Tarnish (2 page)

I take another deep breath and straighten my shoulders, just as Father taught me when he marched me into the presence of Margaret of Austria, the Duchess of Savoy. I was seven years old and terrified to be left in her care. Father offered only one piece of advice before abandoning me and returning to England. “When you’re afraid,” he said then, “you need to put an iron rod in your spine. Look your enemy in the eye. Take a deep breath and perform.”

The prodigal daughter, he calls me now. Or he would if he were here.

I wipe the sweat from my palms on my skirt and approach the guard, who leers as if he knows all about me and opens the door. I blow him a kiss as I pass by, accompanied by a rude gesture. He pretends not to notice, and again fails to deceive me.

There is something of the dragon’s lair in the royal chambers of a palace. And Queen Katherine’s chambers don’t shatter that illusion. Smoke from the candles congeals at the ceiling in a swirling, palpable mass. And the place swarms with courtiers ready to eviscerate you socially and politically.

Another breath, and I step into the presence of the queen. I have a feeling she won’t be happy to see me return. My first duty is to kneel before her until she acknowledges me, and thank her. I worry that she will ignore me—more punishment for my indiscretions. And my sister’s.

The room quiets as I enter. I bow my head and approach the queen. She is sewing tiny stitches around the cuffs of a shirt, embroidering a pomegranate motif of white on white. I watch her hands from beneath my lowered brow. They don’t pause.

I kneel. She doesn’t speak.

But behind me, I hear the whispers.

“Who is that?”

“What’s she wearing?”

“She’s one of
them
.”

“That’s the sister? They don’t even look related.”

“Perhaps they’re not.”

I struggle not to turn around and give the speaker the sharp edge of my tongue. Protocol demands that I not even look up until the queen acknowledges me.

Then I hear a giggle. Followed by another. And another. Like ripples on a pond.

I’m the stone that caused them and I’m sinking.

I curl my hands into fists under the folds of my sleeves. I know why they belittle me. They see me as the daughter of one of the king’s minions—as the youngest of a family of parvenu graspers. They saw me return from France a year ago, only to leave three months later, dressed in humility and veiled in disrepute. Exiled by my expansively critical father. And now returned, supposedly reformed, though yet to be redeemed in Father’s eyes.

“Mistress Boleyn.”

I look up at the queen. The year has not been kind to her. Her face has fallen into soft folds, like a discarded piece of velvet. Still rich and soft, but a touch careworn. She’s five years older than the king and she wears those years like eons. Her eyes reveal nothing to me—not malice, not kindness, not curiosity, not forgiveness. Queen Katherine has lived a lifetime at court and has mastered the art of giving nothing away. Her hands go still.

“I welcome you.”

I hear a
tut
and a titter, as if one of her ladies questions the sincerity of that statement. The queen presses her lips together, but before anyone can speak, the door bangs open behind me, followed by a roomful of gasps and a trill of hysterical laughter.

I turn before the queen can grant me permission and see, there in the doorway, five men dressed in silks and scimitars, each with a turban wrapped around his head. Their eyes are white and wild.

Ottoman corsairs.

In England?

I steal a glance at the queen. She stifles a yawn behind a look of artful surprise.

King Henry is famous for his disguisings. For bursting into the queen’s rooms in all manner of dress and disarray. For fooling no one, but delighting everyone. Except, it seems, the queen.

“We have come from Gallipoli and the coasts of Spain, searching for plunder.” The voice—despite its rolling, guttural accent—starts a hum in my mind, a buzz of recognition at the top of my head.

“And women,” another man mutters, his Kentish lilt completely at odds with his appearance.

The others laugh.

I risk a glance at the corsairs. The shorter man by the door is somewhat disheveled, and would be familiar to me even if he actually had traveled from the other side of the world. My brother. Next to him is the Kentishman, his blond hair curling from beneath his turban. He carries himself with the effortless ease of a dancer, and his eyes are the exact color blue that makes me wish he’d look at me.

But it’s the man nearest me whose attention I’d do anything to have. He is tall and broad, his hand ridged with rings. His face—a little long, losing its narrowness, a hint of a cleft to his chin, and a mouth with a smile like a kiss—is so etched in my memory, I hardly know if he’s real or a fevered imagining. The hum in my head increases, as if my entire body is tuned to his presence.

I remember the first time I saw him, gilded like a church icon, fashioned for worship. And the last time I saw him, shock transfiguring his face. I lower my eyes and stare at his broad-toed velvet shoes, decorated in pearls and gold embroidery. Breathe.

He walks boldly to the queen. He doesn’t bow or acknowledge her rank and gentility. A moment unfurls between them during which no one moves or speaks. No one is allowed into the presence of the queen without obeisance. Except the king. He turns, his movements swift and decisive.

“Which one shall we take?” His voice is surprisingly high for a man so large, a presence so Herculean. The others reply with a roar and rattle of scimitars.

The feet turn again, toes pointed directly at my skirts.

“What about this one?”

He’s dropped the accent. His words are full of tones round and rich like butter.

He reaches for my hand, his touch like a blinding jolt of sunlight. The fingers feel rougher than I expected, hardened by hunting and jousting and wielding a sword and lance. They carry the scent of orange flowers, cloves, and leather. I do not require his hand to lift me up. I could fly.

I do not look at him, but stare at my hand in his. He twists the ring on my index finger, the single pearl disappearing into my palm. I will my heart—my tongue—not to make a fool of me. Again.

The queen puts a hand on my shoulder, her grip like a tenterhook, fastening me to the spot. I’m stretched between the two of them.

“I cannot permit you to spirit away my maids of honor, Master Turk,” the queen says, with no hint of humoring the corsair. And perhaps a touch of disdain. “It is an affront to Spain and an affront to God, what you do.”

Her soft voice with its strong Spanish lilt hisses across the room, and four of the men nod their heads in shame. The real corsairs have been raiding the Spanish coast. Stealing women. Some say the king does the same thing from the queen’s chambers.

“This one belongs to me.” The queen pats my shoulder once.

He drops my hand. I watch his eyes, fixed on the queen. There is a spark of anger there. And a deep burn of petulance.

I want to reach out. To take back his hand. To tell him,
I will be anything you want! I’ll play your game!

I tilt my chin to see the queen. She smiles at me benignly. Motherly.

“On the contrary, Your Majesty,” I blurt. “I am not a possession and belong to no one.”

The hush that follows mantles the room like deafness after cannon fire. The queen swells, and I’m sure the shock on her face is no match for the shock on mine. I fall into a curtsy, ready to grovel an apology, but I’m cut off by a laugh like wine in a fountain—singular and intoxicating.

Followed by the laughter of every person in the room—except the queen.

I risk looking up to see her hard-edged gaze returned to the man before her.

“Possession or not, I will not take her from you, my lady,” he says, sweeping a bow over her hand and kissing it. “Because my heart belongs to you.”

He removes his turban, revealing sun-bright auburn hair. The ladies gasp in false astonishment and curtsy low before him.

The queen just smiles tightly.

“My dear husband.”

The other men remove their ridiculous headgear, revealing the king’s companions. Henry Norris, his black hair brushed back from his wide forehead, mouth twisted in an ironic grin. My brother, George, his hair mussed as if he’s just risen from his bed, eyes lighting on every girl in the room. My cousin Francis Bryan, with eyes like a fox and a grin like a badger. And the man by the door, all golden-blond curls and startling blue eyes.

The king flicks a single finger, and the musicians in the corner begin to play a volta. The queen sits back down on her cushioned chair, the motion as overt a signal as her husband’s. She will not be dancing.

The king bends at the waist to speak to me, still on my knees before the queen. He exudes cedar, velvet, and élan. The hum traverses to my fingers and toes, followed by a frisson of terror that my incontinent speech will get me flogged or pilloried. Or worse, exiled from court. Again.

“Mistress Boleyn.”

I bow my head further, unable to look at him. Unable to utter another word.

“Welcome back.”

2

T
HE
D
UCHESS OF
S
UFFOLK AIMS A LAYERED LOOK AT ME FROM
beneath her gabled hood as she steps between me and the king. One side of her mouth twists upward, the other down. Then she turns her back on me. She is the king’s younger sister, and despite the death of Louis XII eight years ago, still styles herself Queen of France. In a court ruled by tradition as much as royalty, she has precedence of rank over everyone but Queen Katherine herself, so the king will dance with her first.

My own brother is lounging against the doorframe, mouth open in a laugh, but his face is bitter. The blond man next to him echoes the laugh, but not the bitterness, and it sparks a flicker of memory. It’s like a glimpse of something caught at the corner of the eye: a golden boy reaching for the sun against the shadowed gray stone of what used to be my home. The image slides away, taking any hint of the man’s name with it. He nudges George, nods his head at me.

My brother’s eyes are the same color as mine—dark. So dark that sometimes you can’t tell if they have a color at all. His face quickly loses any trace of mirth, but I can see the hesitation in his frame.

Our childhood friendship has been lost in the depths of the English Channel and in the mire of the years I spent in France, growing up and away from him. But he is the closest thing I have to an anchor here in the English court, so I smile, and his hesitation breaks, propelling him forward. Toward me.

I notice little Jane Parker in the corner, watching George. She twists her knuckles into her teeth, her expression screaming her every emotion. She’s besotted.

“Welcome back, Anne.”

George leads me into the improvisational dance steps we used to practice in the apple orchards of our childhood, back when he would drop me accidentally on purpose and collapse on top of me, shouting that I’d broken his back with my weight, and then giggling uncontrollably.

Now he holds me firmly. And doesn’t laugh.

As we circle the room in the precisely measured steps of the dance, I see faces turn away from me. The ladies study their hands or the windows or the other dancers. The men don’t even pretend. They just don’t look.

“Why do they hate me, George?” I ask. I keep my voice quiet, so he can pretend not to hear me.

“They don’t hate you, Anne. Not yet. They just choose to ignore you. And your indiscretions. You’re like the green castle in the middle of the room that nobody wants to see.” His lips twitch as he tries not to smile at his own joke.

“
The Château Vert
was a year ago, George.”

“Yes, and everyone remembers it as a triumph and a gorgeous display. The castle! The costumes! The pageant!” George twirls me once, out of step, causing me to stumble. “The dancing.” He catches me and holds me tightly, his grip as hard as his voice, fingers pinching the tender skin over the bone.

My dance with the king. One stupid mistake. One mindless, improvident action based on a ridiculous infatuation. It got me exiled.

“Am I never going to be allowed to forget it?”

“Certainly not if you controvert the queen. Or throw yourself at the feet of the king, though it certainly saved your skin today.”

I say nothing. Just as he wishes.

“You are here to be useful. Not a hindrance. Your only purpose is to advance our family. If you can’t do that, you might as well have stayed at home.”

“Home?”

Home for George is Hever, where I was born. The place from which I’ve just escaped exile. Home for me is France, where I grew up. I would love to be sent home. Away from England. Away from the eyes that stare but don’t look at me.

“Or been married off to James Butler and both of you sent to Ireland with the uncivilized ruffians. You’ll fit right in.”