Page 6 of Boleyn Traitor
George laughs – it is a masterstroke; only he would dare to laugh at her in her rage – and take her in his arms, half-naked. ‘Nobody could ever have nipped you in the bud,’ he assures her. He wraps his arms around her, sways her from side to side, and she closes her eyes and puts her hot angry face against his cool bare skin. ‘Anne, sweetheart. Wait – what did he call you? Lady of my heart!’
Reluctantly, she giggles, remembering the king’s laborious poetry. ‘Never let us be apart.’
‘Storm-tossed maiden!’ he reminds her, and she laughs outright, leaning back in his arms. ‘I can’t blame him for that,’ she says. ‘That was one of my lesser lines.’
‘It was brilliant,’ he assures her. ‘And you’ll always be the love of his life. Agnes doesn’t matter. You don’t stoop to complain of a girl like her. Don’t bring her to the court’s attention; ignore her, and he’ll court her and have her, and then he’ll get bored and find another Agnes. He’ll find dozens of Agneses during your reign. You won’t care. We’ve won. You’re queen, and once you have a prince and heir, you don’t even need him in your bed.’
I think he has soothed her, and the storm has passed.
‘He promised he would love me forever,’ she says resentfully.
George shrugs. ‘He married you. That’s forever.’
Of course, Katherine of Aragon exiled in a cold castle, shows us all: it is not.
‘Agnes shall leave court if she upsets you,’ I suggest. ‘Your mother can speak to her parents.’
‘That’s right.’ George gentles Anne; he presses her into a chair and takes off her heavy hood. ‘Rest,’ he urges her. ‘Rest and be calm for the baby. This baby’s going to make everything all right.’
‘Jane can get rid of Agnes.’
‘I don’t know how...’ I begin, looking to George.
They laugh, their eyes bright as weasel kits. ‘Oh, Jane, don’t pretend!’ George exclaims. ‘You’ve been at court long enough.’
‘Spill ink on her gown or wine on her linen, loosen her girth so her saddle slips and she falls from her horse.’ Anne laughs.
‘I can’t loosen her girth!’
‘No, don’t kill her!’ George agrees.
‘Put a forbidden book in her chest and report her,’ Anne suggests. ‘Rub her shoes in dog shit. Or just tell the girls that you don’t like her, and they’ll do the rest for you.’
‘I’m supposed to keep them orderly, not bully them – they’ll hate me!’
‘It doesn’t matter who hates you, if we love you!’ Anne knows the note to strike with me. ‘We love you! George will protect his clever wife; the earl my father will protect his daughter-in-law; my uncle the duke will protect his niece! Remember, you’re a Boleyn, of the House of Howard. You belong to us, and nobody can do anything against you.’ She stops and laughs at me. ‘Dear Jane! Look how she melts at the thought of being loved!’
George steps across to me and cups my face in his palms. ‘Dearest Jane,’ he says sweetly. ‘Little wife. Get rid of Agnes for us. Do it for love?’
THAT EVENING, THEking calls for a circle dance: gentlemen in an outer circle, ladies on the inside. The king starts with Anne as his partner and works around the circle, dancing with each lady until he returns to his wife again. Each girl blushes as soon as he takes her hand: a king causes desire with his touch, just as he cures sickness. I feel the heat in my own face at his whispered: ‘Ah, Jane! Pretty Jane! I danced my way all around just to reach you!’
He is nearly forty-three years old now, but, like everyone else at court, I cannot see his age. He is still handsome: his brown beard curling around his sensual mouth, his dark blue eyes smiling down at me as his warm hand takes mine. For me, for all of us, he will always be the stunningly handsome young boy-king who came to the throne at seventeen, married a Spanish princess for love and swore he would make his kingdom the finest in Europe. He is as light on his feet as he was then. He turns me in the steps of the dance and draws me close. ‘Jane, I swear, if you were not my sister-in-law...’
I feel a blush in my own cheeks. The king has been the lover of sisters before, he was bedding Mary Boleyn when he fell in love with Anne.
‘The queen would have me beheaded!’ I whisper, and he laughs and squeezes my hand, and moves on in the dance.
Mark Smeaton, the lute player, should be standing with the musicians, but he dances around the outside of the circle and lingers beside Anne, never missing a note.
The dance takes the king from me to Agnes, and suddenly, she stumbles on her hem, and pitches into his arms. It’s a shameless move from a maid-of-honour, she must be quite determined to capture his attention. Mark slows the cadence of his playing for a moment, and the king whispers something in her ear. She blushes like an innocent girl, recovers her balance, and Mark picks up the tune, and it is as if no one hesitated. The dance moves the king on to his next partner but I see him glance back, as Agnes shakes herhead and mouths: ‘I dare not!’ – the very motto of courtly love that he once used about Anne.
It is evidence enough. When the dance ends with curtseys and bows, I slip from the hall to the queen’s rooms, picking up a jug of warm creamy milk from her serving table as I go past. I tap on the door of the room for the maids-of-honour; but there is no reply. Ten of them sleep here in five comfortable beds. Agnes shares the bed by the door, her prayer book on a little prie-dieu by her bedside, her rosary beside it. Her clothes are in a chest at the bottom of the bed. I pull back the covers and pour milk on the sheets where it will soak through to the bedding and the wool-stuffed mattress beneath. It will smell of sour milk even after they have washed the sheets three times. Her bedfellows will say she pisses the bed and refuse to share with her, their maids will say she smells. She will be horribly shamed.
That night, I climb into the huge carved bed beside Anne. ‘Did you see her?’ she demands. ‘Did you see him with her?’
I nod.
‘Did you warn her?’
