‘God save me, does she not speak English?’ I exclaim to the Duchess of Suffolk, who greeted her at Dover.
Catherine Brandon is twenty years old now, and she’s been married to old Charles Brandon since she was fourteen – she should know better than to giggle.
‘You’re the first person to wait for an answer,’ she explains. ‘Everyone else reads aloud the ceremonial welcome in Latin, and she nods and smiles and doesn’t speak. My lord husband bellows at her like she was his cavalry. He hasn’t noticed she never answers. I don’t blame her – never answer him myself if I can help it.’
I glare at Susannah Hornebolt, the artist. ‘You were supposed to teach her English!’
She spreads her hands in apology; I can see a stain of paint on her forefinger.
‘You’ve spent all your time painting,’ I accuse her.
‘No – I am teaching Her Grace English – she is making good progress.’
I turn to the silent queen-to-be. ‘Français? Parlez-vous français?’ I ask her.
The pretty smile widens, but she shakes her head.
‘Latin?’
She laughs. ‘Kannst du Deutsch?’
‘Yes,’ I reply in German. ‘A very little. But we’ll have to teach you English at once.’
She claps her hands at my reply and says in German: ‘Of course I must speak English. I have started to learn, but everyone speaks so quickly!’
‘I will speak slow,’ I say in measured tones, and Katheryn Howard, a new maid-of-honour, niece to the duke, giggles like a naughty schoolgirl, nudges Catherine Brandon, and whispers: ‘I vill speak slow.’
I go with the queen to her bedroom to look at the gowns in her heavy travelling chests. She refuses to wear English dress but insists that she will make her grand entry to London in her best cloth of gold gown that her mother told her to wear, with a hood that looks like an anvil stuck on her head. There is no point arguing with a queen in a language that only she speaks fluently, so I leave her ladies to dress her in her ugly heavy gowns. I am going to my own rooms, when a manservant asks me to come to the hall.
I see at once why I have been summonsed. Half a dozen gentlemen are in the hall, boisterously swinging marbled masquing cloaks around their shoulders, throwing off large glasses of wine, musicians with them, dancers trying out steps around them. In the middle is the noisiest of them all, an instantly recognisable figure: broad as a beam, swathed in a cloak swirling with colours, a hat pushed back from his wide face, a brightly coloured mask stretched from forehead to smiling mouth.
I drop into a curtsey, my hand to my heart as if I am breathless with surprise.
‘You guessed!’ he says. ‘You guessed at once! I had a bet that you would! Didn’t I say that Jane Boleyn would know me anywhere? In any disguise?’
The others whoop and laugh and clash their gold cups together in a toast to me.
‘Now, Jane, you’re going to have to join our band and be sworn to keep our secret.’
I come up, smiling. ‘Your Majesty, it could be no one else but you! So tall and so handsome and so gaily dressed! And what lord but you would ride all this way to surprise his bride?’
‘I am a fairytale prince out of the old Romances!’ He roars at the thought. ‘I did as my brother did all those years ago – he rode halfway to greet his bride on the road to London. Everyone said he was a true knight errant, and now I have outdone him.’
‘You have far outdone him.’ I pick up my cue, and one of the men behind him, richly dressed and masked, shouts: ‘Hurrah!’
‘I will keep your secret,’ I promise. ‘But I must go and get your bride ready for her surprise.’
I am absolutely determined that she won’t wear her ugly hood when she meets the king, and I turn to go back up the stairs to her rooms.
‘Not so! Not so!’ The king grabs me by my sleeve and then draws me down the stairs with an arm around my waist. His breath is a hot gale of stale wine in my face. ‘I’m not having you spoiling our surprise, Jane. I mean it. You shall stay with us and have a cape and a mask of your own, and you shall join my band. We’ll come in with music while she’s watching the bull baiting – we have it all planned. We’ll dance with her and her ladies, and you shan’t betray us.’
‘I won’t tell, I swear.’ I am desperate to get her out of that ridiculous hood and into a low-cut gown. ‘But she’ll want to look her best. You must surprise her at her best.’
‘Is she not pretty as she is?’ he asks, instantly suspicious, his eyes sharp through his mask. ‘Pretty as my Jane?’
‘Very pretty,’ I say at once. ‘Who is a better judge than you? Who catches a likeness better than Master Holbein? You couldn’t be mistaken in your choice. I just want to—’
‘No, no,’ he says. He hands me to Sir Anthony Browne, whoseevidence brought my sister-in-law to the French swordsman and my husband to the block. We greet each other with clasped hands and warm kisses. ‘Sir Anthony! Give my sweetheart Jane a cape and a mask and a hood!’ the king exclaims. ‘She is my man for the night!’
