He beamed like a schoolboy and Mary returned his smile willingly. As usual, he did indeed look impressive in Tudor green and blinding white to match his barge and, probably, the pennants which would mark this new palace they would visit.
“Where is that little minx of a sister of yours, Mary?” he asked, suddenly craning his huge neck. “There she is! Next to an unmarried courtier, of course, flirting. Staff! Here, to me!”
Neither Anne nor Staff missed a chance to be with someone young and flirtatious, Mary thought as she smoothed her skirts and gazed out over the water. She would not give Staff the pleasure of thinking she had time to listen to him. She lowered her eyes as he approached and stared fixedly at the glint of reflected sunlight from the river surface as it danced along her gold skirts.
“Yes, Sire?”
“Staff, are you certain that everything was fully in order? Sir Francis told me the cardinal had a huge gilded bed in his privy chamber with golden cardinal’s hats on each bedpost.”
“It is true, Your Grace. But he did remove that bed and one vast desk. Everything else stayed. You will be pleased, I know.”
“I would never want the common folk to know of it, Staff, but I know he kept a string of women to share that gilded bed, and that he hides a wife besides!” He lowered his voice and Staff leaned closer over Mary to hear. “In other words, under that mountain of fat draped with scarlet robes, and all that piety lurk a normal, lusty man, eh?” The king and Staff laughed loudly enough for most heads to turn their way. Mary folded her hands demurely in her lap and sat stock-still, as though she had not heard.
“I warrant the sweet Lady Mary has been about me enough that she does not even blush at jests such as that.” The king covered her silken knee with his hand and squeezed it playfully. Mary turned to him and forced a smile.
“And while we are on that delightful subject, Staff, how do you find little Jennings?” Henry guffawed and Staff shifted from one foot to the other, a set smile on his face.
“I find her a bit of an innocent, Sire,” he said quietly.
“Still, Staff? But she has been at court three weeks already. I would never have imagined I should have to give you lessons.” He snickered again and Staff bowed and backed away although Mary could not see that he had been dismissed.
The king was in a soaring mood. He mingled with everyone on the barge and waved to those on the following one. He threw coins to onlookers on the riverbank when they got close enough to shore. He chatted incessantly to Mary, kissed her and pinched her as though he were trying to lift her spirits too. He recounted at least twice the marvelous investiture service by which his son had become his heir and her father had become Viscount Rochford. He inquired how her little sister Anne got on and which of the courtiers she truly favored in her heart.
Wolsey’s massive Hampton Court Palace glowed almost rosy pink in the diffused sunlight. Its twisted sets of chimneys and crenellated roofline pointed toward the graying clouds. They disembarked and strolled parallel to the moat, through the watergate toward the huge house. Even as they approached, His Grace told stories of the times he had feasted here and recited some of the improvements he would make.
“One night a group of us invaded a banquet my lord cardinal was giving—do you remember, Norris?—disguised. We picked out the prettiest wenches there to dance with and unmasked after it was all over. Were you there, too, Weston?”
“Yes, Your Grace. What I recall best was that you immediately chose the most charming wench for yourself before the rest of us could even get into the room.” Everyone within earshot laughed in unison.
“Now, seriously, everyone, I mean to tell you we shall be on a progress to Hampton as soon as everything can be assembled and this great brick barn sufficiently prepared for a royal visit. Sir Francis, I meant to inquire about the jakes. Are they quite in sound shape? Wolsey built the place here on this stretch of river upstream from the City because it is the healthiest place around in the pestilent summer months—and closer than Eltham or Beaulieu. We shall summer here and the sweat shall never find us at all. Sir Francis?”
“Yes, Your Grace. The lackeys spent a week swabbing the jakes and priveys after the cardinal’s huge staff vacated. Besides, the palace has private water closets in each of the principal three hundred bed chambers, an elaborate sewer, drain system and fresh water brought from Coombe Hill three miles distant.”
“Ah, yes, Francis. I meant to tell them of that. It seems our busy Lord Chancellor was even more skilled at building than at doing the king’s business which was given over to his care.”