‘I envy your husband when your dress comes off tonight, you will shower him with sweets,’ he said in an undertone when the dance brought us side by side as we watched another couple in the centre of the ring.
I could not think of a witty reply, these were not the formal compliments of courtly love. The image of a husband being showered with sweets was too domestic, and too erotic.
‘Surely you should envy nothing,’ I said. ‘Surely everything is all yours.’
‘Why would that be?’ he asked.
‘Because you are king,’ I started, forgetting that he was supposed to be in impenetrable disguise. ‘King of Chateau Vert,’ I recovered. ‘King for a day. It should be King Henry who envies you, for you have won a great siege in one afternoon.’
‘And what d’you think of King Henry?’
I looked up at him, my innocent look. ‘He is the greatest king that this country has ever known. It is an honour to be at his court and a privilege to be near him.’
‘Could you love him as a man?’
I looked down and blushed. ‘I would not dare to think of it. He has never so much as glanced towards me.’
‘Oh he has glanced,’ the king said firmly. ‘You can be sure of that. And if he glanced more than once, Miss Kindness, would you be true to your name and be kind to him?’
‘Your …’ I bit my lip and stopped myself saying: ‘Your Majesty’. I looked around for Anne; more than anything, I wanted her by my side and her wits at my service.
‘You are named Kindness,’ he reminded me.
I smiled at him, peeping up through my golden mask. ‘I am,’ I said. ‘And I suppose I should have to be kind.’
The musicians finished the dance and waited, poised for the king’s orders. ‘Unmask!’ he said and tore his own mask off his face. I saw the king of England, gave a wonderful little gasp and staggered.
‘She’s fainting!’ George cried out, it was beautifully done. I fell into the king’s arms as Anne, fast as a snake, unpinned my mask, and – brilliantly – pulled off my headdress so that my golden hair tumbled down like a stream over the king’s arm.
I opened my eyes, his face was very close. I could smell the perfume on his hair, his breath was on my cheek, I watched his lips, he was close enough to kiss me.
‘You have to be kind to me,’ he reminded me.
‘You are the king …’ I said incredulously.
‘And you have promised to be kind to me.’
‘I didn’t know it was you, Your Majesty.’
He lifted me gently and carried me over to the window. He opened it himself and the cold air blew in. I tossed my head and let my hair ripple in the draught.
‘Did you faint for fright?’ he asked, his voice very low.
I looked down at my hands. ‘For delight,’ 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