Page 11 of Boleyn Traitor
She looks deep into the fire as if she is telling fortunes. ‘And now the virgin is on his knee. The storm-tossed maiden has made it into port and tied up. So, what now? What can a knight errant do with a woman who is wooed and won? Wedded and bedded? Of course – nothing. The story’s ended. Satisfaction is no joy for him – when the disguises come off, there I am! His wife: bound to him. By law, I can’t refuse him, and he cannot desire a woman who does not refuse him.’
‘He loves the chase...’
She shakes her head. ‘No, it’s worse than that. Normal men love the chase and the capture. But for him, there is nothing but chase. He doesn’t want capture; he doesn’t want satisfaction. He wants to seek, forever seek, and never find. He likes to see himself bravely seeking, he likes pursuit more than he likes me, found and taken.’
‘He got Elizabeth on you...’ I protest.
‘Before we were married!’ she exclaims impatiently. ‘Don’t you see? That was still part of the quest? Don’t you remember the fuss I made about swiving him? I refused him for six years and drove him half mad – I only let him into my bed when he made me amarquess and promised we would marry. I only agreed to marry him when he had defied the pope himself. But there’s only ever one first time.’ She glares at me as if I should have a solution. ‘Jane, I was the greatest quest of his life, and now I am the one woman in the world that he cannot desire. He can swive a smiling slut who doesn’t matter, he can long for an unobtainable maiden with all his heart, but he can’t stand up for an honest loving wife.’
THREE NIGHTS LATER,long after midnight, the king sends Francis Weston to say that he is coming to Anne’s bed. They have been drinking all night, and the king leans on the door frame as they bring him in. I leave the king and queen, side by side in bed, like effigies on a tomb, and go through the darkened galleries to our Rochford rooms.
George is in his night robe, blinking at the flames of our fireplace. He raises his head, pours me a drink and pulls up a chair for me. ‘Have a drink. God knows I’ve had enough. He’s in bed?’
‘He is, but I don’t know if it’ll do any good.’
He raises a scornful eyebrow. ‘Christ knows, we’ve done all that we can. We sent him to her pot-valiant. We swear he’s the greatest lover since Sir Gawain. We tell him we all desire her; we’re all panting like dogs for her, but she’ll stoop to no one but him. It excites him to think that we all want her but only he can have her. We’ve lit the fuse tonight – she’ll just have to jump on him before he fizzles out.’
‘She’s his wife! She can’t play the whore.’
He shrugs. ‘She’s got to do something to get another baby off him. Anything that works. French tricks... anything.’
I hesitate, standing behind his chair as he gazes into the fire. ‘But, George, as a wife she can’t provoke lust. It has to be a holy act to make a prince. The king’s conscience won’t allow French tricks, and it’s against church law for her to mount him. She shouldn’t stoop to whorish games; it’s... it’s not queenly.’
George snorts derisively. ‘She won’t get fucked being queenly.’
I lean forward and wind my arms around him. After a moment, he tips his head back against me with a sigh, and I kiss his temples and his frowning forehead. ‘And what about us?’ I whisper. ‘Shall we go to bed?’
‘To sleep,’ he says. ‘I’ve drunk so much that I’m less use than the king himself.’
Greenwich Palace, Autumn
1534
GEORGE IS MASTERof the buckhounds, and it is his task to make sure that the hunt goes off perfectly for all the court. The king and all his friends are magnificent horsemen, trained for a cavalry charge, and they come out into the yard laughing and shouting bets on the day’s sport. They will hunt stags and bucks this late in the season, and they make crude jokes about being bucks and stags themselves.
They jump up on the mounting blocks as the grooms bring the horses, who are sidling and pulling at their reins in eagerness. The king rides heavier every year; his horse is a big Chapman horse, well-muscled with strong shoulders and huge haunches. George is at his side on his new chestnut mare.
‘She’ll never last the day,’ the king says to George.
‘Would you put a guinea on it, Sire?’
The king laughs, and the bet is laid.
Agnes is riding a neat grey, and I see her mount and gather up the reins. My groom brings me my roan, a gift from the Duke of Norfolk, and I get into the saddle and bring her up alongside Agnes.
‘Don’t crowd the king,’ I tell her. ‘He’s riding with my husband the viscount.’
‘If he asks for me, I’ll have to ride beside him.’ She smiles at me from under her green velvet cap. ‘Or d’you want me to tell him that you forbid it?’
‘I want you to behave like a young woman who knows her place,’ I snap. ‘It is an honour to be in the queen’s rooms; it is an art to be a courtier. It is not jostling for favours like a fishwife in a marketplace.’
‘Of course,’ she says simply. ‘But the queen was a maid-of-honour just as I am now. Her sister Mary too. Didn’t they jostle?’
My reprimand is drowned out by the baying of the hounds and the blast of the horns as the dogs pour out of the kennel yard into the great park, across the public highway, where the common people wait and cheer as we go by. Agnes shows me a small triumphant smile and loosens her reins to let her horse go forward with the others.
We ride deep into the forest of the great park and then wait, while the hounds cast about for a scent and the huntsmen shout their names and watch them trace the ground and turn and cast again. Then, suddenly, the first hound bays, a great excited roar, and all the hounds peel away after him, the whippers-in behind them and the king ahead of George and behind him, everyone else at full gallop, wherever the dogs lead, through streams, over fallen trees, and bursting out into the park over hedges and ditches. I ride cautiously at the back of the hunt, going round hedges rather than jumping them, finding my way along grassy lanes rather than tearing across rough ground. But the men ride as if their lives depend on it, and some of the ladies recklessly keep up with them.
The kill comes quickly with the stag at bay, and the huntsman hold off the hounds, and three of them get hold of the poor beast, hauling its head upwards for the king to strike the murderous slash across his throat. It is the perfect end to a long, exciting chase – the creature defeated, helpless before the king, and then the spurt of pumping blood. Excited by the chase, wiping his bloodstained dagger, seeing that Anne has not yet arrived in her litter, the king beckons Agnes to ride beside him to the little city of tents the servants have set up for us in a forest clearing.
