The Last Boleyn (21 page)

Neither Anne nor Staff missed a chance to be with someone young and flirtatious, Mary thought as she smoothed her skirts and gazed out over the water. She would not give Staff the pleasure of thinking she had time to listen to him. She lowered her eyes as he approached and stared fixedly at the glint of reflected sunlight from the river surface as it danced along her gold skirts.

“Yes, Sire?”

“Staff, are you certain that everything was fully in order? Sir Francis told me the cardinal had a huge gilded bed in his privy chamber with golden cardinal's hats on each bedpost.”

“It is true, Your Grace. But he did remove that bed and one vast desk. Everything else stayed. You will be pleased, I know.”

“I would never want the common folk to know of it, Staff, but I know he kept a string of women to share that gilded bed, and that he hides a wife besides!” He lowered his voice and Staff leaned closer over Mary to hear. “In other words, under that mountain of fat draped with scarlet robes, and all that piety lurk a normal, lusty man, eh?” The king and Staff laughed loudly enough for most heads to turn their way. Mary folded her hands demurely in her lap and sat stock-still, as though she had not heard.

“I warrant the sweet Lady Mary has been about me enough that she does not even blush at jests such as that.” The king covered her silken knee with his hand and squeezed it playfully. Mary turned to him and forced a smile.

“And while we are on that delightful subject, Staff, how do you find little Jennings?” Henry guffawed and Staff shifted from one foot to the other, a set smile on his face.

“I find her a bit of an innocent, Sire,” he said quietly.

“Still, Staff? But she has been at court three weeks already. I would never have imagined I should have to give you lessons.” He snickered again and Staff bowed and backed away although Mary could not see that he had been dismissed.

The king was in a soaring mood. He mingled with everyone on the barge and waved to those on the following one. He threw coins to onlookers on the riverbank when they got close enough to shore. He chatted incessantly to Mary, kissed her and pinched her as though he were trying to lift her spirits too. He recounted at least twice the marvelous investiture service by which his son had become his heir and her father had become Viscount Rochford. He inquired how her little sister Anne got on and which of the courtiers she truly favored in her heart.

Wolsey's massive Hampton Court Palace glowed almost rosy pink in the diffused sunlight. Its twisted sets of chimneys and crenellated roofline pointed toward the graying clouds. They disembarked and strolled parallel to the moat, through the watergate toward the huge house. Even as they approached, His Grace told stories of the times he had feasted here and recited some of the improvements he would make.

“One night a group of us invaded a banquet my lord cardinal was giving—do you remember, Norris?—disguised. We picked out the prettiest wenches there to dance with and unmasked after it was all over. Were you there, too, Weston?”

“Yes, Your Grace. What I recall best was that you immediately chose the most charming wench for yourself before the rest of us could even get into the room.” Everyone within earshot laughed in unison.

“Now, seriously, everyone, I mean to tell you we shall be on a progress to Hampton as soon as everything can be assembled and this great brick barn sufficiently prepared for a royal visit. Sir Francis, I meant to inquire about the jakes. Are they quite in sound shape? Wolsey built the place here on this stretch of river upstream from the City because it is the healthiest place around in the pestilent summer months—and closer than Eltham or Beaulieu. We shall summer here and the sweat shall never find us at all. Sir Francis?”

“Yes, Your Grace. The lackeys spent a week swabbing the jakes and priveys after the cardinal's huge staff vacated. Besides, the palace has private water closets in each of the principal three hundred bed chambers, an elaborate sewer, drain system and fresh water brought from Coombe Hill three miles distant.”

“Ah, yes, Francis. I meant to tell them of that. It seems our busy Lord Chancellor was even more skilled at building than at doing the king's business which was given over to his care.”

Mary saw her cousin Francis color slightly as he realized his exuberance had made him overstep his place. Everyone kept his peace wondering what marvels His Grace would point out next. Mary walked on his arm as they entered the great courtyard. She kept her eyes on Henry's proud face, for she did not want to be caught by Staff stealing a glance at the way his demoiselle innocent draped herself against his body as they walked.

The king had now entirely taken over the tour himself, as though he had designed and built the monstrosity. It was typical of the king's ebullience and acquisitive nature, and they were all used to it. Staff and Sir Francis, whom the king had ordered to organize the jaunt, dropped farther back in the group as they paraded from room to opulent room. There were close to one thousand rooms in the palace, but they traipsed through only the principal chambers. Rich Damascene carpets virtually littered the floors. Gold and silver plate encrusted the massive oaken hutches and sideboards. Tapestries from Flanders draped the walnut carved walls and mullioned windows lent a golden glow to the myriad hangings of gold and silk. Their eyes could not take it in, they who were well accustomed to the opulence of the king's palaces.

“It seems the Lord Cardinal overstepped his place as a man of the cloth and a servant to the greatest king in the world,” Mary heard Anne say distinctly at the king's elbow, and she held her breath at the tactless remark. There was a sudden silence as they stood under the heavy tapestry of Daniel in the lions' den. Anne had hated the great cardinal ever since he had forced Harry Percy, the young son of Northumberland, whom Anne loved desperately, to renounce the Bullen wench and submit to the arranged and proper marriage his family had set with Shrewsbury's daughter. Anne carried the bitter resentment against the cardinal in her heart, Mary knew, but to dare to voice it like this to the king was dangerous.

Henry Tudor's voice sliced through the quiet. “Lady Anne is quite right, but the cardinal has learned his place with his king. This palace is the palace of the monarch, not of his servant, and he willingly bestowed it as a gift. The cardinal knows full well his lord is a hard taskmaster, and if he should forget again, we will remind him. Hampton Court is king's court now, my Lady Anne.”

Anne's dark head bent as though in acquiescence to his power, and when she lifted her face to him, her smile was brilliant. Mary was stunned at the fine line of tangible magnetism that crackled between the king and her little sister.

“We had best see the gardens before it rains. I have magnificent plans for a pond, tennis courts, a tiltground, and a huge lovers' maze which I am sure you will all have memorized by this time next year. Come, Come.”

Mary felt him pull back and hesitate when Anne strolled by, as though he wished to disengage her arm and seize Anne's. She lightened her arm against his instinctively, but he chose to move on. It was graying outside as they drifted out, and the lovely gardens seemed subdued and silent. The group splintered off in pairs or clusters, and Mary smiled to see the Duke and his beloved Duchess walk off toward the knot garden arm in arm, as the fondest lovers. But when her eyes took in the bright blue of Staff's doublet as he led Mistress Jennings toward the rose beds, her smile faded and she bit her lip in anger at herself.

“Well,” the king intoned smoothly, “if everyone is pairing off for a garden walk, that leaves us, sweet Mary.” He bent to kiss her lips, but stopped poised above her, his eyes darting off into the distance. “Your little sister can hardly practice her French-learned wiles on your Will, sweet, and that appears to be the only victim left to her.”

Mary turned her head slowly and saw Will seated with Anne in earnest conversation on a marble bench surrounded by a riot of lilies, cornflowers and broom. The scene reminded her of a painting that hung at Francois's Amboise of a pair of Italian lovers in a flowered frame.

“Damn! But I should have seen to it that Will had someone to be with. Where has that little Jane Rochford gone?”

“Jane Rochford is another sister-in-law to Will, Sire, but I will admit it does seem strange to see Anne unattended by at least two gentlemen.”

“Yes—yes. Perhaps you had best stroll with Will just for a while. She will talk the poor devil's ear off, though I do not wonder that it is witty talk. Will! Mistress Anne!”

Mary felt nothing but amusement at the situation. Nineteen-year-old Anne had caught the eye of the restless king. She had seen it happen before. He would spin off for several days in a romantic whirl and she would have a small rest until the conquest was complete and he returned to her. Each time father had seen it happen, he had been in a tizzy of worry. Mary nearly laughed aloud as Anne and Will sauntered up to them. Her father would be trapped because both of the ladies in question were his daughters. And His Grace—well, there was obviously no way this little passion for the sleek Anne could be satisfied, since the whole civilized world knew the king had bedded Mary Bullen for five years now, as his favored mistress.

Mary gladly took Will's arm as the king offered his to the radiant Anne. Anne made a sudden move to lift her left hand to wave as they turned away, but Mary saw her catch herself and jerk her fingers down into the folds of her dress. Never, since Anne had been a very young girl, had she nearly shown her tiny deformed finger. The situation must indeed be a heady one for the girl.

“I pray she does not get herself in this too deep, Will,” Mary observed quietly as they strolled in the opposite direction and heard Anne's lilting laughter float back to them.

“She trapped him this time, the little fool. She insisted we sit right there on that bench where we could watch His Grace.”

“Oh, no. She cannot be taken with him.”

“I think not, but did you catch her comment against the cardinal in there?”

“Who could have missed it?”

“I think she has some half-hatched plan in that pert little head, to have revenge on the cardinal through the king for taking Percy away from her.”

“That is too far-fetched. That was almost three years ago and...”

“Why else would she question Staff and me about how His Grace regards the cardinal, if anyone else has power over Wolsey and so on?”

“Silly girl, I will talk with her, Will. We do not speak much lately and I did not know. She will get into quicksand if she has thoughts like that. And if she meddles, father will have her head on a platter.”

“Perhaps, Mary. Or else the little nymph realizes that if she has Henry Tudor's ear, she need fear your father no longer. But it never works to try to use this king. You might warn her of that, Mary. He is the user.” Will's voice was bitter. He pulled her arm and held her close against his ribs. “I would not have you angry with me, wife, over sending Harry to Hatfield. I truly believe the lad needs sound schooling if he is to go far, and we can see him much there.”

“Even if your motives are pure, I know father's are not. He did not coerce or bribe you to get you to agree with him?”

“I do not buckle to the Bullens, Mary, least of all to your father. If I seem to agree with his tactics, it is only when the Careys will benefit too.”

“I should know that by now.”

He turned and carefully eyed her impassive face. “See that you remember that, madam.”

“And when His Grace goes on to someone else as mistress
en titre,
will the Careys mourn with the Bullens, or will there be a parting of the ways?” she heard herself plunge on, and all the frustrations of this long day made her voice shake with anger.

“I serve His Grace, separate from any bargain you may have with him, lady. I have my own ties to him and I will not hear you imply otherwise.” He stopped and faced her squarely. His face was as cloudy as the sky behind his head.

She drew in a quick breath and the scent of roses nearly overpowered her. She pulled her eyes away and there, across the tall arbors and through a whitened trellis decked with yellow roses, William Stafford crushed Maud Jennings to him in a passionate embrace.

“I am speaking to you, Mary. Your father may think what he damn pleases of the Careys, but I will not have the mother of my children against the Carey cause!”

Mary stared at his chest, her eyes burning with unspilled tears. “I meant nothing by it, Will. I only, well, I only wish you would stand against my father with me when he threatens me or little Harry.” She had to get away from this garden. She would not put it past Staff to seduce the wench right there on the grassy turf.

“My sister and I have worked hard for what we have now, and we intend that the Careys shall be even further restored in the next generation. You birthed them, madam, but they bear my name. And I am lord of them even though I cannot, at times, control where their mother makes her bed.”

“Will, please. I do not need your reprimands. I need your love and understanding.”

“'You have my duty, wife. After that, things get most difficult. The barges wait on the other side of that hedge, beyond the roses. Since we undoubtedly ride back on different boats anyway, I am certain you can find your own path when you are finished crying for your little Harry and what the Bullens will say when they hear Anne walks at Hampton with Henry Tudor in place of golden Mary.” He mockingly bowed to her and spun on his heel.

Mary's first impulse was to throw herself flat on the grass and scream and sob. His anger and bitterness astounded her. He kept it tightly bottled most of the time but when it exploded...He
did
hate her. He had finally admitted it. She crumpled weakly on a carved bench under a bewinged marble Cupid. The tears which would help release her agony did not come. She felt drained, totally enervated, and she dreaded raising her eyes again to the trellised arbor where Staff made passionate love to that woman.