Queen's Gambit: A Novel of Katherine Parr (26 page)

‘I … I.’ It is as if
her tongue is heavy, the wrong shape for the words, and she feels a hot blush rush all
the way up to the roots of her hair. ‘It doesn’t matter,’ she manages
to mumble.

‘Oh but it does,’ he says with a
smile, taking her hand. ‘Come, let’s find a quiet spot. Are you
needed?’ The anger drops from his face and it is him again, the William who
strolls through her dreams.

‘I have a few minutes.’

He leads her down the steps so fast she has
to run to keep up. She notices a small hole in his hose at his ankle, where his heel
narrows to meet the base of his calf – a small circle of white skin framed in black, a
private part of him. She wants to tell him she can stitch it and she wonders if he has a
girl like her, to mend for him and wash his linens, realizing with a jolt that for all
her dreaming, she knows nothing of this man, save that he reads and writes and that he
plays the virginals like an angel. But most of all, she knows that he is out of her
reach. How far, she cannot tell, but he is well-born enough and
shouldn’t really look at a girl like her – or not for anything more than a
tumble in the grain store. But here he is, clutching her hand and pulling her along for
everyone to see.

He leads her out into Base Court, where the
sun’s glare bounces off the windows, on to the cobbles. It takes her a moment for
her eyes to get used to the brightness. The court is as busy as Smithfield, with
everyone seeming in such a hurry. Groups of men clatter through, robes flapping, swords
glinting, and pages rush about doing this and that. She notices Betty scuttle furtively
along beneath the arcade – doing something she shouldn’t, clearly, as she’s
meant to be in the kitchens at this hour. A gardener passes, almost hidden by a bundle
of cut flowers the colour of lemons, intended for one of the great chambers, Dot
supposes. A trio of girls trots past, in the shade of the cloister, practising dance
steps, their skirts swinging.

‘No, Mary, it is like this,’
says one, tripping through the movement. ‘Your arms should be up.’ She lifts
her arms, tiny fingers beautifully arranged at the end of them, looking like some kind
of splendid butterfly with her red and gold sleeves spread out like wings and beguiling
insect eyes flitting about to see who might be watching.

She glances at William to see if he watches
them too, but he doesn’t; his eyes are on her, inspecting her minutely. She feels
uncomfortable, hot, with the sun beating down, exposed.

‘You know, Dot,’ he whispers,
‘you are prettier by far than most of these palace girls that wander about the
place with their noses in the air.’

She doesn’t believe him, there in her
plain coif and drab dress, hardly prettier than a grain sack, next to these gaily clad
beauties tripping through the court. She tries desperately to think of some kind of
witty reply, any reply, but nothing comes except a barely audible ‘no’. Her
sense of her
own inferiority crushes her: the country lilt in her
voice; her skin, not pale enough; the scrubbing-brush calluses on her man-sized hands,
which she hides away beneath her apron.

‘So you want me to read this to
you?’

She nods.

The girls are still skitting about. One
sings a song in French, or Dot supposes it to be French as everyone here – apart from
the ordinary servants – seems to speak it.
They
can all read, and she hates
them for it; hates them for their luxury, for their delicate airs, their fine limbs and
finer skins, their blue blood, the fawning tutors that painstakingly teach them their
letters. But mostly she hates them for the way they make her feel: lumpen and awkward
and stupid.

‘Has no one ever taught
you?’

She shakes her head, eyes cast downward
following a train of ants making their way over the cobbles.

‘But you would like to
read?’

She listens carefully for the mocking tone
in his voice but doesn’t find it.

‘I would.’ She doesn’t
know how, or what it is about him that she suddenly feels she can trust, but she finds
her tongue at last. ‘I
truly
would.’

‘It is a crime that clever girls like
you are not taught.’

He called me clever, she thinks, feeling
that she might boil over with it all. ‘But I come from a simple family and I have
found myself in this place. Where I come from no girls could read. I don’t really
belong here, Mister Savage.’

‘You belong here as much as the next
person.’ He places an arm around her shoulders, giving her a squeeze that turns
her insides to aspic. ‘Now tell me,’ he says, whispering in her ear,
‘would you like to read the Bible for yourself?’

‘I would. When I see all the ladies
with their books –’

‘Hush.’ He places a finger over
her lips. ‘You must keep these things to yourself.’

His touch, the nearness of him, is making it
difficult for Dot to breathe. A couple of riders career into the court, dismounting and
chattering loudly. An untidy blare of pigeons squabbles over a crust. The chapel bell
sounds out twice.

‘I have to go,’ she says,
starting to get up, but he grabs her hand and pulls her back down.

‘I will teach you to read.’ He
seems pleased with his idea, his eyes wide and bright and lovely.

‘I’m sure I shall never be able
–’

‘You will. It is not as mysterious as
it appears. Come later when the Queen has gone to bed and we will start with the
prayer.’ He pulls her towards him and gives her a kiss, as light as a feather, on
her cheek. ‘I am looking forward to it, Dot.’

‘I must go,’ she says.

He walks with her to the door, opening it
for her as if she were a countess at the very least.

‘You know this must be a
secret,’ he says.

She nods, understanding that there is
something grave and powerful about written words and being able to read them.

‘Let them think we are summer
lovers,’ he adds, turning her face to his with a touch to her cheek.

She has no choice but look at him. He seems
younger, somehow, than she had thought; she’d never noticed how sparse his beard
is, so the cleft in his chin and that dimple are visible, and how his skin is as smooth
as a child’s. There is a gleam of excitement in his eyes as his gaze dances over
her face. She wonders what it could be he sees there.

He presses his lips to her ear, whispering,
‘Go.’

Her head is in a spin as she returns to the
Queen’s chambers. Her giddiness makes her clumsy. She spills a pan of
water on the matting and drops a carton of oranges that roll across
the room; she has to prise one from Rig’s jaws who thinks it’s a game. She
forgets Katherine’s hood when she brings her dress in and ties her left sleeve on
her right arm.

‘You are distracted, Dot. More than
usual,’ says Katherine. ‘I smell love on you.’ She laughs lightly,
adding, ‘You enjoy it, my dear, for there is precious little chance for love in
this life.’

Dot doesn’t miss the fleeting look of
sadness on her face. She has noticed a change in Katherine recently. She had been so
very bright since the King’s departure, so much the Queen, but there is something
that has got under her skin and given her an edge, though most don’t see it. Dot
hears the ladies talk of how remarkable she is, how efficient, how well she manages the
council.

‘Those old goats are eating out of her
hand,’ the Duchess of Suffolk had said, and Sister Anne had called her formidable.
And Stanhope’s sour face was a sight to behold when even that old Lady Buttes, who
doesn’t seem to have a good word for anyone, said, ‘For all her middling
birth she has the bearing of a Queen.’

But it is only Dot who knows the secrets of
the Queen’s body, and none but Dot witnessed her look when her monthly courses
last came, and how hollow her words were when she said, ‘Next time, Dot. Next
time.’ She had mixed a tonic for the cramps and gone back to her business.

Dot thinks it is a blessing the King is not
here. The great bedchamber lies unused and Katherine’s pale skin is free from
bruises.

Katherine urges Pewter on. She can feel his
exhaustion, but as they reach the brow of the hill and the palace comes into sight he
picks up his pace – galvanized by the thought of a bucket of oats, no doubt.
Eltham’s ancient stone is the colour of winter skies, but in places it blooms with
bright lichens and mosses, seeming to have grown out of the ground as if conceived by
nature herself. It is a place that has housed Kings and Queens for hundreds of years and
seems to know it, for it has a dignified look sitting like a jewel at the centre of its
rolling parkland, encircled by a placid green moat. The trees around it are on the turn,
crisping at their edges, taking on a new palette, heralding autumn.

She can see Mary and Elizabeth, with little
Edward and a group of youngsters, far ahead, almost at the gates. Their horses were
fresher and they took the last leg at a gallop. She watches the way Edward controls his
skittish pony, quite at home in the saddle. Katherine has been determined to create a
feeling of family for this disparate collection of souls who, for all their privilege,
have been so lacking in love. Even Edward, the apple of his father’s eye, the
answer to everything, has been so wrapped up, so kept away from things,
that he has become uncomfortable with affection. She hopes that will change.

In the meantime, she has witnessed a new
closeness flourish between the two sisters. They have ridden out together daily since
they arrived and Elizabeth has taken to sharing Mary’s bedchamber. Katherine had
long hoped to achieve this, but her pleasure in it has been tainted, for Meg has been
left out in the cold as a consequence. Meg really should be married by now – but since
that business with the wine, the Dudley boy is out of the question. And besides, she
seems to be sickening with something; she’s barely been outside for weeks and has
taken on the pallor of a ghost. She slips into Katherine’s bed in the night,
wheezing badly and occasionally racked with terrible fits of coughing. Katherine has
called for Huicke from London. He will know what to do.

The palace beckons her. Henry spent his
childhood at Eltham and she tries to think about him – plump and small, just the second
son, not bred for greatness like his brother – skipping through this place. She
struggles, though, to imagine him as a child. In her mind he is more like one of those
heathen gods from the myths that appeared fully formed from the belly of a great fish or
a rent in the earth. He will return soon, full of bluster from his great victory at
Boulogne. Hampton Court had been jubilant on hearing the news that the French were
defeated. She is waiting for word that he has landed at Dover and feels her freedom
slipping away, but for now she will immerse herself in the pleasures of this place.

As Pewter clops through the stone arch and
into the cobbled court, a thin rain starts blowing about. She dismounts and leads him to
the trough for a drink, scratching between his ears, making him press his muzzle up to
her shoulder and flare his nostrils.

‘Let me take him, madam,’ says an
unfamiliar groom who doesn’t meet her eye, because she is the Queen and he is
unsure of himself.

She smiles to put him at his ease, handing
over the reins and asking his name.

‘It is Gus, madam,’ he replies,
looking at his hands.

‘Thank you, Gus. Will you give him
some oats and rub him down carefully. He is not as young as he was.’

Gus leads Pewter away and Katherine sits for
a moment on the edge of the trough, putting her face up to the cold spray of rain,
imagining she is not Queen and can do as she pleases. But the rain gets the better of
her and she takes herself through the vast wooden doors into the hall. Sister Anne is
inside and they sit together by the fire to drink a toddy.

‘This fire is horribly smoky,’
says Anne.

‘We have been spoiled by the comforts
of Hampton Court and Whitehall.’

‘This place reminds me of Croyland. Do
you remember going there, Kit, when we were girls?’

Katherine looks up at the high hammer-beamed
ceiling and the way the muted light filters through the thick glass, shimmering over
flagstones that are shiny and uneven with age.

‘It
is
like
Croyland.’

She remembers that great abbey, the way it
dropped a cloak of silence over everything, a hush that made her ears ring with
emptiness. She thinks of the solemn hooded monks, their soft shuffling, the haunting
harmonies of their plainchant, rising up to the vast arched roof, and the colours, the
vividness, the richness, the splendour crushed by Henry’s reformation. And though
she doesn’t believe in what it stood for, she wishes that some of that ancient
splendour, that particular quiet, could have been retained.

‘It is a shame those places are no
more.’

In her heart she feels the loss of it all as
something desolate. She understands why people are still so aghast at the spoils of the
Church being divided up among the nobility.