Kate was mooching at the windows, sunlight snagging on her new brooch — a lover’s knot of diamonds which the king had given her - but suddenly, ‘Oh!’ and she whirled around, finding me first. ‘Look!’
I laid aside the letter I was writing to my cousin, and rose, craning to see the king’s party beyond the moat.
‘Looks as if he’s off hawking, but why didn’t he say?’ She had no love of the outdoors, and probably would’ve declined an invitation to join him, but she resented not having been asked. Also, Thomas Culpeper would be gone all day because not only was he one of the king’s favoured gentlemen, but he was a skilled hawker and even though we couldn’t spot him at such a distance, we knew he’d be there.
‘Where’s Francis?’ I asked her.
‘Well, not there,’ she replied, cocking her head towards the hawkers, amused by the prospect, the absurdity of it. Francis was firmly in her retinue, as I was; we were unknown to the king’s household. Francis’s place, like mine, was here, in her household. We’d come with her from home: we were hers.
I persisted: ‘So, where is he, then?’
She didn’t know. ‘Perhaps he’s ill.’
‘He was fine, this morning.’
She gave me a look - I bet he was - but her flippancy rankled. ‘I’m serious.’
She shrugged, expansively, turning it into a hugging of herself, turning herself away from the window.
Later, increasingly intrigued by Francis’s whereabouts, I slipped into the second sitting of dinner in the Great Hall in search of his room-mate, Rob, who was able to tell me that Francis hadn’t ever returned, that morning, to his room. Not ill, then, but up to something. There’d been mention, I recalled, of some clothes that he was considering buying from someone: perhaps that was what he was doing, busy trying to raise or retrieve the cash. Back in Kate’s rooms, I spent a while longer expecting him to arrive before giving up and going for my walk. Maggie asked if she could come, and as always I was glad of a chance to lose myself in her cheery company. She tripped along at my side, chattering endearingly about some of the New Year gifts that she’d soon be sewing, and impressing upon me the various achievements of her little godson, before embarking upon a lengthy account - to which, admittedly, I only half-listened - of her family’s dispute with the mason who was supposed to be building her grandfather’s tomb. Maggie: two years my junior but in many ways old for her years. There was a gem-like shine to the river and cloud cover was no heavier than breath condensing on the surface of the sky.
I was surprised not to see Francis on my return. Still no one remarked on his absence, but, then, despite his position as usher to Kate’s rooms, he did tend to come and go. Loyal to Kate though he was, he often disappeared - horse-riding, tennis-playing, tavern-frequenting with friends or his brothers - and managed to square it with her afterwards. I wasn’t overly concerned. If anything was amiss, he would - I was sure - have told me.
Prayers, supper, and some music-making: the afternoon and evening drifted on. At six o’clock, as usual, Sir Thomas Heneage came along with news of the king for Kate. He was a funny little man, goofy and chinless; Kate didn’t often take to funny little men but Sir Thomas was an exception and she always invited him to stay for a drink and a gossip. This evening he told her that the king had gone off to London. London, suddenly, by barge, late on a November afternoon: something had come up, we might’ve surmised. Someone, perhaps: a troublesome nobleman or cleric; someone fallen from favour and being taken to task. But that was if we thought about it at all, and it’s just as likely that we didn’t.
Eventually, the evening livened up. Only a few of the king’s gentlemen had accompanied him to London and just before eight o’clock the others turned up at Kate’s door, ring-led by her brothers who were as delighted as ever with themselves. Their merry band was vying for an invitation, which, as usual, was forthcoming, albeit being issued under the ever-watchful eye of Lady Margaret. The men were eager to be entertained, although the day’s hawking had helped deplete some of the ebullience that was often a problem after the end of the hunting season. In the end, good-natured gambling sufficed, the knight-marshal kept busy with the tallies.
The following morning, Francis was back in attendance, carrying on as if he’d never been away. I felt I was owed an explanation. Kate was keeping him busy, presumably with the usual mix of tasks. He was both her usher - gatekeeper to her rooms — and her secretary. The pair of them never worked together in a closet - that would’ve been too serious for her - but would merely retreat to a corner of whichever room we were all in. There, he’d read aloud the clutch of letters that arrived daily for her, and they’d discuss how he should respond on her behalf. They’d go through any appointments that needed to be made, and he’d set about making them. Then there were the thank-you letters for gifts - from silverware and sumptuous fabrics to baskets of fruit and jars of preserve - which came from people in every walk of life who, for their various reasons, were anxious to curry favour. Then perhaps they’d work on formal renditions of any pleas for clemency which the king had already heard from her in private and indicated that he’d permit. I’d never anticipated what a soft touch she would become in that respect, although, upon reflection, there was nothing soft about it. She was genuinely unnerved to think of the hard and fast nature of the law: its drastically impersonal, inflexible nature. What drew her to particular cases - what she had a feeling for - was the minutiae of personal circumstances, and I could well imagine that she made them compelling when relaying them to her husband.
All that morning, she and Francis made quite a spectacle with their industry. She was elaborately pinned and tucked, every inch the girl-queen, as good as gold, and he had an officious air. Habitually, he listened to her with only half his attention, polite but vague, but that particular morning he was frowning with concentration. He’d often make much, to me, of how he’d have been nothing without her, of how he owed his success to her - here he was, private secretary to the queen of England - but I wasn’t so sure. When we girls had first come across him, he was a gentleman pensioner of the Duke of Norfolk’s, an enviable position, and had he stayed in the duke’s household, he’d have done very well for himself. He was following Kate’s lead in that her own rise had been something of a fairytale, but she too, I sensed, had chosen to believe in the inevitability of it. For her, the obscurity of her earlier life had been the mistake and the recent elevation her due. A natural enough attitude to take, I supposed, but I’d expected something different from her — from her of all people, so impatient with others’ pretensions.
At last, late on during the afternoon - too late, in my opinion — Francis came to find me in the gallery, where I’d got drawn into music practice with Alice and Anne Basset. He came slinking over, all smiles, attempting to slide his way back into my favour. ‘Hello, you.’
I said nothing although I did tilt my face for his kiss, which then struck me as a gesture typical of Kate - that showy petulance that she affected with men.
‘Been busy?’ He was keen to make amends.
Was I ever? But he’d asked, he’d given me the opportunity to knock him back, so I launched laboriously into a list of the day’s decidedly unspectacular activities: I’d written to my cousin and my father; tackled a new piece on the virginals; been entrusted to choose a gown and some jewellery for Kate from The Wardrobe and The Jewel House, settling on an indigo satin gown and sapphire-and-pearl necklace; managed to catch Liz Fitzgerald’s favoured tailor when he was visiting her, to ask if he could make a cloak for my little cousin in time for New Year; and dropped in at the Duchess of Richmond’s rooms to check the progress of the puppies, one of which, when weaned, would be Kate’s. I related all this in a deliberately flat tone, staring him down as I did so. Understandably, when he’d listened politely, he backed off.
Later still, when the evening’s dancing began, I relented and took him aside, finally asking him outright, ‘So, where were you,