The Taming of the Queen

‘Only that. Nothing more. Just to hold him to the reforms that he himself started. Our brother, William, is sure of it too. This is the greatest work that could be done, not just in England but in the world. This is a great opportunity for you, Kat. It is your chance to be a great woman, a leader.’

‘I don’t want it. I want to be rich and comfortable and safe. Like any woman of any sense. All the rest is too much for me. It’s beyond me.’

‘It’s too much for you unless God holds you up,’ she says. ‘Then you will be triumphant. I will pray for that. We’re all praying for that.’

The king comes to Lady Mary’s rooms and greets her first, as he will do until our wedding day, when I shall become the first lady of the kingdom and have my own rooms. Then he will greet me first, and she and every woman in the kingdom will follow in my train. When I review the ladies who looked down their noses at mere Kateryn Parr but will have to bow to the floor to Queen Kateryn, I have to hide my smug delight. He takes a seat between the two of us, which creaks under his weight as two squires lower him down. They bring him a footstool, and a page bends over, and gently lifts the heavy leg on to it. The king wipes the grimace of pain from his face and turns to me with a smile.

‘Sir Thomas Seymour has left us. He would not stay even a day, not even for the wedding. Why d’you think that is?’

I raise my eyebrows in calm surprise. ‘I don’t know, Your Majesty. Where has he gone?’

‘Don’t you know? Have you not heard?’

‘No, Your Majesty.’

‘Why, he’s gone to do my bidding,’ he says. ‘He is my brother-in-law and my servant. He does just what I command him, whatever I command him. He is my dog and my slave.’ He bursts out in a sudden wheezy laugh and Edward Seymour, the other royal brother-in-law, laughs loudly too, as if he would have no objection to being described as a dog and a slave.

‘His Majesty has trusted my brother with a great mission,’ Edward tells me. He appears to be pleased, but all courtiers are liars. ‘My brother, Thomas, has gone as ambassador to Queen Mary, Regent of Flanders.’

‘We’ll make an alliance,’ the king says. ‘Against France. And this time it will be unbreakable, and this time we will destroy France and win back our English lands, and more, eh, Seymour?’

‘My brother will get an alliance for you and for England that will last for ever,’ Edward promises rashly. ‘That’s why he left in haste, to start the work at once.’

I turn my head from one man to the other, like one of the little automata that the clockmakers forge. Tick-tock: one man speaks and then the other. Tock-tick: it goes the other way. So I am startled when the king turns to me sharply, out of order, and says: ‘Shall you miss Sir Thomas? Shall you miss him, Lady Latimer? He’s a great favourite with you ladies, is he not?’

Hotly, I am about to deny it, but then I see the trap. ‘I am sure we shall all miss him,’ I say indifferently. ‘He’s merry company for the younger ones. I am glad that his wit can do good service to Your Majesty, even though it was wasted on me.’

‘You don’t like a courtly suitor?’ He is watching me narrowly.

‘I am a straightforward Northern woman,’ I say. ‘I don’t like a lot of lipwash.’

‘Enchanting!’ Edward Seymour loudly proclaims as the king laughs at my country speech and snaps his fingers for the page, who lifts his leg off the stool, and then two of them haul him to his feet and steady him when he staggers. ‘We’ll go in to dinner,’ he rules. ‘I am so hungry I could eat an ox! And you must get your strength up, Lady Latimer. You will have service to do also! I want a bonny bride!’

I curtsey as he hobbles past, his great weight bearing down on his frail legs, one calf bulked large with the thick bandage that is wrapped around the oozing wound. I rise up and walk beside Lady Mary. She gives me a cool little smile and says nothing.

I am to choose a motto. Nan and I are in my bedroom with the door barred to everyone, sprawled on my bed, the candles burning low.

‘D’you remember them all?’ I ask her curiously.

‘’Course I do. I saw each one’s initials carved on every wooden beam and every stone boss in every palace. And then I saw them chipped off stone and adzed off wood and new initials put on again. I sewed every motto into flags for their weddings. I saw every emblem freshly painted. I saw their shields carved on and then burned off the royal barge. Of course I remember each one. Why wouldn’t I? I was there when each one was announced, I was there when she was taken away. Mother put me into service to the Queen of England, Katherine of Aragon, and made me promise to always be loyal to the queen. She never dreamed there would be six of them. She never dreamed one of them would be you. Ask me any one’s motto. I know them all!’

‘Anne Boleyn,’ I say at random.

‘The Most Happy,’ Nan says with a harsh laugh.

‘Anne of Cleves?’

‘God Send Me Well to Keep.’

‘Katherine Howard?’