The queen bowed low to the king, ignoring the haughty cluster of Boleyns and their supporters perched at the king’s side on the dais. “I have missed my husband,” her clear voice rang out with its unmistakable Spanish accent. “I have missed him sorely and our daughter Mary misses him also.” She gathered her heavy skirts and mounted the two steps to the dais. She sank slowly into the huge chair to the right of the king’s, where Anne would have sat, and two of her women hastened to arrange her skirts and move the chair closer to the table.
The king stood stock-still, a frozen statue of pent-up rage. He spun his vast back to the hushed crowd and bent low over the gold-and-silver-laden table in front of his wife. If he meant his words to be low enough that no one could hear, he failed utterly.
“Madam,” he said distinctly, “you are not bidden here, nor have you been announced.”
“But I never see you otherwise, my husband,” she returned bravely. Mary’s eyes caught Anne’s for an instant as they swept the crowd helplessly. Mary read the controlled panic in them.
The king’s voice went on, dripping with venom. “The king will see you when he chooses, madam, and he does not choose so now. You have your own household and you may go anywhere you want within it, but...not here!” His back shook and his piercing voice seemed to echo off the rafters of the timbered hall.
Mary’s nails bit deep into her palms and she was amazed to find herself so torn for this proud queen who had lost the man she had loved and whose desperation made her brave enough to hazard all. Mary tried to summon up her natural sympathy for Anne, but she was bereft of feeling for the slender, dark-haired girl who stood so straight between her father and her king. No wonder others risked all for the queen’s cause in the face of His Grace’s wrath and ruin of their dreams!
There was a grating scrape as the queen slid back her chair and rose unsteadily to her feet. “I was not truly hungry for the feast, my king, just for the sight of you. I will await you in the privy chamber and after you are finished here with your—friends—we shall talk. I shall be waiting.” She nodded slowly to the crowd. She looked so tiny on the dais, especially next to His Grace and the clump of Boleyns on his other side, two forces tugging at the power between them.
Queen Catherine descended the dais, and Mary’s eyes followed her black-covered head as she exited behind the huge metal screen set to stop the winter drafts. The exit was quite near where she still stood with Francis Bryan, the doorway which led to the king’s privy chamber off the Great Hall.
Everyone sat awkwardly, silently at the head steward’s signal and Mary noted the king apologizing profusely to Anne, who suddenly smiled no more. The meal was interminable and Mary could not even catch a glimpse of Staff from where she sat. She and Francis made hushed conversation about everything trivial as did the rest of the feasters until, gratefully, they were released to stream into the long gallery for dancing.
Mary rose and stretched, her eyes quickly scanning the crowd for Staff and for Norris, to whom she had promised the first dance. Before she was even in sight of the doorway, though, her father was at her elbow again. “Let us step into the hall,” he said bluntly. “Everyone else is hurrying the other way. They will not miss us for a moment.”
“I doubt that they will miss me at all, father,” she told him as he propelled her behind the screen into the corridor through which the queen and her ladies had left so dramatically.
“Look, Mary,” he began as they stood in the dim hall, “I can understand some bitterness and jealousy that the king will marry Anne, but you have to buck up, girl. Stop this testiness and, well, this disrespect I have sensed lately.”
“Anne and I are on the best of terms, father, as are George and I.”
“I meant to me, Mary, and well you know it. I cannot help it that His Grace saw fit to dole out the Carey lands to others. They were his to give; they are his to take. He leaves little Harry safely with Fitzroy at Hatfield, so be grateful to him. Some people think it means he refuses to let the lad inherit the Carey lands to show that he is not the son of Will Carey. Maybe he will give him more later—royal grants, Mary.”
“Whoever says such things is quite mistaken. Harry is Will’s son, make no mistake about that, father. If such rumors to the contrary are circulating, I shall set them right.”
“If you do, I shall have you out of your sister’s good graces on your backside in the street!” He bent menacingly close to her.
“Please understand me, father. I wish I did not have to beg for your money like some poor distant relation, but I am an embarrassment to your fine Boleyn family, if you want to look at it that way. My newest dresses are two years old, and I own no stockings without my maid servant’s darning stitches all over them.”