S Parris - Prophecy

Courcelles appears visibly bored by the guided tour, but to Marie and me, who have not been in London so long as to have learned the stories written in its stones, the ambassador’s archive of details is fascinating. The mossy brick walls and thickets of chimneys seem to gather colour and life as he speaks of the histories played out in the halls and galleries within. Marie seems especially taken by the fate of Anne Boleyn.

‘To think,’ she says, to no one in particular, gesturing at the walls of York Place as the efforts of the oarsmen carry us around the curve in the river and the house recedes from view, ‘so many years the king loved her, and fought to make her queen, and she waited for him, looking out of those very windows. And everyone was opposed to the marriage, but they could not deny the force of their love. He undid his kingdom for that woman. It’s so romantic. Don’t you think?’

She turns and addresses this question to me, all innocent wide eyes and softly parted lips. I notice how this appears to annoy Courcelles. This is part of her game, I suppose, to play us off one against the other, to inspire us to rivalry. Presumably she does the same with Throckmorton, when he is present, and other men too, no doubt. She does not seem to realise that I have not agreed to take part.

‘And as soon as he had her, he started engineering ways to have her head cut off,’ I say, smiling. ‘Desire attained very quickly sours.’

‘That is rather a cynical view of love, Bruno,’ she chides.

‘It is based on observation. Like all my hypotheses.’

‘Look, here is the palace,’ Courcelles chips in, and we turn to watch the low, red-brick walls of some outbuildings at the water’s edge give way to higher fortifications of pale stone and, just ahead, a structure jutting out into the water with lanterns hung all around it.

Castelnau raises a hand for silence and allows his gaze to travel slowly over us, so that we all have opportunity to note his grave expression.

‘We will have no conversation tonight with Henry Howard and his party beyond a civil greeting,’ he warns, lowering his voice. ‘The English court, and especially Her Majesty, must have no reason to suspect that we have any special dealings with him. Are we clear about this?’ Though he says ‘we’, he appears to be addressing this directly to his wife. We nod dutifully.

‘Pull in at the Privy Bridge,’ Castelnau commands the oarsmen, and Marie begins smoothing her skirts and arranging her cloak anxiously.

The Privy Bridge is not so much a bridge as a kind of pier or jetty, elevated on wooden stilts and built up with a covered walkway that looks like a small house, so that the royal party can avoid the elements on their way to the barge. Tonight the walls of this building are hung with scarlet-and-gold banners embroidered with the queen’s arms, the lion and dragon rampant rippling as the breeze catches them. At the end of the bridge, a flight of steps lead down to a landing stage, and here two men in the queen’s livery are waiting to help visitors disembark. Castelnau hands Marie out of the boat and follows; Courcelles and I fall into step behind them, and I pause for a minute on the stairs, looking up at the palace wall ahead. This is to be my first introduction to the English court, perhaps even to Elizabeth herself, and I am gripped by a strange apprehension.

We are led along a passage and across a broad paved courtyard, surrounded on four sides by grand ranges in red brick, with crenellated balustrades at the roofs and tall mullioned windows edged in pearl-white stone. At the entrance to every doorway and in the cloistered shadows you cannot fail to notice the number of tall young men, armed and wearing tabards bearing the royal standard.

‘Elizabeth grows fearful,’ Courcelles observes quietly, nodding towards one of the granite-faced men. ‘There are not usually so many of the palace guard on display.’

‘Perhaps she has reason,’ I say. He responds with a grim laugh.

From the high open doorway of the Great Hall spills a babble of music and talk, together with the drifting perfume of some scented oil burning to sweeten the air. On the threshold, Castelnau turns and points a finger into my face, so suddenly that I almost trip over him.

‘And no trouble, Bruno.’ He smiles, but the warning is meant.

I understand him. I am here by his invitation and this is no small thing; I have a reputation in Europe for courting controversy, but this evening I am representing the French embassy and, by extension, King Henri himself. I would be expected to conduct myself meekly at the best of times, but in the present circumstances, it is vital that Queen Elizabeth continues to think well of Henri of France and his ambassador. As Castelnau sees it, their relationship may be all that stands between England and war. Courcelles smirks, but I merely nod obediently. Castelnau, satisfied, turns, adjusts his doublet and prepares to make his entrance. As he does so, Marie turns back to me and winks.

But the splendour of the spectacle before us drives all other thoughts from my mind. The hall arches overhead, the upper portion of its walls all light from the high pointed windows of stained glass, drawing the eye upward to the dark wood spans of the great hammer-beam roof, with its elaborately carved tracery and gilded spandrels. From each of the wall braces hangs a coloured banner embroidered with some royal insignia in golds, crimsons, azures. The lower parts of its long walls, where I can glimpse them through the crush of people, are decorated with exquisitely detailed Flemish tapestries depicting scenes from the Old Testament, bordered with gold damask. Courtiers in silks and velvets of all hues gather in groups or mingle around the room, glancing at one another and parading their finery; the men wear puffed knee-breeches with white silk stockings to show off their calves, doublets with sleeves slashed to reveal the jewel-coloured lining, and wide starched lace ruffs that give them the air of birds fanning out their feathers in a mating display, with cuffs to match. Over one shoulder they drape short capes of velvet fastened with gold or jade brooches, and as they lean in to converse, the long peacock feathers on their caps nod and sway, and sometimes become tangled up with one another. Some of them carry silver pomanders at their belts, and the air is thick with spiced perfume; they all, without exception, carry ornamental swords, swinging by their thighs in elaborately embellished scabbards. I am surprised that a queen who lives under perman ent threat of assassination should tolerate her courtiers coming armed into her presence, but perhaps even she dare not part a gentleman from his weapon. Sidney once told me that she had forbidden duelling among the gentlemen of the court, with a penalty of losing one’s right hand. The awkwardness of their costumes obliges these courtiers to walk with their legs slightly parted, in an exaggerated swagger; there is something comical about their strutting and their anxious glances to one side and the other to make sure they are being noticed. I can only imagine what they would be like if there were more women present.

A group of musicians play subtle string compositions in a vaulted alcove set before one great window that stretches from floor to ceiling. The effect is magnificent as the setting sun slants low through the patterned panes, illuminating the musicians’ heads and shoulders before painting its coloured geometry over the rush-strewn floor.

Marie’s head swivels from left to right and back, bright-eyed as a child at a carnival, and I smile to myself. This is certainly the place to be if you are a young woman seeking male admirers. There is a noticeable surfeit of young men in the hall. It is said that the queen does not like to have to compete for the attention of her courtiers — still less as she ages — so they are encouraged to leave their wives at home; certainly the few women present are older, nearer the queen’s own age, strapped tightly into bodices above broad farthingale skirts, their faces stiff with paint. Already Marie is drawing glances as we progress slowly through the crowd; though she holds tight to her husband’s arm, I notice that she smiles to herself and does not lower her eyes as she ought when she finds herself the object of some gentleman’s hungry stare.