I whispered, as sweet as a virgin in confession.
He bent his head and kissed my hands and then rose to his feet. ‘And now we dine!’ he called out.
I looked over to Anne. She was untying her mask and watching me with a long calculating look, the Boleyn look, the Howard look that says: what has happened here, and how may I turn it to my advantage? It was as if under her golden mask was another beautiful mask of skin, and only beneath that was the real woman. As I looked back at her she gave me a small secret smile.
The king gave his arm to the queen, she rose from her chair as gay as if she had been enjoying watching her husband flirt with me; but as he turned to lead her away she paused and her blue eyes looked long and hard at me, as if she were saying goodbye to a friend.
‘I hope you will soon recover from your faintness, Mistress Carey,’ she said gently. ‘Perhaps you should go to your room.’
‘I think she is light-headed from lack of food,’ George interposed quickly. ‘May I bring her in to dine?’
Anne stepped forward. ‘The king frightened her when he unmasked. No-one guessed for a moment that it was you, Your Majesty!’
The king laughed in delight, and the court laughed with him. Only the queen heard how the three of us had turned her order so that despite her declared wishes, I would be brought in to dine. She measured the strength of the three of us. I was no Bessie Blount, who was next to nobody; I was a Boleyn, and the Boleyns worked together.
‘Come and dine with us then, Mary,’ she said. The words were inviting but there was no warmth in them at all.
We were to sit where we pleased, the knights of the Chateau Vert and the ladies, all mixed up informally at a round table. Cardinal Wolsey as the host sat opposite the king with the queen at the third point on the table and the rest of us scattered where we chose. George put me next to him and Anne summoned my husband to her side and diverted him, while the king, seated opposite me, stared at me and I, carefully, looked away. On Anne’s right was Henry Percy of Northumberland, on George’s other side was Jane Parker, watching me intently, as if she were trying to discover the trick of being a desirable girl.
I ate only a little, though there were pies and pasties and fine meats and game. I took a little salad, the queen’s favourite dish, and drank wine and water. My father joined the table during the meal and sat beside my mother who whispered quickly in his ear and I saw his glance flick over me, like a horse-trader assessing the value of a filly. Whenever I looked up the king’s eyes were on me, whenever I looked away I was conscious of his stare still on my face.
When we had finished, the cardinal suggested that we go to the hall and listen to some music. Anne was at my side and steered me down the stairs so that when the king arrived the two of us were seated on a bench against the wall. It was easy and natural for him to pause to ask me how I did now. Natural that Anne and I should stand as he came past us, and that he should sit on the vacant bench and invite me to sit beside him. Anne drifted away and chattered to Henry Percy, shielding the king and me from the court, most especially from the smiling gaze of Queen Katherine. My father went up to speak to her while the musicians played. It was all done with complete ease and comfort, and it meant that the king and I were all but concealed in a crowded room with music loud enough to drown our whispered conversation, and every member of the Boleyn family well placed to hide what was going on.
‘You are better now?’ he asked me in an undertone.
‘Never better in all my life, sire.’
‘I am riding out tomorrow,’ he said. ‘Would you care to come with me?’
‘If Her Majesty can spare me,’ I said, determined not to risk the queen’s displeasure.
‘I will ask the queen to release you for the morning. I shall tell her that you need the fresh air.’
I smiled. ‘What a fine physician you would make, Your Majesty. If you can make a diagnosis and provide the cure all in the space of a day.’
‘You must be an obedient patient and do whatever I advise,’ he warned me.
‘I will.’ I looked down at my fingers. I could feel his gaze on me. I was soaring, higher than I could have dreamed.
‘I may order you to bed for days at a time,’ he said, his voice very low.
I snatched a quick look at his intense gaze on my face and felt myself blush and heard myself stammer into silence. The music abruptly stopped. ‘Do play again!’ my mother said. Queen Katherine looked around for the king and saw him seated with me. ‘Shall we dance?’ she asked.
It was a royal command. Anne and Henry Percy took their places in a set, the musicians started to play. I rose to my feet and Henry went to sit beside his wife and watch us. George was my partner.
‘Head up,’ he snapped as he took my hand. ‘You look hangdog.’
‘She’s watching me,’ I whispered back.
‘Course she is. More to the point he’s watching you. And most important of all, Father and Uncle Howard are watching you, and they expect you to carry yourself as a young woman on the rise. Up you go, Mistress Carey, and all of us go up with you.’
I raised my head at that and I smiled at my brother as if I were carefree. I danced as gracefully as I could, I dipped and turned and twirled under his careful hand. And when I looked up at the king and the queen they were both watching me.
They held a family conference at my uncle Howard’s great house in London. We met in his library where the dark bound books muffled the noise from the streets. Two men in our Howard livery were stationed outside the door to prevent any interruptions, and to ensure that no-one stopped and eavesdropped. We were to discuss family business, family secrets. No-one but a Howard could come near.
I was the very cause and subject of the meeting. I was the hub around which these events would turn. I was the Boleyn pawn that must be played to advantage. Everything was concentrated on me. I felt my very wrists throb with a sense of my own importance, and a contradictory flutter of anxiety that I would fail them.
‘Is she fertile?’ Uncle Howard asked my mother.
‘Her courses are regular enough and she’s a healthy girl.’
My uncle nodded. ‘If the king has her, and she conceives his bastard, then we have much to play for.’ I noticed with a sort of terrified concentration that the fur on the hem of his sleeves brushed against the wood of the table, the richness of his coat took on a lustre from the light of the flames of the fire behind him. ‘She can’t sleep in Carey’s bed any more. The marriage has to be put aside while the king favours her.’
I gave a little gasp. I could not think who would say such a thing to my husband. And besides, we had sworn that we would stay together, that marriage was for the making of children, that God had put us together and no man could put us apart.
‘I don’t …’ I started.
Anne tweaked at my gown. ‘Hush,’ she hissed. The seed pearls on her French hood winked at me like bright-eyed
