The Taming of the Queen Read online

  I trace the line of his collarbone, map the sinew of his shoulder. His warm skin under my hands and the scent of our lovemaking distracts me from sorrow.

  ‘I’ve got to leave before dawn,’ I say, glancing at the shuttered window. ‘We don’t have long.’

  He knows exactly what I am thinking. ‘Is this the way you want to say goodbye?’ Gently he presses his thigh between mine so that the hard muscle rests against the folds of soft flesh and pleasure rises slowly through my body like a blush. ‘Like this?’

  ‘Country ways,’ I whisper to make him laugh.

  He rolls us both over so that he is on his back and I am lying along the warm lean length of him, on top of him so that I command this last act of love. I stretch out and feel him shudder with desire, I sit astride him, my hands against his chest, so that I can look into his dark eyes as I lower myself gently down to the entrancing point where he will enter me and then I hesitate until he pleads: ‘Kateryn.’ Only then do I ease onward. He gasps and closes his eyes, stretching out his arms, as if he were crucified on pleasure. I move, slowly at first, thinking of his delight, wanting to make this last for a long time, but then I feel the heat growing in me, and the wonderful familiar impatience rising, until I cannot hesitate or stop but I have to go on, thinking of nothing at all, until I call on him in pleasure, calling his name in joy and at the end weeping and weeping for lust, for love, and for the terrible loss that will come with the morning.

  At chapel for Prime, I kneel beside my sister, Nan, the ladies of the king’s daughter, Lady Mary, all around us. Lady Mary herself, silently praying at her own richly furnished prie-dieu, is out of earshot.

  ‘Nan, I have to tell you something,’ I mutter.

  ‘Has the king spoken?’ is all she says.

  ‘Yes.’

  She gives a little gasp and then puts her hand over mine and squeezes it. Her eyes close in a prayer. We kneel side by side, just as we used to do when we were little girls at home in Kendal in Westmorland and our mother read the prayers in Latin and we gabbled the responses. When the long service ends, Lady Mary rises to her feet, and we follow her from the chapel.

  It is a fine spring day. If I were at home we would start ploughing on a day like this and the sound of the curlews would ring out as loud as the ploughboy’s whistle.

  ‘Let’s walk in the garden before breakfast,’ Lady Mary proposes, and we follow her down the stairs to the privy garden and past the yeomen of the guard, who present arms and then stand back. My sister, Nan, raised at court, sees the opportunity to take my arm and slide us behind the backs of the ladies who are walking with our mistress. Discreetly, we sidestep to another path and when we are alone and cannot be overheard, she turns to look at me. Her pale tense face is like my own: auburn hair swept back under a hood, grey eyes like mine, and – just now – her cheeks are flushed red with excitement.

  ‘God bless you, my sister. God bless us all. This is a great day for the Parrs. What did you say?’

  ‘I asked for time to realise my joy,’ I say drily.

  ‘How long d’you think you’ve got?’

  ‘Weeks?’

  ‘He’s always impatient,’ she warns me.

  ‘I know.’

  ‘Better accept at once.’

  I shrug. ‘I will. I know I’ve got to marry him. I know there’s no choice.’

  ‘As his wife, you’ll be Queen of England; you’ll command a fortune!’ she crows. ‘We’ll all get our fortunes.’

  ‘Yes – the family’s prize heifer is on the market once again. This is the third sale.’

  ‘Oh Kat! This isn’t just any old marriage arranged for you, this is the greatest chance you’ll have in your life! It’s the greatest marriage in England, probably in the world!’

  ‘For as long as it lasts.’

  She looks behind her, then puts her arm through mine so that we can walk, head to head, and speak in whispers. ‘You’re anxious; but it might not last so very long. He’s very sick. He’s very old. And then you have the title and the inheritance but not the husband.’

  The husband I have just buried was forty-nine, the king is fifty-one, an old man, but he could last till sixty. He has the best of physicians and the finest apothecaries, and he guards himself against disease as if he were a precious babe. He sends his armies to war without him, he gave up jousting years ago. He has buried four wives – why not another?

  ‘I might outlive him,’ I concede, my mouth to her ear. ‘But how long did Katherine Howard last?’

  Nan shakes her head at the comparison. ‘That slut! She betrayed him, and was foolish enough to be caught. You won’t do that.’

  ‘It doesn’t matter,’ I say, suddenly weary of these calculations. ‘Because I’ve no choice anyway. It’s the wheel of fortune.’

  ‘Don’t say that; it’s God’s will,’ she says with sudden enthusiasm. ‘Think of what you might do as Queen of England. Think of what you could do for us!’

  My sister is a passionate advocate for the reform of the church in England from the state it is in – a popeless papacy – to a true communion based on the Bible. Like many in the country – who knows how many? – she wants the king’s reform of the church to go further and further until we are free from all superstition.

  ‘Oh, Nan, you know I have no convictions . . . and anyway, why would he listen to me?’

  ‘Because he always listens to his wives at first. And we need someone to speak for us. The court is terrified of Bishop Gardiner, he’s even questioned Lady Mary’s household. I’ve had to hide my own books. We need a queen who will defend the reformers.’

  ‘Not me,’ I say flatly. ‘I’ve no interest and I won’t pretend to it. I was cured of faith when the papists threatened to burn down my castle.’

  ‘Yes, that’s what they’re like. They threw hot coals on Richard Champion’s coffin to show that they thought he should have been burned. They keep the people in ignorance and fear. That’s why we think the Bible should be in English, everyone should understand it for themselves and not be misled by priests.’

  ‘Oh, you’re all as bad as each other,’ I say roundly. ‘I don’t know anything about the new learning – not many books came my way in Richmondshire, and I didn’t have any time to sit around reading. Lord Latimer wouldn’t have had them in the house. So I don’t know what all the fuss is about, and I certainly don’t have any influence with the king.’

  ‘But Kat, there are four men, who only wanted to read the Bible in English, accused of heresy in Windsor prison right now. You must save them.’

  ‘Not if they are heretics, I won’t! If they’re heretics they’ll have to burn. That’s the law. Who am I to say it’s wrong?’

  ‘But you will learn,’ Nan persists. ‘Of course you were cut off from all the new thinking when you were married to old Latimer and buried alive in the North, but when you hear the London preachers and listen to the scholars explaining the Bible in English you’ll understand why I think as I do. There is nothing in the world more important than bringing God’s Word to the people and pushing back the power of the old church.’

  ‘I do think that everyone should be allowed to read the Bible in English,’ I concede.

  ‘That’s all you need to believe for now. The rest follows. You’ll see. And I will be with you,’ she says. ‘Always. Whither thou goest, I will go. God bless me, I’ll be sister to the Queen of England!’

  I forget the gravity of my position and I laugh. ‘You’ll puff up like a cock sparrow! And wouldn’t Mother have been pleased! Can you imagine?’

  Nan laughs out loud and claps her hand over her mouth. ‘Lord! Lord! Can you imagine it? After marrying you off and setting me to work so hard, and all for brother William’s benefit? After teaching us that he must come first and we had to serve the family and never think of ourselves? Teaching us all our lives that the only person who mattered was William and the only country in the world was England, and the only place was court, and the only king was Henry?’r />
  ‘And the heirloom!’ I crow. ‘The precious heirloom that she left me! Her greatest treasure was her portrait of the king.’

  ‘Oh, she adored him. He was always the handsomest prince in Christendom to her.’

  ‘She would think me honoured to marry what remains.’

  ‘Well, you are,’ Nan points out. ‘He will make you the wealthiest woman in England; nobody will come near you for power. You’ll be able to do exactly as you please, you’ll like that. Everyone – even Edward Seymour’s wife – will have to curtsey to you. I’ll enjoy seeing that, the woman is unbearable.’

  At the mention of Thomas’s brother I lose my smile. ‘You know, I was thinking of Thomas Seymour, for my next husband.’

  ‘But you haven’t said anything directly to him? You never mentioned him to anyone? You’ve not spoken to him?’

  Bright as a portrait I can see Thomas naked in the candlelight, his knowing smile, my hand on his warm belly, tracing the line of dark hair downward. I can smell the scent of him as I kneel before him and put my forehead against his belly, as my lips part. ‘I’ve said nothing. I’ve done nothing.’

  ‘He doesn’t know that you were considering him?’ Nan presses. ‘You were thinking of marriage for the good of the family, not for desire, Kat?’

  I think of him lying on the bed, arching his back to thrust inside me, his outflung arms, the dark lashes on his brown cheeks as his eyes close in abandonment. ‘He has no idea. I only thought his fortune and kin would suit us.’

  She nods. ‘He would have been a very good match. They’re a family on the rise. But we must never mention him again. Nobody can ever say that you were thinking of him.’

  ‘I wasn’t. I would have had to marry someone who would benefit the family; him as well as any other.’

  ‘It has to be as if he is dead to you,’ she insists.

  ‘I’ve put aside all thought of him. I never even spoke to him, I never asked our brother to speak to him. I never mentioned him to anyone, not to our uncle. Forget him; I have.’

  ‘This is important, Kat.’

  ‘I’m not a fool.’

  She nods. ‘We’ll never speak of him again.’

  ‘Never.’

  That night I dream of Tryphine. I dream that I am the saint, married against my will to my father’s enemy, climbing a darkened stair in his castle. There is a bad smell coming from the chamber at the head of the stairs. It catches me in the back of my throat and makes me cough as I climb upwards, one hand on the damp curving stone wall, one hand holding my candle, the light bobbing and guttering in the pestilential breeze that blows down from the chamber. It is the smell of death, the scent of something dead and rotting coming from beyond the locked door, and I have to enter the door and face my greatest fear, for I am Tryphine, married against my will to my father’s enemy, and climbing a darkened stair in his castle. There is a bad smell coming from the chamber at the head of the stairs. It catches me in the back of my throat and makes me cough as I climb upwards, one hand on the damp curving stone wall, one hand holding my candle, the light bobbing and guttering in the pestilential breeze that blows down from the chamber. It is the smell of death, the scent of something dead and rotting coming from beyond the locked door, and I have to enter the door and face my greatest fear, for I am Tryphine, married against my will to my father’s enemy, and climbing a darkened stair in his castle . . . And so the dream repeats itself, over and over again, as I climb up and up the stair, which grows into another stair, which grows into another stair, up and up while the candlelight glitters on the dark wall and the smell from the locked room becomes stronger and stronger until finally I choke so hard on the stench that the bed shakes and Mary-Clare, another lady-in-waiting, who shares the bed with me, wakes me and says: ‘God bless you, Kateryn, you were dreaming and coughing and crying out! What’s the matter with you?’

  I say, ‘It’s nothing. God bless me, I was so afraid! I had a dream, a bad dream.’

  The king comes to Lady Mary’s rooms every day, leaning heavily on the arm of one of his friends, trying to hide that his bad leg is rotting away beneath him. Edward Seymour his brother-in-law supports him, talking pleasantly, charming as any Seymour. Often Thomas Howard, the old Duke of Norfolk, is holding up the other arm, his face locked in a wary courtier’s smile, and broad-faced, broad-shouldered Stephen Gardiner, the Bishop of Winchester, trails behind them, quick to step forward and intervene. They all laugh loudly at the king’s jokes and praise the insight of his statements; nobody ever contradicts him. I doubt anyone has argued with him since Anne Boleyn.

  ‘Gardiner again,’ Nan remarks, and Catherine Brandon leans towards her and whispers urgently. I see Nan go pale as Catherine nods her pretty head.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ I ask her. ‘Why shouldn’t Stephen Gardiner attend the king?’

  ‘The papists are hoping to entrap Thomas Cranmer, the finest, most Christian archbishop the court has ever had,’ Nan mutters in a rapid gabble. ‘Catherine’s husband has told her that they plan to accuse Cranmer of heresy today, this afternoon. They think they have enough on him to send him to the stake.’

  I am so shocked I can hardly respond. ‘You can’t kill a bishop!’ I exclaim.

  ‘You can,’ Catherine says sharply. ‘This king did: Bishop Fisher.’

  ‘That was years ago! What has Thomas Cranmer done?’

  ‘He has offended against the king’s Six Articles of faith,’ Catherine Brandon explains rapidly. ‘The king has named six things that every Christian must believe, or face a charge of heresy.’

  ‘But how can he offend? He can’t be against the teaching of the church; he’s the archbishop: he is the church!’

  The king is coming towards us.

  ‘Beg for the archbishop’s pardon!’ Nan says to me urgently. ‘Save him, Kat.’

  ‘How can I?’ I demand and then break off to smile as the king limps towards me, merely nodding to his daughter.

  I catch Lady Mary’s quizzical glance; but if she thinks my behaviour is unsuitable for a thirty-year-old widow there is nothing she can say. Lady Mary is only three years younger than me but she learned caution in a cruelly painful childhood. She saw her friends, her tutor, even her lady governess, disappear from her service into the Tower of London and from there to the scaffold. They warned her that her father would have her beheaded for her stubborn faith. Sometimes when she is praying in silence her eyes fill with tears and I think she is sick with grief for those she lost and could not save. I imagine that she wakes every day to guilt, knowing that she denied her faith to save her life; and her friends did not.

  Now she stands as the king lowers himself into his chair placed beside mine, and sits only when he waves his hand. She does not speak until he addresses her, but remains silent, her head obediently bowed. She is never going to complain that he flirts with her ladies-in-waiting. She will swallow her sorrow until it poisons her.

  The king gestures that we may all sit down, leans towards me, and in an intimate whisper asks what I am reading. I show him the title page at once. It is a book of French stories, nothing that might be forbidden.

  ‘You read French?’

  ‘I speak it too. Not as fluently as Your Majesty, of course.’

  ‘Do you read other languages?’

  ‘A little Latin, and I plan to study, now that I have more time,’ I say. ‘Now that I live at a learned court.’

  He smiles. ‘I have been a scholar all my life; I’m afraid you’ll never catch up, but you should learn enough to read to me.’

  ‘Your Majesty’s poetry in English is equal to anything in Latin,’ one of the courtiers says enthusiastically.

  ‘All poetry is better in Latin,’ Stephen Gardiner contradicts him. ‘English is the language of the market. Latin is the language of the Bible.’

  Henry smiles and waves a fat hand, the great rings sparkling as he dismisses the argument. ‘I shall write a poem for you in Latin and you shall translate it,’ he promises m
e. ‘You can judge which is the best language for words of love. A woman’s mind can be her greatest ornament. You shall show me the beauty of your intelligence as well as the beauty of your face.’

  His little eyes drift down from my face to the neck of my gown and rest on the curves of my breasts pressed against the tight stomacher. He licks his pursed lips. ‘Isn’t she the fairest lady at court?’ he asks the Duke of Norfolk.

  The old man produces a thin smile, his dark eyes weighing me up as if I were sirloin. ‘She is indeed the fairest of many blooms,’ he says, glancing around for his daughter, Mary.

  I see Nan looking urgently at me, and I remark: ‘You seem a little weary. Is there anything that troubles Your Majesty?’

  He shakes his head as the Duke of Norfolk leans in to listen. ‘Nothing that need trouble you.’ He takes my hand and draws me a little closer. ‘You’re a good Christian, aren’t you, my dear?’

  ‘Of course,’ I say.

  ‘Read your Bible, pray to the saints and so on?’

  ‘Yes, Your Majesty, every day.’

  ‘Then you know that I gave the Bible in English to my people and that I am the head of the church in England?’

  ‘Of course, Your Majesty. I took the oath myself. I called in every one of my household at Snape Castle and made them swear that you are the head of the church and the pope is just the Bishop of Rome, and has no command in England.’

  ‘There are some who would have the English Church turn to Lutheran ways, changing everything. And there are some who think quite the opposite and would turn everything back to how it was before, restoring the power of the pope. Which do you think?’

  I am very sure that I don’t want to express an opinion either way. ‘I think I should be guided by Your Majesty.’

  He laughs out loud and so everyone has to laugh with him. He chucks me under the chin. ‘You are very right,’ he says. ‘As a subject and as a sweetheart. I tell you, I am publishing my ruling on this, calling it The King’s Book so that people can know what to think. I will tell them. I am finding a middle way between Stephen Gardiner here – who would like all the rituals and the powers of the church to be restored once again – and my friend Thomas Cranmer – who is not here – who would like it pared back to the bone of the Bible. Cranmer would have no monasteries, no abbeys, no chantries, no priests even – just preachers and the Word of God.’