‘I don’t think I can do this.’
‘Do what?’ he asked unhelpfully. We were supposed to be walking the queen’s dog, which had been carried on the pommel of the saddle for the day’s ride and was thoroughly jolted and sick-looking. ‘Come on, Flo!’ he said encouragingly. ‘Seek! Seek!’
‘I can’t be with my husband and the king at the same time,’ I said. ‘I can’t laugh with the king when my husband is watching.’
‘Why not?’ Anne rolled a ball along the ground for Flo to chase after. The little dog watched it go without interest. ‘Oh go on, you stupid thing!’ Anne exclaimed.
‘Because I feel all wrong.’
‘D’you know better than your mother?’ Anne asked bluntly.
‘Of course not!’
‘Better than your father? Your uncle?’
I shook my head.
‘They are planning a great future for you,’ Anne said solemnly. ‘Any girl in England would die for your chances. You are on the way to becoming the favourite of the king of England, and you are simpering round the garden wondering if you can laugh at his jokes? You’ve got about as much sense as Flo here.’ She put the tip of her riding boot under Flo’s unwilling arse and pushed her gently along the path. Flo sat down, as stubborn and as unhappy as me.
‘Gently,’ George cautioned her. He took my cold hand and tucked it in the crook of his elbow. ‘It’s not as bad as you think,’ he said. ‘William was riding with you today to show that he gives his consent, not to make you feel guilty. He knows that the king must have his way. We all know that. William’s happy enough about it. There will be favours for him which you will have been the means of his getting. You’re doing your duty by him by advancing his family. He’s grateful to you. You’re not doing anything wrong.’
I hesitated. I looked from George’s brown honest eyes to Anne’s averted face. ‘There’s another thing,’ I said, forced to confess.
‘What is it?’ George asked. Anne’s eyes followed Flo but I knew that her attention was turned on me.
‘I don’t know how to do it,’ I said quietly. ‘You know, William did it once a week or so, and that in the dark, and quickly done, and I never much liked it. I don’t know what it is I am supposed to do.’
George gave a little gulp of laughter and put his arm around my shoulders and gave me a hug. ‘Oh, I’m sorry to laugh. But you have it all wrong. He doesn’t want a woman who knows what to do. There are dozens of them in every bath house in the City. He wants you. It’s you he likes. And he’ll like it if you are a little shy and a little uncertain. That’s all right.’
‘Hulloah!’ came a shout from behind us. ‘The Three Boleyns!’
We turned and there was the king on the upper terrace, still dressed in his travelling cloak with his hat rakishly set on his head.
‘Here we go.’ George swept a low bow. Anne and I sank down into our curtseys together.
‘Are you not tired from your ride?’ the king asked. The question was general but he was looking at me.
‘Not at all.’
‘That’s a pretty little mare you were riding, but too short in the back. I shall give you a new horse,’ he said.
‘Your Majesty is very kind,’ I said. ‘She’s a borrowed horse. I should be glad to have a horse of my own.’
‘You shall pick out your choice in the stables,’ he said. ‘Come, we can go and look now.’
He held out his arm to me and I put my fingers gently on the rich cloth of his sleeve.
‘I can hardly feel you.’ He put his hand on my own and pressed it tighter. ‘There. I want to know that I have you, Mistress Carey.’ His eyes were very blue and bright, he took in the top of my French hood and then my golden-brown hair, smoothed back under the hood, and then my face. ‘I do want to know that I have you.’
I felt my mouth go dry and I smiled, despite the breathless feeling that was something between fear and desire. ‘I am happy to be with you.’
‘Are you?’ he asked, suddenly intent. ‘Are you really? I want no false coin from you. There are many who would urge you to be with me. I want you to come of your own free will.’
‘Oh Your Majesty! As if I did not dance with you at Cardinal Wolsey’s revels without even knowing that it was you!’
He was pleased with the recollection. ‘Oh yes! And you all but fainted when I unmasked and you discovered me. Who did you think it was?’
‘I didn’t think. I know it was foolish of me. I thought you were perhaps a stranger in court, a new and handsome stranger, and I was so pleased to be dancing with you.’
He laughed. ‘Oh Mistress Carey, such a sweet face and such naughty thoughts! You hoped that a handsome stranger had come to court and chose to dance with you?’
‘I don’t mean to be naughty.’ I was afraid for a moment that it was too sugary even for his taste. ‘I just forgot how I should behave when you asked me to dance. I am sure I would never do anything wrong. There was just a moment when I –’
‘When you?’
‘When I forgot,’ I said softly.
We reached the stone archway which led into the stables. The king paused in the shelter of the arch and turned me towards him. I could feel myself alive in every part of my body, from my riding boots, slippery on the cobblestones, to my upward glance at his face.
‘Would you forget again?’
I hesitated, and then Anne stepped forward and said lightly: ‘What horse does Your Majesty have in mind for my sister? I think you’ll find she’s a good horsewoman.’
He led the way into the stables, releasing me for a moment. George and he looked at one horse and then another. Anne came to my side.
‘You have to keep him coming forward,’ she said. ‘Keep him coming forward but never let him think that you come forward yourself. He wants to feel that he is pursuing you, not that you are entrapping him. When he gives you the choice of coming forward or running away, like then – you must always run away.’
The king turned and smiled at me as George told a stable boy to lead a handsome bay horse from the stall. ‘But don’t run too fast,’ my sister warned. ‘Remember he has to catch you.’
I danced with the king that evening before the whole of the court, and the next day I rode my new horse at his side when we went hunting. The queen, seated at the high table, watched us dance together, and when we rode out she waved farewell to him from the great door of the palace. Everyone knew that he was courting me, everyone knew that I would consent when I was ordered to do so. The only person who did not know this was the king. He thought that the pace of the courtship was determined by his desire.
The first rent day came a few weeks later in April when my father was appointed treasurer of the king’s household, a post which brought him access to the king’s daily wealth which he could peculate as he thought best. My father met me as we went in to dinner, and took me from the queen’s train for a quiet word as Her Majesty went to her place at the top table.
‘Your