Tarnish (40 page)

We cross the court quickly, the May rain saturating us, the castle walls, the chapel and chimneys. Turning the world into a long, wet wash all the way to the Thames.

Thomas plucks at my sleeve and melts into the shadows of a stairwell. I follow him silently, my slippers making no sound on the stone steps.

The clouds hide the moon, and the sun is too afraid to rise.

I kiss him before he speaks. I want to shut it all out. Jane and George. My father. Mary. The rain. The king. I stand on my toes to reach him and twine my fingers in his hair. He tries to hold me back at first. He wants so badly to say what he thinks he needs to say. I silence him with my mouth, steal the words from his tongue.

For a moment, we are lost. His fingers move over the pins and stays in my hood, pulling off the black velvet coronet, dropping the snood to the ground behind me. He tugs my hair from its plait and it falls to my waist. He lifts it with both hands and buries his face in it.

“It smells just like you.” He turns to me, and a shy look steals through his expression. “You must think I’m perverted.”

“No,” I say quickly, thinking again of how Percy treated my hair as a nuisance. And me, too, in the end. “No, it’s quite charming.”

“Quite charming,” he mocks.

“Endearing.”

“Would we say endearing?” he asks. “Try enchanting.”

Thomas smiles wickedly and pushes me back up against the wall, one arm cradling my neck from the rough, cold brick, the other wrapped tight around my waist. He breathes into my ear.

“Tell me I’m enchanting.”

“You’re resplendent,” I tell him. “Heroic. Majestic.”

I tilt my chin for a kiss that doesn’t come.

“Ah. There you’re wrong, my dear.” He takes a step away.

I am unmoored.

“Majestic I am not. And I cannot compete with it, either.”

His expression begs me to disagree.

“There’s no need to compete.”

“Everything at this court is a competition. Especially with the king. Did you think the Castle of Loyalty was just a game?”

Youth versus experience.

Thomas against the king.

He is so far away from me. Watching me. Gauging me. What can I say? My tongue cannot form the three words he needs to hear. No matter how strongly I feel them.

“I am not a prize, Thomas.”

“Don’t I know it.” The tease has a bitter aftertaste. “You are a gamble, Anne Boleyn. One that I won’t risk losing.”

His words rankle and I move away. Just a little.

“We both know which Boleyn girl he prefers,” I argue, the words dusty in my throat.

“We both know that interest is fading.” Thomas reaches out a tentative hand to stroke my hair. “I also think he can’t help himself.”

“From what?”

“From falling in love with you.”

The moment freezes, and I with it.

“I don’t think the king falls in love,” I say finally, awash in the guilty hope that I’m wrong.

“I think he falls in love every day,” Thomas replies. “And that’s what I’m worried about.”

59

T
HE RAIN HAS DAMPENED THE CHANCE OF ANY SPORT.
N
O
tilting, for the mud in the yard is as thick as paste. No hunting, for the season has yet to start. A move to Windsor is discussed for the use of the opulent tennis court alone. As it is, here in Greenwich, the men are irritable and peevish, as if itchy in their own skins.

When it stops raining, I search out Jane and drag her to the orchard with me.

“My hem will get wet,” she moans.

“But no one will be able to hear us. And I want to hear everything.”

Jane burns red. I can feel the heat from her face.

“Don’t be disgusting, Anne. He’s your brother.” The pearls click beneath her fingers.

“I only meant . . .” I have no explanation. “Are you happy?”

“He doesn’t love me.”

She says it simply and with no trace of emotion.

“Maybe love can be learned.”

A shout from the tiltyard gallery interrupts Jane’s response.

“George,” she breathes. Plucks at my sleeve, drawing me to the watching towers.

The men have converted the gallery into a bowling alley. A gaggle of them hover at one end, shaking hands and drinking wine. And betting. I am not surprised to see George amongst them.

At the other end of the improvised rink, nearest to us, are the players. The king. And Thomas Wyatt. I step back into the shadows of the tower and pull Jane with me.

They have obviously already played several ends, because the men betting are getting louder and more belligerent. The game must be close.

They did not expect an audience. Thomas has removed his cap and, as I watch, the king sheds his doublet.

“I really must have an alley built here at Greenwich,” the king says, stretching, the fabric of his shirt tight across his shoulders. “This gallery is far too small.”

“And a tennis court!” Henry Norris calls.

“Perhaps I will.” The king laughs. “And a new mews for the falcons while I’m at it. Come, Wyatt. Let me best you.”

A fleeting frown crosses Thomas’s face, but it vanishes before he clasps the king’s hand. He’s playing the game. The jack is thrown, going a fair distance down the rink, coming to rest almost at center. The men cheer and drink and bet again.

The king rolls first, and his shot goes wide. He toes the ground in disapproval and turns away—clenching and unclenching his fists. Thomas rubs his hand over his mouth and chin to hide a smile.

I want to grab his hand and drag him away somewhere. Silly men. Silly competitions. The betting continues, heating up. George is handling the book. Of course.

Thomas takes his shot, which comes much closer to the jack, the bias of the wood making it curve out and then in again in an elegant arc, coming to rest not two feet from the jack.

There is silence. Then a rattle from the onlookers, the exchange of coins.

This goes on until both men have thrown all four woods, a cluster of bowls at the far end, crouched menacingly around the little jack.

“The king’s shot is closest!” shouts Norris from the boundary. Another cheer. More drinking. The clink of coins as the winnings are counted.

The king gives a little nod. He reaches for Thomas’s hand.

Then Bryan shouts, “I beg to differ, Norris, but Wyatt’s first shot lies closer.”

Silence.

The king and Thomas exchange a look, and without speaking—like a dance, choreographed—they turn together to stride down to the end of the gallery. I cannot hear their banter, but I see a strange look on Thomas’s face. His normal complacency is missing. The casual, assured courtliness has been replaced by rivalry.

They stand for a moment over the jack, the only sound the hiss of rain as it starts up again. The king shines gold, his hair fiery in the dim light. Thomas rubs his hand across the back of his neck, twining in the curls of hair there, his apple-green sleeves fluttering.

He looks up, shoulders set for a challenge.

“I believe Bryan is right, Your Majesty,” he says. “Mine is closer.”

Time stops.

Everything is a competition at this court
, Thomas said.
Especially with the king.

But the game keeps changing.

The king smiles. A heart-stopping, mischievous smile.

He lifts his right hand, glittering with rings, his eyes never leaving Thomas’s face. He points to the cluster of bowls using his smallest finger.

“I tell you, Wyatt,” he says. “I am closer than you think.”

On his finger is a ring. My ring. One I have obviously worn throughout my time at court. The one he kissed so extravagantly when we danced after the Castle of Loyalty tournament. The one he took from me as “payment” for getting Jane her dowry.

He caresses it. To make his point.

I feel sick. I reach a hand behind me to steady myself on the wall and take a step farther into the shadows. I need to escape.

Thomas stares at the ring for half a moment. Then he straightens, looks the king directly in the eye.

With his right hand, he reaches down inside his blue-green doublet and extracts a worn ribbon.

“If you will allow me, Your Majesty, I should like to measure it,” he says; his words carry over the entire rink, where all have frozen silent.

Thomas stretches the ribbon out between the king’s bowl and the jack. Then between the jack and his own.

His wood is indeed closer.

With a carefully timed flourish, he opens his hand and something heavy drops to the end of the ribbon and sways there. A golden
A
, a teardrop pearl flashing beneath it.

“I believe that it is mine.” Thomas sits back on his heels and flashes a look of triumph at the king. I could kill him.

The king approaches him. There is no sound but the rain. The bettors huddle in the corner as if trying to render themselves invisible.

“It may be so.” In the silence the king’s voice sounds loud—violent—though he speaks quietly. “Perhaps I am deceived.”

He stands facing Thomas, only inches away. The king is taller, broader. Thomas, with his slight build, appears as a willow before an oak.

The king nudges the jack out of place and picks it up to hold between them.

“Perhaps,” the king says, “the call is not ours to make.”

He spins and strides back the length of the gallery, calling out, “No more games.”

He sweeps into the rain-ravaged tiltyard, followed by Norris. The other men swiftly exchange their coins, no longer up for argument, and hasten after their monarch. Except for George, who spreads the coins in his palm, his face conflicted between a frown and a grin.

Thomas watches them go, and then kicks the king’s wood, sending it careening after them.

60

I
PULL
J
ANE BEHIND ME INTO THE GALLERY, PICKING UP THE
still rolling bowl along the way. I hurl it at Thomas, but it is too heavy for me and thunders to the floor. Thomas turns, his smile flickering when he sees me.

“Why did you do that?” I shout.

“Did you see? Fun, wasn’t it?” Thomas pauses. “I won.”

“It was a stupid, foolish, childish competition! I am not something to be won, Thomas Wyatt. I am not a prize. An object. A possession.”

“Now who’s being foolish?” Thomas cocks his head, feigning blamelessness. “Nothing was said about you, Anne. It was just a game.”

“Nothing is just a game in this court.”

George pushes himself between us, and Jane takes a step back. George ignores her and hands Thomas a goblet of wine.

“It looks like I owe you five pounds, Wyatt.”

Thomas flicks a glance at me.

“You owe him nothing, George,” I say.

“But he did it, Anne. He’s made you the queen of the court.” George pauses. “Figuratively speaking, of course. Unless circumstances change.”

“I don’t want your money, Boleyn.” Thomas looks at me now. Steadily. “The bet was forfeit a long time ago.”

“Excellent news, my friend, because I don’t have it.” George laughs and pockets his coins with a clatter. “Though it appears my luck may be changing.”

“Always looking to your own advantage, George, aren’t you?” I bite across his laughter. “Always looking to sell your sisters to the highest bidder.” Bought. Sold. Won. Lost. A prize. A jewel. A possession.

“When my sisters attract the highest bidder of all,” George crows, dancing around me, “I don’t see why not. I don’t know how you did it, Wyatt, but you did. You are definitely my hero.

“And you, Anne, you’re the rising star. The flying falcon. I wouldn’t have thought it possible three years ago, but you’ve gone higher than any of us would ever have dreamed. You just need to carry the rest of us with you.”

He turns back to Thomas. “Right, Wyatt? Surely there’s something you want from my sister. You can’t let all your hard work go to waste.”