The Taming of the Queen

A coy smile on his wet lips reminds me, horribly, that he is a sensualist trapped in a rotting body and that I will be his wife in every sense of the word; he will bed me while I am aching for another man.

‘May I pray and think on this great proposal?’ I ask, stumbling for courtly words. ‘I’m taken aback, I really am. And so recently widowed . . .’

His sprouting sandy eyebrows twitch together; this displeases him. ‘You want time? Weren’t you hoping for this?’

‘Every woman hopes for it,’ I assure him swiftly. ‘There is not one lady at court who does not hope for it, not one in the country who does not dream of it. I among all the others. But I am unworthy!’

This is better, he is soothed.

‘I can’t believe that my dreams have come true,’ I embellish. ‘I need time to realise my good fortune. It’s like a fairy story!’

He nods. He loves fairy stories, disguising and play-acting, and any sort of fanciful pretence.

‘I have rescued you,’ he declares. ‘I will raise you from nothing to the greatest place in the world.’ His voice, rich and confident, lubricated for all his life with the finest of wines and the fattest of cuts, is indulgent; but the sharp little gaze is interrogating me.

I force myself to meet his gimlet eyes, hooded under his fat eyelids. He doesn’t raise me from nothing, I don’t come from nowhere: I was born a Parr of Kendal, my late husband was a Neville, these are great families in the far North of England, not that he has ever been there. ‘I need a little time,’ I bargain. ‘To accustom myself to joy.’

He makes a little gesture with his pudgy hand to say that I can take all the time I like. I curtsey and walk backwards from the card table where he suddenly demanded the greatest stake that a woman can wager: a gamble with her life. It is against the law to turn a back to him: some people secretly joke that it is safer to keep an eye on him. Six paces backwards down the long gallery, the spring sunshine beating through the tall windows onto my modestly-bowed head, and then I curtsey again, lowering my eyes. When I come up he is still beaming at me, and everyone is still watching. I make myself smile and step backwards to the closed doors that lead to his presence chamber. Behind me, the guards swing them open for me to pass, I hear the murmur as the people outside, excluded from the honour of the royal presence, watch me curtsey again on the threshold, the great king watching me leave. I continue backwards as the guards close the double doors to hide me from his sight, and I hear the thud as they ground their halberds.

I stand for a moment, facing the carved wooden panels, quite unable to turn and face the curious stares in the crowded room. Now the thick doors are between us, I find I am shaking – not just my hands, not just trembling in my knees, but shuddering in every sinew of my body as if I have a fever, shivering like a leveret tucked down in a wheat field hearing the swish of the blades of the reaping gang coming closer and closer.

It is long past midnight before everyone is asleep, and I put a blue cloak over my night robe of black satin and dark as a shadow in the colours of the night sky, go quietly out of the women’s rooms and down the great stairs. No-one sees me pass, I have the hood pulled over my face, and, anyway, this is a court that has bought and sold love for years. No-one has much curiosity in a woman going to the wrong room after midnight.

There are no sentries posted at my lover’s door; it is unlocked as he promised. I turn the handle and slip in, and he is there, waiting for me at the fireside, the room empty, lit only by a few candles. He is tall and lean, dark-haired, dark-eyed. When he hears me he turns, and desire illuminates his grave face. He grabs me, my head against his hard chest, his arms tightening around my back. Without saying a word, I am rubbing my forehead against him as if I would drive myself under his skin, into his very body. We sway together for a moment, our bodies craving the scent, the touch of the other. His hands clutch at my buttocks, he lifts me up and I wrap my legs around him. I am desperate for him. He kicks open the door of his bedroom with his booted foot, and carries me in, slamming it behind him as he turns and lays me down on his bed. He strips off his breeches, he throws his shirt to the floor as I open my cloak and robe and he presses down upon me and enters me without a single word said, with only a deep sigh, as if he has been holding his breath all day for this moment.

Only then do I gasp against his naked shoulder: ‘Thomas, swive me all night; I don’t want to think.’