Philippa Gregory - The Boleyn Inheritance

But by the time I understood all this it was too late. He was locked into his frustrated irritation with me, and I had learned the joy of stubbornly surviving, despite all odds, and going my own way. He tried to make a slave of me, but all he did was teach me a longing to be free. I desired my freedom as other girls desire marriage. I dreamed of freedom as other girls dream of a lover.

This marriage is my escape from him. As Queen of England I command a fortune greater than his, I rule a country bigger than Cleves, infinitely more populous and powerful. I shall know the King of France as an equal; I am stepmother to a granddaughter of Spain; my name will be spoken in the courts of Europe, and if I have a son he will be brother to the King of England and perhaps king himself. This marriage is my victory and my freedom. But as Henry shifts heavily in the bed and sighs again like a weary old man, not like a bridegroom, I know, as I have known all along, that I have exchanged one difficult man for another. I shall have to learn how to evade the anger of this new man, and how to survive him.

“Are you tired?” he asks.

I understand the word tired. I nod, and say: “Little.”

“God help me in this ill-managed business,” he says.

“I don’t understand? I am sorry?”

He shrugs; I realize he is not speaking to me, he is complaining of something for the pleasure of grumbling aloud, just as my father used to do before his ill-tempered mutterings became madness. The disrespect of this comparison makes me smile and then bite my lip to hide my amusement.

“Yes,” he says sourly. “You might well laugh.”

“Will you like wine?” I ask carefully.

He shakes his head. He lifts the sheet, and the sickly smell of him blows over me. Like a man seeing what he has bought in a market, he takes the hem of my nightgown, lifts it up, pulls it past my waist and my breasts, and leaves it so that it is in a roll around my neck. I am afraid I look stupid, like a burgher with a scarf tied tight under the chin. My cheeks are burning with shame that he should just stare at my exposed body. He does not care for my discomfort.

He puts his hand down and abruptly squeezes my breasts, slides his rough hand down to my belly, pinches the fat. I lie absolutely still so that he shall not think I am wanton. It is not hard to freeze in horror. God knows why anyone would feel wanton under such handling. I have stroked my horse with more affection than this coldhearted groping. He rears up in the bed with a grunt of effort and pushes my thighs apart with a heavy hand. I obey him without making a sound. It is essential that he knows that I am obedient but not eager. He heaves himself over me and slumps between my legs. He is taking his full weight with his elbows planted on either side of my head, and with his knees, but even so his great flaccid belly, pressing down on me, is stifling me. The fat of his chest is pressing on my face. I am a good-sized woman, but I am dwarfed underneath him. I fear that if he lies any more heavily, I will not be able to breathe; it is quite unbearable. His panting breath on my face is foul from his rotting teeth. I hold my head rigid to stop myself from turning my face away from him. I find I am breathless, trying not to inhale the stink of him.

He puts his hand down between us and grabs onto himself. I have seen them with the horses in the stables at Duren, and I know well enough what is going on in this hard fumbling. I snatch a breath sideways, and I brace myself for the pain. He gives a little grunt of frustration, and I can feel his hand pumping away, but still nothing happens. He punches repeatedly at my thigh with his moving hand, but that is all. I lie very still. I don’t know what he wants to do, nor what he expects of me. The stallion at Duren went rigid and reared up. This king seems to be weakening.

“My lord?” I whisper.

He throws himself off me and grunts a word that I don’t know. His head is buried in the richly embroidered pillow; he is still facedown. I don’t know if he has finished or is merely beginning. He turns his head to me. His face is very red and sweating. “Anne…” he starts.

At that fatal name he stops, freezes into silence. I realize that he has said her name, the first Anne that he loved, that he is thinking of her, the lover who drove him to madness and whom he killed in jealous resentment.

“I, Anne of Cleves, am,” I prompt him.

“I know that,” he says shortly. “Fool.”

With a great heave that pulls all the bedcovers off me, he turns around and lies with his back to me. The air released from the bed is stale with an awful smell. This is the smell of the wound on his leg, this is the smell of putrid flesh, this is the smell of him. It will scent my sheets forever, till death us do part. I had better get used to it.

I lie very still. To put a hand on his shoulder would, I think, be wanton behavior, and so I had better not, though I am sorry if he is weary and haunted by the other Anne tonight. I will have to learn not to mind about the smell and about the feeling of being pressed down. I shall have to do my duty.

I lie in the darkness and look up at the rich canopy of the bed above me. In the dimming light that gets darker as each square block candle, one by one, gutters and goes out, I can see the glint of gold thread and the rich colors of the silks. He is an old man, poor old man, forty-eight years old, and it has been a long and exhausting day for us both. I hear him sigh again and then the sigh turns into a deep, bubbling snore. When I am certain that he is asleep, I put my hand lightly on his shoulder, where the thick damp linen of his nightshirt covers the fat sweaty bulk of him. I am sorry that he should fail this night, and if he had stayed awake, and if we had spoken the same language and were able to tell each other the truth, then I would have told him that even though there is no desire between us I hope to be a good wife to him and a good queen for England. That I feel pity for him in his old age and weariness, and that no doubt when he is rested and less tired we will be able to make a child, the son that we both want so much. Poor sick old man, I would have given much to be able to tell him not to worry, that it will come out all right, that I do not want a young handsome prince, that I will be kind to him.

The king was already gone before we arrived in the chamber on the day after the wedding, so I missed seeing the King of England in his nightshirt on his wedding morning, though I had set my heart on it. The maids of work went in with her ale, and wood for her fire, and water to wash in, and we waited until we were called to help her dress. She was sitting up in bed with her nightcap on and a neat plait down her back, not a hair out of place. She didn’t look like a girl who had made merry all night, I must say. She looked exactly the same as when we put her to bed last night, quite calm and pretty in that cowlike way, and pleasant enough with everyone, not asking for any special favors and not complaining of anything. I was by the bed and since nobody was taking any notice of me I twitched up the sheet and had a quick look.

I didn’t see a thing. Exactly so. Not one solitary thing. Speaking as a girl who has had to smuggle a sheet down to the pump and wash it quickly and sleep on it damp more than once, I know when a man and a maid have used a bed for more than sleeping. Not this bed. I would put my precious reputation on the fact that the king did not have her and she did not bleed. I would put the Howard fortune on a bet that they slept just as we left them, when we put them to bed, side by side like a pair of little dolls. The bottom sheet was not even rumpled, never mind soiled. I would bet Westminster Abbey that nothing has happened between them.

I knew who would want to know at once, Lady Nosy-Parker of course. I made a curtsy and went from the room as if I were running an errand and found her, just coming from her own chamber. As soon as she saw my face she snatched my hands and drew me back into her room.

“I bet you a fortune that he has not had her,” I say triumphantly, without a word of explanation.

One thing that I like about Lady Rochford is that she always knows what I am talking about. I never have to explain anything to her.

“The sheets,” I say. “Not a mark on them, they’re not even creased.”

“Nobody has changed them?”

I shake my head. “I was first in, after the maids.”

She reaches in the cupboard by the bed and brings out a sovereign and gives it to me. “That’s very good,” she says. “You and I, between us, should always be the first to know everything.”

I smile, but I am thinking about some ribbons I shall buy with the sovereign to trim my new gown, and perhaps some new gloves.

“Don’t tell anyone else,” she cautions me.

“Oh?” I protest.

“No,” she says. “Knowledge is always precious, Katherine. If you know something that no one else knows, then you have a secret. If you know something that everyone else knows then you are no better than them.”

“Can’t I at least tell Anne Bassett?”

“I’ll tell you when you can tell her,” she says. “Perhaps tomorrow. Now go back to the queen. I am coming in a minute.”

I do as I am told, and as I go out I see she is writing a note. She will be writing to my uncle to tell him that I believe that the king has not bedded his wife. I hope she tells him that it was I who thought this first and not her. Then there may be another sovereign to go with the first. I begin to see what he means about great places bring great favors. I have been in royal service for only a matter of days and already I am two sovereigns wealthier. Give me a month, and I shall make my fortune.