The Sixth Wife. Suzannah Dunn

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СКАЧАТЬ gave an apologetic shrug: of course I knew. But then a double-take: ‘Did you…?’ You didn’t know beforehand, did you?

      ‘No! No. I’d have told her…’Told her what exactly? Any number of things. I voiced my doubts, or, more accurately, my incomprehension: ‘It’s not just that it’s too soon, is it. It’s that it’s him.’

      He stopped, almost smiled.‘But I thought you’d have been all for that.’

      ‘For what?’

      ‘Marrying “for love”.’ He handled the words with a show of reluctance but it was clear that he enjoyed saying it. Probably the biggest thrill he’d had in ages.

      I’ve never made any secret of my opinion. And if anyone fails to understand quite why I object to arranged marriages, a good start would be to have a look at Ed’s wife. Nasty piece of work. Or, indeed, look at Ed himself: pallid and shadowed.

      ‘It helps,’ I said, sarcastically,‘if both parties feel the same.’ We walked on, alongside joyless, brittle lavender.

      ‘So, you don’t think my brother is in love with Kate?’

      ‘Do you?’

      Wearily: ‘I suspect he’s up to his usual tricks.’

      I brushed my fingertips against a rosemary bush – the dusting of flowers, tiny knots of brightest blue – and enjoyed the sting of its deep, dark scent in the air. ‘What was all that with Elizabeth?’

      ‘Exactly what it looked like, I should think: an attempt to marry a princess.’

      ‘Has there ever been any other interest in women?’

      He admitted, ‘That’s what puzzles me. If it wasn’t too premeditated for my brother – who’s nothing if not impetuous – I’d suspect he’d been waiting for the princesses to grow up. We’re lucky that his faults don’t include being Catholic.’ Mary would never have him.

      I said, ‘It’s Kate who’s the mystery here, though, isn’t it. Not Thomas. What is Kate doing, marrying Thomas?’ Sensible Kate. Probably the most sensible woman any of us have ever known. Strong-minded Kate, though: it did fit, in that respect. And Kate who keeps her own counsel, likewise.

      Ed nodded. ‘It’s Kate I’m concerned for. You know that.’ He was fond of Kate; she was his kind of person. ‘It’s not that I’m objecting to their being married. In fact, there’s probably no one I’d rather have as my sister-in-law -’ He stopped, gave me a look that meant Besides you, of course, although he didn’t mean it – he thinks I’m trouble. I laughed, but actually something serious occurred to me. I was remembering how Kate had said cheerfully to me, ‘But I don’t have to explain this to you, do I. You of all people.’And how I’d thought, Yes, but I’m me, Kate, and you’re you. Possibly, just possibly, this was something I’d do: marry someone whom others saw as unsuitable, and marry him quickly because I considered myself in love. Even though I had never, in fact, done any such thing. Had never had to. But Kate? Had I led her astray? By giving her ideas? She’d been the one giving me ideas, all my life: that’s how I saw our friendship. It felt odd to me that it might be the other way around, for once.

      As we walked past my sunless sundial, Ed broached something else: ‘If there’s an heir soon, there’d be a question as to whose,’ and he clarified, unnecessarily, ‘Thomas’s, or the late king’s.’

      ‘Ed, there hasn’t been an heir in all these years. She’s been married three times since she was fifteen. To men who’d already had children, so there was nothing wrong with them’

      He checked: ‘So, she isn’t…?’

      ‘Is that why you came here? Not to talk this over – two friends putting their heads together, concerned for a mutual friend – but to try to press something out of me?’

      His turn now to take offence. ‘No. No. Don’t bite my head off over this.’ He sighed. ‘It’s genuinely that I don’t know what to think. Don’t know what to make of this.’

      ‘Yes, well,’ I said, ‘that makes two of us.’

      Five

      

      I went a couple of weeks later, at Kate’s invitation, to dine with the newlyweds. This was to be it: Thomas’s formal introduction to me as Kate’s husband. No point in my putting it off; every point in getting it over with while making as little as possible of it. It had to be done. When my barge drew up, it was Elizabeth – unmistakable hair of Tudor gold – who greeted us. She just happened to be sitting on the riverbank steps. Holding a lute. Beneath her scarlet, ermine-edged cloak was a gown of deepest, plushest black; beneath that, a kirtle in cloth-of-gold. Oh, very picturesque. How had she managed to slip away alone, unattended? The gems on her hood’s border winked as she stood to give me a huge smile – ‘Hellooo!’ – but those Boleyn-black eyes searched my face. I was careful to show just as much enthusiasm as we chatted. You want to know why I distrust Elizabeth’s familiarity? Because it’s calculated. Those scanning eyes. Oh, I understand why - she’s spent her life on the outside, special to no one – but that doesn’t mean I have to like it.

      Her standing back from all the bustle of mooring and unloading our barge gave the unfortunate impression that she owned the place. ‘Oh, well,’ she said eventually and offered up her lute, raised her faint eyebrows. ‘Already late for my lesson.’ Watching her go, I did soften a little. Because there was also something genuine there. Excitement. She was obviously pleased to be at Kate’s. Understandably. Quite something, it was, to be taken on by Kate.

      It was something, though, to which her elder sister was objecting: this I discovered a little later, when Kate came with me to my room. Her old friend Princess Mary was refusing all contact with her, she confided dolefully. ‘Doesn’t like my having married Thomas so soon.’ So soon after her father’s death. She shrugged, helpless. It crossed my mind to say, I’m sorry to hear that; but then it crossed my mind that I wasn’t. I was pleased; it was a relief. That friendship of Kate and Mary’s was unfathomable to me. Mary is from the dark ages.

      It was predictable that she’d have voiced an objection: she’s famous for her sense of protocol, as well as for her horribly complicated relationship with her father. Understandable, the latter: think of his adoration of her as his precocious little princess, then his savage rejection of her along with her mother before he welcomed her – minus dead mother – back into the fold. Poor Mary never knew whether she was coming or going, whether she loved him or loathed him. Her confusion persists and she’s touchy on the subject, to say the least. I don’t like her but even I’d say that, given how her father treated her, she should be dancing on his grave.

      ‘She’ll come round, I think,’ Kate said, cautiously. We could speak freely; my two ladies, Joanna and Nichola, were reacquainting themselves with Kate’s; Kate and I could barely hear each other over all the chatter. Bella had gone to the laundresses with my gown, which had snagged on something when we’d disembarked.

      ‘And Elizabeth herself has no problems with your having married Thomas?’

      ‘No, none. Although Mary suggested she should have. Wrote to her and said it’d be best if she didn’t live with me.’ Kate permitted herself СКАЧАТЬ