The Taming of the Queen

‘Is there anything else you need to make you more comfortable?’ the doctor asks.

‘New legs,’ Henry says wryly.

‘I wish to God I could give you them, Your Majesty.’

‘I know, I know, you can leave us.’

They go out through my privy chamber, closing the door behind them. I hear the guard at the outer door of the presence chamber ground his pike on the stone floor in salute to the doctor, and then it is quiet, but for the crackle of the fire in the fireplace and the hoot of an owl, out in the dark trees of the garden. From somewhere, perhaps beyond the hawks’ mews, I can hear the distant pipe of a flute for dancing.

‘What are you listening for?’ the king asks me.

‘I heard an ullet.’

‘A what?’

I shake my head. ‘An owl. I meant an owl. We call them ullets in the North.’

‘D’you miss your home?’

‘No, I am so happy here.’

This is the right answer. He gestures that I am to come to bed beside him, and I kneel briefly before my prie-dieu, then take off my robe and slip between the sheets in my nightgown. Wordlessly, he tweaks at the fine lawn of my gown and gestures that I should straddle him. I make sure that I am smiling as I go astride him, and I lower myself gently onto him. There is nothing there. Feeling a little foolish I glance down to make sure that I am in the right place, but I can feel nothing. I make sure that my smile does not waver and, slowly, I undo the top ribbon of my nightgown. Always I have to balance my actions so that I do not seem wanton – like Kitty Howard – but I do enough to please him. He gets hold of my hips in an unkind grip and draws me downwards, grinding me against him, trying to thrust himself upwards. His legs are too weak to take his weight, he cannot arch his back, he can do nothing but flounder. I can see his colour and his temper rising, and I make sure I am still smiling. I widen my eyes and I take little shallow breaths as if I am aroused. I start to pant.

‘It’s no good,’ he says shortly.

I pause, uncertainly.

‘It’s not my fault,’ he insists. ‘It’s this fever. It has unmanned me.’

I dismount with as much ease as I can manage, but I feel painfully awkward as if I were getting gracelessly off a fat cob. ‘I am sure it’s nothing. . .’

‘Yes, yes,’ he says. ‘It’s the fault of that damned doctor. The physic he gives me would castrate a horse.’

I giggle at the phrase, then I see his face and realise he is not joking. He really does think himself as strong as a stallion, only rendered impotent by a draught against fever.

‘Get us something to eat,’ he says. ‘At least we can dine.’

I slip from the bed and go to the cupboard. There are pastries and some fruit.

‘For God’s sake! More than that.’

I ring the bell and Elizabeth Tyrwhit my cousin comes and curtseys low when she sees the king in my bed. ‘Your Majesty,’ she says.

‘The king is hungry,’ I tell her. ‘Bring us some pastries and some wine, some meats and some cheeses and some sweet things.’

She bows and goes, I hear her waking a page and sending him running to the kitchens. One of the cooks has to sleep there, in a truckle bed, waiting for a night-time demand from the king’s rooms. The king likes great meals in the middle of the night as well as the two big feasts of the day, and often stirs in his rest and wants a pudding to soothe him back to sleep again.

‘We’ll go to the coast next week,’ he tells me. ‘I have been waiting for months to be well enough to ride.’

I exclaim in pleasure.

‘I want to see what Tom Seymour has left of my navy,’ he says. ‘And they say the French are massing in their ports. They are likely to raid. I want to see my castles.’

I am sure he will see the rapid pulse in the hollow of my bare neck at the thought of seeing Thomas. ‘Is it not dangerous?’ I ask. ‘If the French are coming?’

‘Yes,’ he says with pleasure. ‘We might even see some action.’

‘There might be a battle?’ My voice is perfectly steady.

‘I hope so. I did not refit the Mary Rose for her to sit in harbour. She is my great weapon, my secret weapon. D’you know how many guns I have on her now?’

‘But you won’t go on board, will you, my lord?’

‘Twelve,’ he says, not answering me but pursuing his thoughts about his refitted ship. ‘She was always a mighty ship and now we’re going to use her like a weapon, as Thomas says. He’s quite right, she is like a floating castle. She has twelve port pieces, eight culverins and four cannon. She can stay far out at sea and bombard a land-based castle with guns as big as they have. She can shoot from one side and wheel around and shoot from the other while the first are reloading. Then she can grapple a ship and my soldiers can board them. I’ve put two fighting castles on her upper deck, fore and aft.’

‘But you won’t sail in her with Sir Thomas?’

‘I may.’ He is excited at the thought of a battle. ‘But I don’t forget that I have to keep myself safe, my dear. I am the father of the nation, I don’t forget it. And I would not leave you alone.’