LITMIR.BIZ

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Princess Elizabeth, our Boleyn princess, my niece, he has declared illegitimate and her governess says that the child is not even properly clothed.

      And lastly, this business with Henry Fitzroy, the king’s own son: one day to be legitimised and proclaimed the Prince of Wales, the next day dead of a mystery illness and my own lord told to bury him at midnight? His portraits destroyed, and all mention of him forbidden? What sort of a man is it who can see his son die and be buried without saying a word? What sort of a father can tell his two little girls that they are no children of his? What sort of a man can send his friends and his wife to the gallows and dance when their deaths are reported to him? What kind of a man is this, to whom we have given absolute power over our lives and souls?

      And perhaps even worse than all of this: the good priests hanged from their own church beams, the devout men walking to the stake to be burned, their eyes down, their thoughts on heaven, the uprisings in the North and the East, and the king swearing that the rebels could trust him, that he would be advised by them, and then the dreadful betrayal that put the trusting fools on gallows in their thousands around the country, that made my lord Norfolk the butcher of his countrymen. This king has killed thousands, this king goes on killing thousands of his own people. The world outside England says he has run mad and waits for our rebellion. But like frightened dogs in the bear pit we dare do no more than watch him and snarl.

      He is merry now, anyway, despite the new queen’s failure to arrive. I have yet to be presented to him but they tell me he will greet me and all her ladies kindly. He is at dinner when I steal into his rooms to see the new queen’s portrait that he keeps in his presence chamber. The room is empty, the portrait is on an easel lit by big square candles. She is a sweet-looking thing, it must be said. She has an honest face, a straight gaze from lovely eyes. I understand at once what he likes in her. She has no allure; there is no sensuality in her face. She does not look flirtatious or dangerous or sinful. She has no polish, she has no sophistication. She looks younger than her twenty-four years, I could even say she looks a little simple to my critical gaze. She will not be a queen as Anne was a queen; that is a certainty. This is not a woman who will turn court and country upside down to dance to a new tune. This is not a woman who will turn men half-mad with desire and demand that they write of love in poetry. And, of course, this is exactly what he wants now – never again to love a woman like Anne.

      Anne has spoiled him for a challenge, perhaps forever. She set a fire under his court and in the end everything was burned up. He is like a man whose very eyebrows have been scorched, and I am the woman whose house is ashes. He does not want ever again to marry a desirable mistress. I never again want to smell smoke. He wants a wife at his side who is as steady as an ox at the plough, and then he can seek flirtation and danger and allure elsewhere.

      ‘A pretty picture,’ a man says behind me and I turn to see the dark hair and long, sallow face of my uncle, Thomas Howard, the Duke of Norfolk, the greatest man in the kingdom after the king himself.

      I sweep him a deep curtsey. ‘It is indeed, sir,’ I say.

      He nods, his dark eyes steady. ‘Do you think it will prove to be a good likeness?’

      ‘We’ll know soon enough, my lord.’

      ‘You can thank me for getting you a post in her household,’ he says casually. ‘It was my doing. I took it as a personal matter.’

      ‘I do thank you very much. I am in your debt for my life itself. You know, you have only ever to command me.’

      He nods. He has never shown me kindness, except the once, one great favour: pulling me from the fire that burned down the court. He is a gruff man of few words. They say he only really loved one woman and that was Katherine of Aragon, and he watched her thrust down to poverty, neglect and death, in order to put his own niece in her place. So his affections are of little value, anyway.

      ‘You will tell me how things go on in her rooms,’ he says, nodding at the portrait. ‘As you always have done.’ He holds out his arm to me, he is giving me the honour of leading me into dinner. I curtsey again, he likes a show of deference, and I put my hand lightly on his arm. ‘I shall want to know if she pleases the king, when she conceives, who she sees, how she behaves, and if she brings in any Lutheran preachers. That sort of thing. You know.’

      I know. We walk to the door together.

      ‘I expect her to try to lead him in the matter of religion,’ he says. ‘We can’t have that. We can’t have him turning any further to reform; the country won’t tolerate it. You must look at her books and see if she is reading any forbidden writing. And watch her ladies to see if they are spying on us, if they report to Cleves. If any of them express any heresy I want to know at once. You know what you have to do.’

      I do. There is not a member of this wide-ranging family who does not know their task. We all work to maintain the power and wealth of the Howards and we stand together.

      I can hear the roar of the feasting court from the hall as we walk towards it, serving men with great jugs of wine and platters of meat marching in line to serve the hundreds of people who dine every day with the king. In the gallery above are the people who have come to watch, to see the great monster that is the inner court of the noblest people, a beast with a hundred mouths and a million schemes, and two hundred eyes watching the king as the only source of all wealth, all power, and all favour.

      ‘You will find him changed,’ the duke says very softly, his mouth to my ear. ‘We all find him hard to please.’

      I think of the spoiled boy who could be distracted in a moment with a joke or a bet or a challenge. ‘He was always flighty.’

      ‘He’s worse than that now,’ my lord says. ‘His temper shifts without warning, he is violent; he will lash out against Cromwell and hit him in the face, he can turn in a moment. He can take a rage that turns him scarlet. Something that pleases him in the morning can anger him at dinner. You should be warned.’

      I nod. ‘They serve him on bended knee now.’ I notice the new fashion.

      He gives a short laugh. ‘And they call him “Majesty”,’ he says. ‘“Your Grace” was good enough for the Plantaganets themselves; but not enough for this king. He has to be “Majesty” as if he were a god.’

      ‘People do this?’ I ask curiously. ‘This extreme honour?’

      ‘You will do it yourself,’ he tells me. ‘Henry will be as a god if he wishes, there is no-one who dares to deny him.’

      ‘The lords?’ I query, thinking of the pride of the great men of the kingdom who hailed this man’s father as an equal, whose loyalty gave him his throne.

      ‘You will see,’ my lord says grimly. ‘They have changed the laws of treason so that even to think of opposition is a capital offence. Nobody dares argue against him, there would be the knock on the door at midnight and a trip to the Tower for questioning and your wife a widow without even a trial.’

      I look to the high table where the king is seated, a massive spreading bulk on his throne. He is cramming food into his mouth as we watch him, both hands up to his face, he is fatter than any man I have ever seen in my life before, his shoulders gross, his neck like an ox, his features dissolving into the moon-shaped vat of his face, fingers like swollen puddings.

      ‘My God, he has blown up like a monster!’ I exclaim. ‘What has become of him? Is he sick? I would not have known him. God knows he is not the prince he was.’

      ‘He is a danger,’ my lord says, his voice no more than a breath. ‘To himself in his indulgences, and to others in his temper. Be warned.’

      I am shaken more than I show when I go to the table for the queen’s ladies. They make a space for me and greet me by name, many of them calling me cousin. I feel the king’s little piggy eyes on me and I sweep him a deep curtsey before I sit down on my stool. Nobody else pays any attention to the beast that the prince has become, it is like a fairytale and we are all blinded by an enchantment not to see the ruin of the man in this pig of a king.

      I settle to my dinner and serve

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