The movement pushes Cleves and Howard against each other momentarily, and momentarily their free hands touch. Cleves catches Howard’s fingers in her own and squeezes. Howard darts a smile at her, and Cleves is reminded of another girl, long ago, who once looked up at her in such a way.
“Ready?” Cleves says.
“I do not know,” Howard replies.
Cromwell takes his place before the easels. Johana tuts.
“Hush,” Cleves says. She knows why he is displeased: it is inconceivable that a mere lord such as Cromwell should be acting as master of ceremonies for this occasion. The queens should be asserting their rights to unveil their own portraits.
There will be time enough for that, Cleves thinks. She must be sure of her footing first.
“Gentlemen, ladies, townsfolk,” Cromwell says. His voice is like a burrowing animal, a badger. “We are honoured to greet your queens of Plythe and Cnothan to Gem?res for a very special unveiling of two new paintings commissioned by His Majesty King Henry, eighth of his name. For the love between a king and his queens is alike to the love between a king and his country. When one is true, the other can never be broken. So without further delay, allow me to present to you the famous Master Holbein’s new portraits of Queen Howard and Queen Cleves!”
He flings back the curtains. Red velvet snakes to the ground as the townspeople applaud before they have even seen the paintings. Cleves has practised her reaction already. She must be seen to be concealing her distress at how ugly she looks compared to Howard. She must be foreign in her mannerisms. This is the test that she must pass to ensure her safety.
She approaches the portrait and pulls her spectacles from a pouch at her belt. She perches them on her nose and peers closely at the rendering, examining the way in which Holbein has captured her direct gaze – too direct for Elbenese modesty – and her proprietary hand upon Lelij’s head as the gargoyle sits, as regal as such a creature can be, beside her throne.
“Well done, Master Holbein,” she whispers. “It is well done indeed.”
She looks strange, true, but not ridiculous. She wonders whether Henry and Cromwell have realised this, or whether their own feelings towards her have coloured their view of the portrait.
She makes a performance of looking at the ground, as if trying to collect her emotions, and polishing her spectacles and looking atthe portrait again. But she cannot force herself to hunch, as she had planned. It turns out that her pride does have limits. She is not ashamed of this portrait. She is not ashamed of herself.
She moves on to examine Howard’s painting, and the queen in question joins her.
“Did he truly see me so?” Howard says, so that only Cleves can hear.
Holbein has captured her singular beauty. How could he fail to do so? In the portrait, she is wearing the same gown that she wears now – covered in white and red roses to mark her as Henry Tudor’s property. She holds a rose too, its stalk slender and smooth, unadorned with thorns. But her fingernails are long and sharpened to points. Cleves glances down at Howard’s hands – her nails are rounded. In the portrait, her eyes are wide, even larger than they are in reality. Where Cleves’s expression is sharp, Howard’s is vacant – she looks past the painter, not at him.
She can understand why Howard is so thrown by this reflection. Even Cleves is confused: what message was Holbein attempting, and to whom? Are the sharp nails a reference to the thoughtless cruelty that she has heard tell of among Howard and her ladies-in-waiting? Or are they a trumpet call to Howard herself, to turn her softness to blades?
“What do you see when you look at it?” Cleves asks Howard.
“I do not know,” Howard says. Her hands flutter to her neck. “Henry thinks I am perfect. But – is that what the portrait says?”
She is asking Cleves so many questions in one:Am I safe? Am I as I should be? Who am I?
Cromwell joins them. Howard stiffens even as she turns a beatific smile upon him. Cleves likes to think she is a little more natural.
“Your Majesties, has our painter not done a wonderful job? The king is having these likenesses copied for houses across Elben and beyond. Even some of our foreign ambassadors have asked for their own copies to send back to their royal masters.”
Cleves polishes her spectacles again. “If our husband approves of them, then what do our thoughts matter, Lord Cromwell?” she says.
Cromwell places a hand upon his chest. “You do not like yours, Queen Cleves?”
“Oh, I like it well enough. But you know me: I do not see the point of such frivolities.”
She indicates Howard. “My sister may be very pleased with hers, though, I think. Do you not, Lord Cromwell?”
Cleves does not like the way he looks at Howard. She is reminded of a carrion crow. Howard evidently feels it too, because she takes a small step back.
“His Majesty likes it very much.The rose without a thorn, he said, when he saw it. Is that what you are, Queen Howard?”
Howard’s mouth is open, but no words emerge. She laughs nervously.Say something, Cleves thinks.Do not freeze. But Howard is in the pit of her panic, and the silence stretches.
“For shame, Lord Cromwell,” Cleves says, batting him playfully. “Any discussion of pricks should be between a husband and his wife alone.”
She and Cromwell laugh. “My apologies, Queen Howard,” Cromwell says, bowing, and Howard curtseys and laughs in turn, understanding that Cleves has given her an opening to pretend that she was merely shy.
