Philippa Gregory 3-Book Tudor Collection 1 Read online

‘And what shall I be?’ I spat. I would not be the king’s favourite, I would not be the centre of the court. I would lose the place I had worked for ever since I was twelve years old. I would be last year’s whore.

  ‘You’ll be my lady in waiting,’ Anne said sweetly. ‘You’ll be the other Boleyn girl.’

  No-one knew how much the queen knew of the disaster which was being prepared for her. She was a queen of ice and stone in these spring days, while the cardinal trawled the universities of Europe for evidence against a wife who was completely innocent of any sin. As if to challenge the fates the queen started work on yet another new altar cloth, a match of the one she had started before; the two of them would be a massive project which would take years, and a full court of ladies in waiting, to complete. It was as if everything, even her sewing, must demonstrate to the world that she would live and die as queen of England. How else could it be? No queen had ever been set aside before.

  She had asked me to help her by blocking in the blue sky above the angels. It had been drawn for her by a Florentine artist and was very much in the new style, with luscious rounded bodies half-hidden by the angels’ feathery wings, and bright expressive faces on the shepherds around the crib. It was as good as a play to look at the drawing the artist had made, the people were as vivid as if they were alive. I was glad that it would not be me who had to follow the tiny detailed lines with my needle. Long before the sky was done Wolsey would have passed sentence, the Pope confirmed it and she would be divorced and in a nunnery, and the nuns could sew the difficult draperies and the feathery wings while we Boleyns closed the trap on the bachelor king. I finished one long hank of blue silk for a tiny square of sky and took my needle to the light of the narrow window when I suddenly saw the brown head of my brother race up the steps which ran around the moat and then he was out of sight, though I craned forward to see why he was running.

  ‘What is it, Lady Carey?’ the queen asked from behind me, her voice absolutely expressionless.

  ‘My brother running in,’ I said. ‘May I go down and see him, Your Majesty?’

  ‘Of course,’ she said calmly. ‘If there is important news you might bring it straight to me, Mary.’

  I kept the needle in my hand as I left the room and hurried down the stone steps to the great hall. George had just burst in through the door.

  ‘What’s happened?’ I asked.

  ‘I must find Father,’ he said. ‘The Pope’s been captured.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Where is Father? Where is he?’

  ‘Perhaps with the clerks.’

  At once George turned to go to their offices. I hurried after him and grabbed his sleeve but he pulled himself free. ‘Wait, George! Captured by who?’

  ‘By the army of Spain,’ he said. ‘Mercenaries, in the employ of Charles of Spain, and the word is that they ran out of control, they sacked the Holy City and captured His Holiness.’

  I stood stock still for a moment, shocked into silence. ‘They’ll let him go,’ I said. ‘They couldn’t be so …’ The very words failed me. George was almost hopping from one foot to another in his urgency to run onwards.

  ‘Think!’ he counselled me. ‘What does it mean if the Pope is captured by the armies of Spain? What does it mean?’

  I shook my head. ‘That the Holy Father is in danger,’ I said feebly. ‘You cannot capture the Pope …’

  George laughed out loud. ‘Fool!’ He took me by the hand and pulled me after him, up the stairs to the offices of the clerks. He hammered on the door and put his head around it. ‘Is my father here?’

  ‘With the king,’ someone replied. ‘In his privy chamber.’

  George spun on his heel and ran back down the stairs. I picked up the long skirt of my gown and pattered after him. ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘Who can grant the king a divorce?’ George demanded, pausing on the turn of the stair. He looked up at me, his brown eyes ablaze with excitement. I hesitated above him, like a defender of the circular stair.

  ‘Only the Pope,’ I stumbled.

  ‘Who holds the Pope?’

  ‘Charles of Spain, you say.’

  ‘Who is Charles of Spain’s aunt?’

  ‘The queen.’

  ‘So d’you think the Pope is going to grant the king a divorce now?’

  I paused. George jumped up two steps and kissed my open mouth. ‘Silly girl,’ he said warmly. ‘This is disastrous news for the king. He’s never going to get free of her. It’s all gone awry and we Boleyns gone awry with it.’

  I snatched at his hand as he would have run away from me. ‘So why are you so happy? George! If we are ruined? Why are you so merry?’

  He laughed up at me. ‘I’m not happy, I’m maddened,’ he half-shouted. ‘For a moment I had started to believe our own madness. I had started to believe that Anne would be his wife and the next Queen of England. And now I am sane again. Thank God. That is why I laugh. Now let me go, I have to tell Father. I had the news from a boatman come upriver with a message for the cardinal. Father will like to know first, if I can find him.’

  I let him go, in his wildness there was no holding him.

  I heard his boots rattle down the stone stairs and then the bang of the opening door of the great hall, a few hasty steps across the stone floor of the hall, the yelp of a dog as he kicked it aside, and then the door creaked shut. I sank down on the stairs, where he had left me, the queen’s embroidery needle still in my hand, wondering where we Boleyns were now, since all the power had shifted back to the queen again.

  George had not told me whether or no I might tell the queen and I judged it safer to say nothing when I went back to her rooms. I smoothed out my face, pulled down the stomacher of my dress, and composed myself before I opened the door.

  She knew already. I could tell by the way the altar cloth was flung aside and she was standing at the window, looking out, as if she could see all the way to Italy and her victorious young nephew who had promised to love and reverence her, riding in triumph into Rome. When I came in the room she shot one quick cautious glance at me and then gave a little giggle, when she saw my stunned expression.

  ‘You have heard the news?’ she guessed.

  ‘Yes. My brother was running to my father with it.’

  ‘It will make a difference to everything,’ she asserted. ‘Everything.’

  ‘I know it.’

  ‘And your sister will be in such a difficult position when she hears,’ she said slyly.

  An irresistible giggle escaped me. ‘She called herself a storm-tossed maiden!’ I said with a wail of laughter.

  The queen clapped her hand to her mouth. ‘Anne Boleyn? Storm-tossed?’

  I nodded. ‘Gave him a jewel engraved with a maiden in a storm-tossed boat!’

  The queen crammed the knuckles of her hand into her mouth. ‘Hush! Hush!’

  We heard the noise of people outside the door and in one quick movement she was back in her place, the big frame of embroidery pulled towards her, her heavy gable hood bent over her work, her face grave. She glanced at me and nodded me towards my work. I took the needle and thread that I had carried all this while, so that when the guards opened the door the queen and I were industriously stitching in silence.

  It was the king himself, without companions. He came in, saw me, checked for a moment and then came on, as if he was glad to have me as a witness for what he might say to his wife of so many years.

  ‘It appears that your nephew has committed the most awful of crimes,’ he said without preamble, his voice hard and angry.

  She raised her head. ‘Your Majesty,’ she said, and sank into a curtsey.

  ‘I say, the most awful of crimes.’

  ‘Why, what has he done?’

  ‘His army has captured the Holy Father and imprisoned him. A blasphemous act, a sin against St Peter himself.’

  A small frown creased her weary face. ‘I am sure he will release the Holy Father and restore him at once,’ she said. ‘Why