Page 21 of The Queen’s Witch

London is not Norfolk.

Even if my life was in danger, tomorrow I must go deeper into that danger by accompanying Anne to court. Tonight, however, what I felt most was homesick: for Tydd Saint Stephen, for the sound and smell of the sea, for Mark’s lips on mine and his hands on my breasts.

For Grandmother, gone where I could not yet follow.

7

Greenwich Palace

Because of the Sweat, the king and queen had not gone on Progress this summer. In London thousands had died of the sickness, but now that it had departed the city as quickly as it had appeared, no one at court mourned the dead. All was gaiety, laughter, dancing, games, and music.

First I had been dazzled by the richness of Hever Castle, then of Anne’s apartments in the tiltyard towers. Both paled beside King Henry’s rooms in the largest building of Greenwich Palace. The most lavish tapestries, most accomplished paintings, thickest gilding, deepest carving, most ornamented ceilings. Servants numerous as waves of the sea, and much more silent. The sweetest music and the most songs, by turns bawdy, stirring, tender.

Here I was not known to all. At dinner, as I crouched beside Anne’s chair, I received many looks: appraising, skeptical, cynical, disdainful, envious. Anne had something no one else had, not even the king. Why a taster? What did Anne fear? Were her fears founded? Why did Henry permit it? Was he so besotted that she could demand anything from him? What might she try for next?

But to that, at least, the answer was known. Anne wanted the crown.

At this dinner, given to honor some foreign emissary, King Henry sat at the high table beside the queen, the foreigner on his other side. Anne was not on the dais but at a lesser table. Although from the way she laughed and flirted with the men on either side, Sir Thomas Wyatt and Sir Henry Norris, she appeared to be completely happy with her place. She held her table in thrall with her wit and charm. Often the king’s glance went to the merriment she caused; she never returned his look.

It was my first sight of the queen. Forty-two years of age, Katherine of Aragon had been married to the king for eighteen years. She looked much older than her husband, a woman past fertility, composed and dignified. Palace gossip said she was so pious that she wore a hair shirt under her clothing and spent hours on her knees in her privy chapel. She said little, but when she did talk with the king, they seemed amiable. A public show that bolstered his claim that only his conscience, and not his inclinations, moved him to put her aside for a younger woman who could give him an heir.

From the chatter at Anne’s table, I learned that an Italian cardinal sent by the pope had left Rome on the first part of his journey. Everyone in Anne’s circle felt, or pretended to feel, that this cardinal would declare Henry’s marriage to Katherine invalid due to her prior marriage to Henry’s brother, Prince Arthur, dead of the Sweat a few months after their wedding. Somewhere in the Christian holy book it said that a man may not lie with his dead brother’s wife. That made no sense to me, but I was not a Christian.

After the feast, the hall was cleared for dancing. As dishes were hastily carried out and tables moved, the king and his intimates, including both the queen and Anne, moved to another of the endless reception halls. Wine and sugared nuts were carried around to small tables, and Anne indicated I should remain beside her. Queen Katherine never so much as glanced my way.

Cards were brought and dealt. Musicians played. People changed tables amid much laughter, according to who won various games. Bets were placed, scoffed at, collected.

Another shift of tables. Now Anne and Queen Katherine faced each other across cards.

The entire room swiveled to attention, some outright and some surreptitiously. The two women, both elaborately dressed and bejeweled, sat tensely over their cards. Even Henry, speaking in Latin to the foreigner, watched them. A small crowd gathered by the table, all careful not to block Henry’s view.

I did not know the rules of the game, which made the cries of glee or dismay from the onlookers meaningless. But I needed no understanding of aces or jacks to understand how it ended. Anne drew a final card from the pack, and Queen Katherine rose.

“My lady Anne,” she said calmly, “you have the good hap to draw a king, but you are like the others: You will have all or none.”

The room froze. The two women’s eyes met. Then the queen, dignified and unperturbable, moved to bid her husband good night. He bowed. Whatever she murmured to him was indistinguishable, but after Queen Katherine left, Anne’s clear laughter rang high and clear over the musicians’ song.

The king called for the dancing to begin.

Anne was up early the next morning to join a boar hunt. That slim, delicate-looking body was strong; she’d had but three or four hours’ sleep. While she ate a hasty breakfast in her privy chamber, she dismissed Emma and spoke quietly to me as I knelt beside her chair.

“His Grace found the missing pearl from my bodice, just as you said. It was in the garden where we walked two days ago.”

I could not picture King Henry scrabbling like a gardener among grass and flowers. More likely some servant had found the pearl and, from loyalty or hope of reward or fear of being accused of theft, brought it to the king. I did not care which; Anne’s words held a new note of respect.

“We hunt all day today,” she said, “without the queen, of course. Katherine does not hunt.” A sudden smile, and it needed no magick to decipher her unspoken thought: Those that do not hunt end as prey. “So you have my permission to leave the palace and do . . . whatever it is you do. I will send a page to inform the guard house.”

Whatever it is you do. A veiled hint to find a thrice-braided Sister in London to complete my ceremony? My breath snagged on sudden hope.

Anne continued, “You are serving me well, Elyn. It will not go unrewarded, but only, of course, if you continue to serve me well.”

“I wish to do so, my lady. I could do more if—”

“Not that again.” Ice in her words. “I said I am considering, and it is not for you to question when I shall decide.”

“No, my lady.”

“Now leave me. I do not wish to keep the king waiting.” Then a sudden mischievous glance toward me; her moods shifted like April breezes. “At least, not for a day’s hunting. You see much more than you speak, do you not, Elyn?”