The Last Boleyn(91)

Mary only nodded, tight-lipped as they were seated down the table from the king. She could not see Staff, as he no doubt seated himself somewhere in the swelling crowd behind them.



The May Day sun slipped on golden slippered feet across the blue, blue sky as the day wore on with feasting and dancing. A new May queen and king were chosen each year. Mary watched as Isabelle Dorsey, whom Staff had once said the king had wanted him to marry, was chosen to serve with the youngest Guildford son. She remembered, as if in a distant dream, she had been selected for the honor her first year back from Francois’s gilded court.

She danced around the May pole with many partners, weaving, then unweaving the ribbons each pair of cavorting revelers held while following the simple running and bowing patterns of the dance. Will partnered her first, then George, then Weston, then Norris, even the king—then, finally, there was Staff.

One hand was firm on her back, his other grasped hers and their ribbon as they moved together around the circle. “Will is leaving for Beaulieu,” she whispered.

“I know. You look absolutely ravishing, Mary, like a spring angel I could find in the gardens, if there was such a thing as spring garden angels.”

“How much wine have you and your charming little ladies had, my lord?” she asked. They were both out of breath. Oh no, she thought, the musicians are stopping. It was over too soon. Everyone around them was applauding and laughing. She knew her disappointment showed clearly on her face and here Staff dared to grin down at her like that. Only a few moments with him, and he looked so happy to be going back to squire that insufferable Dorothy Cobham and the flighty May queen about the gardens or into the lovers’ maze.

“My beloved, sweet Mary, will you never learn to hide your feelings?” he was scolding low with a distinct glint of devilment in each dark brown eye. “I said I know Will is leaving. As soon as he does and you can hie yourself away from your loving family and avid-eyed king, do so. Only, do not go back to your own suite and do not get entangled with the sticky Bullen clan for supper later. Come to Lord Aberganny’s rooms on the third floor directly under the south turret. If you turn your lovely head, you can see the windows to the room now. It seems,” he ended his whispered recital of instructions, “Lord Aberganny’s father has died in Yorkshire and I promised to watch their rooms while their household is away this week.”

“Oh, Staff!”

“I said, do not show what you are thinking, madam. It is not yet the custom in brash Henry’s wild court to make love to one’s lass under the May pole while a crowd looks on. Go back to Will now. I shall be waiting.”

She tried to walk calmly back to her seat, to remember to nod and speak without screaming her joy to people she had known for years. Tonight, a place of their own, a bed of their own, her heart sang. Suddenly, this so beautiful, precious May Day could not be gone swiftly enough.





CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE


July 21, 1528


Hampton Court

The dog days” they had always called them, the long and muggy summer months of July and August when the royal and noble fled to country refuge and the poor of the towns and populous cities prayed that they would be spared. The dreaded sweating sickness hung like a curse over Tudor England as it had many summers since it had first broken out among Henry VII’s victorious troops at Bosworth Field. Now this curse, this quick seizing death, was the only thing which terrified the present powerful king on whom his father’s power had been bestowed—save for the fact he had no true and legitimate male heir with whom to leave his kingdom. His Grace and chosen courtiers hid from the long reach of the sweat in the deep forests of Eltham.

But Eltham was a smaller refuge than long-armed Greenwich or sprawling Hampton Court or great walled Windsor. Only a fragment of the massive court could bed and board at the beamed hunt hall for the weeks the palaces nearer the city might be unsafe. So nobles of the court with country homes had taken to them in haste, and others shifted as best they could in the nearly deserted cavernous halls of the palaces. Tensions and terrors were great, for it seemed that control of one’s own life was in the hands of some grim, invisible specter.

“Damn it, Mary. Six months of my patient work and now we are left here because His Grace still cannot bear to have you around. I know that is it. I have seen him look at you. He thinks your presence here helps to keep his darling Anne away even though everyone knows he has given her a promise he will forsake all others for her if she will yield to him.”

“You know that is not true, Will. We are not here because I keep Anne from him. It does not matter to Anne that I am here. She thinks if she would come to live at the palace the walk to the royal bed is too short. She fears she would lose him then and her power would be gone.”

“We all fear that, dear wife. And now all my careful planning, my work to earn the Carey way back has gone for nothing thanks to the meddling of the greedy Bullens!”

She wanted to hit out at him, to grab that constant bitter look from his face and smash it, but she controlled herself and touched his slumped shoulder. “I think you are over-reacting, reading too much into the fact His Grace did not choose to take you to Eltham for the summer. He only took one fifth of the court and only four of ten Esquires. Does that mean that the other six are all in disfavor? I think not.”

“I think not,” he mocked. “Is that your clever reasoning or Staff’s?”