The King’s Mistress. Darcey Bonnette

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СКАЧАТЬ more do we have to see her haunting the halls with her rosary and hair shirt!” Anne says in triumph. We are assembled in Norfolk’s privy chamber. Gathered about are Mary Carey, George Boleyn, and their parents, my uncle Thomas, and aunt Elizabeth.

      “We are so close!” Anne cries out. “Almost five years I’ve been waiting …”

      “Do you listen, Anne?” Norfolk hisses from across the table. “The pope has granted nothing—we are but a tiny step toward getting what we want. Dowager Princess Catherine has a great deal of support in the North; she could still win. As far as the king is concerned—”He folds his hands and cocks his head, eyeing Anne as carefully as he eyes me during my nightly reports. I am grateful that I am not the only one to be examined so critically. “He could have an attack of his infamous ‘conscience’ and take her back in less than a fortnight. Which means it is vital that you stay the course.” He tilts a brow.

      Anne scowls at him and folds her arms across her chest. “You think you know what’s best—”

      In a movement so swift it is almost over before it begins Norfolk is on his feet, slamming his fist on the table with a resounding thump. “I don’t think. I know. And if you know what’s good for you, you will listen.” His voice is never raised, not even a note. Perhaps it would be less frightening if it were not so controlled. It would make him more real.

      He sits back down and eyes Mary Carey. “You’re still instructing her on how best to keep him … intrigued?”

      A smile plays on George’s mouth. Apparently he has been privy to these discussions and perhaps shared some knowledge of his own.

      “Yes, of course,” says the much more agreeable Mary. A slight flush colors her cheeks and Norfolk waves a hand.

      “Don’t play the modest spring maiden to me,” he says. “We all know well what you are.”

      Mary Carey bows her head. I want to reach out to her but do not dare. I remain silent, taking everything in with a racing heart. I am ashamed of my fear and bow my own head.

      “Never forget the people’s reaction to you, Anne,” Norfolk continues. “‘We want no Nan Bullen.’ ” He lets the words of the rioting peasants fill her ears. She covers them and squeezes her eyes shut.

      “We were on the barge,” she whispers, reliving her ordeal. “The poxy fishwives called it out from shore …” She shakes her head as though trying to banish the disturbing images. “And they mobbed me.” Tears gather at the corners of her black eyes. She blinks. George wraps a protective arm about her shoulders, drawing her close. The movement creates a pang of longing for my own brother.

      “You have to try to endear yourself to them, Anne,” Norfolk says. “You have to make them love you and long for you as their queen. The king may weaken under the rejection of his subjects— he may decide you’re not worth all this bother with the pope and Catherine of Aragon’s supporters. Supporters like Charles of Spain.”

      “He wants an heir,” Anne says, her voice taut with determination. “I can give him what he most desires. No one will deter him.”

      “Everyone can deter him,” Norfolk argues. “Who do you think you are? You’re the lady of the moment. Even should this succeed you will only be useful to him till he gets his heir. And then? Then it is a mistress.”

      “Not with me,” Anne says with a proud but joyless smile. “He’d never dare.”

      “Oh, wouldn’t he? He dared with Catherine,” says the duke.

      “He didn’t love Catherine.”

      “He loved her dearly.” My father’s voice bears an edge of danger in it, and I find my fingernails are digging into my palms, sharp as a cat’s claws.

      “Anne, you are always dispensable, remember that. If you don’t believe it, take a look at your own sister.” He indicates poor Mary Carey with a careless nod.

      Anne draws in a breath. “It doesn’t matter,” she says with a shrug of one shoulder. I know it is a false sentiment. Anne is all about Anne; even I can perceive that. She will not take kindly to rivals. “I will be queen, won’t I?”

      “If you play this right,” Norfolk says. “Which means you listen to me. Do you understand, girl?”

      Anne draws her expression into one of serene dignity, offering him the slightest of nods. I call this her “queen’s face.” I practice this one when I’m alone, along with her smiles and looks of surprise and coquettish anger. To me she is the quintessence of charm and cultivation.

      We are dismissed and prepare to go to supper, but Anne remains a moment, standing in front of my father with her small shoulders squared, a hint of a smile on her face.

      “You are an old son of a bitch, Thomas Howard,” she says.

      I am awed by the words. I expect my father to strike her for her insolence but instead, after the briefest of pauses, he says with a small smile of his own, “As are you, Anne.” He pats her elbow as he guides her from the room. “Take it as a compliment.”

      Anne’s laughter peals forth as she quits the room.

      I don’t know why, but I am jealous. Certainly not at the exchange of insults. Perhaps it is of the familiarity, the fact that they can vex each other and still retain some strange favor with one another. Of course Anne is very useful to my father …

      I sigh, chastising myself for these uncharitable thoughts as I, too, quit the room, trying to chase away the feeling that I really am not useful at all.

      I have mixed feelings. I begin to suspect that I am not on the right side. I think of the queen not as the princess dowager, as we are told to refer to Catherine of Aragon now, but as the queen— the sad, gentle queen who greeted me at Westminster when I first arrived. Now she is alone in her northern castle, suffering as it seems her fate to do. She is denied almost everything and retains the smallest of courts; a handful of loyal maids whose devotion I applaud. She is further punished for her stubbornness by being kept separated from her daughter, who is also in exile until she agrees to sign a document acknowledging the invalidity of her mother and father’s marriage and thus naming herself a bastard.

      I am expected to make merry at the expense of such misery. I am not to express even the smallest amount of sympathy for the dethroned monarch or her poor rejected daughter. I am to celebrate the victory of the Howards.

      Our victory seems so precarious. What is viewed as triumph one day can be looked upon as tragedy the next; everyone’s fate depends on the fluctuating moods of the increasingly cantankerous king.

      “And what would you do if you were Queen Catherine?” asks Madge Shelton one night as we draw the covers over us. My dog, Fitz, sleeps between us; he is spoiled and content, innocent of treachery or plotting.

      I do not answer right away. The queen has no friends here, and it would do me no good to offer sympathy of any kind. I measure my words with care. “I would grant the king his divorce; say what needs to be said even if it isn’t true, just to have peace.”

      “Do you think it’s true? Do you think Catherine and Prince Arthur consummated their marriage?” she asks with a wicked gleam in her eye.

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