LITMIR.BIZ

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      Anne pushed a half-sewn shirt into my hands and sat beside me, firmly planting herself on the skirts of my outspread gown so I could not rise without her letting me up. ‘Oh leave me alone,’ I said under my breath.

      ‘Take that miserable look off your face,’ she hissed. ‘Do your sewing and smile as if you were enjoying it. No man is going to desire you when you look as sulky as a baited bear.’

      ‘But to spend Christmas night with her …’

      Anne nodded. ‘D’you want to know why?’

      ‘Yes.’

      ‘Some beggarly soothsayer told him that he would get a son tonight. He’s hoping the queen might give him an autumn child. Lord, what fools men are.’

      ‘A soothsayer?’

      ‘Yes. Foretold a son, if he forsook all other women. No need to ask who paid her.’

      ‘What d’you mean?’

      ‘My guess is that we’d find Seymour gold in her pocket if we turned her upside down and shook her very hard. But it’s too late for that now. The damage is done. He’ll be in the queen’s bed tonight and every night till twelfth night. So you had better make sure that when he walks past you to do his duty he remembers what he’s missing.’

      I bent my head lower over my sewing. Anne, watching me, saw a tear fall on the hem of the shirt and saw me blot it with my finger.

      ‘Little fool,’ she said roughly. ‘You’ll get him back.’

      ‘I hate the thought of him lying with her,’ I whispered. ‘I wonder if he calls her sweeting, too?’

      ‘Probably,’ Anne said bluntly. ‘Not many men have the wit to vary the tune. But he’ll do his duty by her and then look around again, and if you catch his eye and smile then it will be you again.’

      ‘How can I smile when my heart is breaking?’

      Anne gave a little giggle. ‘Oh what a tragedy queen! You can smile when your heart is breaking because you are a woman, and a courtier, and a Howard. That’s three reasons for being the most deceitful creature on God’s earth. Now sshh – here he comes.’

      George came in first with a quick smile for me and went to kneel at the queen’s feet. She gave him her hand with a pretty blush, she was glowing with pleasure that the king was coming to her. Henry came in next with my husband, William, and with his hand on Lord Percy’s shoulder. He walked past me with nothing more than a nod of his head though Anne and I stood as he entered the room and dipped low into a curtsey. He went straight to the queen, kissed her on the lips and then led the way into her privy chamber. Her maids went in with them and shortly came out and closed the door. The rest of us were left outside in silence.

      William looked around and smiled at me. ‘Well met, good wife,’ he said pleasantly. ‘Shall you be keeping your present quarters for much longer, d’you think? Or will you want me as a bedfellow again?’

      ‘That must depend on the command of the queen and of our uncle,’ George said evenly. His hand slid along his belt to where his sword would hang. ‘Marianne cannot choose for herself, as you know.’

      William did not rise to the challenge. He gave me a rueful smile. ‘Peace, George,’ he said. ‘I don’t need you to explain it all to me. I should know by now.’

      I looked away. Lord Percy had drawn Anne into an alcove and I heard her seductive giggle at something that he said. She saw me watching and said more loudly: ‘Lord Percy is writing sonnets to me, Mary. Do tell him that his lines don’t scan.’

      ‘It’s not even finished,’ Percy protested. ‘I was just telling you the first line and already you are too critical.’

      ‘“Fair lady – thou dost treat me with disdain –”’

      ‘I think that’s a very good start,’ I said helpfully. ‘How would you go on, Lord Percy?’

      ‘It’s clearly not a good start,’ George said. ‘To start a courtship with disdain is the very worst start you could make. A kind start would be more promising.’

      ‘A kind start would be certainly startling, from a Boleyn girl,’ William said with a barb in his tone. ‘Depending on the suitor, of course. But now I think of it – a Percy of Northumberland might get a kind start.’

      Anne flashed him a look which was something less than sisterly but Henry Percy was so absorbed in his poem that he hardly heard him. ‘It goes on with the next line, which I don’t have yet, and then it goes something something something something, my pain.’

      ‘Oh! To rhyme with disdain!’ George declared provokingly. ‘I think I’m beginning to get this.’

      ‘But you must have an image that you pursue throughout the poem,’ Anne said to Henry Percy. ‘If you are going to write a poem to your mistress you must compare her to something and then twist the comparison round to some witty conclusion.’

      ‘How can I?’ Percy asked her. ‘I cannot compare you to anything. You are yourself. What should I compare you to?’

      ‘Oh very pretty!’ George said approvingly. ‘I say, Percy, your conversation is better than your poetry, I should stay on one knee and whisper in her ear, if I was you. You’ll triumph if you stick to prose.’

      Percy grinned and took Anne’s hand. ‘Stars in the night,’ he said.

      ‘Something something something something, some delight,’ Anne rejoined promptly.

      ‘Let’s have some wine,’ William suggested. ‘I don’t think I can keep up with this dazzling wit. And who will play me at dice?’

      ‘I’ll play,’ George said before William could challenge me. ‘What will the stakes be?’

      ‘Oh a couple of crowns,’ William said. ‘I should hate to have you as my enemy for a gambling debt, Boleyn.’

      ‘Or any other cause,’ my brother said sweetly. ‘Especially since Lord Percy here might write us a martial poem about fighting.’

      ‘I don’t think something something something, is very threatening,’ Anne remarked. ‘And that is all that his lines ever say.’

      ‘I am an apprentice,’ Percy said with dignity. ‘An apprentice lover and an apprentice poet and you are treating me unkindly. “Fair lady – thou dost treat me with disdain –” is nothing but the truth.’

      Anne laughed and held out her hand for him to kiss. William drew a couple of dice from his pocket and rolled them on the table. I poured him a glass of wine and put it by him. I felt oddly comforted to be serving him when the man that I loved was bedding his wife in the room next door. I felt that I had been put aside, and for all I knew I might have to stay to one side.

      We played until midnight and still the king did not emerge.

      ‘What d’you think?’ William asked George. ‘If he means to spend the night with her we might as well go to our beds.’

      ‘We’re going,’ Anne said firmly. She held out a peremptory hand to me.

      ‘So soon?’ Percy pleaded. ‘But stars come out at night.’

      ‘Then they fade at dawn,’ Anne replied. ‘This star needs to veil herself in darkness.’

      I rose to go with her. My husband looked at me for a moment. ‘Kiss me goodnight, wife,’ he ordered.

      I hesitated and then I went across the room. He expected me to put a cool kiss on his cheek but instead I bent over and kissed him on his lips. I felt him respond as I touched him. ‘Goodnight, husband. And I wish you a merry Christmas.’

      ‘Goodnight, wife. My bed would have been warmer tonight with you in it.’

      I nodded. There was nothing I could say. Without intending

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