The Shadow of the Pomegranate (29 page)

He could rely on their help and, as they already guessed his feelings towards Bessie and were waiting for the culmination of that little affair, Henry decided that he would use their help.

‘When I give the sign,’he said, ‘I wish you to turn aside from the rest of the party with me . . . keep about me to cover my retreat.’

Compton nodded.

‘And see that Mistress Blount is of our party.’

Compton winked at Bryan knowing Henry could not see the signal. There was scarcely a man in the party who would not understand. But Henry always believed that those about him only saw that which he wished them to see.

‘Your Grace,’ said Compton, ‘I know of an arbour in the woods which makes an excellent shelter.’

‘He has dallied there himself,’ put in Bryan.

‘Well, Sire, it is an inviting arbour. It calls out to be of use.’

‘I would like to see this arbour and perhaps show it to Mistress Blount.’

‘Your humble servants will stand guard at a goodly
distance,’ said Compton. ‘Near enough though to prevent any from disturbing Your Grace and the lady.’

Henry nodded. Alas, he thought, that love must be indulged in thus shamefully. If I were but a shepherd, he thought, and she a village maid!

The thought was entrancing. To be a shepherd for an hour’s dalliance one afternoon! And such was his nature – he who was more jealous of his rank and dignity than any man – that when he sighed to be a shepherd he really believed that it was his desire.

He saw her – his village maiden – among the women. Gracefully she sat her horse; and her eyes were expectant. It is a great honour I do her, Henry assured himself. And I’ll make a goodly match for her. It shall be a complaisant husband who will be happy to do this service for his King.

It was easily arranged under the skilful guidance of Compton and Bryan; and even the sun shone its wintry light on the arbour; and the lovers did not feel the chill in the air. They were warmed by the hunt – not only of the deer but for the quenching of their desire.

Henry took her roughly into his arms; kissed her fiercely; then expertly – for he had learned of these matters in Flanders – he took her virginity. She wept a little, in fear and joy. She was overcome with the wonder that this great King should look her way. Her modesty enchanted him; he knew too that he would teach her passion and was amazed by the new tenderness she discovered in his nature. He wanted to dally in the arbour; but, he said, even a King cannot always do as he wishes.

He kissed his Bessie. He would find means of coming to her apartments that night, he promised. It would not be easy, but it
must be done. He would love her for ever; he would cherish her. She had nothing to fear, for her destiny was the King’s concern and she would find him her great provider.

‘Nothing to fear, my Bessie,’he said running his lips along the lobe of her ear. ‘I am here . . . I your King . . . to love you for evermore.’

During the weeks that followed Henry was a blissful boy. There were many meetings in the arbour; and scarcely anyone at Court did not know of the King’s love affair with Elizabeth Blount, except Katharine. Everyone contrived to keep the matter from her, for as Maria de Salinas, now Lady Willoughby, said on her visits to Court, it would only distress the Queen, and what could she do about it?

So Katharine enjoyed the company of a gentler Henry during those weeks; and she told herself that his thoughtfulness towards her meant that he was growing up; he had come back from Flanders no longer the careless boy; he had learned consideration.

He was a gentler lover; and he frequently said: ‘Why, Kate, you’re looking tired. Rest well tonight. I shall not disturb you.’

He even seemed to have forgotten that desperate need to get a child. She was glad of the rest. The last miscarriage together with all the efforts she had put into the Scottish conflict had exhausted her more than anything that had gone before.

One day the King seemed in a rare quiet mood, and she noticed that his eyes were over-bright and his cheeks more flushed that usual.

She was sewing with her ladies when he came to her and sat down heavily beside her. The ladies rose, and curtseyed, but he
waved his hand at them, and they stood where they were by their chairs. He did not give them another glance, which was strange because there were some very pretty girls among them, and Katharine remembered how in the past he had been unable to prevent his gaze straying towards some particular specimen of beauty.

‘This is a charming picture you’re working,’he said, indicating the tapestry, but Katharine did not believe he saw it.

He said after a slight pause: ‘Sir Gilbert Taillebois is asking for the hand of one of your girls, Kate. He seems a good fellow, and the Mountjoys, I believe, are eager enough for the match.’

‘You must mean Elizabeth Blount,’ said Katharine.

‘Ah yes . . .’Henry shifted in his seat. ‘That’s the girl’s name.’

‘Your Grace does not remember her?’ said Katharine innocently. ‘I recall the occasion when Mountjoy brought her to me and you came upon us. She was singing one of your songs.’

‘Yes, yes; a pretty voice.’

‘She is a charming, modest girl,’ said Katharine, ‘and if it is your will that she should make the match with Taillebois, I am sure we shall all be delighted. She is after all approaching a marriageable age, and I think it pleasant when girls marry young.’

‘Then so be it,’ said Henry.

Katharine looked at him anxiously. ‘Your Grace feels well?’

Henry put his hand to his brow. ‘A strange thing . . . Kate, when I rose this morning I was a little dizzy. A feeling I never remember before.’

Katharine rose quickly and laid a hand on his forehead.

‘Henry,’ she cried shrilly, ‘you have a fever.’

He did not protest but continued to sit slumped heavily on his chair.

‘Go to the King’s apartments at once,’ Katharine commanded the women who were still standing by their chairs. ‘Tell any of the gentlemen of the King’s bedchamber . . . any servant you can find, to come here at once. The King must go to his bed and the physicians be called.’

The news spread through the Palace. ‘The King is sick of a fever.’

The physicians were about his bedside, and they were grave. It seemed incredible that this healthy, vital young King of theirs could be so sick. None knew the cause of his illness, except that he was undoubtedly suffering from high fever. Some said it was smallpox; others that it was another kind of pox which was prevalent in Europe.

Katharine remained in his bedchamber and was at his side through the day and night; she refused to leave it even when her women told her that she would be ill if she did not do so.

But she would not listen. It must be she who changed the cold compresses which she placed at regular intervals on his burning forehead; it was she who must be there to answer his rambling questions.

It was clear that his mind wandered. He did not seem to be sure whether he was at the court of Lille or in some arbour in a forest – presumably, thought Katharine, some place he had seen when he was on the Continent. Patiently she sat beside his bed and soothed him, superintending his food, making special healthgiving potions, conferring with his physicians and keeping everyone else from the sickroom; and in less than a week his magnificent health triumphed over the sickness and Henry was able to sit up and take note of what was going on.

‘Why, Kate,’he said, ‘you’re a good wife to me. It was not such an unhappy day, was it, when I said I’d marry the King of Spain’s daughter, in spite of the fact that they were all urging me not to.’

That was her reward. But as she sat beside his bed smiling she did not know that he was thinking how old and pale she looked, how wan, how plain. That was because he was comparing her with one other, whom he dared not ask to be brought to his sickroom, but who was nevertheless continually in his thoughts.

He had come near death, he believed, and he was a little alarmed to contemplate that he might have died at a time when he was actually in the midst of an illicit love affair, committing what the priests would tell him was a cardinal sin.

But was it so? He began to wrestle with his conscience, a pastime which, since the affair with Bessie, he had indulged in with greater frequency.

But, he mused, she was so enamoured of me, that little Bessie. She would have broken her little heart if I had not loved her. It was for Bessie’s sake, he assured himself. And I found her a husband.

Taillebois would be a good match for her, and she would have reason to be grateful to her King. As for himself, how far had he wronged his wife? She was ageing fast. There were dark shadows under her eyes; her once firm cheeks and neck were sagging; all the red seemed to have gone out of her hair and it was growing lustreless and mouse-coloured. She needed rest; and while he had Bessie abed Katharine could rest, could she not? She was grateful for the respite. Let her recover her health before they tried for more children.

So he had done no harm. How could he when he had made
Bessie happy and Katharine happy? It was only himself who must fight this persistent conscience of his. He was the one who suffered.

He said: ‘My good Kate, you have nursed me well. ’Tis something I shall not forget. Now tell me. Before I went to bed with this sickness I had given my consent to Taillebois’ marriage with that girl of yours. What’s done about it?
’

Katharine looked shocked. ‘There could be no marriage while Your Grace lay so ill.’

‘But I’m well again. I’ll not have my subjects speaking of me as though I’m about to be laid in my coffin. Tell them to go on with that marriage. Tell them it is their sovereign’s wish.’

‘You must not bother about weddings, Henry. You have to think about yourself.’

He took her hand and fondled it. ‘I am a King, Kate, and a King’s first thoughts must be for his subjects.’

She kissed him tenderly, and in that moment of happiness she seemed to regain much of her lost youth.

He could not ask for Bessie to be brought to him, so he determined to be out of his sickroom within a day or so. He could, however, receive his old friends; and Bryan, Compton, Brandon and Carew all visited the sickroom and there were soon sounds of laughter coming from it.

Henry had become interested in illness for the first time in his life, and wanted to try his hand at making potions. During his sickness he had been tormented by certain ulcers which appeared on various parts of his body and that one which was on his leg had not healed like the others. This was treated with liniments and pastes, and he took a great interest in the preparation of these; something which, Katharine knew, he would have laughed to scorn a few months previously.

Compton disclosed a similar ulcer of his own and this made an even greater bond between those two. One day Katharine came into the sickroom to find Compton with his bare leg stretched out on the King’s bed while Henry compared his friend’s affliction with his own.

Under the treatment Henry’s ulcer began to heal and he, full of enthusiasm, determined to heal Compton’s. To take his mind from Bessie, he made ointments with Compton, into which he believed that if he added ground pearls he could construct a cure. He was determined to wait until he was strong before he returned to public life, because at the balls, and the masque, and banquets he must be as he had ever been; the King must leap higher in the dance; he must never tire.

So passed those days of recuperation, and during them Henry continued to think longingly of his Bessie who had become Lady Taillebois.

Spring had come and, now that the King was well again, he had two great desires: to be with Bessie and to prepare for the war against France.

He had sent Charles Brandon over to Flanders – after bestowing upon him the title of Duke of Suffolk – for two purposes: to continue with his wooing of Margaret of Savoy and to make plans for the arrival of the army in spring or early summer.

Henry was relieved to see Charles out of the way, for the infatuation of young Mary for that man was beginning to alarm him. Mary must be prepared to accept that other Charles, Maximilian’s and Ferdinand’s grandson, and when Henry thought of that pale-faced youth with the prominent eyes and
the seemingly sluggish brain, he shuddered for his bright and beautiful sister. But he would have to remind her that royal marriages were a matter of policy. I married my wife because she was the daughter of Spain, he often reminded himself, and he relished the thought because it was another excuse for infidelity. How could Kings be expected to be faithful when they married, not for love, but for state policy? He had already forgotten that it was he himself who had determined to marry Katharine, and that he had done so in spite of opposition.