Will laughed, although Mary could see little humor in the remark. He pulled her away with some other whispered words to Staff, and as they traversed the long floor, she dared not look back.
Trumpets sounded and Queen Catherine entered with several ladies. Her women were all in black, as was Catherine. She had not changed. The huge, heavy golden and jeweled crucifix swung across her stiff bosom still. But how her daughter, Mary Tudor, had grown. His Grace must be in an expansive holiday mood indeed to allow his cast-off daughter here at court with her mother. The girl’s hair had gone from reddish hue to quite dark and she was tall, thin, and serious-faced. She held her head erect and proud among all the whispers and her black skirts swished by near Mary. Mary wondered if their drab clothes were a sort of protest, a dark blot in the shifting sea of beautiful, colored silks that clustered around the dance floor. Wait until they see Anne, she thought then, Anne in her shining black silk with her blood-red slashings.
The trumpets sounded again, and her thought was fulfilled. His Grace entered, masked as the Lord of Holiday Misrule with a masked and laughing Anne on his arm and a veritable parade of costumed giants with huge steaming wassail bowls in their arms. Draped mummers with myriad ribbons hanging from their elaborate costumes and spiced cakes on silver trays followed. Eight lovely maidens skimmed by in striped garments holding wicker baskets laden with sprigs of mistletoe which they tossed to the crowd in quick handfuls. All bowed to the queen and princess, who finally managed a smile, and then the mummers circulated through the press of people passing out their cakes and ale and mistletoe.
Mary stared long at Henry Tudor and her sleek and giggling sister. She felt nothing. She could not summon up the tiniest pang of grief or remorse at the loss of her lover of five long years, and who would ever believe her? Maybe Staff would have once, but he hardly cared now. And Anne was making her own way now alone, even without father. Of course, she and Will would have to live at court but, except for being near her friend the Duchess of Suffolk, the thought terrified her.
At least starting tonight as he resumed his duties as Esquire in call of the king’s bedchamber, Will would often be gone from the narrow bed they had been forced to share last night. There was beautiful little Catherine to care for, to love. Above all, to keep her sanity, she must avoid William Stafford and try to forget the women she would see him with as, even now, he stood so close to Dorothy Cobham across the room.
Will had gone in the wake of the king when His Grace departed the hall after hours of dancing and revels, leaving Mary to find their distant chambers in the far reaches of bricked Greenwich by herself. She once thought she knew the palace well, but it was only the royal apartments and larger chambers of the courtiers she had known, not the cramped quarters of this wing, back by the tiltyards and sporting fields. Weary, she found the room after two wrong turns, and pushed the door open to find her faithful Nancy waiting, warming her mistress’s robe over a charcoal brazier, since there was no fireplace in the chilly room.
“I am glad to see your sweet face, my Nance,” she said to the girl. “Tomorrow night I shall have you wait outside the great hall to help lead me back to this hidden den.”
“The lord says surely your rooms are to be moved, Lady Mary. A lord and lady of the king can hardly stay in this cold hovel.” She pulled her woolen shawl closer and hunched up her shoulders. “I left little Catherine about an hour ago. She was so excited she could hardly sleep. I think she misses her little room at Plashy, but she and the Lady Margaret take well to each other. Margaret gave her a wee leather-faced doll and she fell asleep with it in her arms.” She began to unlace Mary’s dress as she spoke.
“She is young and adaptable, I pray, Nance. Maybe that doll can replace the one she dropped from the fishing boat into the pond. She cried three nights over the tattered mite.” Mary stepped quickly out of her chemise and wrapped her furred robe around her body. She was so warm from dancing that she hardly felt the chill. She would be in bed and sound asleep before the icy cold crept into every corner of the room in the long hours until dawn.
“Will you be quite well, lady, since the lord sleeps in call of the king? I could stay.”
“Thank you, Nance, but I will be fine. I am exhausted and really need the time alone after the bustle of the move and the ride over the muddy roads to London. I do depend on you greatly, you know, but I need to be alone.”