Queen's Gambit: A Novel of Katherine Parr (2 page)

He grabs Katherine’s wrist, surprised
by his own strength, rasping, ‘Give me more tincture.’

‘I cannot, John,’ she replies.
‘I have already given you the limit. More would …’ Her words hang.

He grasps her more tightly, growling,
‘It is what I want, Kit.’

She looks at him, straight on, saying
nothing.

He thinks he can see her thoughts like the
workings of a clock, wondering, he imagines, where in the Bible to find justification
for this; how to reconcile her soul with such an act; that it could send her to the
gallows; that if he were a pheasant got at by the dog, she would think nothing of a
merciful twist of his neck.

‘What you ask of me will damn us
both,’ she whispers.

‘I know,’ he replies.

There has been a late snowfall and the
covered turrets of Whitehall Palace disappear against a tapioca sky. The courtyard is
ankle deep in slush and, in spite of the sawdust that has been strewn in a makeshift
path across the cobbles, Katherine can feel the wet chill soaking through her shoes, and
the damp edges of her skirts flick bitterly at her ankles. She shivers, hugging her
thick cloak tightly about her as the groom helps Meg dismount.

‘Here we are,’ she says
brightly, though bright is the last thing she feels, holding out her hand for Meg to
take.

Her stepdaughter’s cheeks are flushed.
The colour sets off her brown eyes, making them look fresh and limpid. She has the
sweet, slightly startled look of a woodland animal but Katherine can see the effort it
is taking her to hold off more tears. She has taken her father’s death badly.

‘Come,’ says Katherine,
‘let’s get inside.’

Two grooms have unsaddled the horses and are
brushing them down briskly with handfuls of straw, bantering between themselves.
Katherine’s grey gelding Pewter throws his head about with a jingle of tack and
snorts, billowing trails of steam like a dragon.

‘Easy, boy,’ says Katherine,
taking his bridle and stroking his velvet nose, allowing him to snuffle at her neck.
‘He needs
a drink,’ she says to the groom, handing him the
reins. ‘It’s Rafe, isn’t it?’

‘Yes, m’lady,’ he replies.
‘I remember Pewter, I gave him a poultice once.’ A hot blush rushes over his
cheeks.

‘Yes, he was lame. You did a fine job
with him.’

The boy’s face breaks into a grin.
‘Thank you, m’lady.’

‘It is I who should thank
you
,’ she says, turning as Rafe leads Pewter towards the stable block.
She clasps her stepdaughter’s hand and makes for the great doors.

She has been numb with grief for weeks and
would rather not have to come to court so soon after her husband’s death, but she
has been summoned – Meg, too – and a summons from the King’s daughter is not
something it is possible to refuse. Besides, Katherine likes Lady Mary, they knew one
another as girls, even shared a tutor for a while when Katherine’s mother was
serving Mary’s mother – Queen Catherine of Aragon – before the King cast her off.
Things were simpler in those days, prior to the great schism when the whole world was
turned on its head, the country rent in two. But she won’t be commanded to stay at
court just yet. Mary will respect her period of mourning.

When she thinks of Latymer and what she did
to aid his passing, turmoil rises within her like a pan of milk on the boil. She has to
remember the horror of it all in order to reconcile herself to her actions: his
anguished screams, the way his own body had turned on him, his desperate request. She
has searched the Bible since for a precedent, but there is no story of merciful killing
there, nothing to give hope for her blighted soul, and there’s no getting away
from it. She killed her husband.

Katherine and Meg enter the Great Hall,
still hand in hand. It smells of wet wool and woodsmoke and is teeming with people, as
busy as a market square. They mill in the alcoves
and strut in the
galleries, showing off their fine clothes. Some sit in corners playing fox and geese or
cards or dice, throwing down their bets. Occasionally a whoop goes up when someone has
won or lost. Katherine watches Meg, wide-eyed at it all. She has never been to court,
she’s barely been anywhere, and after the deathly quiet of Charterhouse, all
cloaked in black, this must be a rude awakening. They make a sombre pair in their
mourning garb among the flocks of bright-clad ladies floating by, bubbling with chatter,
their fine gowns swinging as they move as if they are dancing, always looking around to
see who has noticed how finely dressed they are, or to remark, with green eyes, on who
is better garbed than they. There is a fashion for little dogs that are bundled in their
arms like muffs or trot at their heels. Even Meg manages a laugh to see one that has
hitched a ride on its mistress’s train.

Pages and ushers run back and forth and
pairs of servant lads move through, burdened with baskets of logs, one between two,
destined to stoke the fires in the public rooms. Long tables are being laid for dinner
in the Great Hall by an army of kitchen boys, clattering and clanking by, each balancing
an armful of dishes. A group of musicians tunes up, the dissonant chords eventually
transforming into something like a melody. To hear music at last, thinks Katherine,
imagining herself caught up in the sound, whirling and spinning until she can hardly
breathe with joy. She stops that thought. She will not be dancing just yet.

They stop as a band of guards marches by and
she wonders if they might be on their way to arrest someone, reminding her of how little
she wants to be in this place. But a summons is a summons. She gasps as a pair of hands
comes from nowhere, clapping themselves over her eyes and causing her heart to jump into
her throat.

‘Will Parr,’ she exclaims
laughing.

‘How could you tell?’ asks Will,
dropping his hands.

‘I would know your smell anywhere,
brother,’ she quips, pinching her nose in mock disgust and turning to face him
where he stands with a group of men, beaming like a small boy, his brassy hair sticking
up where he has removed his cap, his odd-coloured eyes – one water pale, one caramel –
flashing in their impish way.

‘Lady Latymer. I can hardly remember
the last time I clapped eyes on you.’ A man steps forward. Everything about him is
long: long nose, long face, long legs, and eyes that have something of the bloodhound
about them. But somehow nature has conspired to make him quite becoming in spite of his
oddness. Perhaps it has something to do with the unassailable confidence that comes with
being the eldest of the Howard boys, and next Duke of Norfolk.

‘Surrey!’ A smile invades her
face. Perhaps it will not be so bad at court with these familiar faces about. ‘You
still scribbling verse?’

‘Indeed I am. You will be pleased to
know I have improved greatly.’

He once penned her a sonnet, when they were
little more than children, and they had often laughed about it since –
‘virtue’ rhymed with ‘hurt too’. The memory causes a laugh to
bubble up in her. One of his ‘juvenile embarrassments’, as he had described
it.

‘I am sorry to see you in
mourning,’ he continues, serious now. ‘But I heard how your husband
suffered. Perhaps it is a mercy that he has finally passed.’

She nods, her smile dropping away, unable to
find words to reply, wondering if he suspects her, scrutinizing his face for signs of
condemnation. Have the circumstances of Latymer’s
death been
found out? Is it spreading through the corridors of the palace? Perhaps the embalmers
saw something – her sin written into her dead husband’s guts. She dismisses the
thought. What she gave him leaves no trace and there is no accusation in Surrey’s
tone, she is sure of it. If it shows on her face, they will think her distraught with
grief, but nevertheless her heart is hammering.

‘Let me present my stepdaughter,
Margaret Neville,’ she says, pulling herself together.

Meg is hanging back and there is a barely
disguised look of horror on her face at the idea of having to be introduced to these
men, even if one is Will who is practically her uncle. Meg’s discomfort is scored
through her. Since those cursed events at Snape Katherine has kept her away from the
company of men as much as she can, but now there is no choice. Besides, she will have to
marry eventually. Katherine will be expected to arrange it, but God knows, the girl is
not yet ready.

‘Margaret,’ says Surrey, taking
Meg’s hand. ‘I knew your father. He was a remarkable man.’

‘He was,’ she whispers with a
wan smile.

‘Are you not going to present
me
to your sister?’ A man has stepped up, tall, almost as tall as
Surrey. He waves a velvet cap adorned with an ostrich feather the size of a hearth brush
that bobs and dances as he gives the thing an unnecessary flourish.

Katherine stifles a laugh that rises from
nowhere. He is got up spectacularly, in a doublet of black velvet with crimson satin
spilling out of its slashes and finished with a sable collar. He sees her notice the
sable, and he brings a hand up to stroke it, as if to emphasize his rank. She racks her
brains to remember the sumptuary laws and who is entitled
to wear
sable, trying to place him. His hands are weighed down with rings, too many for good
taste, but his fingers are fine and tapered and they wander from the sable to his mouth.
He draws his middle finger over his bottom lip slowly and deliberately, not smiling. But
his eyes, periwinkle blue – obscenely blue – and his disarmingly direct gaze are making
her feel flushed. She meets his look only momentarily, catching the briefest flutter,
before dropping her eyes to the floor.

Did he wink at her? The insolence. He winked
at her. No, it must have been her imagination. But then why is she imagining this
overdressed ninny winking at her?

‘Thomas Seymour, this is my sister
Lady Latymer,’ announces Will, who seems amused by whatever it is that has just
happened.

She should have known. Thomas Seymour is
bearer of the dubious accolade of ‘comeliest man at court’, the object of
incessant gossip, youthful crushes, broken hearts, marital discord. She concedes
inwardly to his looks; he is a beauty, that is indisputable, but she will not be drawn
under his spell, she has lived too much for that.

‘It is an honour, my lady,’ he
says in a voice as smooth as churned butter, ‘to finally meet you at
last.’

Surrey rolls his eyes.

So there’s no love lost there, she
thinks. ‘Finally
and
at last!’ It trips off her tongue before she
can stop it; she can’t help herself wanting to put this man in his place.
‘Goodness!’ She places a hand to her breast affecting exaggerated
surprise.

‘Indeed my lady, I have heard of your
charms,’ he continues unprovoked, ‘and to be confronted with them makes me
tongue-tied.’

By charms she wonders if he means her
recently acquired wealth. News of her inheritance must have got out. Will for
one can’t keep his mouth shut. She feels a little surge of anger
for her brother and his blabbering.

‘Tongue-tied?’ This is a smooth
one, she’s thinking, searching for a witty retort. She keeps her look firmly
directed at his mouth, not daring to meet his eyes again, but his wet pink tongue
catches the light disturbingly. ‘Surrey, what think you? Seymour has got his
tongue in a knot.’ Surrey and Will begin to laugh as she racks her brain for
something more, finding it, chirping, ‘And it might be his undoing.’

The three men burst into laughter
simultaneously. Katherine feels triumphant; her wit has not deserted her, even in the
face of this unsettling creature.

Meg stares at her stepmother aghast. She has
not had much opportunity to see this Katherine, the sharp-witted courtly one. Katherine
throws her a reassuring smile while Will introduces her to Seymour, who looks at her as
if she is edible.

Katherine takes her hand, saying,
‘Come, Meg, we will be late for Lady Mary.’

‘So brief but yet so sweet,’
simpers Seymour.

Katherine ignores him, placing a kiss on
Surrey’s cheek and, as she begins to walk away, half turning back and dipping her
head in the general direction of Seymour for the sake of politeness.

‘I shall walk with you,’ says
Will, sliding between the two of them, slipping his arms through theirs.

‘I would prefer it, Will,’
Katherine hisses, when they are up the stairs and out of earshot, ‘if you would
not discuss my inheritance with your friends.’

‘You’re too quick to accuse,
sister; I’ve said nothing. It has got out, that was inevitable, but –’

She snaps over him, ‘So what was all
that about my so-called charms then?’

‘Kit,’ he laughs, ‘I do
believe he really was referring to your charms.’

She huffs.

‘Do you always have to be the
disgruntled elder sister?’

‘I’m sorry, Will. You’re
right, it’s not your fault that people talk.’