Philippa Gregory - The Boleyn Inheritance

I hardly dare breathe; I must see everything. The sleeping king’s heavy breathing is matched by their quiet panting; they are moving together, then I see the gleam of her pale thigh as she pulls her nightgown aside, and I hear him groan and I know that she has straddled him and taken him in. I hear a little sigh of desire, and it is me, aroused with stolen lust. The chair creaks as she clings to the back and rocks forward and back on him; her breath is coming fast. He is thrusting up inside her; I hear her start to moan as her pleasure mounts, and I am afraid that they will wake the king. But nothing could stop them, not even if he were to wake and shout, not even if he were to try the door and come out; they are tied together by lust, and they cannot break free. I feel my own legs weaken with mirrored desire as Katherine’s little cries mount, and I slide down to the floor, to my knees, watching them but seeing George’s desirous face, and his mistress astride him, until Katherine suddenly lets out a gasp and falls to Thomas’s shoulder, at the same moment he groans and grips her, then they both subside.

It feels like a long time before she gives a little murmur and stirs. Culpepper lets her go, and she rises from the seat, dropping the hem of her nightgown and smiling back at him as she goes to the fire. He rises from the chair and ties his laces again, then he reaches for her, wraps his arms around her from behind, nuzzles at her neck, her hair. Like a young girl in love for the first time, she turns in his arms and gives him her mouth. She kisses him as if she adores him; she kisses him as if this is a love that will last forever.

In the morning I go to find my lord duke. The court is preparing to go hunting, and the queen is being lifted into the saddle by one of the king’s friends. The king himself, hauled to the back of his hunter, is in a merry mood, laughing at Culpepper’s new bridle of red leather and calling up his hounds. The duke is not riding today; he stands at the doorway, watching the horses and the hounds in the cool of the morning. I pause beside him as I go to my horse.

“It is done,” I say. “Last night.”

He nods as if I am telling him of the cost of the blacksmith. “Culpepper?” he asks.

“Yes.”

“Will she have him again?”

“As often as she can. She is besotted.”

“Keep her discreet,” he says. “And tell me the moment she is with child.”

I nod. “And my own affair?” I ask boldly.

“Your affair?” he repeats, pretending he has forgotten.

“My marriage,” I say. “I… I need to be married.”

He raises his eyebrow. “Better to be married than to burn, my dear Lady Rochford?” he asks. “But your marriage to George did not prevent you from burning up.”

“That was not my fault,” I say quickly. “It was her.”

He smiles; he does not have to ask whose shadow fell on my marriage and set the fire that burned us all up.

“What news of my new marriage?” I press him.

“I am exchanging letters now,” he says. “When you tell me that the queen is with child, I shall confirm it.”

“And the nobleman?” I ask urgently. “Who is he?”

“Monsignor le Compte?” he asks. “Wait and see, my dear Lady Rochford. But believe me, he is wealthy, and he is young, handsome, and – let me think – no more than three, perhaps four, steps from the throne of France. Will that satisfy you?”

“Completely.” I can hardly speak for excitement. “I shall not fail you, my lord.”

I have a letter from the Lord Chamberlain to invite me to go on progress with the court this summer. The king is to go to his northern lands, which were so recently in revolt against him for his attack on the old religion. He is going to punish and reward; he has sent the hangman ahead of him, and he will follow safely behind. I sit for a long time with this letter in my hand.

I am trying to weigh up the dangers. If I am at court with the king and he enjoys my company and I am high in his favor, then I secure my safety for perhaps another year. But equally, the hard-faced men of his court will see that he likes me again and they will put their minds to how to keep me from him. Katherine’s uncle, the Duke of Norfolk, will be anxious to keep his niece in high favor, and he will not like any comparison that is made between her and me. He will have kept the documents that prove that I was part of a Papist plot to destroy the king. He may have created evidence of worse: adultery or witchcraft, heresy or treason. Who knows what solemnly sworn statements he gathered when they thought they would put me to death? He will not have thrown them away when the king decided to divorce me. He will have kept them. He will keep them forever in case one day he wants to destroy me.

But if I do not go, then I am not there to defend myself. If anyone says anything against me, links me with the northern conspirators, or with poor Margaret Pole the countess, with the disgraced Thomas Cromwell, or with anything my brother may do or say, then there is no one to speak in my favor.

I tuck the letter in the pocket of my gown and walk to the window to look out at the bobbing branches in the orchards beyond the garden. I like it here, being my own mistress; I like being in command of my own fortune. The thought of going into the bear pit that is the English court and having to face the monstrous old terror that is the king is too much for me to dare. I think, pray God I am right, that I shall not go on progress with the king. I shall stay here and take the risk that they may speak against me. Better that than travel with him in constant danger of attracting envy. Better anything than travel with him and see those piggy eyes turn on me and realize that by some act – nothing I even know that I have done – I have fired his enmity and I am in danger.

He is a danger, he is a danger, he is a danger to everyone who is near him. I shall stay at Richmond and hope that the danger that is Henry passes me by and that I can live here in safety and peace.

I shall stay free of the frightened flock that is the court, I shall be alone like a gyrfalcon, solitary in the arching silence of the sky. I have reason to be fearful, but I will not live in fear. I shall take my chance. I shall have this summer to myself.

The duke has come to pay a visit to his niece before the start of the summer progress, and realizes, very quickly, that he could not have chosen a worse time. The queen’s rooms are in chaos. Not even the most experienced servants, not even the queen’s sister and stepmother, can make any sense of the orders, as Katherine swears she cannot go without her new gowns, and then remembers that she has had them packed and sent ahead, demands to see her jewel box, accuses a maid of stealing a silver ring, and then finds it again, almost bursts into tears at the quandary of whether or not to take her sables to York, and then finally pitches facedown on her bed and swears she will not go at all since the king hardly pays any attention to her anyway, and what pleasure will she have at York when her life is hardly worth living?

“What the devil is going on?” the duke hisses at me, as if it were my fault.

“It has been like this all day,” I say wearily. “But yesterday was worse.”

“Why do her servants not take care of all this?”

“Because she interrupts them and orders one thing and then another. We have had her chest of gowns packed and corded and ready for the wagon twice already. Her wardrobe mistress cannot be blamed; it is Katherine who pulls everything out for a pair of gloves that she cannot do without.”

“It is impossible that the queen’s rooms should be so disorderly,’ he exclaims, and I see that for once he is genuinely disturbed. “These are the queen’s rooms,” he repeats. “They should be gracious. She should have dignity. Queen Katherine of Aragon would never-”

“She was born and bred a queen, but these are a girl’s rooms,” I say. “And a spoiled, willful girl at that. She doesn’t behave like a queen; she behaves like a girl. And if she wants to turn the place upside down for a ribbon, she will do so, and no one can tell her to behave.”

“You should command her.”

I raise my eyebrows. “Your Grace, she is the queen. You made this child Queen of England. Between her upbringing in your houses and the king’s indulgence, she has been taught no sense whatsoever. I shall wait until she goes to dinner, and then I shall have everything set to rights; tomorrow all this will be forgotten, and she will go on progress. Everything she needs will be packed, and anything she has left behind she will buy new.”

The duke shrugs and turns from the room. “Anyway, it’s you I wanted to see,” he says. “Come out into the hall. I cannot stand this women’s noise.”

He takes my hand and leads me out of the room. The sentry stands to one side of the door, and we move away so he cannot listen.

“She is discreet with Culpepper at least,” he says bluntly. “No one has any idea. How many times has he bedded her?”

“Half a dozen,” I say. “And I am glad that there is no talk of her in the court. But here in her rooms at least two of her women know that she loves him. She looks for him; her face lights up when she sees him. She has gone missing at least once in the last week. But the king comes to her rooms at night, and in the day there is someone always with her. Nobody could prove anything against them.”

“You will have to find a way for them when they are on progress,” he says. “Traveling from one house to another, there must be opportunities. It is no good for us if they can meet only seldom. We need a son from this girl; she has to be serviced until she is in pup.”