Philippa Gregory 3-Book Tudor Collection 1 Read online

  ‘My God, if I was a king like him I’d follow my desires and I wouldn’t worry myself whether it was God’s will or no,’ George exclaimed.

  ‘That’s because you’re a grasping greedy Boleyn. But this is a king who wants to do the right thing. He can’t move forward until he knows that God is on his side.’

  ‘And Anne is helping him,’ George observed mischievously.

  ‘What a keeper of a conscience!’ I said spitefully. ‘Your immortal soul would be safe in her hands.’

  They called a family conference. I had been waiting for it. Ever since we had come home from Ludlow my uncle had been watching the two of us, Anne and I, with a silent intensity. He had been with the court this summer, he had seen how the king spent his days with Anne, how he was irresistibly drawn to wherever she might be. But how habitually he summoned me to him at nightfall. My uncle was baffled by the king’s desire for us both. He did not know how Henry should be steered, to do the best for the Howards.

  George and Anne and I were ranged before the big table in my uncle’s room. He sat on the other side of it, my mother beside him on a smaller chair.

  ‘The king obviously desires Anne,’ my uncle began. ‘But if she merely supplants Mary as the favourite then we are no further on. Worse off, in fact. For she’s not even married, and while this is going on no-one can have her, and once it’s finished she’s worthless.’

  I looked to see if my mother flinched at this discussion of her oldest daughter. Her face was stern. This was family business, not sentiment.

  ‘So Anne must withdraw,’ my uncle ruled. ‘You’re spoiling the game for Mary. She’s had a girl and a boy off him and we have nothing to show for it but some extra lands …’

  ‘A couple of titles,’ George murmured. ‘A few offices …’

  ‘Aye. I don’t deny it. But Anne is taking the edge off his appetite for Mary.’

  ‘He has no appetite for Mary,’ Anne said spitefully. ‘He has a habit for Mary. A different thing. You’re a married man, Uncle, you should know that.’

  I heard George’s gasp. My uncle smiled at Anne and his smile was wolfish.

  ‘Thank you, Mistress Anne,’ he said. ‘Your quickness of wit would much become you, if you were still in France. But since you are in England I have to remind you that all English women are required to do as they are bid, and look happy while doing it.’

  Anne bowed her head and I saw her colour up with temper.

  ‘You’re to go to Hever,’ he said abruptly.

  She started up. ‘Not again! For doing what?’

  ‘You’re a wild card and I don’t know how to play you,’ he said with brutal frankness.

  ‘If you leave me at court I can make the king love me,’ she promised desperately. ‘Don’t send me back to Hever! What is there for me?’

  He raised his hand. ‘It’s not forever,’ he said. ‘Just for Christmas. It’s obvious that Henry’s very taken with you but I don’t know what we can do with this. You can’t bed him, not while you’re a maid. You have to be married before you can go to his bed, and no man of any sense will marry you while you are the king’s favourite. It’s a mess.’

  She bit back her reply and dropped a tiny curtsey. ‘I am grateful,’ she said through her teeth. ‘But I cannot see that sending me to Hever for Christmas all on my own, far from the court, far from the king, is going to help my chances to serve this family.’

  ‘It gets you out of the way so you don’t spoil the king’s aim. As soon as he is divorced from Katherine he can marry Mary. Mary, with her two bonny babies. He can get a wife and an heir in one ceremony. You just muddle the picture, Anne.’

  ‘So you would paint me out?’ she demanded. ‘Who are you now? Holbein?’

  ‘Hold your tongue,’ my mother said sharply.

  ‘I’ll get you a husband,’ my uncle promised. ‘From France if not from England. Once Mary is Queen of England she can get a husband for you. You can take your pick.’

  Anne’s fingernails dug into her clenched hands. ‘I shan’t have a husband as her gift!’ she swore. ‘She won’t ever be queen. She’s risen as far as she can go. She’s opened her legs and given him two children and still he does not care for her. He liked her well enough when he was courting her, can’t you see? He’s a huntsman, he likes the chase. Once Mary was caught the sport was over, and God knows, never was a woman easier caught. He’s used to her now, she’s more a wife than a mistress – but a wife without honour, a wife without respect.’

  She had said exactly the wrong thing. My uncle smiled. ‘Like a wife? Oh I hope so. So I think we’ll have a little rest from you for now and see what Mary can do with him when you’re not there. You’ve been rivalling Mary and she is our favourite.’

  I curtsied with a sweet smile to Anne. ‘I am the favourite,’ I repeated. ‘And she is to disappear.’

  Winter 1526

  I sent Christmas fairings for my babies in Anne’s trunk when she went down to Hever. To Catherine I sent a little marchpane house with roof tiles of roasted almonds and windows of spun sugar. I begged Anne to give it to Catherine on twelfth night and tell her that her mother loved her and missed her and would come again soon.

  Anne dropped down into her hunter’s saddle as gracelessly as a farmer’s wife riding to market. There was no-one to watch her, there was no benefit to being light and laughing.

  ‘God knows why you don’t defy them and go down, if you love your babies so much,’ she said, tempting me to trouble.

  ‘Thank you for your good advice,’ I said. ‘I am sure you meant it for the best.’

  ‘Well, God knows what they think you can do without me here to advise you.’

  ‘God knows indeed,’ I replied cheerfully.

  ‘There are women that men marry and there are women that men don’t,’ she pronounced. ‘And you are the sort of mistress that a man doesn’t bother to marry. Sons or no sons.’

  I smiled up at her. I was so much slower in wits than Anne that it was a great joy to me when once in a while a weapon came to my sluggish hand. ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I expect you’re right. But there is clearly a third sort and that is the woman that men neither marry nor take as their mistress. Women that go home alone for Christmas. And that seems to be you, my sister. Good day.’

  I turned on my heel and left her and she had nothing to do but to nod to the soldiers who were to ride with her and trot out through the gateway and down the road to Kent. A few flakes of snow swirled in the air as she went.

  It was clear what would become of the queen as soon as we were settled in Greenwich for the feast of Christmas. She was to be neglected and ignored and everyone in the court knew that she was out of favour. It was a vile thing to see, like an owl being mobbed in daytime by the lesser birds.

  Her nephew, the Emperor of Spain, knew something of what was going on. He sent a new ambassador to England, Ambassador Mendoza, a wily lawyer who might be relied on to represent the queen to her husband, and to bring Spain and England into accord once more. I saw my uncle in a whispered conference with Cardinal Wolsey and guessed that he was not smoothing Ambassador Mendoza’s way.

  I was right. For all of the Christmas feast the new ambassador was not allowed to come to court, his papers were not recognised, he was not allowed to make his bow to the king, he was not allowed even to see the queen. Her messages and letters were watched, she could not even receive presents without them being inspected by the grooms of the bedchamber.

  Christmas went into twelfth night and still the new Spanish ambassador was not allowed to see the queen. Not until mid-January did Wolsey stop his cat-and-mouse game and acknowledge that Ambassador Mendoza was indeed a genuine representative of the Emperor of Spain and might bring his papers to court and his messages to the queen.

  I was in the queen’s rooms when a page came from the cardinal to say that the ambassador had asked to attend on her. The colour rose to her cheeks, she leaped to her feet. ‘I should change my gown, but there’s no time.’