Philippa Gregory 3-Book Tudor Collection 1 Read online

  I wished that George was here. ‘You’ll manage,’ I said. ‘You’ll go on as you have been going. You’ve done wonderfully well, Anne.’

  She gritted her teeth. ‘I will be old and exhausted before this is done.’

  Gently I took her and turned her towards her grand Venetian glass mirror. ‘Look,’ I said.

  Anne could always be comforted by the sight of her own beauty. She paused and took a breath.

  ‘And you’re brilliant as well,’ I reminded her. ‘He is always saying that you have the sharpest mind in the kingdom and if you were a man he would have you for cardinal.’

  She smiled a little sharp feral smile. ‘That must please Wolsey.’

  I smiled back, my face next to hers in the mirror, the two of us, as ever, a contrast in looks, in colouring, in expression. ‘I’m sure,’ I said. ‘But there’s nothing Wolsey can do.’

  ‘He doesn’t even see the king without an appointment now,’ she gloated. ‘I’ve seen to that. They don’t wander off together for their friendly little talks as they used to. Nothing is decided without me being there. He cannot come to the palace for a meeting with the king without notifying the king and notifying me. He is pushed out of power and I am inside it.’

  ‘You’ve done wonderfully well,’ I said, the words sickening me as they soothed her. ‘And you have years and years ahead of you, Anne.’

  Winter 1527

  William and I slipped into a comfortable routine which was almost domestic, though it revolved around the wishes of the king and of Anne. I still slept in her bed at night and to all intents and purposes lived with her in the rooms that we shared. To the outer world we were both still the queen’s ladies in waiting, no more and no less than the others.

  But from morning to night Anne was with the king, as close to his side as a newly wed bride, as a chief counsellor, as a best friend. She would return to our chamber only to change her gown or lie on the bed and snatch a rest while he was at Mass, or when he wanted to ride out with his gentlemen. Then she would lie in silence, like one who has dropped dead of exhaustion. Her gaze would be blank on the canopy of the bed, her eyes wide open, seeing nothing. She would breathe slowly and steadily as if she were sick. She would not speak at all.

  When she was in this state I learned to leave her alone. She had to find some way to rest from the unending public performance. She had to be unstoppably charming, not just to the king but to everyone who might glance in her direction. One moment of looking less than radiant and a rumour storm would swirl around the court and engulf her, and engulf us all with her.

  When she rose up from her bed and went to the king, William and I would spend time together. We met almost as strangers and he courted me. It was the oddest, simplest and sweetest thing that an estranged husband has ever done for an errant wife. He sent me little posies of flowers, sometimes sprigs of holly leaves and the rose-pink berries of yew. He sent me a little gilt bracelet. He wrote me the prettiest poems praising my grey eyes and my fair hair and asking for my favour as if I were his lady love. When I sent for my horse to ride out with Anne I would find a note tucked into my stirrup leather. When I pulled back my sheets to get into bed with Anne at night I would find a sweetmeat wrapped in gilt paper. He showered me with little gifts and little notes and whenever we were together at a court banquet or at the archery butts, or watching the players on the tennis court, he would lean towards me and whisper out of the side of his mouth:

  ‘Come to my room, wife.’

  I would giggle as if I were his new mistress instead of a wife of many years’ standing and I would step back from the crowd, and a few moments later he would slip away, to meet in the confined space of his bedchamber on the west wall of Greenwich Palace. Then he would take me in his arms and say delightfully, promisingly: ‘We have only a moment, my love, only an hour at the most: so this shall be all for you.’

  He would lie me on the bed, unlace my tight stomacher, caress my breasts, stroke my belly, and pleasure me in every way he could think of until I cried out in joy: ‘Oh William! Oh my love! You are the best, you are the best, you are the very very best.’

  And at that moment, with the smile of the well-praised man through all the ages, he would let himself pour into me and rest on my shoulder with a shuddering sigh.

  For me it was desire, and only a small part calculation. If Anne should fall, and we Boleyns fall with her, then I would be very glad to have a husband who loved me and who had a handsome manor in Norfolk, a title and wealth. And besides, the children carried his name, and he could order them to his house at a moment’s notice if he so pleased. I would have told the devil himself that he was the best, the very very best, if it kept me with my children.

  Anne was merry at the Christmas feast. She danced as if nothing would stop her from dancing all day and all night. She gambled as if she had a queen’s fortune to lose. She had an understanding with me and with George; we immediately returned the money later, in private. But when she lost to the king her hard-earned money disappeared into the royal purse and was never seen again. And she had to lose to him whenever they played: he hated it when anyone else won.

  He showered her with gifts and with honour, he led her out at every dance. She was the crowned queen in every masque. But still Katherine sat at the head table and smiled on Anne as if the honour was in her gift, as if Anne was her deputy, by her consent. And the Princess Mary, the little thin white-faced princess, sat beside her mother and smiled at Anne as if she were enormously amused at this light-footed pretender to the throne.

  ‘God, I hate her,’ Anne said, as she was getting undressed at night. ‘She is the very image of them both, the moon-faced thing.’

  I hesitated. There was no point in arguing with Anne. Princess Mary had grown to be a girl of rare prettiness, with a face so filled with character and determination that you could not doubt for a moment that she was her mother’s daughter through and through. When she looked down the hall at Anne and at me it was as if she looked straight through us, as if we were nothing but clear panes of Venetian glass and all she wanted to know was what might be beyond. She did not seem to envy us, nor see us as rivals to her father’s attention or even as a danger to her mother’s place. She saw us as a pair of light women, so insubstantial that the wind might blow us away in a merciful puff.

  She was a witty girl, only eleven years old but capable of making a pun or turning a jest in English, French, Spanish or Latin. Anne was quick and a scholar, but she had not had the teaching of this little princess and she envied her that too. And the girl had all of her mother’s presence. Whether or not Anne ever became queen she had been born and bred to be a snapper-up of privilege and place. Princess Mary had been born to rights that we could only dream of. She had an assurance that neither of us could ever learn. She had a grace that came from absolute confidence in her position in the world. Of course Anne hated her.

  ‘She’s nothing,’ I said comfortingly. ‘Let me brush your hair.’

  There was a quiet tap at the door and George slid into the room before we could call out ‘Enter’.

  ‘I’m in a terror of being seen by my wife,’ he said by way of excuse. He waved a bottle of wine at us and three pewter cups. ‘She’s been dancing and she’s hot tonight. She all but ordered me to our bed. If she saw me come in here she’d be wild.’

  ‘She’s bound to have seen you.’ Anne took a glass of George’s wine. ‘She misses nothing, that woman.’

  ‘She should have been a spy. She would have loved to have been a spy specialising in fornication.’

  I giggled and let him pour me a measure of wine. ‘Wouldn’t take much skill to track you down,’ I pointed out. ‘You’re always in here.’

  ‘It’s the only place I can be myself.’

  ‘Not the whorehouse?’ I asked.

  He shook his head. ‘I don’t go any more, I’ve lost my taste for it.’

  ‘Are you in love?’ Anne asked cynically.

  To my surprise he