Tarnish (9 page)

His intensity is frightening, as are his fingers, pressing firmly into my flesh.

“Yes.”

“Never apologize. It doesn’t suit you.”

I look at him for a long moment, to decipher the meaning behind his words, and realize he means them exactly as spoken. “Never?”

I try to imagine a life like that. And can’t.

“I speak too quickly,” I explain. “Let my temper take the lead. Even the queen apologizes.”

“Only to God or her confessor.”

“She never speaks out of turn, or says anything hurtful.”

Wyatt chuckles, a deep rumble in his chest accompanied by his voice’s tenor overtone.

“It doesn’t mean you’ll never have anything to apologize for. It just means you’ll never do it.”

“People will call me a bitch.”

“Who cares? They’ll think you’re better than they are. More important. Worth more.”

I ponder that. I think about the women of the French court. Queen Claude, the woman who should have had the most power, the most respect, received instead the most pity. Not because she was lame. Not because she was always ill with one pregnancy or another. Not because her husband slept more vigorously and more passionately with other women.

But because she was meek.

And Françoise de Foix, the French king’s mistress, who roamed the halls of Amboise with a voice like a barking dog, who demanded the high table and shunned the queen’s maids, had all the courtiers on their knees in worshipful awe.

Françoise never apologized. I had hated her.

“But—”

“There will be no
buts
in this instruction. You either take my advice or you make your own way. I promise to pursue you. To put you in the path of as many influential courtiers as there are codpieces at court. To do my best to free you from the clutches of James Butler.”

“And I appreciate that.”

“So never say you’re sorry. Do exactly as I ask, and within the month, everyone will want you.”

He steps back like a painter admiring his own masterpiece.

“No one will be able to stem the tide of Anne Boleyn.”

10

I
DON’T SEE HOW
I
CAN SPEAK TO
M
ARY WITHOUT ASKING FOR
forgiveness. Because I want it desperately. I want to erase the entire episode and be a family again, the Boleyns united.

Until Father arrives.

I drag myself to Mary’s door, take a deep breath, straighten my spine, and knock.

There is no sound from the other side, and I begin to wonder if Mary has gone out. But then the door swings open, and she stands staring at me, her eyes registering surprise and fear.

My heart breaks a little.

“Nan.” Her voice is a whisper. She glances into the empty gallery behind me.

She doesn’t want me here. She doesn’t want to be seen with me. My entire body tenses with remorse, and I open my mouth to break Wyatt’s rule, when Mary grabs my arm, pulls me into the room, and wraps me in a tight hug.

“Nan, I’m so glad you’re here.”

The corners of my eyes sting, and my apology rises to the back of my throat. The Boleyns do stick together.

“Did you come to play? Your lute is ready.” She points to where it lies on a stool by the fire.

My fingers itch to pick it up, to slide right back into how we were before. But I can’t yet.

“I came to ask if you’d be in a masque with me.”

Mary hesitates. “Like
The Château Vert
?”

“Nothing so grand. An interlude. A little frivolity written by Thomas Wyatt.”

“Wyatt?” Mary doesn’t smile. “He’s a married man.”

“And you know what that implies.” I bite my tongue at the bitterness of my retort and rush on to cover it. To prevent an apology. “He’s a poet. He’s asked me to take part. And . . . and I’d like you to join me.”

“You’re not entangled with him in any way.”

“He seems . . . interested.” I think of how Wyatt looks at me when pretending to be smitten, and almost laugh. “But I’m not.”

“Well, anyone can be interested. It’s whom you encourage that matters.”

“Thank you for the sisterly advice, Mary.”

The hurt look returns, so I reach for her hand.

“I appreciate your concern, truly. And your advice.”

She smiles weakly.

“I hope you take it.”

She sits on the empty stool by the fire. I stare hungrily at my lute. Mary follows my gaze and laughs.

“Come and play.”

I carefully tune the strings of the lute, wondering if the king has played it lately. I imagine his fingers on the strings, the back of the lute pressed tight to his body, his heartbeat in the vibration of the deep voice of the bass strings.

When I first saw him, I was thirteen years old. A maid in the household of Queen Claude, freshly promoted from the nursery and freshly initiated into the court by an unpalatably deep kiss from King François.

François and Henry had agreed to meet in the Field of Cloth of Gold, just beyond the English Pale of Calais. And it truly became a valley swathed in gold, the countless tents radiant with it and glittering with jewels. King Henry had a temporary palace built of wood and canvas with real glazed windows that reflected the sun. A gilt fountain ran with two kinds of wine, at which courtiers from both countries drowned their sorrows at being bankrupted by the expense of clothing themselves.

Carefully, I pick out a French tune on the lute. One written to describe the extravagance and pageantry. As the music flows from my fingers, it carries with it the detritus of memory.

I stayed in Ardres, on the French side, with Queen Claude and her ladies. The two kings met on the field on the first day, like armies, it was said, to the boom of cannon. Three days later, François rode out to Guînes to meet (and probably grope) the English queen and ladies. And King Henry came to visit Queen Claude.

The red of his hair shone against his black velvet cap, echoed in a more subdued shade by his beard. He was dressed all in crimson and cloth of gold, with jewels at his throat and crossing his chest, on his cap and encrusting his fingers.

But it wasn’t the gold that dazzled me. And it wasn’t the jewels.

It was the way he wore them. The way they fit the body beneath. Broad chest. Narrow waist. The hard edge of the muscles in his leg beneath the stockings. And he towered above us, especially the lame and stocky Claude, who glowed round and sweet like a gilded pudding.

My limbs weakened at the sight of him, trembling with the hum I felt in his presence.

And then he spoke. Smooth. Delicate. Rich. As though his voice could melt in your mouth.

I should like to create a sound like that.

I reach for the middle strings, the little finger on my left hand, misshapen from a childhood accident, unable to stretch as far as the others. I feel the vibration of the tenor strings as I strum the rhythmic music of the king’s speech.

I’m just getting the fingering right—just finding the balance between the tenor and the bright, high notes of the glitter of gold in the June sunlight—when I’m interrupted.

“Mistress Carey.”

The voice—rich, smooth, and sweet—sends me immediately to my knees. It’s as if I have conjured his presence with the notes themselves. The vibration in the lute continues long after I stop playing.

I hear the king stride into the room, each footstep like the beat of a drum, the rhythm at a slightly higher pace than the rest of us live by. And though my face is lowered, I envision him, dressed head to foot in red and gold, his fingers gilded in rings that he rotates with his thumb, one after the other, when he is thinking.

“Your Majesty.” Mary’s voice sounds like tin by comparison.

I bury my judgment in my skirts. Mary doesn’t deserve it. Or my jealousy.

“Your Majesty, my sister, Nan—Anne—is here.”

“Of course.” His briskness betrays no discomposure at finding me there when he assumed he had a private audience with my sister. “You are well met, Mistress Boleyn.”

I rise from my curtsy, but keep my head down. My face feels hot. Hotter than the rest of me.

“The lute!” he cries, and arrives in front of me in two beats. “Is this one yours?”

“Yes, Your Majesty.” I still can’t look at him. I may never look at him again. He must have heard me playing. Did he recognize himself in the notes?

“I played it last night. It is a fine instrument. You play well.”

“Moderately, Your Majesty.”

“Well, you must play better than your sister.” There is a rise of laughter in his voice. “For she is completely useless on the strings.”

But not in other things
. I manage to hold my tongue. George would be proud.

“Anne plays exquisitely, Your Majesty,” Mary interjects. “And sings.”

“A girl after my own heart.”

He raises his hand. I can see it, beringed and bedazzling. His fingers touch my chin and lift delicately. He forces me to look him in the eye.

He is wondrous. His hair blazes and his gray eyes are like sun behind a cloud, the animated features almost seeming to blur because nothing about him is ever still.

“I greet you like a sister,” he says. But there is a hint of mischief in his half smile.

He keeps his fingers on my chin and lowers his mouth to mine. When our lips touch, it is like the alignment of stars. The hint of stubble on his upper lip tickles mine, and I realize, hysterically, that my mouth is bigger than his. The scents of cloves and orange water fill me to drowning, and for one incomparable, darting instant, I taste the sweetness of his tongue.

He laughs and breaks away and I am left breathless, dropping to another curtsy as he turns to my sister.

Mary’s laughter echoes his, the sound high above me, thin and wispy like clouds on a summer day. I feel my blood surge within my skull, drowning out their voices with rush and roar. Blindly, my senses reach for him, the scent of cloves and the caress of gold.

I look up from my curtsy, sure that he will be watching me. As moved by our contact as I was.

But he stands with Mary, a full head taller, his neck bent at an angle to kiss her, his hair reflecting the flames in the hearth. She is almost completely hidden, engulfed by his embrace.

I stagger to my feet, my joints barely able to take my weight, my fingers and lips suddenly devoid of all feeling, jealousy tangling my skirts, and elation still racing in my blood.

Because etiquette demands that no courtier turn away from the king, I get to see his every move as I shuffle to the door. He removes Mary’s hood, smooths her hair away from his lips as he trails kisses down her jaw and neck.

I manage to slip through the door before his lips drift lower. And I sink backward against it, resting one hand above my heart.

Wishing. Imagining it’s me dissolving beneath his touch.

11

I
KNOW IT MEANS NOTHING.
A
JOKE.
A
TEASE.
I
GREET YOU LIKE A
sister
. But I touch one finger to my lips, almost able to feel his again.

I stumble through the outer court and into the darkness of the tower gate, across the moat and up the stairs to the queen’s rooms.

Where reality hits me. I kissed the queen’s husband. Coveted my sister’s lover. Ridiculously pictured myself in the arms of the king.

The watching chamber ripples with gossip as I enter. Wyatt says they don’t remember
The Château Vert
. I should stop assuming that gossip is all about me.

I avoid the queen’s eye as I curtsy before her. I’m sure she can somehow discern what I’ve done. And how much I liked it.

I search for a place to settle, and Jane Parker smiles at me, then covers her mouth with her hand. Her cuticles are ragged. She glances over to where George is ensconced with the gamblers, his wine close by his hand. Tentatively, she pats the window seat beside her.