LITMIR.BIZ

      ‘You lost him,’ Uncle Howard said accusingly. He looked down the long wooden dining table in the great hall at Eltham Palace. Our retainers stood on guard at the doors behind us, there was no-one in the hall but a couple of wolfhounds and a boy asleep in the ashes of the fire. Our men in Howard livery stood at the doors at the far end. The palace, the king’s own palace, had been made secure for the Howards so that we could plot in private.

      ‘You had him in your hand and you lost him. What did you do wrong?’

      I shook my head. It was too secret to spill on the unyielding surface of the high table, to offer up to flint-faced Uncle Howard.

      ‘I want an answer,’ he said. ‘You lost him. He hasn’t looked at you for a week. What have you done wrong?’

      ‘Nothing,’ I whispered.

      ‘You must have done something. At the jousting he had your kerchief under his breastplate. You must have done something to upset him after that.’

      I shot a reproachful look at my brother George: the only person who could have told Uncle Howard about my scarf. He shrugged and made an apologetic face.

      ‘The king dropped it and his page gave my scarf to Queen Mary,’ I said, my throat tight with nervousness and distress.

      ‘So?’ my father said sharply.

      ‘She gave it to the queen. The queen returned it to me.’ I looked from one stern face to another. ‘They all knew what it meant,’ I said despairingly. ‘When we rode home I told him that I was unhappy at him letting my favour be found.’

      Uncle Howard exhaled, my father slapped the table. My mother turned her head away as if she could hardly bear to look at me.

      ‘For God’s sake.’ Uncle Howard glared at my mother. ‘You assured me that she had been properly brought up. Half her life spent in the French court and she whines at him as if she were a shepherd girl behind a haystack?’

      ‘How could you?’ my mother asked simply.

      I flushed and dropped my head until I could see the reflection of my own unhappy face in the polished surface of the table. ‘I didn’t mean to say the wrong thing,’ I whispered. ‘I’m sorry.’

      ‘It’s not that bad,’ George interceded. ‘You’re taking too dark a view. He won’t stay angry for long.’

      ‘He sulks like a bear,’ my uncle snapped. ‘Don’t you think there are Seymour girls dancing for him at this very moment?’

      ‘None as pretty as Mary,’ my brother maintained. ‘He’ll forget that she ever said a word out of place. He might even like her for it. It shows she’s not overly groomed. It shows there’s a bit of passion there.’

      My father nodded, a little consoled, but my uncle drummed the table with his long fingers. ‘What should we do?’

      ‘Take her away.’ Anne spoke suddenly. She drew attention at once in the way that a late speaker always does, but the confidence in her voice was riveting.

      ‘Away?’ he asked.

      ‘Yes. Send her down to Hever. Tell him that she’s ill. Let him imagine her dying of grief.’

      ‘And then?’

      ‘And then he’ll want her back. She’ll be able to command what she likes. All she has to do –’ Anne gleamed her spiteful little smile ‘– All she has to do when she returns is to behave so well that she enchants the most educated, the most witty, the most handsome prince in Christendom. D’you think she can do it?’

      There was a cold silence while my mother and my father and my Uncle Howard and even George all inspected me in silence.

      ‘Neither do I,’ Anne said smugly. ‘But I can coach her well enough to get her into his bed, and whatever happens to her after that is in the hands of God.’

      Uncle Howard looked intently at Anne. ‘Can you coach her in how to keep him?’ he asked.

      She raised her head and smiled at him, the very picture of confidence. ‘Of course, for a while,’ she said. ‘He’s only a man after all.’

      Uncle Howard laughed shortly at the casual dismissal of his sex. ‘You have a care,’ he urged. ‘We men are not where we are today because of some sort of accident. We chose to get into the great places of power, despite the desires of women; and we chose to use those places to make laws which will hold us there forever.’

      ‘True enough,’ Anne granted. ‘But we’re not talking of high policy. We’re talking of catching the king’s desire. She just has to catch him and hold him for long enough for him to make a son on her, a royal Howard bastard. What more could we ask?’

      ‘And she can do that?’

      ‘She can learn,’ Anne said. ‘She’s halfway there. She is his choice, after all.’ The little shrug she gave indicated that she did not think much of the king’s choice.

      There was a silence. Uncle Howard’s attention had moved from me and my future as the brood mare for the family. Instead he was looking at Anne as if he had seen her for the first time. ‘Not many maids of your age think as clearly as you.’

      She smiled at him. ‘I’m a Howard like you.’

      ‘I’m surprised you don’t try for him yourself.’

      ‘I thought of it,’ she said honestly. ‘Any woman in England today would be bound to think of it.’

      ‘But?’ he prompted her.

      ‘I’m a Howard,’ she repeated. ‘What matters is that one of us catches the king. It hardly matters which one. If his taste is for Mary and she has his acknowledged son then my family becomes the first in the kingdom. Without rival. And we can do it. We can manage the king.’

      Uncle Howard nodded. He knew that the king’s conscience was a domesticated beast, given to easy herding but prone to sudden stubborn stops. ‘It seems we have to thank you,’ he said. ‘You have planned our strategy.’

      She acknowledged his thanks, not with a bow, which would have been graceful. Instead, she turned

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