I am smiling, simply for the joy of being with him; I could laugh out loud. The sun is warm on my face and the musicians start to play; Thomas Seymour, briefly and unnoticed, touches my hand as it rests on his arm, a swift and invisible caress.
‘Kateryn,’ he says quietly.
I incline my head to left and right as people curtsey to me as we walk by. Thomas is tall, a head taller than me. He moderates his steps to mine but we stride out together, as if we would go all the way to Portsmouth and set sail on his ship. I think that we are so well matched, if we could have been together – what a couple we would have made, what children we would have conceived!
‘Thomas,’ I say quietly.
‘Love,’ he replies.
We need say nothing more. It is like lovemaking, the give and take of few words, the touch of warm skin, even through a thick sleeve, a glance from him to my bright face, my own sense that I am alive now and I have been dead for months. I have been wearing dead women’s gowns and I have been dead myself. But now I feel alive again and longing. I feel desire as a sort of trembling wordless need that makes me think: if I could just lie with him once, I would never ask for more. If I could lie beneath him just once and have his long weight bear down on me, his mouth on mine, the scent of him, the sight of the dark hair on the nape of his neck, the smooth bronzed line from his ear to his collar bone . . .
‘I have to talk to you,’ he says. ‘Will you sit here?’
There is a throne ready for the king when he comes and a chair beside it for me and then lower chairs for the princesses. Elizabeth comes bounding forwards and then smiles and blushes when she sees Thomas. He’s not even aware of her as she turns away and strolls back to the archery butts, picks up a bow and poses: fitting an arrow on the string, and drawing it back. I take my seat and he stands slightly behind the chair, leaning down so that he can whisper in my ear, but we are both facing the green and the competitors testing their strings, and taking aim, and throwing a few blades of grass in the air to see the wind. We are completely visible to everyone, we are on show. We are hidden in plain sight.
‘Don’t move, and keep your face still,’ he warns me.
‘I am listening.’
‘I have been offered a wife,’ he says quietly.
I blink, nothing more. ‘Who?’ I say shortly.
‘Mary Howard, the Duke of Norfolk’s daughter.’
This is a remarkable offer. Mary is the widow of the king’s beloved bastard son that he made the Duke of Richmond. If the boy had not died, he might have been named Prince of Wales and the king’s heir. Edward was not born then, and Henry needed a son; even a bastard would have done. At Richmond’s death the king refused to mention his name and Mary Howard, the little widowed duchess, went back to live at her father’s great castle at Framlingham. When she visits court the king always greets her warmly, she is pretty enough to attract his heavy gallantry; but I didn’t know that there had been any proposals for her second marriage.
‘Why Mary Howard?’ I ask incredulously. Someone bows to me and I smile and nod my head to acknowledge their greeting. A few archers start to line up for practice shots. Princess Mary walks towards us.
‘So that the Howards and us Seymours should forget our differences,’ he says. ‘It’s not a new proposal. They made it before, when she was first widowed. So that the Howards can become kinsmen to Prince Edward. Princess Elizabeth is not royal enough for them.’
‘You didn’t seek it then?’ I can feel a taste in my mouth as bitter as the morning drink of rue. I realise that this is the flavour of jealousy.
‘I don’t seek it now,’ he points out.
I want to pinch my face as it feels numb. I want to shake my hands and stamp my feet. I feel as if I am frozen, as still as ice on my throne, as Princess Mary comes slowly towards me across the grass.
‘Why would you?’ I ask.
‘It is advantageous,’ he says. ‘A set of alliances to link the families. We gain their alliances: they’re friends with Gardiner and all who think like him. We would cease the endless struggle over the king. We could agree together how far reform is to go instead of fighting it out step by step. And they’d give me a fortune with her.’
I can see it is a good match. She is a daughter of a duke, and sister to Henry Howard, one of the king’s young commanders, reckless in Boulogne but still a favourite. If Thomas marries her, she will come to court, she will ask to be one of my ladies. I will have to watch him walk with her, dance with her, whisper to her. She will ask permission to leave my rooms early to go to his bed, she will go away from court to join him at Portsmouth. She will be his wife; I will attend her wedding and hear him swear to love and honour her. She will promise him to be bonny and blithe at bed and board. I think: I will never be able to bear it. I know that I must.
‘What does the king say?’ I ask the all-important, the only, question.
Thomas shows me his twisted smile. ‘He says that if Norfolk wants to give his daughter a husband he might as well choose a man so young and lusty as he will please her at all points. ’
‘Points?’
‘That’s what he said. Don’t torture yourself. It was years ago.’
‘But the marriage is proposed again now!’ I exclaim.
He bows, as if I have made a good remark in an argument that anyone may join. ‘It is.’
‘What will you do?’ I whisper.
‘What d’you wish?’ he returns, his eyes on Princess Elizabeth. ‘I am yours heart and soul.’
‘Is the king my father coming to watch?’ Princess Mary joins us and nods her head to Thomas’s bow.
‘Yes, he’s coming at once,’ I reply.
As I walk to dinner at the head of my ladies that night I pass Will Somers. He is throwing a ball in the air and catching it in a cup, a foolish little game. We hesitate as we go by.
‘Would you like to try?’ he asks Princess Elizabeth. ‘It’s harder than it looks.’
‘It can’t be,’ she says. ‘I can see, it’s nothing but catch.’
Will turns and gives her a fresh cup, a new ball. ‘You try,’ he says.
She throws the ball high, and confidently she stretches out the cup as it falls. She catches it perfectly and a splash of water from the cup drenches her. ‘Will Somers!’ she shouts and she runs at him. ‘I am soaked! I am drowned! You are a wretch and a varlet and a rogue!’
Instead of running, Will drops to his hands and knees and bounds down the gallery giving tongue as if he were a naughty dog. Elizabeth hurls the cup after him and catches him on his rump. Will howls and leaps up a stair and we all laugh.
‘At least you caught him,’ I say to her. Nan hands me a napkin and I pat Elizabeth’s laughing face and the lace at the neck of her gown. ‘You gave as good as you got.’
‘He’s a wretch,’ she says. ‘And I will tip a chamber pot on his head when he next walks beneath my window.’
The gentlemen of the court are waiting for us outside the hall. The king, tired by the archery, is dining in his rooms this evening.
‘What’s this?’ Thomas Seymour asks Elizabeth, seeing her damp hair. ‘Have you gone swimming?’
‘Will Somers and his stupid games,’ she says. ‘But I flung a cup at him.’
‘Shall I fight him for your good name?’ he smiles down at her. ‘Shall you have me as your knight errant? Just say the word and I am yours.’
I see her colour rise. She looks up at him and she is speechless, like a flustered child.
‘We will call on you,’ I say, to spare her.
He bows. ‘I am dining with the king. I will come to the hall after dinner.’
Without any word the ladies align themselves in order of precedence. I go before everyone and behind me comes Princess Mary, and then Elizabeth, then my ladies, in order, Anne Seymour in her place. We walk through the crowded hall and the men stand and salute me and the women curtsey. I go to the dais and my steward helps me into my great chair.