To Die For: A Novel of Anne Boleyn Page 5

  My father called me into his study. Edmund was already there, thumbing through a book, trying to look scholarly, and I had to grant that he had a quick wit. Numbers and accounts, though, they were what he preferred. In that he was as far from my brother Thomas as two brothers could be. My father, now sharing responsibilities for the king’s treasury with Anne’s father, was as miserly with his money as Anne’s father was generous. Edmund took after our father in that way, and our father applauded him for it.

  “You’ve done well, mistress,” my father said to me. He indicated that I was to sit in the chair next to him.

  It was done then. I was to be married.

  “Lord Blackston and I will be in negotiations for terms, and if we come to some that are agreeable to us both, and I expect we will, you will be betrothed to him anon.”

  In the front of my mind I thought that surely I had misheard, but the back of my mind heard Edmund breathing his peculiar stalking breath and it warned me that perhaps I had heard correctly after all.

  “Sir, did I mishear you? Surely you meant to say that you are arranging for my possible betrothal to Simon, My Lord Blackston’s heir?” I kept my breath steady and my gaze low. The carved wood of the arm of the chair became a focal point.

  “You heard me correctly,” Father answered. “At first, Blackston and I had expected to come to some kind of an arrangement for you and for young Simon. However, after laying eyes upon you he found you pleasing to look at and thought that perhaps a nubile young bride would bring him a son of his own after these many long years. His nephew had already reported to him that you have a pleasing manner. He’s convinced that he should take you for himself.”

  A minute slipped by. Then another. “He is nearly of an age with you,” I whispered.

  “Yes.”

  That was all, yes. I had no say in the matter. Lord Cobham could repudiate me because I had rebuked him, which he found disagreeable; no matter if I found him agreeable or not. I had to prove myself pleasing to Simon, and Baron Blackston, but they did not have to prove anything to me. I had questions; my father was not required, nor inclined, to give me answers. I was to marry a man whose skin was as loose as his sputum.

  “May I speak?”

  My father nodded. I tried my very best to cloak myself with a quiet spirit of gentility.

  “I do not think I can love him,” I said. I hoped he would understand. After all, he so clearly loved my mother.

  “Love!” He snorted. “Listen to what Thomas’s cursed poetry has wrought in you. It’s a plague upon the sensibilities of my house. You, Mistress Wyatt, will hold your tongue and be obedient as you have so recently learnt. And if God shall bless you with children by Lord Blackston, then you will thank God that through them your name will not be buried in the earth. Think no further of love.”

  He dismissed me with a wave of his hand. I curtseyed and fled the room.

  I rushed to my chambers and then fast locked the door behind me. My maid, Edithe, was in my room preparing for my evening’s dressing. I flung myself on the bed and she came and stood beside me. “Can I get something for you, mistress?”

  I looked into her wear-worn face. Though she was perhaps only five years older than I, she had already borne two children who lived with her mother because she spent most days and nights here at Allington serving me well. Her husband was a field hand at Hever Castle. Disregarding social boundaries I let my horror spill out.

  “I am not like my mother, bless her, to want to take purpose in life by the breeding of those who are to follow me. I do not yearn for meaningless ritual, not in worship, not in friendship, not in womanhood, not in marriage, nor in life. How can I live the life I desire?”

  She handed me a kerchief to dry my eyes but she spoke to me honestly, not soothingly, woman to woman. “You cannot live a life you desire. Our destiny is not ours to choose. Even Mistress Boleyn must hie her to court because her father and His Grace the Duke of Norfolk ha’ decided her expensive French education shall be put to their good use.”

  I took her coarse hands in mine for a moment, admonished by her harsh life, and then I went to bed and wept silent, angry tears of protest that I knew would profit me not at all. In the middle of the night I got up and looked in the trunk where I’d stored Will’s letters. They were gone. I was devastated by the loss of the only physical tokens of our love—papers his hands and mine had touched, breathed upon, kissed. And further, my joints jellied at the thought of them in someone else’s hands, but I dared not make inquiries lest I draw attention to their existence and bring down a rain of abuse.

  But Edithe’s comments had given me an idea. I would go to Anne. She would know what to do.

  My father, of course, pleased with himself and with me in an odd way, gave me leave the very next day to ride out and visit her. I’d have a short stay and then return.

  It was too cold for a walk in the gardens, so we sat in Sir Thomas’s great hall and worked at wretched needlework near the fire for an excuse to talk. She had not been long home from France, having returned with her father after the king’s great meeting at the Field of Cloth of Gold in Calais. I plied the needle whilst she wove the story.

  “It was magnificent, Meg,” she told me. “I had thought that perhaps our court was coarse and unsophisticated, missing a certain je ne sais quoi, and I was not looking forward to returning home from Queen Claude’s court,” she said—then she must have caught the look on my face. “Though I missed you, of course, and my lady mother.” She had not mentioned her sister, Mary.

  “But I tell you, the king was formidable. He wrestled with Francis and could have won, but he allowed Francis to prevail, which only endeared him to us more. His words were fine; he cut a better figure of a man. I knew, then, that I could come back to England and that, for certes, my fate is here.”

  “Mine is too,” I said morosely. I’d poured my story out to her the moment my courtesies with her mother had concluded and we were in private.

  Anne set down her needlework. “Come with me to court,” she said.

  “What?”

  “Come with me to court. It will take some time for your betrothal negotiations to be completed—my father has been working on mine with Butler for years. In the meantime, I go to court with my father in March and you shall come with us!”

  Now I set down my needlework. It would certainly appeal to my father—raise my family’s stature for me to be at court in even a minor capacity in Queen Katherine’s household. Sir Thomas rode high in the king’s esteem since the success at Calais, so Baron Blackston could certainly have no objection. And I might never get another chance. When Anne married Piers Butler she’d be off to Ireland.

  Anne settled the matter, as she often did, without waiting for my agreement. “I’ll have my father write a letter to yours and you can take it with you upon your return.”

  The next day I returned to Allington, the letter from Sir Thomas clutched in my hand. I stilled my wrist as I held it out to my father. I was almost tempted to pray for a positive response, but no need. He agreed. I would leave for court in a little more than one month’s time. My mother was overjoyed and we spent many hours together planning what I would pack in the trunks I’d bring. One day, after she’d left my chamber, Edmund appeared like a sudden onset of disease.

  “The court nourishes itself on compromise, taking in the very people who like to pretend that they are good and then retching them out after they cede their alleged moral standards one by one.”

  “Pity you’re not coming then,” I retorted. “It sounds like someplace you would thrive.”

  “Oh, I’ll get there, after I help Father negotiate your marriage portion,” Edmund said. “I’ll be there to watch as you are broken.”

  I dismissed him but couldn’t dismiss his accusations as readily. Would the court bend me to its will too?

  FIVE

  Year of Our Lord 1522

  York Place, London, England

  It was the day before the b
eginning of Lent, Shrove Tuesday, and we’d been at court nigh on a fortnight. We’d settled into the queen’s retinue, Anne as one of the queen’s many maidens of honor and I as a highborn friend there to assist and to make friends that might help my father or my future husband. Our days thus far had consisted of going to Mass with the queen, playing cards in her chamber, sewing shirts for the poor, and, of course, providing modest feminine companionship at meals and jousts. For the most part our time had been a disappointment.

  The queen did not enjoy high spirits, preferring to spend dark hours in her chapel on her knees and favoring those who did likewise, most of whom had come with her from Spain a lifetime ago. Ash Wednesday would mark a period of little merriment and no meat. The king desired to indulge so as to carry us through till the celebration of the Resurrection. Cardinal Wolsey had planned an extraordinary masque. Even to me, a woman comfortably estranged from God, it was unseemly that the cardinal spent more time preparing for Henry to gorge his senses than preparing for the forthcoming denial of those same pleasures in honor of our Lord the next day. I’d heard it said that his solicitor, Thomas Cromwell, attended to Christ’s business while Wolsey attended to the more important matters of the king.

  Somehow, someone had whispered a strong suggestion in an important ear and Anne was to be one of the principal players in the masque.

  “How does the cardinal have enough money to entertain so lavishly?” I asked as I helped Anne into her shift and then went on to ensure that her gown sat perfectly. “There are legions of people to attend this evening and he is sure to serve dozens and dozens of courses to please the king. And he’s got hundreds of servants!”

  Anne nodded and then laughed. Her laugh was pleasant to hear but not filled with merriment as an ordinary woman’s laugh might be. Rather it was a mix of joy and sophistication and maybe a little bit of challenge to the listener. It was compelling and altogether different since she’d returned from France. I’d seen the men at court respond to her laughter and to her presence, almost against their will, in a way unlike the manner in which they approached the other ladies in the queen’s household.

  “The cardinal’s servants are better dressed than I,” she teased. Although it was not exactly true, they were finely attired, for certes. Just then, another young woman burst into the chamber, her sickly strong jasmine perfume preceding her arrival.

  “Do you know where Mary has gone?” she asked.

  “Hello, Jane,” Anne replied, reminding Jane Parker that she had forgone the civility of a greeting in order to bleat out a demand, as usual.

  “Hello, sister,” Jane replied impatiently. “’Tis a short time till we’re required in the dining hall. Have you seen our sister Mary?”

  Anne looked at me and even though her expression did not change, I, who knew her well, could read her impatience with the woman soon to be betrothed to Anne’s beloved brother, George.

  “She left some time ago. Mayhap she’s with the king.”

  “Indeed!” Jane’s eyes lit up at the idea of inserting herself into the king’s close orbit. “I’ll see to her.” She took her leave but not afore reminding us to hurry. It was a credit to Anne’s discretion that she held her tongue.

  “You’d wish better for George,” I said. I understood. In spite of the fact that my brother Thomas had a sweet son by his wife, Elizabeth, they spoke not at all and I had already seen Elizabeth in a dark hallway with one of the king’s privy counselors.

  “I’d wish him happiness, in all ways, in great measure,” Anne said. “And I fear he’s not going to get that with Mistress Parker. But my father is sure to get a great dowry, and one that he supposes to use in part for my marriage portion, so he warns me to say nothing at all to my sister Jane but to welcome her into our family. For his sake, and for George’s, I do.” She stood and turned in her gown, her long black hair flowing majestically around her shoulders, her eyes played up with the tiniest bit of kohl in each corner. “How do I look?”

  “There will not be an eye with the free will to look away from you,” I said, suddenly feeling very dowdy in my sapphire gown.

  “Don’t fret, you look lovely, Meg,” Anne said, reading my mind. “Let us go ere Mistress Parker brings herself to a fit.”

  We first went to dinner, the king and queen on a dais at the head of the room and the rest of us stratified according to rank outward from their position. Anne was several tables in front of me, and I sat with a group of happy young ladies-in-waiting, next to a table of the king’s gentlemen, who laughed, and yes, we parried with one another, well out of the queen’s earshot and gaze.

  “I hear that there are to be sixteen women who are costumed for roles at the masque,” one young courtier said. “And yet only eight men.”

  “Perhaps that is because it takes two women to subdue one man!” another courtier offered, to the general laughter of the rest of us.

  “What think you, mistress?” The first young man trained his eyes on me and smiled flirtatiously. I was unused to courtly manners. Did he intend to pay me such intense attention? Or was this a part and parcel of the illusory world of the court, where nothing was as it seemed?

  “I should rather not offer my opinion,” I said. “I know that one of the maidens shall represent malebouche, a sharp tongue, and should she fall ill I’d not like to be pressed into service.”

  The tables erupted in laughter and I smiled.

  “Never,” the young man thrust back. “I find your bouche to be anything but sharp.”

  For him to comment on my mouth, especially implying that it was soft, was perhaps a step further in this game than I wished to go, so I nodded toward him. “Touché,” I said, and left it at that. His eyes did not leave me for some time, and I allowed myself to suppose that my gown was not as dowdy as I had feared.

  I glanced at Anne. She had been seated next to Henry Percy, the heir to the Earl of Northumberland. One glance at Percy’s face told me that he was smitten with Anne, which was unsurprising. What was surprising, however, was the look on Anne’s face. Underneath her practiced court luster I could spy honest interest. I made note of it because Anne did not waste her affections.

  After dinner we made our way from the dining room into the large chamber in which the performance would be held. Each masque had a theme, and the theme that Cardinal Wolsey had determined for this celebration was that of unrequited love. How fitting! I scanned the room, both wishing for and hoping against Will’s being in attendance, as he well might. When I saw that he was not, I relaxed and allowed myself to be transported, along with the other guests, by the story.

  In one end of the hall had been built a replica of a castle, covered with green foil, which concealed the court musicians. Within were eight women, representing the feminine virtues to which we were supposed to aspire and to which, I admit, I did strive, though I often fell short. The king’s sister Mary, as the highest-ranking of the masqued women, played Beauty. Jane Parker played Constancy, something I found difficult to believe, and I wondered if the choir master had known her well, or at all, when appointing her to the position. The Countess of Devonshire, wife of the king’s cousin, who still had the smell of treason about him, was strangely nominated to be Honor. Anne’s sister, Mary, played Kindness, and I agreed that was a suitable role. She had not much wit, nor principles, but she was kind.

  Anne had been selected to play Perseverance.

  The eight costumed men attacked the eight women dressed as unlovely feminine vices, throwing dates, fruits, and other sweetmeats at them till they yielded, allowing the eight feminine virtues, headed by Princess Mary, to escape into the willing arms of the men. At the victory, the queen stood and led the crowd in applause. After she had recognized the end of the performance she was free, by custom, to take her leave, and she did. When she left, the cool air of disapproval left with her, leaving behind a warm current of gaiety.

  “Play on!” the king commanded the musicians, free, too, from Katherine’s zeal and censure. “So
mething that will put us in a fine mood for a long night of dancing and revelry.”

  As the music struck up the king led out Mary Boleyn Carey as his first partner, but he did not limit himself to her. Henry was a man who liked a table laden with an uncountable number of fine delicacies, so many that he could not possibly eat them all at one sitting. But he enjoyed sampling them each with his eyes at every meal, and when he took a fancy to a particular dish, it had better be set afore him to be enjoyed at his exclusive pleasure. I watched as his eyes roved across the crowd, alighting here and there. They settled on Anne for a moment longer than on any other. I exhaled as soon as his gaze moved on.

  ’Twas no surprise that Anne was a much-requested dance partner all evening long. And yet, several times I looked at her returning a warm smile to the longing gaze of Henry Percy and she danced with him more than the others.

  “Have a care,” I warned her as we stood next to one another while the king danced a galliard. “He’s the Earl of Northumberland’s heir and roosts on a high perch.”

  “Even high-flying birds must come down to hunt,” she responded, flushed and enjoying herself.

  I grinned at her wit and banter. I enjoyed being young and in demand this evening too. We squeezed one another’s hands in friendship ere parting when the dance opened up again to all.

  And yet I must admit to a certain uneasiness when, later, I saw Henry Percy secure one of the dates that had been thrown in the earlier mock battle in order to win the affections of the virtuous maidens. At a pause in the music, Lord Percy offered the sweet to Anne.

  She took it from him and enfolded it in her hand.

  The months at court passed quickly, and early in springtime of 1523 my father sent my brother Thomas to court to assist with the king’s finances. It was an attempt, which we were all sure would prove futile, to force verse out of Thomas’s head, thus leaving room within for figures. I was glad of his company, though, and told him so as we strolled together in the gardens.