Part 44 (1/2)
She had been glowing with his praise but at that question she looked suddenly afraid, as if she remembered the curses of the fishwives and the shouts of ”Wh.o.r.e!” from the market traders. ”I want everyone to know it,” she said.
”Shall I take you to the king?” George asked pragmatically.
Anne put her hand on his arm and I saw him tense at the turn of her head and her sidelong smile. ”Wouldn't you rather take me to your chamber?”
”If I wanted to be beheaded for incest-yes.”
She gave her s.e.xy little laugh. ”Very well then. To the king. But remember, George, you are my courtier, like all the others.”
He bowed and led her from the room. I listened to them cross the presence chamber and then go down the stairs, and I waited till I heard the door at the bottom of the stairs bang shut. I thought that Anne's desire to be first with everyone must be powerful indeed if she would pause to torment her own brother on the very night of her bedding the king.
She came back at daybreak, huddled into her clothes, just as I used to do. George brought her back and together we stripped her and pushed her into bed. She was too weary to speak.
”So it's done,” I said as her eyes closed.
”Several times, I should think,” he said. ”I waited outside the chamber and slept in the chair and a couple of times in the night they woke me with their crying out and panting. Please G.o.d we get an heir from it.”
”And no doubt that he'll marry her? He won't tire of her now he has her?”
”Not inside six months. And now she's getting some pleasure for herself and not having to fight him off all the time she might be sweeter to him, and-please G.o.d-sweeter to us.”
”If she's much sweeter to you she'll be in your bed as well as the king's.”
George stretched and yawned and smiled lazily down at me from his extended height. ”She was hot,” he said. ”And she could take it out on no one else. She was hot and once that wears off then please G.o.d she has a baby in her belly and a ring on her finger and a crown on her head. Vivat Anna Vivat Anna! And grudge who grudges it-it's done.”
I left Anne sleeping and thought that I might see William Stafford if I went to my uncle's rooms at this hour in the morning. The castle was stirring, the lanes approaching the kitchen were crowded with the wagons bringing cords of firewood and charcoal from the woods, fruit and vegetables from the market, and meat, milk and cheese from the farms. In my uncle's rooms there was the bustle of a great household setting about the day. The maids had finished sweeping and cleaning in the presence chamber and the scullions were loading the fireplaces with logs and blowing on the embers to make them flame up.
My uncle's gentlemen were housed in half a dozen small rooms off the great hall, his men at arms slept in the guard room. William could be anywhere. I walked through the presence chamber and nodded at a couple of the gentlemen I knew and tried to look as if I were waiting to see my uncle or my mother.
The door to my uncle's privy chamber opened and George came out in a rush.
”Oh good,” he said on seeing me. ”Is Anne still asleep?”
”She was when I left her.”
”Go to her and wake her up. Tell her that the clergy has submitted to the king, or at least enough of them to mean that we have won, but Thomas More has announced that he has resigned his post. The king will learn it during Ma.s.s today when he receives More's letter, but she should be forewarned. The king is bound to take it hard.”
”Thomas More?” I repeated. ”But I thought he was on our side?”
My brother tutted at my ignorance. ”He promised the king never to comment publicly on the dissolution of the marriage. But it's obvious what he thinks, isn't it? He's a lawyer, a logical man, he's hardly likely to be convinced by the twisting of the truth that's been going on in a thousand universities in Europe.”
”But I thought he wanted the church reformed?” I asked. Not for the first time I was adrift in the sea of politics which was my family's natural element.
”Reformed, not taken to pieces and headed by the king,” my brother said quickly. ”Who knows better than Thomas More that the king is not fit to play Pope? He's known him from childhood. He'd never accept Henry as the heir to St Peter.” My brother laughed shortly. ”It's a ridiculous notion.”
”Ridiculous? I thought we supported it.”
”Of course we do,” he said. ”It means that Henry can rule on his own marriage, he can marry Anne. But no one but a fool would think that there was the least justification for it in law, in morality, or in common sense. Look, Mary, don't worry. Anne understands all this. Just go and wake her and tell her that More is resigning and the king will learn of it this morning and she is to be calm. That's what my uncle said. Anne must be calm.”
I turned to do as he bid me, and just at that very moment, William Stafford came into the hall, shrugging on his doublet. He paused when he saw me and made me a low bow. ”Lady Carey,” he said. He bowed to my brother. ”Lord Rochford.”
”Go,” my brother said to me and gave me a little push. He ignored William. ”Go and tell her.”
There was nothing I could do but hurry from the room without even being able to touch William's hand and say ”good morning” to him.
Anne and the king were closeted alone for most of the morning, considering what the resignation of Thomas More might mean to them. My father and uncle were with them, and Cranmer and Secretary Cromwell, all the men attached to Anne's cause, all determined that the king should take the power and the profit of the church in England. Anne and the king came out to dinner in very good harmony and she sat at his right hand as if she were already queen.
After dinner the two of them went to his privy chamber and everyone was sent away. George raised an eyebrow at me with a little smile and whispered: ”As long as a little prince comes out of it, eh, Mary?” and then went strolling off to play at cards with Francis Weston and a couple of the others. I went out into the garden to sit in the suns.h.i.+ne and look at the river, and all the time I knew that I was longing for William Stafford.
As if I had summoned him, he was suddenly there before me.
”Were you looking for me this morning?” he asked.
”No,” I said, lying as quick as a courtier. ”I was looking for my brother.”
”Whatever the case, I have come looking for you,” he offered. ”And glad I am to find you. Very glad, my lady.”
I moved a little on the seat and gestured that he might sit beside me. The moment he was within touching distance I felt my heart hammer. There was a scent about him, a warm sweet male scent that lingered about his hair and his soft brown beard. I found that I was leaning toward him and I made myself sit back.
”I am to come with your uncle to Calais,” he said. ”Perhaps I can be of service to you on the journey.”
”Thank you,” I said.
There was a brief silence.
”I am sorry about the stable yard,” I said. ”I was afraid of Anne seeing us together. While she has the guardians.h.i.+p of my son I dare not offend her.”
”I understand,” William said quickly. ”It was just the moment-I had hold of your little riding boot. I didn't want to let go.”
”I can't be your lover,” I said in a very low voice. ”Clearly not.”
He nodded. ”But were you looking for me this morning?”
”Yes,” I whispered, honest at last. ”I couldn't go for another minute without seeing you.”
”I have been hovering in this garden and outside the marquess's chambers all of the day, hoping to see you,” he said. ”I've been out here so long that I thought of getting a spade and doing something useful in the time while I was waiting.”
”Gardening?” I said with a gurgle of laughter, thinking of Anne's face if I were to announce that I was in love with the man who dug the garden. ”That hardly helps.”
”No,” he said, sharing my amus.e.m.e.nt. ”But I was hanging round the ladies' chambers like a pimp so it's the better of the two. Mary, what shall we do? What is your desire?”
”I don't know,” I said, speaking nothing but the truth. ”I feel as if this is a sort of madness which I am going through and if I had a true friend they would tie me down until it had pa.s.sed.”