‘He’s old enough to be your father!’
I smile bitterly. ‘What man objects to a younger bride? You know, I think he had me in mind even before the death of my husband, God rest his soul.’
‘I knew it!’ He slams his palm against the carved post of the bed. ‘I knew it! I’ve seen the way his eyes follow you around the room. I’ve seen him send you a little dish of this or a little piece of that at dinner, and lick his own spoon with his big fat tongue when you taste it. I can’t bear the thought of you in his bed and his old hands pulling you this way and that.’
I strain my throat and swallow down my fear. ‘I know. I know. The marriage will be far worse than the courting, and the courting is like a play with mismatched actors and I don’t know my lines. I’m so afraid. Dear God, Thomas, I cannot tell you how very afraid I am. The last queen . . .’ I lose my voice; I cannot say her name. Katherine Howard died, beheaded for adultery, just a year ago.
‘Don’t be afraid of that,’ Thomas reassures me. ‘You weren’t here, you don’t know what she was like. Kitty Howard ruined herself. He would never have hurt her but for her own fault. She was a complete whore.’
‘And what d’you think he’d call me, if he saw me like this?’
There is a bleak silence. He looks at my hands, clutched around my knees. I have started to tremble. He puts his hands on my shoulders, and feels me shudder. He looks aghast, as if we have just heard our death sentences.
‘He must never ever suspect you of this,’ he says, gesturing to the warm fire, the candlelit room, the rumpled sheets, the heady, betraying smell of lovemaking. ‘If he ever asks you – deny it. I will always deny it, I swear. He must never hear even a whisper. I swear that he will never hear one word from me. We must agree it together. We will never ever speak of it. Not to anyone. We will never give him cause to suspect, and we will swear an oath of secrecy.’
‘I swear it. They could rack me and I wouldn’t betray you.’
His smile is warm. ‘They don’t rack gentry,’ he says and gathers me into his arms, with a deep gentle tenderness. He lays me down and wraps the fur rug around me, and he stretches out beside me, leaning over me, his head resting on his hand so that he can see me. He runs his hand from my wet cheek down my neck, over the curve of my breasts, my belly, my hips as if he is learning the shape of my body, as if he would read my skin with his fingers, the paragraphs, the punctuation, and remember it for ever. Then he buries his face against my neck and inhales the perfume of my hair.
‘This is goodbye, isn’t it?’ he says, his lips against my warm skin. ‘You’ve decided already, you tough little Northerner. You made up your mind, all on your own, and you came to say goodbye to me.’
Of course it is goodbye.
‘I think I will die if you leave me,’ he warns me.
‘For sure, we will both die if I don’t,’ I say drily.
‘Always straight to the point, Kat.’
‘I don’t want to lie to you tonight. I’m going to spend the rest of my life telling lies.’
He scrutinises my face. ‘You’re beautiful when you cry,’ he remarks. ‘Especially when you cry.’
I put my hands against his chest. I feel the curve of his muscle and his dark hair under my palms. He has an old scar on one shoulder from a sword cut. I touch it gently, thinking I must remember this, I must remember every moment of this.
‘Don’t ever let him see you cry,’ he says. ‘He would like it.’
I trace the line of his collarbone, map the sinew of his shoulder. His warm skin under my hands and the scent of our lovemaking distracts me from sorrow.
‘I’ve got to leave before dawn,’ I say, glancing at the shuttered window. ‘We don’t have long.’
He knows exactly what I am thinking. ‘Is this the way you want to say goodbye?’ Gently he presses his thigh between mine so that the hard muscle rests against the folds of soft flesh and pleasure rises slowly through my body like a blush. ‘Like this?’
‘Country ways,’ I whisper to make him laugh.
He rolls us both over so that he is on his back and I am lying along the warm lean length of him, on top of him so that I command this last act of love. I stretch out and feel him shudder with desire, I sit astride him, my hands against his chest, so that I can look into his dark eyes as I lower myself gently down to the entrancing point where he will enter me and then I hesitate until he pleads: ‘Kateryn.’ Only then do I ease onward. He gasps and closes his eyes, stretching out his arms, as if he were crucified on pleasure. I move, slowly at first, thinking of his delight, wanting to make this last for a long time, but then I feel the heat growing in me, and the wonderful familiar impatience rising, until I cannot hesitate or stop but I have to go on, thinking of nothing at all, until I call on him in pleasure, calling his name in joy and at the end weeping and weeping for lust, for love, and for the terrible loss that will come with the morning.
At chapel for Prime, I kneel beside my sister, Nan, the ladies of the king’s daughter, Lady Mary, all around us. Lady Mary herself, silently praying at her own richly furnished prie-dieu, is out of earshot.
‘Nan, I have to tell you something,’ I mutter.
‘Has the king spoken?’ is all she says.
‘Yes.’
She gives a little gasp and then puts her hand over mine and squeezes it. Her eyes close in a prayer. We kneel side by side, just as we used to do when we were little girls at home in Kendal in Westmorland and our mother read the prayers in Latin and we gabbled the responses. When the long service ends, Lady Mary rises to her feet, and we follow her from the chapel.
It is a fine spring day. If I were at home we would start ploughing on a day like this and the sound of the curlews would ring out as loud as the ploughboy’s whistle.
‘Let’s walk in the garden before breakfast,’ Lady Mary proposes, and we follow her down the stairs to the privy garden and past the yeomen of the guard, who present arms and then stand back. My sister, Nan, raised at court, sees the opportunity to take my arm and slide us behind the backs of the ladies who are walking with our mistress. Discreetly, we sidestep to another path and when we are alone and cannot be overheard, she turns to look at me. Her pale tense face is like my own: auburn hair swept back under a hood, grey eyes like mine, and – just now – her cheeks are flushed red with excitement.
‘God bless you, my sister. God bless us all. This is a great day for the Parrs. What did you say?’
‘I asked for time to realise my joy,’ I say drily.
‘How long d’you think you’ve got?’
‘Weeks?’
‘He’s always impatient,’ she warns me.
‘I know.’
‘Better accept at once.’
I shrug. ‘I will. I know I’ve got to marry him. I know there’s no choice.’
‘As his wife, you’ll be Queen of England; you’ll command a fortune!’ she crows. ‘We’ll all get our fortunes.’
‘Yes – the family’s prize heifer is on the market once again. This is the third sale.’
‘Oh Kat! This isn’t just any old marriage arranged for you, this is the greatest chance you’ll have in your life! It’s the greatest marriage in England, probably in the world!’
‘For as long as it lasts.’
She looks behind her, then puts her arm through mine so that we can walk, head to head, and speak in whispers. ‘You’re anxious; but it might not last so very long. He’s very sick. He’s very old. And then you have the title and the inheritance but not the husband.’
The husband I have just buried was forty-nine, the king is fifty-one, an old man, but he could last till sixty. He has the best of physicians and the finest apothecaries, and he guards himself against disease as if he were a precious babe. He sends his armies to war without him, he gave up jousting years ago. He has buried four wives – why not another?