to see someone or do something and here he was again, with a sharp, meagre bow towards Kate. She slid down in her chair to reach him with her toes, to poke his shin, her playful kick an admonishment - Don’t - because so perfunctory a bow was a provocation. He sat down at the foot of her chair, a halo of candlelight slipping on his chestnut hair as he looked up to whisper to her, ‘You been sent for?’
The slightest shift of her head, the merest suggestion of a shake; and if the king hadn’t sent for her by this time in the evening, he wouldn’t do so. Strange, perhaps, that the king didn’t want her on this night of all nights, when he’d spent the evening at a special service of his own devising to give thanks to God for his wonderful wife, for his late-flowering happiness. After four months on the road, showing her off around the country, he’d chosen for his homecoming this celebratory Mass from which modesty had demanded that she stay away. Yet he hadn’t sent for her, afterwards.
Perhaps he wanted to think of her for that one night as God-given, as something like a miracle, which would’ve been tested by a tussle in the bed. And a tussle was surely what it would’ve been. Extraordinary though he was, whenever Kate was summoned to his bed I could only think of him as huge and old. To me, back then, he was already huge and old, even though actually he was only in his forties and not yet in particularly bad shape, only thickening as muscle softened to fat. He was more than twice my age, though, and had been ruler for longer than I’d been alive. To me, back then, older people seemed to have accumulated disappointment, to be weighed down by their disapproval for the rest of us - not unlike how I imagined the dead to be - and this was indeed the look of the king: the tight mouth; the eyes narrowed with distrust. The exception for him was Kate: he shone whenever he looked at her; his features lifted and he looked alive, he looked relieved.
They made the oddest pair in every respect but most obviously in their physical mismatch: Kate tiny, and the king twice her size. She was only shoulder-high to most of the ladies at court but her husband was a head and shoulders taller than most of the men and half as wide again. He was twice as wide as Francis, who might’ve been considered girlish by those who didn’t know him as I did. Francis’s bones rose high in his silky boy-skin and I’d cupped each and every one. My hands had explored the configuration of him, edging along the shield of skull behind his ears, stroking down his breastbone, circling the knots of his wrists, spanning his hips, as if unwrapping a gift.
I couldn’t help but wonder how Kate felt whenever she was summoned from her own bedroom to the one adjoining the king’s apartment, the one they shared on those occasions when he asked for her and to which he came with a pair of attendants who’d wait outside for him. It seemed, to me, a hefty price to pay for all the deference, the egg-sized diamonds, the acres of cloth of gold that she wore and in which she draped her rooms - those river-view rooms occupied by the most talented young musicians and most knowledgeable chaplains and physicians. Then again, most of her ladies and maids would end up settling for situations that weren’t so dissimilar, but for far less recompense. Not me, though: I was going to marry Francis, I’d make sure that happened and, now that he was the queen’s private secretary, I was confident my parents could be persuaded.
There’d been no way, I knew, for Kate to refuse the king. He’d hadn’t ordered her to marry him and he’d been careful to court her - for appearance’s sake, for the sake of his pride - but all the same she could never have said no: he and her family would’ve seen to that. Whenever she went off to that shared bedroom, I didn’t quite know what I was witnessing: coercion or compromise. She’d have known that it was what everyone was thinking but she let nothing slip, never even acknowledged the curiosity, which was quite something for a girl of knowing looks, the mistress of the cryptic confidence. She acted blithe when leaving for that shared bedroom and again when she returned, making clear that as far as she was concerned - and, thus, as far as everyone else should be concerned - it was nothing. I supposed she had to think of it that way for her to be able to endure it.
She lifted her head to catch my eye, and spoke quietly but emphatically: ‘Room going free.’ Thomas Culpeper’s: she was offering me - and Francis - his bed for the night, as she did whenever she could. Thomas Culpeper would stay with her, and Francis and I would be able to spend a whole night alone together in his bed. Behind me, Francis tensed, making as if to decline. I knew why, I knew what he was thinking: Not Thomas Culpeper’s, anyone but Thomas Culpeper’s. But, as ever, I was quicker: ‘Good, thank you.’ Anyway, the offer had been made to me, not to Francis. Dutifully, I smiled my gratitude in Thomas Culpeper’s direction but avoided meeting his eye, which wasn’t hard because a glance at the likes of me was beneath him.
I, too, would’ve preferred that it wasn’t Thomas Culpeper’s bed, but it was his or none. And although I’d over-indulged at supper and was tired from the dancing, and although I’d have loved to close my eyes and slide into oblivion, I wasn’t going to turn down an all-too-rare night with Francis. Opportunities for even the swiftest encounter had been few and far between during the four long months on the road, but even in the palaces we too often had to suffer the embarrassment of begging time alone from room-mates or risk being discovered in the Office of Revels’ storage rooms among papier-mâché unicorns. A couple of times, we’d even taken our chances in a window recess at the far end of the Queen’s Gallery, flinching from distant footfalls. Very occasionally, when Kate and all her ladies were being elaborately entertained, she’d dare to slip me her bedroom key so that Francis and I could miss the show for some fun of our own. We’d sneak away to brave the line of yeomen on guard at the door to her apartment - the pair of us ostensibly on separate duties to prepare for the queen’s eventual return - and hurry through room after room, ignoring any chamberers, until we reached the door of the most private room of all, and there we’d slip inside unseen. The first time, the bed itself almost did for us, that immense bed piled with furs and hung with gold cloth: we’d hardly dared clamber up on to it. And then there’d been the distraction of the star-gilded ceiling.
That night, All Souls, I rose and took Francis by the hand to draw him to his feet, keen not to waste time, anxious in case the offer was for any reason withdrawn. I led him out past the guards, down the stairs and into the gloom. We were in step by the time we were skirting the inner courtyard, heading for the courtiers’ rooms on the boundary of Fountain Court. We could’ve found Thomas Culpeper’s rooms with our eyes closed, we probably knew the way better than he did: he was so rarely there. As a favoured Gentleman of the Privy Chamber, he was often required to sleep alongside the king’s bed. If he wasn’t, then - unbeknown to the king - there was a good chance he’d be in the queen’s.
Francis went on ahead while I took cover in an adjacent stairwell. He was up the first two or three stairs with a single stride, then disappeared from view; but the rooms were on the first floor and I heard his knock, the answering cry and the opening of the door. Thomas Culpeper’s attending man sounded disgruntled at having to shift so late. ‘You’re in here tonight?’ No reply that I could hear from Francis; I pictured his apologetic shrug and lopsided smile, which in turn had me smiling. Then a clattering of footfalls on the steps: more than one pair; the attendant had had company. Two men bounced down into the stairwell but the laggard drew his companion back into shadow and they kissed. It was a momentary embrace, but savoured. A long moment, in which I couldn’t quite make myself look away because I so envied them their passion, coming ahead of my own. Then they were crossing Fountain Court, heading for Base Court, as if it hadn’t happened, and I was half-wondering if I’d imagined it.
I hurried up the stone steps. The door was closed, safeguarding the warmth. Inside, the fire was down to embers but the heat had built up solid. I took off my cloak, unaware until then of how I’d been tensed against the riverside chill. The inner door was open so that the bedroom could benefit from the fire. Thomas Culpeper was so privileged as to be allocated a pair of rooms, but still there was little space to accommodate two grown men. The rooms were in dire need of an airing, and I had to fight the urge to clear up the tankards and clothes that were strewn around. That wasn’t what I was here for, I reminded myself.
I was here for Francis. My heart was thumping; it seemed to be saying, Just us, just us. He stood tall in front of the fireplace, yet also slightly hunched as if to make himself inconspicuous. As if that were possible. Which made me laugh, and then he was