Philippa Gregory - The Boleyn Inheritance

I see her face as he comes into the room, the rise of her color, and then how quickly she turns away and speaks to little Catherine Carey at her side. Plainly, she is quite besotted with him, and for a moment I remember that she is not just a pawn in our game, but a girl, a young girl, and she is falling in love for the first time in her life. To see little Kitty Howard at a loss, stumbling in her speech, blushing like a rose, thinking of someone else and not herself is to see a girl become a woman. It would be very endearing if she were not Queen of England and a Howard with work to do.

Thomas Culpepper joins the set of dancers and places himself so that he will partner the queen when the couples pair off. She looks down at the ground to hide her smile of pleasure and to affect modesty, but when the dance brings them together and she takes his hand, her eyes come up to him and they gaze at each other with absolute longing.

I glance round; nobody else seems to have noticed, and, indeed, half the queen’s ladies are making sheep’s eyes at one young man or another. I glance across at Lady Rutland and raise my eyebrows; she nods and goes to the queen and speaks quietly in her ear. Katherine scowls like a disappointed child, then turns to the musicians. “This must be the last dance,” she says sulkily. But she turns and her hand goes out, almost without her volition, to Thomas Culpepper.

Every day I see him, and every day we are a little bolder with each other. The king still has not come out from his rooms, and his circle of physicians and doctors and the old men who advise him hardly ever come to my rooms, so it is as if we are free in these days – just us young people together. The court is quiet with no dancing and no entertainment, since it is Lent. I cannot even have dancing privately in my rooms anymore. We cannot hunt, or boat on the river, or play games, or do anything amusing. But we are allowed to walk in the gardens, or by the river after Mass, and when I am walking, Thomas Culpepper walks beside me, and I would rather walk with him than dance dressed in my best with a prince.

“Are you cold?” he says.

Hardly, I am buried in my sables, but I look up at him and say: “A little.”

“Let me warm your hand,” he says, and tucks it under his arm so that it is pressed against his jacket. I have such a longing to open the front of his jacket and put both my hands inside. His belly would be smooth and hard, I think. His chest may be covered with light hair. I don’t know; it is so thrilling that I don’t know. I know the scent of him, at least, I can recognize it now. He has a warm smell, like good-quality candles. It burns me up.

“Is that better?” he asks, pressing my hand to his side.

“Much better,” I say.

We are walking beside the river, and a boatman goes past and shouts something at the two of us. With only a handful of ladies and courtiers before and behind us, nobody knows that I am the queen.

“I wish we were just a boy and a girl walking out together.”

“Do you wish you were not queen?”

“No, I like being queen – and of course I love His Majesty the king with all my heart and soul – but if we were just a girl and a boy we could be strolling to an inn for some dinner and dancing, and that would be fun.”

“If we were a girl and a boy I would take you to a special house I know,” he says.

“Would you? Why?” I can hear the entranced giggle in my own voice, but I cannot help myself.

“It has a private dining room and a very good cook. I would give you the finest of dinners, and then I would court you,” he says.

I give a little gasp of pretend shock. “Master Culpepper!”

“I would not stop till I had a kiss,” he says outrageously. “And then I would go on.”

“My grandmother would box your ears,” I threaten him.

“It would be worth it.” He smiles, and I can feel my heart thudding. I want to laugh out loud for the sheer joy of him.

“Perhaps I would kiss you back,” I whisper.

“I am quite sure you would,” he says, and ignores my delighted gasp. “I have never in all my life kissed a girl and not had her kiss me back. I am quite sure you would kiss me, and I think you would say, ‘Oh, Thomas!’”

“Then you are very sure of yourself indeed, Master Culpepper.”

“Call me Thomas.”

“I will not!”

“Call me Thomas when we are alone like this.”

“Oh, Thomas!”

“There you are, you said it, and I have not even kissed you yet.”

“You must not talk to me of kissing when anyone else is near.”

“I know that. I should never let any danger come to you. I shall guard you as my life itself.”

“The king knows everything,” I warn him. “Everything we say, perhaps even everything we think. He has spies everywhere, and he knows what is in people’s very hearts.”

“My love is hidden deep,” he says.

“Your love?” I can hardly breathe for this.

“My love,” he repeats.

Lady Rochford comes up beside me. “We have to go in,” she says. “It is going to rain.”

At once Thomas Culpepper turns around and leads me back toward the palace. “I don’t want to go in,” I say stubbornly.

“Go in, and say you want to change your gown, and then slip down the garden stairs from your privy chamber. I will wait for you in the doorway,” he says very quietly.

“You didn’t meet me last time we agreed.”

He chuckles. “You must forgive me for that; it was months ago. I shall meet you without fail this time. There is something very special that I want to do.”

“And what is that?”

“I want to see if I can make you say, ‘Oh, Thomas,’ again.”

Ambassador Harst has come to tell me the news from court. He has placed a young man as a servant in the king’s rooms, and the boy says that the physicians attend the king every day and are struggling to keep the wound open so that the poison can drain from his leg. They are putting pellets of gold into the wound so that it cannot close, and they are tying the edges back with string. They are pulling at the poor man’s living flesh as if they were making a pudding.

“He must be in agony,” I say.

Dr. Harst nods. “And he is in despair,” he says. “He thinks he will never recover. He thinks his time is done, and he is sick with fear at leaving Prince Edward without a safe guardian. The Privy Council are thinking that they will have to form a regency.”

“Who will he trust to guard the prince in his minority?”

“He trusts nobody, and the prince’s family, the Seymours, are declared enemies of the queen’s family, the Howards. There is no doubt that they will tear the country apart between them. The Tudor peace will end as it began, in a war for the kingdom between the great families. The king fears for the people’s faith as well. The Howards are determined on the old religion and will take the country back to Rome, but Cranmer has the church behind him and will fight for reform.”

I nibble my finger, thinking. “Does the king still fear there is a plot to overthrow him?”

“There is news of a new uprising in the North, in support of the old religion. The king fears that the men will come out again, that it will spread. He believes there are Papists everywhere calling for a rebellion against him.”

“None of this endangers me? He will not turn against me?”

His tired face folds downward into a grimace. “He might. He fears the Lutherans as well.”

“But everybody knows I am a practicing member of the king’s church!” I protest. “I do everything to show that I conform to the king’s instructions.”