Page 58 of The Queen’s Witch

“Of course not, Your Grace.” Did my expression give me away, or did she have a sudden flash of her natural ability, however untrained and uncontrolled?

“Tell me—can you divine the future?”

“No,” I said truthfully. “Not even a thrice-braided Sister can do that with any certainty. Or the world would be much different.”

She gave a short, mirthless laugh. “Too true. Sometimes, Elyn, I think you have more perception than all of my ladies added together. How do you think I found you?”

“I presume that one among the men who arrived at Bredham Abbey to . . . to inspect it recognized me and reported to you.”

“Why would he do that?”

She was testing me. “Either to curry favor with you or because he was in your employ as well as in my lord Cromwell’s.”

“And what were you doing at an abbey all those years? I thought women of your kind disliked the Church.”

Another test. Did she still read books of the new religious reforms? But Henry was now head of the Church in England, a Catholic but not a papist, which must be a difficult balance. I said carefully, “It is possible to dislike Rome and still approve of individual churches that practice true moral devotion, and to like the people within those religious houses.”

Her tone became mocking. “More perception, and more diplomacy. I commend you. Now get off your knees and open the door. They are waiting out there, all my skirted friends and foes alike, and we go to dinner in the great chamber.”

The great chamber dazzled me. Walls hung with cloths of gold and silver, columns twined with gold sculpture, painted walls and jeweled plate. Whitehall, Abbess Cecily had once told me, had belonged to the disgraced Cardinal Wolsey until ceded to the crown. It was still being refurbished and embellished, and I would come to know it well. That first night, I had only two thoughts: Peasants were starving from a bad harvest and new taxes, and in this exquisite palace hung a cloud of sourness so strong that it was almost visible.

That sourness emanated from King Henry. He sat beside Anne, said little, and ate enormously. He, too, had changed. His girth had increased, his jowls sagged, his red hair had thinned and begun to gray. He gave me one glance, scowled, and made no comment on my presence, which meant everyone else did the same. The king talked to the man on his other side.

Then his mood shifted with a smile so bright that I rose slightly on my knees to peer over the edge of the table. A lady at a lower table, beautiful and young, returned the smile. Even after the woman turned to speak to someone else, Henry continued his gaze. It was the look he had once bent on Anne.

That look faded as he turned to his wife. “I will come to you tonight,” he said, with no affection or anticipation.

Anne, however, smiled as if he had just made a declaration of love—was she hoping the other lady watched? “I will be happy to receive you, my king,” she said. Her teasing play on words was wasted. Henry turned to his plate.

Dancing followed in the great hall. Anne was still a graceful, spirited dancer, but the king partnered the beautiful lady, and the queen danced with a courtier I remembered, Sir Henry Norris, the king’s close friend. I knelt against a wall where the queen could see and summon me, well to the side of the dais with its two elaborate chairs under a cloth of estate. Skirts of velvet, silk, brocade moved past me in the stately figures of the pavane. Then the king called for that liveliest of dances, the brawl, and the musicians changed pace.

Idle, I looked over at them. Strumming a lute was Mark Smalacombe.

No. It could not be. But it was. Slow, hard hammering began in my chest. I half rose from my knees, remembered myself, and sank down again, ducking my head to hide my shock.

Mark. Here, at Whitehall, dressed in royal livery.

He had said, as we faced each other at Hever Castle, that he wanted to go to London. He was a superb musician, both on instrument and in song. But Mark at court . . . How?

Three more dances, and the king called for an interval of food and drink. Servants carried in wine, spiced ale, sweets. Anne ate nothing, but she sipped wine, which I first tasted, and tried to converse with her husband. Henry sat beside her but had eyes only for the pretty woman across the room. Henry answered Anne curtly, finally saying, “Enough. I will see you later.”

Shortly afterward Anne left the hall, walking through a throng of bowing and curtsying courtiers with her head held high and the smile of a woman anticipating the pleasures of the bed. How many were fooled? I trailed after her and was dismissed at the door of her privy chamber, where Emma Colmer jumped up, scowled at me, and bowed to her mistress.

Anne said, “Elyn, you are dismissed. Emma, help me disrobe and then send to the kitchen for those spiced nuts the king likes. He comes to me soon.”

It was not soon. No one had told me where I was to sleep, so I stayed outside of Anne’s apartments, fondling Pipkin in my pocket until he grew hungry enough to nip me. For hours I gazed out a window at torch-lit boats on the river, my mind in turmoil. Mark Smalacombe, after all this time, a court minstrel. That image of him battled against sweet memories from Tydd Saint Stephen and the bitter ones of our last meeting. And from a stupid part of my mind, a whisper. Roger is married. Mark is here at court. Maybe now . . .

Emma emerged to send a page for something Anne wanted. Still, the king did not come, but Mark did.

He scowled at me. “What are you doing here?”

I blinked, and then frowned. Mark had not forgotten, nor forgiven, our last meeting at Hever. I said, “What are you doing here?”

“The queen has sent for me. As she often does to play for her and the king, whom I await now. I have risen in the world, Alysoun, further than someone like you can know.”

He had, like the rest of us, changed with the years. Though even more handsome than when we were boy and girl, it was clear that he now considered himself to be very important: It was in the set of his jaw, the unpleasant curl of his lip, the hard light in his eyes, what he said to me next.

“You should not speak to me, for you are an inferior person. But I will satisfy your curiosity just this once. My music came to the attention of Lord Rochford, the queen’s brother, and he brought me here. I have servants of my own, a horse, money. I have—”