THE GUARD ON DUTY recognized Lord Parr and opened the door for him. I knew that the Royal Apartments were organized on the same principle in each palace: a series of chambers, with access to each more and more restricted as one approached the King’s and Queen’s personal rooms at the heart. The King’s Presence Chamber was the most colourfully extravagant room yet in its decoration; one wall was covered with a tapestry of the Annunciation of the Virgin, in which all the figures were dressed in Roman costume, the colours so bright they almost hurt my eyes.
The room was full of young courtiers, as Parr had predicted. They stood talking in groups, leaning against the walls; some even sat at a trestle table playing cards. Having got this far through bribery or connections, they would probably stay all day. They looked up at us, their satin sleeves shimmering in the bright light from the windows. A little man dressed in a green hooded gown entered behind me and crossed the room. Small, sad-faced, and hunchbacked like me, I recognized the King’s fool, Will Somers, from the painting in the Guard Chamber. His little monkey sat on his shoulder, picking nits from its master’s brown hair. The courtiers watched as he walked confidently across to one of two inner doors and was allowed through.
‘Sent for to cheer the King with his jests when he returns from that painful walk, no doubt,’ Lord Parr said sadly. ‘We go through the other door, to the Queen’s Presence Chamber.’
One of the young men detached himself from the wall and approached us, removing his cap and bowing deeply. ‘My Lord Parr, I am related to the Queen’s cousins, the Throckmortons. I wondered if there may be a place for my sister as a maid of honour—’
‘Not now.’ Lord Parr waved him away brusquely, as we approached the door to the Queen’s Presence Chamber. Again the guard allowed us through with a bow.
We were in another, slightly smaller version of the Presence Chamber, a group of tapestries representing the birth of Christ decorating the walls. There were only a few young would-be courtiers here, and several Yeomen of the Guard, all wearing the Queen’s badge. The supplicants turned eagerly when Lord Parr came in, but he frowned and shook his head.
He led me to a group of half a dozen richly dressed ladies playing cards at a table in a large window-bay, and we bowed to them. All were expensively made-up, their faces white with ceruse, red spots on their cheeks. All wore silken farthingales, the fronts open to show the brightly embroidered foreparts and huge detachable sleeves, richly embroidered in contrasting colours. Each gown would have cost hundreds of pounds in labour and material, and I considered how uncomfortable such attire must be on a hot summer’s day. A spaniel wandered around, hoping for scraps from the dishes of sweetmeats on tables beside them as they conversed. I sensed tension in the air.
‘Sir Thomas Seymour was at Whitehall the other day,’ one of the ladies said. ‘He looks more handsome than ever.’
‘Did you hear how he routed those pirates in the Channel in May?’ another asked.
A small, pretty woman in her thirties tapped the table to gain the dog’s attention. ‘Heel, Gardiner,’ she called. It trotted over, panting at her expectantly. She looked at the other women and smiled roguishly. ‘Now, little Gardiner, nothing for you today. Lie down and be quiet.’ The dog was named for Bishop Gardiner, I realized; an act of mockery. The other women did not laugh, but rather looked anxious. One, older than the others, shook her head. ‘Duchess Frances, is it meet to mock a man of the cloth so?’
‘If he deserves it, Lady Carew.’ I looked at the older woman. This must be the wife of Admiral Carew, who had died with so many others on the Mary Rose. She had seen the ship go down while standing on shore with the King.
‘But is it safe?’ I saw the speaker was the Queen’s cousin, Lady Lane, whom Cecil had pointed out to me in the courtyard.
‘Well asked, daughter,’ Lord Parr said brusquely.
One of the other ladies gave me a haughty look. She turned to Lord Parr. ‘Is the Queen to have her own hunchback fool now, like his majesty? I thought she was content with Jane. Is this why we ladies have been sent out of the Privy Chamber?’