The Taming of the Queen

Behind us come the ladies of my chamber and their husbands, behind them the king’s companions wait for him, while he is helped up from his chair to his close-stool. Someone fetches Doctor Wendy to give the king warm ale and a draught to help with the pain, and guards to help him into his carriage and wheel him out into the garden like a dead boar in a cart.

The double doors to the garden are thrown open by the yeomen of the guard as soon as Thomas and I approach them, and the warm spring air, smelling of the first cut of grass, floods into the palace. We glance at each other – it is impossible not to share our pleasure in the sudden sense of freedom, of release, in joy at the sunshine and the birdsong, and the court dressed in their best and preparing for another nonsensical game.

I am smiling, simply for the joy of being with him; I could laugh out loud. The sun is warm on my face and the musicians start to play; Thomas Seymour, briefly and unnoticed, touches my hand as it rests on his arm, a swift and invisible caress.

‘Kateryn,’ he says quietly.

I incline my head to left and right as people curtsey to me as we walk by. Thomas is tall, a head taller than me. He moderates his steps to mine but we stride out together, as if we would go all the way to Portsmouth and set sail on his ship. I think that we are so well matched, if we could have been together – what a couple we would have made, what children we would have conceived!

‘Thomas,’ I say quietly.

‘Love,’ he replies.

We need say nothing more. It is like lovemaking, the give and take of few words, the touch of warm skin, even through a thick sleeve, a glance from him to my bright face, my own sense that I am alive now and I have been dead for months. I have been wearing dead women’s gowns and I have been dead myself. But now I feel alive again and longing. I feel desire as a sort of trembling wordless need that makes me think: if I could just lie with him once, I would never ask for more. If I could lie beneath him just once and have his long weight bear down on me, his mouth on mine, the scent of him, the sight of the dark hair on the nape of his neck, the smooth bronzed line from his ear to his collar bone . . .

‘I have to talk to you,’ he says. ‘Will you sit here?’

There is a throne ready for the king when he comes and a chair beside it for me and then lower chairs for the princesses. Elizabeth comes bounding forwards and then smiles and blushes when she sees Thomas. He’s not even aware of her as she turns away and strolls back to the archery butts, picks up a bow and poses: fitting an arrow on the string, and drawing it back. I take my seat and he stands slightly behind the chair, leaning down so that he can whisper in my ear, but we are both facing the green and the competitors testing their strings, and taking aim, and throwing a few blades of grass in the air to see the wind. We are completely visible to everyone, we are on show. We are hidden in plain sight.

‘Don’t move, and keep your face still,’ he warns me.

‘I am listening.’

‘I have been offered a wife,’ he says quietly.

I blink, nothing more. ‘Who?’ I say shortly.

‘Mary Howard, the Duke of Norfolk’s daughter.’

This is a remarkable offer. Mary is the widow of the king’s beloved bastard son that he made the Duke of Richmond. If the boy had not died, he might have been named Prince of Wales and the king’s heir. Edward was not born then, and Henry needed a son; even a bastard would have done. At Richmond’s death the king refused to mention his name and Mary Howard, the little widowed duchess, went back to live at her father’s great castle at Framlingham. When she visits court the king always greets her warmly, she is pretty enough to attract his heavy gallantry; but I didn’t know that there had been any proposals for her second marriage.

‘Why Mary Howard?’ I ask incredulously. Someone bows to me and I smile and nod my head to acknowledge their greeting. A few archers start to line up for practice shots. Princess Mary walks towards us.

‘So that the Howards and us Seymours should forget our differences,’ he says. ‘It’s not a new proposal. They made it before, when she was first widowed. So that the Howards can become kinsmen to Prince Edward. Princess Elizabeth is not royal enough for them.’

‘You didn’t seek it then?’ I can feel a taste in my mouth as bitter as the morning drink of rue. I realise that this is the flavour of jealousy.

‘I don’t seek it now,’ he points out.

I want to pinch my face as it feels numb. I want to shake my hands and stamp my feet. I feel as if I am frozen, as still as ice on my throne, as Princess Mary comes slowly towards me across the grass.

‘Why would you?’ I ask.