27
JANE’S AFFIRMATION OF OUR FRIENDSHIP MAKES ME FEEL lighter. Lessens the burden of my worries. My father is only days away, Henry Percy is nowhere near making his decision, and James Butler is doggedly pressing claims—valid or not. Yet I still feel hope.
Greenwich is tucked into the bottom of a curve of the river Thames, facing water and a wide expanse of marsh on the other side. Behind it is a single, knoblike hill. At the hill’s peak is Duke Humphrey’s Tower, a pretty little place where King Henry has been said to hide his mistresses.
From the southeast flank of the hill, I can see for miles—all the way to St. Paul’s, its spire like a beckoning finger. So I take Fortune up there for a taste of freedom.
I want to roll down the hill like I used to at Hever with George. Mary would stand over us, mothering, until we convinced her to join us by tickling her so hard she couldn’t breathe. Then we all rolled together, George and I racing to see who could get dizziest fastest.
Fortune shuffles and cocks her head. She can sense the wind blowing in off the river, carrying odors of the court and the Isle of Dogs beyond it and the rattle and cry of men in the tiltyard.
She flutters again, lets out a high, trilling shriek.
I loosen her hood, untie the jesses, and unblind her. She blinks, squints, flaps, and becomes still.
That is when I release her.
I watch as she glides out over the slope, her cry coming back to me, pitched more like a song.
I lie down in the grass, its scents rising around me like steam. But I don’t roll; I sing, my face tilted to the sun. I sing a silly little frottola in Italian by Josquin des Prez about a cricket who needs a drink. A cricket who sings in the sunshine for no other reason than love of the song.
There on the empty hill, I can sing whatever I want, however I want. No one listening. No one watching. On this hill, I am unobserved. Unjudged. I am free.
“El grillo è buon cantore, Mistress Boleyn.”
I know that voice far too well. The buttery tones. The high-domed warmth. I’m surprised I didn’t feel the vibration of his presence before I heard his voice.
I scramble to my feet, the breeze chilling my back where the dew soaked into my bodice and sleeves. I curtsy while surreptitiously trying to brush seeds and stems from my skirts.
“Your Majesty.”
“The cricket is a good singer,” he translates, obviously delighted to be able to associate me with the song. “And yet I rarely hear you sing.”
His eyes meet mine as I stand. Those clear, intense gray eyes that appear to look at me and into the future at the same time. As though anything he sees, he can make happen.
“I prefer to play the lute.”
He nods as if understanding me perfectly. “The tenor of the strings speaks to me somehow. And the diversity of tones available.”
It hits me: I’m having a conversation with the king. King Henry of England. Alone.
“I agree!” I cry, and have to stop myself from reaching for him to emphasize how close he’s come to speaking my own mind. “The lute is like a chorus! A single voice cannot compete.”
“Yours can,” he says. And the connection breaks. He’s flattering me.
“A king should only speak the truth, Your Majesty.”
“You certainly say what you think, Mistress Boleyn.” His tone is even, his face immobile. Regret clutches at my throat. I have just called the king a liar. To his face.
Suddenly, he laughs—a fountain of mirth.
“I like that in a woman,” he says.
“Others would list it as the most heinous of my many faults.”
“I find it difficult to believe you have any faults.”
Is the king flirting with me?
“I was taught to hide most of them by King François’s sister.”
“Marguerite.” The king nods. “She was once put forward as a possible bride for me.”
I try to imagine the fiery, opinionated Marguerite of Alençon in the place of complacent and pious Queen Katherine.
I fail.
“You are lucky to have known her well,” he says.
“She gave me this when I left.”
I touch the little gold A that rests below the notch at the base of my throat. And then swallow when he looks at it—at the teardrop pearl that hangs from it, resting just above my negligible cleavage.
“Beautiful.”
“She is,” I say weakly. Pretending he doesn’t mean the necklace. Or anything to do with me.
“But she is a dangerous woman. Heretical. She supports her brother in a foolish bid to retain English lands in France.”
Despite his assertion that he likes a woman who speaks her mind, I doubt he will countenance my disagreement. Or my opinion that King Henry’s own dubious claim to the French throne does not justify his bid to beat France into submission—nor the chaos and death such an action is sure to generate.
No king wants to hear that. Especially from a woman.
“I can see you don’t agree.”
I look up at him. His face is a guarded question. I don’t know how to respond. If it were Wyatt it would be easy. But the king?
“My brother would tell you that agreeableness is not integral to my character.”
“Actually, your brother told me you’re a very clever girl. Perhaps that’s more important.”
I stare at him, awestruck. My mouth must be hanging open, thus negating the image painted by George. And the king stares back until my emotions spin from incredulity at George’s praise to tingling anticipation of what might happen next.
The king breaks the tension and speaks first.
“You must be wondering why I’m here.”
“I was, actually.” I find my voice. “It seems unusual for you to be . . . without occupation.”
He laughs again. “I’m that transparent, am I? That I am always in need of some pursuit? Music, theology, building projects. If it’s not statesmanship, it’s hunting. If it’s not jousting, it’s war.”
“You have many interests.”
“You are a diplomat like your father. But the truth is, I do have an occupation.” He moves closer to me. The braid on his doublet catches on the silk of my sleeve, and I feel the tug like a heartstring.
I wonder wildly if he followed me. If he intends to have two sisters at once. I wonder if Mary is waiting in the tower. I look up again into his mesmerizing gray eyes, knowing that I couldn’t say no.
Except I’d rather Mary wasn’t there.
“I have come to ponder my responsibilities,” he says quietly into my ear, tickling my hair. “It is not easy to send fourteen thousand men to war. Including my best friend.”
With a flash like gunpowder, my cheeks begin to burn. He doesn’t pursue me.
I turn my head again to look him in the face. He is so close. I can see the stubble of his red beard at his temples, the flecks of gold and umber in his gray eyes.
He does confide in me.
“I believe that the right will win,” he says quietly. “But it is not easy.”
“How do you know you are right?”
“It is God’s will.”
“It seems more like a gamble. And a waste.”
He steps back and a flash of anger crosses his face. My tongue has taken me too far again.
“You were in France too long. It affects your mind. Your loyalty.”
“Not my loyalty, Your Majesty,” I say with a deep curtsy, afraid to look him in the eyes again. “I am loyal to you. But my concern is for my friends still in France.”
He towers over me, lucent with energy, more like the string of a longbow than of a lute. I feel his gaze rake me up and down, scanning my skirts, bodice, and finally my hood. I am unable to move.
“Your manner is French, madam. And your dress. Even your speech.”
“But I am not French, Your Majesty,” I say hastily. I try to lengthen my vowels, harden the j in Majesty. Be English for the first time in my life. I wish I had gabled my hood just a little bit more.
“If, as the Moors say, the enemy of my enemy is my friend,” he says, his words barely able to escape his clenched jaw, “then the reverse must also be true.”
The friend of my enemy is my enemy.
“You must decide where your true loyalties lie,” he declares. “And who your friends are.”
He turns quickly and walks away like a storm, blowing the grass into whirlwinds behind him. I watch as he approaches the palace, a great gleaming gold beacon, calling the courtiers to him without sound. And they run to catch up with him like a mass of multicolored ants.
Fortune returns to me silently, and I tether her back to my arm. Back to the earth.