The Taming of the Queen

He did see me then. I came to court once with my mother and Nan. I remember the young king of those days: golden-haired, strong in the legs, chest broad but lean. I remember him on horseback; he was always on horseback like a young centaur. He rode past me once and I looked up at him, high on his horse, and he was dazzling. He looked directly at me, a little girl of six jumping up and down, waving at the twenty-seven-year-old king. He smiled at me and raised his hand. I stood stock-still and stared up at him in wonderment. He was as beautiful as an angel. They called him the handsomest king in the world, and there was not a woman in England who did not dream of him. I used to imagine him riding into our little home and asking for my hand in marriage. I thought that if he came for me everything would be all right, for the rest of my life, for always. If the king fell in love with me, what more could I want? What more could anyone want?

‘And so I was married to my first husband, Edward Brough, the eldest son of Baron Brough of Gainsborough.’

‘Mad, wasn’t he?’ comes sleepily from the richly embroidered pillows. His eyes are closed. His hands, clasped over the mound of his chest, rise and fall with each wheezy breath.

‘That was his grandfather,’ I say very quietly. ‘But it was still a fearsome house. His lordship had a terrible temper and my husband shook like a child when he raged.’

‘He was no match for you,’ he says with sleepy satisfaction. ‘They were fools to match you to a boy. Even then, you must have been a girl who needed a man you could admire, someone older, someone who could command.’

‘He was no husband for me,’ I confirm. I understand now how he wants this bedtime story to go. There are only half a dozen tales in the world, after all, and this one is to be about the girl who never found happiness until she met her prince. ‘He was no match for me at all, and he died, God bless him, when I was just twenty.’

As if the denigration of poor, long-dead Edward has lulled him, a long rumbling snore is my reply. I wait for a moment as he suddenly stops breathing. For one frightening moment there is no sound in the quiet room at all, then he catches his breath and loudly exhales. He does this over and over again until I learn not to flinch. I sit back in my chair by the fireside and watch the flames lick around the logs and flicker, making the shadows jump forward and then recede around me as the thick snorting goes on and on, like a boar in a sty.

I wonder, what is the time? Surely it must be dawn soon. I wonder when the servants will come. Surely they must make up the fires at dawn? I wish I knew the time. I would give a fortune for a clock to tell me how much longer I have to wait for this endless night to be over. It’s so odd that the nights with Thomas passed in a moment, as if the moon flung itself to set and the sun hurried into the sky. Not now. Perhaps never again. Now I have to wait for a lifetime till dawn, and hours and hours go by as I wait for the first light.

‘How was it?’ Nan whispers. Behind her, the servants take the golden washing bowl and ewer from my room, as the maids-in-waiting sprinkle my linen with rosewater and hold it to the fire to make sure that it is completely dry.

Nan has the purse of dried rue. With her back to the room she takes up the mulling poker from the red embers of the fire, seethes a mug of small ale and stirs in the herb. Nobody notices as I drink it down. I turn my face away so no-one can see my grimace.

I go with her to my prie-dieu and the two of us face the crucifix and kneel side by side so closely that no-one can hear a word but will think that we are muttering our prayers in Latin.

‘Is he potent?’

The question alone is a capital offence. Anne Boleyn’s brother was beheaded for asking this very thing.

‘Just about,’ I tell her tersely.

She puts a hand over mine. ‘He didn’t hurt you?’

I shake my head. ‘He can hardly move. I’m in no danger from him.’

‘Was it . . .?’ She breaks off. A well-loved wife herself, she cannot imagine my revulsion.

‘It was no worse than I thought it would be,’ I say, my head bowed over my beads. ‘And now I have some pity for him.’ I glance up at the crucifix. ‘I’m not the only one suffering. These are hard years for him. Think of what he was, and what he is now.’

She closes her eyes in a silent prayer. ‘My husband, Herbert, says that God’s hand is over you,’ she says.

‘You must perfume my room,’ I decide. ‘Send to the apothecary for some dried herbs and perfume. Rose oil, lavender, strong perfumes. I can’t stand the smell. The one thing I cannot stand is the smell. I really can’t sleep with it. You’ve got to get this done. It’s the only thing I really can’t bear.’

She nods. ‘Is it his leg?’

‘His leg and his wind,’ I say. ‘My bed smells of death and shit.’ She looks at me, as if I have surprised her. ‘Of death?’

‘Of the corruption of the body. Of a corrupting body. Of the plague. I dream of death,’ I say shortly.

‘Of course, the queen died here.’