Page 38 of Boleyn Traitor
‘Of course, we discuss each other’s poetry.’
‘The king’s poetry?’
‘We all laugh at an awkward rhyme.’
‘You laugh at the king’s awkward rhymes?’
‘Not especially. We all tease and torment each other.’
‘Does the queen complain of his infidelity?’
‘You know she does. The love that she feels for him cannot tolerate a rival...’
‘And of his failure to love?’
‘Well... she fears he prefers others...’
‘But in bed? She says he fails her? She calls him incapable?’
‘Of course, he was so badly injured just months ago!’ I exclaim. ‘And the wound on his leg won’t heal...’
‘She’s told you this? She says that he is impotent?’
I feel cornered by my own patron. Everyone knows when the king beds his wife – he comes to her bedroom in a procession, accompanied by half of his friends. The nights when he lies stock-still as a statue are obvious to the lords who fetch him in the morning and find him as they left him, even the serving women changing unspotted sheets know that he has done nothing. No one says anything, it’s treason to suggest the king is not in perfect health and vigour.
I lower my voice. ‘Isn’t every man—’
‘And have you told many people?’
‘No! I only told George. But that was an earlier conversation. Years ago.’
His broad brown face creases with sympathy. ‘Years ago? How long has this been going on?’
‘I don’t remember... before I left court. After... About two years ago.’
‘It must be a great concern for her? How are we to get a prince if the king is unmanned?’
‘Yes,’ I say. ‘Exactly.’
‘Does she do nothing to help him? To assist him?’
I think of George telling me that he got the king drunk, so Anne could mount him before he lost the will, that she must do anything: French practices, nakedness. ‘She does everything a good wife should do.’
‘Kissing, kissing with tongues, that sort of thing?’
I blush. ‘Whatever is needed.’
‘Sortilèges. French practices?’
‘Nothing forbidden,’ I tell him firmly.
‘No potions or herbs? No spells?’
‘She drinks a posset,’ I say unwillingly. ‘The midwife gave it her... After the last... the last time.’
‘The last dead-birth?’
I nod.
