LITMIR.BIZ

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not offer you such odds, Mistress Parker,’ he said civilly. ‘For you have all my fortune at your command.’

      It was still the language of courtly love, the constant flirtatiousness which went on in the royal circles night and day and sometimes meant everything, but more often than not meant nothing at all.

      ‘I’d just like to bet a couple of crowns.’ Jane was trying to engage George in the witty flattering conversation that he could do so well. Anne and I watched her critically, not disposed to help her with our brother.

      ‘If I lose to Her Majesty – and you will see how graciously she will impoverish me – then I will have nothing for any other,’ George said. ‘Indeed, whenever I am with Her Majesty I have nothing for any other. No money, no heart, no eyes.’

      ‘For shame,’ the queen interrupted. ‘You say this to your betrothed?’

      George bowed to her. ‘We are betrothed stars circling a beautiful moon,’ he said. ‘The greatest beauty makes everything else dim.’

      ‘Oh run away,’ the queen said. ‘Go and twinkle elsewhere, my little star Boleyn.’

      George bowed and went to the back of the tent. I drifted after him. ‘Give it me quick,’ he said tersely. ‘He’s riding next.’

      I had a yard of white silk trimming the top of my dress, which I took and pulled through the green loops until it was free and then handed it to George. He whisked it into his pocket.

      ‘Jane sees us,’ I said.

      He shook his head. ‘No matter. She’s tied to our interest whatever her opinion. I have to go.’

      I nodded and went back into the tent as he left. The queen’s eyes rested briefly on the empty loops at the front of my gown, but she said nothing.

      ‘They’ll start in a moment,’ Jane said. ‘The king’s joust is next.’

      I saw him helped into his saddle, two men supporting him as the weight of his armour nearly bore him down. Charles Brandon, the Duke of Suffolk, the king’s brother-in-law, was arming also, and the two men rode out together and came past the entrance to the queen’s tent. The king dipped his lance in salute to her, and held it down as he rode past the length of the tent. It became a salute to me, the visor of his helmet was up, I could see him smile at me. There was a tiny flutter of white at the shoulder of his breastplate which I knew was the kerchief from my gown. The Duke of Suffolk rode behind him, dipped his lance to the queen and then stiffly nodded his head to me. Anne, standing behind me, gave a little indrawn breath.

      ‘Suffolk acknowledged you,’ she whispered.

      ‘I thought so.’

      ‘He did. He bowed his head. That means the king has spoken to him of you, or spoken to his sister Queen Mary, and she has told Suffolk. He’s serious. He must be serious.’

      I glanced sideways. The queen was looking down the list where the king had halted his horse. The big charger was tossing his head and sidling while he waited for the trumpet blast. The king sat easily in the saddle, a little golden circlet round his helmet, his visor down, his lance held before him. The queen leaned forward to see. There was a trumpet blast and the two horses leaped forward as the spurs were driven into their sides. The two armoured men thundered towards each other, divots of earth flying out from the horses’ hooves. The lances were down like arrows flying to a target, the pennants on the end of each lance fluttering as the gap closed between them, then the king took a glancing blow which he caught on his shield, but his thrust at Suffolk slid under the shield and thudded into the breastplate. The shock of the blow threw Suffolk back off his horse and the weight of his armour did the rest, dragging him over the haunches, and he fell with an awful thud to the ground.

      His wife leaped to her feet. ‘Charles!’ She whirled out of the queen’s pavilion, lifting her skirts, running like a common woman towards her husband as he lay unmoving on the grass.

      ‘I’d better go too.’ Anne hurried after her mistress.

      I looked down the lists to the king. His squire was stripping him of his heavy armour. As the breastplate came off my white kerchief fluttered to the ground, he did not see it fall. They unstrapped the greaves from his legs and the guards from his arms and he pulled on a coat as he walked briskly up the lists to the ominously still body of his friend. Queen Mary was kneeling beside Suffolk, his head cradled in her arms. His squire was stripping off the heavy armour from his master as he lay there. Mary looked up as her brother came closer and she was smiling.

      ‘He’s all right,’ she said. ‘He just swore an awful oath at Peter for pinching him with a buckle.’

      Henry laughed. ‘God be praised!’

      Two men carrying a stretcher ran forward. Suffolk sat up. ‘I can walk,’ he said. ‘Be damned if I’m carried from the field before I’m dead.’

      ‘Here,’ Henry said and heaved him to his feet. Another man came running to the other side and the two of them started to walk him away, his feet dragging and then stumbling to keep pace.

      ‘Don’t come,’ Henry called to Queen Mary over his shoulder. ‘Let us make him comfortable and then we’ll get a cart or something and he can ride home.’

      She stopped where she was bid. The king’s page came running up with my kerchief in his hands, taking it to his master. Queen Mary put out her hand. ‘Don’t bother him now,’ she said sharply.

      The lad skidded to a halt, still holding my kerchief. ‘He dropped this, Your Majesty,’ he said. ‘Had it in his breastplate.’

      She put out an indifferent hand for it and he gave it to her. She was looking after her husband being helped into the house by her brother and Sir John Lovick hurrying ahead of them, opening doors and shouting for servants. Absently she walked back to the queen’s pavilion with my kerchief balled up in her hand. I went forward to take it from her and then I hesitated, not knowing what to say.

      ‘Is he all right?’ Queen Katherine asked.

      Queen Mary found a smile. ‘Yes. His head is clear; and no bones broken. His breastplate is hardly dented.’

      ‘Shall I have that?’ Queen Katherine asked.

      Queen Mary glanced down at my crumpled kerchief. ‘This! The king’s page gave it me. It was in his breastplate.’ She handed it over. She was quite blind and deaf to anything but her husband. ‘I’ll go to him,’ she decided. ‘Anne, you and the rest can go home with the queen after dinner.’

      The queen nodded her permission and Queen Mary went quickly from the pavilion towards the house. Queen Katherine watched her go, my kerchief in her hands. Slowly, as I knew she would, she turned it over. The fine silk slipped easily through her fingers. At the fringed hem she saw the bright green of the embroidered silk monogram: MB. Slowly, accusingly, she turned towards me.

      ‘I think this must be yours,’ she said, her voice low and disdainful. She held it at arm’s length, between finger and thumb, as if it were a dead mouse that she had found at the back of a cupboard.

      ‘Go on,’ Anne whispered. ‘You’ve got to get it.’ She pushed me in the small of my back and I stepped forward.

      The queen dropped it as I reached her, I caught it as it fell. It looked a sorry bit of cloth, something you might wash a floor with.

      ‘Thank you,’ I said humbly.

      At dinner the king hardly looked at me. The accident had thrown him into the melancholy that was such a characteristic of his father, which his courtiers too were learning to fear.

      The queen could not have been more pleasant and more entertaining. But no conversation, no charming smiles, no music could lift his spirits. He watched the antics of his Fool without laughing, he listened to the musicians and drank deep. The queen could do nothing to cheer

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