Page 5 of Boleyn Traitor
George hands it over without hesitation, though it cost us a small fortune, and says that the king is by far the better player; but he will have his revenge next week. The ladies chime in, their voices like bells in full peal; everyone agrees that the king is as strong and as quick as a youth of twenty.
Not Agnes. She spent the entire tournament in the cool draught at the back of the queen’s box, out of the burning sunshine. While we lean over the edge of the box to praise the king and tease his opponents, she says nothing; but drifts forward to stand beside me, and when the king rubs his red sweating face on the sleeve of his shirt, she drops her handkerchief – like a floating petal – down to him. He snatches it out of the air as if it were a thistle seed and puts it against his flushed cheek. He looks up at her and presses it to his mouth.
Anne’s smile never wavers. She hands down the prize for the tournament – a gold hat pin – and she leads the way back to the queen’s side of the palace. She sets her ladies to sewing shirts for the poor – it is always shirts for the poor when she is in a rage.
She waves George and me into her bedchamber, and I close the door quickly so that no one else can hear the storm break the moment we are alone.
‘You saw that. She insults me.’
George is hot from the tennis court, with the sheet around his neck and his muslin shirt sticking to his back. ‘I have to go and wash.’
‘No, stay. You saw what she did. She insults me.’
‘I smell like a horse.’
‘It doesn’t matter. Tell me what I should do. She’s throwing herself at him!’
‘At least let me wash!’
She flicks her hand in dismissal, and he goes into the grand stool room that adjoins her bedroom. We hear him splashing the big ewers of water over himself and lathering up her fine soap, and finally he comes out, his hair curly from the water, one bath sheet embroidered with her crowned initial wrapped around his waist and another thrown over his shoulders. She pays no attention to his nakedness.
‘You saw her. She’s doing everything but swive him under my nose.’
‘Did this start while I was away in France?’
‘Not that I’ve seen,’ I say.
George rubs water from his ear with the sheet. ‘Jane misses nothing. If Jane didn’t see it, it’s only just started. So, it’s nothing: it’s the game – the courtly love game. We all play it, all the time. You can’t object... in your condition...’
‘My condition’s supposed to be my saviour!’
George looks at me to intervene.
‘Your condition is your saviour,’ I agree. ‘It means you’re above challenge. Even if he flirts with someone else, even if he falls in love...’
‘He’s already in love!’ she shrieks. ‘Unending love! Not like you, married by arrangement!’
‘All marriages are arranged,’ George says quickly. ‘It’s just that you arranged your own. And all marriages are of love. I didn’t choose Jane, but I was glad to have the daughter of Lord Morley as my wife, and she’s been as loyal as a...’ He breaks off, trying to imagine a simile for loyalty in this false court.
‘As a dog!’ she snaps.
George puts his arm around my waist. ‘Well, anyway, loving and loyal – and right! Jane’s always right. As she says: you’re above challenge. But while you’re pregnant and he can’t swive you, he’s bound to have other women. He’s not going to live like a monk for five or six months until your son’s born and you’re churched and can come back to your place – he’s going to have someone! He always did before.’
‘Before!’ she repeats. ‘Of course he had other women when he was married to an old queen constantly losing her babies! She was old and sick, and their marriage was cursed. But he’s not going to have anyone other than me! I held him at arm’s length for six years! Six years!’
‘You didn’t hold him at arm’s length,’ George points out. ‘There was all sorts of kissing and pleasuring. Sortilèges. French tricks.’
I didn’t know of this perverse and sinful behaviour. I had truly believed it was all courtly love. I hide my shock, and Anne doesn’t thank George for the reminder.
‘Next to nothing, and I could do it again now! Why shouldn’t I hold him for another six months?’
The marriage is less than two years old, and it was made – uniquely – for love. Anne has made herself into a new sort of queen, a new sort of wife: a beloved-wife, a love-queen. She has made a new age for women – recognised for our beauty and brains. Is such a queen, married for love, as secure on her throne as one pledged in a cold-hearted international alliance? Or should a marriage made for love, last only as long as love? Does a husband, married for love, have to be seduced and won over and over again?
Of course, we know the answer to that! The king tells us in every joust he wins and every masque where he plays the hero. He must be courted and fall in love daily. He never tires of the game of courtly love. Every day he has to fall in love again. Every day: fresh and new and passionate. And this was all very well when Anne was a honeymoon wife, and we, ambitious courtiers, played the music and danced him into her arms. But how can a wife heavy with childdance like a seductive girl? What can she do when he is strictly forbidden by the Church from coming to her bed?
‘He’s never going to stop playing at courtship,’ George says gently. ‘He has to be adored. It’s going to be “declare I dare not” to someone new every time you’re with child. He has to be the great lover – desired above all others. You know that! You’ll have to look the other way and know that when your son is born, you’re back in the game. Until then, look the other way.’
‘The queen looked the other way!’ she exclaims bitterly. ‘Never said a word against me until it was too late! See where that got her? Dowager princess in Kimbolton Castle and a household of half a dozen? Her daughter named “Lady Mary” – never to command as a princess again? If the queen had nipped it in the bud, I’d not be here today – and she’d not be there!’
