‘So she should take?’
I nod.
‘Make sure she does,’ he says to me, as if I can summon a baby from the air that blows so sweetly off the river. ‘I wouldn’t give you three pence for her, if she does not.’
At once, the breeze feels cold. ‘Why would you say that? He’s not turning against her? She’s done nothing wrong.’
‘He married her to get another son; if she can’t give him one, he’ll find someone who can.’
‘She’s your niece,’ I say desperately. ‘You don’t want him going back to Anne of Cleves or picking another maid-of-honour from another family. Where would you be, without a Howard girl on the throne?’
‘Where I am now,’ he says bluntly. ‘I work like a dog for him inthe north against the Papists, and all I hear is “Cromwell would have done it better. Cromwell would never have allowed this!” If she wants my support, she’d better get a baby in her belly and a crown on her head.’
I put my hand across my mouth to stop a rush of panic-stricken words. I don’t want to gabble my fear that my uncle is demanding something that no woman can make happen. If we laid all the dead-borns to the king’s door, there would be more dead babies than live ones. He has sired a dozen ghosts. But it is against the law to even think this.
IREMEMBER THE OTHERMay Day, when the king rode away after the joust, and nobody knew why. This time, he misses the masque for a meeting with his privy council. The whole court is on alert for Kitty’s fall but it is the north of the country: in arms again, and the king furiously sending an army to put them down, blaming Reginald Pole in faraway Italy, and Reginald’s mother Margaret Pole in the Tower. She was once the richest woman in England, but now she is so poor that the royal tailor sends her clothes. She was a princess but is now so powerless that she is not even allowed to claim her innocence. They will not bring her to trial; they will not let her speak.
The May Day masque was to be a celebration of the king’s return to health, his restoration to virile youth, and the queen’s pregnancy. But since he is not attending and she is not pregnant, the musicians play quietly, so as not to disturb the privy council, and we mark out the steps rather than putting on a show. We were going to doAphrodite, goddess of love and fertility, again, but Kitty’s heart is not in it, and she sits on her throne looking like a child left out of a game.
The young men of the court get drunk from boredom, and the older ladies-in-waiting leave early. I see how a court loses its ability to make magic – even when the machinery is still grinding away. Thomas Culpeper glances now and then towards Kitty, ignoring hislover Bess Harvey, but she does not even look at him. As the evening drags to a close, he works his way across the room towards me, with a word to one man and a pretty bow to a girl. I watch him coming.
‘Lady Rochford.’
I cannot show a cold mask to this young man who bows and takes my hand as confidently as if he is about to draw me into an embrace. I know well enough that his charm is a habit, a courtier’s mask; but there is something about Thomas Culpeper that is quite irresistible, almost like a perfume: the scent of desire.
‘I so wish you were my friend, Lady Rochford.’
‘Master Culpeper, I wish you nothing but well.’
‘I want you to be my friend with the queen.’
‘I’ve never said a word against you.’
He takes my hand, draws it under his arm, and leads me away from the dancers towards the open doors to the shadowy gallery where Kitty met him only a few weeks ago. I am standing where she stood when she gave him his Easter gift, but we are closer than they were, my hand held between his arm and his chest. I can feel the warmth of his body through his embroidered silk jacket and the hard sheath of the muscle over his ribs. I am vividly aware of his body under his clothes; I feel again the almost-forgotten sensation of desire for the scent of a man, for the touch of his skin, for the soft prickle of chest hair against my cheek.
‘I am afraid I have offended Her Majesty,’ he says, when we are far apart from everyone and cannot be overheard.
‘I wouldn’t know.’
He looks down at me, his brown eyes very warm. ‘Ah, Jane, be my friend: you do know.’
Ridiculously, I feel the heat in my cheeks of a blush.
‘She surprised me with kindness; she gave me a gift, a generous gift, and I was stupid when I should have been courtly. I was rude when I should have been loving.’
‘I dare say she’s forgotten all about it.’
‘Oh, don’t say that, Jane, dearest Jane. Speak for me – tell herthat I am a fool. That I was hiding my true feelings. Tell her that I worship the ground she walks on. I will write her a poem...’
‘Then write your poem,’ I say coolly. ‘Or a song, or ride in a joust for her. It is all courtly love, after all. It does not matter.’
He leans so close to me that I can feel the warmth of his breath on my cheek. If I turned, our lips would meet. ‘It does matter,’ he whispers. ‘I will not lie. It is not courtly love: it is desire. How can I write a poem about that? I love her – not as a courtier, but as a man. I desire her – not as a queen, not as a lady far above me, but as a woman. Will you tell her that?’
I pull away from him. ‘No, of course not,’ I say coolly. ‘It is not my place to speak to the king’s wife like that. It’s not your place either.’
His joyous shout of laughter turns heads. He snatches both my hands and kisses them. ‘Ah, Jane, I love you, too!’ But he cannot stop laughing. ‘D’you think I don’t know women?’ he demands. ‘You’ll tell her what I’ve said, the first moment you’re alone together. And she’ll ask you for my exact words, and you’ll remember them exactly! And I’ll know that you have told her the first moment that I next see her. I’ll see it in her face and in yours.’
I want to deny this; but I’m laughing like a girl at his knowingness, at his smiling confidence, and I push him away, back to the dancers. ‘Go away, Master Culpeper; this is a May Day dance that you are leading me on, and I will not carry messages for you.’
