I dropped into a deep curtsey. ‘You sent for me, Majesty.’

  He could not take his eyes from my face. ‘I did. And I thank you for coming. I wanted to see … I wanted to talk … I wanted to take a little …’ He broke off finally. ‘I wanted you.’

  I stepped a little closer. He would smell Anne’s perfume from that distance, I thought. I tossed my head and felt the weight of my hair shift. I saw his eyes go from my face to my hair and back again. Behind me, I heard the door closing as George went out without a word. Henry did not even see him go.

  ‘I am honoured, Your Majesty,’ I murmured.

  He shook his head, not in impatience, but as the gesture of a man who cannot waste time on play. ‘I want you,’ he said again, flatly, as if that were all that a woman would need to know. ‘I want you, Mary Boleyn.’

  I took a small step closer to him. I leaned towards him. I felt the warmth of his breath and then the touch of his lips on my hair. I did not move forward or back.

  ‘Mary,’ he whispered and his voice was choked with his desire.

  ‘Your Majesty?’

  ‘Please call me Henry. I want to hear my name on your lips.’

  ‘Henry.’

  ‘D’you want me?’ he whispered. ‘I mean as a man? If I were a farmer on your father’s estate, would you want me then?’ He put his hand under my chin to lift up my face so that he could look into my eyes. I met his bright blue gaze. Carefully, delicately I put my hand to his face and felt the softness of his curling beard under my palm. At once he closed his eyes at my touch and then turned his face and kissed my hand where it cupped his chin.

  ‘Yes,’ I said, caring not at all that it was nonsense. I could not imagine this man as anything but King of England. He could no more deny being king than I could deny being a Howard. ‘If you were a nobody and I were a nobody I would love you,’ I whispered. ‘If you were a farmer with a field