The queen nodded, noting, as every member of the court strained to hear, that she was not to travel with the king this summer.

"Thank you," the queen said with simple dignity. "You are very good. She writes to me that she is making much progress in her Greek and Latin. I hope you will find that she is an accomplished princess."

"Greek and Latin will be of little help to her in the making of sons and heirs," the king said shortly. "She had better not be growing into a stooped scholar. It is a princess's first duty to be the mother of a king. As you know, madam."

The daughter of Isabella of Spain, one of the most intelligent and educated women in Europe, folded her hands in her lap and looked down at the rich rings on her thin fingers. "I know it indeed."

Henry sprang to his feet and clapped his hands. The musicians broke off at once and waited to know his command. "Play a country dance!" he said. "Let's dance before dinner!"

At once they started a bright infectious jig and the courtiers turned to take their places. Henry came toward me, I rose up to dance with him but he only smiled at me, and held out his hand to Anne. Eyes downcast, she went past me without a glance. Dismissively, her gown brushed my knees as if I should have drawn further back, out of her way, as if everyone should always step back to let Anne through. Then she was gone and as I looked up I met the queen's eyes. She looked blankly at me as I might look at a rivalry of birds fluttering in the dovecote. It was not as if it mattered. They would all be eaten in time.

I was in a fever for the court to set off on its summer progress so that I might go to Hever to my children, but we were delayed as Cardinal Wolsey and the king could not agree where the court should go first. The cardinal, deep in negotiations with England's new allies of France, Venice and the Pope, against the Spanish, wanted the court to stay close to London, so that he might reach the king easily if matters came to war.

But there was plague in the city and plague in all the port towns, and Henry was terrified of illness. He wanted to go far out into the countryside where the water was sweet and where the crowds of supplicants and beggars would not follow him from the city stews. The cardinal argued as best he could, but Henry, running from sickness and death, was unstoppable. He would go as far as Wales itself to see the Princess Mary, but he would not stay near London.

I was allowed to go nowhere without the king's express permission and George's escort. I found them both playing at tennis in the hot sunshine of the enclosed court. As I watched, a good hit from George bounced on the overhanging roof with a crack and rolled into the court but Henry was already there and struck it powerfully into the corner.

George acknowledged the shot with a hand thrown up like a swordsman and served again. Anne was sitting at the side of the court, in the shade with a few other ladies in waiting, as posed and as cool as little statues in a fountain, all exquisitely dressed, all awaiting favor. I gritted my teeth against my instant desire to sit beside her, to outshine her, and instead I stood at the back, waiting for the king to finish the game.

He won, of course. George took him to the final point and then lost convincingly. All the ladies clapped and the king turned, flushed and smiling, and saw me.

"I hope you did not stake your brother."

"I would never gamble against Your Majesty at any game of skill," I said. "I am too careful of my little fortune."

He smiled at that, and took a napkin from his page to mop his rosy face.

"I am here to ask a favor," I said quickly before anyone could interrupt us. "I want to see our son, and our daughter, before the court leaves on its travels."

"G.o.d knows where we are to go," Henry said, a frown puckering his face. "Wolsey keeps saying..."

"If I might go today I could be back within the week," I said quietly. "And then travel with you, wherever you decide to go."

He did not want me to leave him. His mouth lost its smile. I shot a quick look at George, prompting him to help me.

"And you can come back and tell us how the baby is faring!" George said. "And if he is as handsome and strong as his father. Does the nurse say that he is fair?"

"As golden as a Tudor," I said quickly. "But no one can tell me that he is more handsome than his father."

We had caught Henry on the cusp of his mood before he fell into ill humor. The smile returned. "Ah, you are a flatterer, Mary."

"I should so like to see him well cared for before I go away with you, Your Majesty," I said.

"Oh very well," he said negligently. His eyes went past me to Anne. "I shall find something to do."

All the other ladies around her smiled when they saw him look in their direction. The more daring tossed their heads and turned their shoulders and coquetted like trained ponies in a ring. Only Anne glanced at him, and then looked away, as if his attention were a matter of indifference. She looked away and smiled at Francis, and the turn of her head was as inviting as any other woman's whispered promise. Francis was at her side in a moment and her hand was taken, and carried to his mouth for a kiss.

I saw the king's face darken, and I marveled at Anne's recklessness. The king put the napkin around his neck and opened the door of the tennis court. At once the ladies, all surprised, rose to their feet and sank into their curtsies. Anne glanced around, leisurely reclaimed her hand from Sir Francis's caress, and swept a little curtsy of her own.

"Did you see any of the game at all?" the king asked her abruptly.

Anne rose up from the curtsy and smiled into his face as if his disfavor meant nothing. "I watched about half," she said negligently.

His face darkened. "Half, madam?"

"Why would I watch your opponent, Your Majesty? When you are on the court?"

There was a second of silence and then he laughed aloud and the court sycophantically laughed with him, as if they had not been holding their breath at her impertinence just a second before. Anne smiled her dazzling mountebank smile.

"The game would make no sense to you then," Henry said. "Since you see only half the play."

"I see all the sun and none of the shadow," she riposted. "All the day and none of the night."

"You call me the sun?" he asked.

She smiled at him. "Dazzling," she whispered and the word was the most intimate of blandishments. "Dazzling."

"You call me dazzling?" he asked.

She opened her eyes wide as if his misunderstanding surprised her. "The sun, Your Majesty. The sun is dazzling today."

Hever was a small gray turretted island among the green lushness of the fields of Kent. We entered the park through a gate carelessly left open at the east end and rode toward the castle as the sun set behind it. The jumbled red-tiled roofs glowed in the golden light, the gray stone of the walls was reflected in the still waters of the moat so it looked like two castles, one floating on another, like a dream world of my home. There were a pair of wild swans on the moat, nebs nibbling against each other, making a heart shape with their arched necks. Their mirrored reflection made four swans, the reflected castle flickering in the water around them.

"Pretty," George said shortly. "Makes you wish we could be here all the time."

We skirted the moat and crossed the flat planked bridge where the track went over the river. A brace of snipe darted up from the reeds and made my tired horse flinch at their clatter. They had cut the hay in the meadows on either side of the river and the sweet green smell hung on the evening air. Then we heard a shout and a couple of my father's men in their livery tumbled out of the guard room and arrayed themselves on the drawbridge, shading their eyes against the light.

"It's the young lord, and my lady Carey," one of the soldiers exclaimed. A lad at the back turned and ran with the news into the courtyard, and we slowed the horses down to a walk as the bell rang and the guards came rushing out of the guard room and the servants scrambled into the inner courtyard.

George shot me a rueful smile at the inefficiency of our soldiers, and reined back his horse so that I could go across the drawbridge first and under the portcullis in the arched gateway. Everyone was running into the courtyard, from the lads who turned the spit in the kitchen in their dirt and rags, to the housekeeper who was opening the doors to the great hall and calling sharply to a servant inside.

"My lord, Lady Carey," she said, coming forward. The yeoman of the servery stepped forward with her and they both bowed. A groom caught my reins and the captain of the guard helped me as I dropped from the saddle.

"How is my baby?" I asked the housekeeper.

She nodded to the stairway in the corner of the courtyard. "There he is."

I turned quickly, the wet nurse was bringing my baby out into the sunlight. First of all I had to absorb his growth. I had last seen him when he was just a month old, and he had been a small baby at birth. Now, I could see his cheeks had become rounded and rosy pink. The wet nurse had her hand cupped over his fair head, and I felt a pang of jealousy so powerful that it made me almost sick at the sight of her big red workaday hand on the head of the king's son, my son. He was tight-swaddled, rolled in bandages, strapped on his swaddling board. I held out my arms to him and his nurse pa.s.sed him over to me, like a meal on a platter.

"He is well," the nurse said defensively.

I held him up so I could see his face. His little hands and arms were strapped to his sides, his swaddling even held his head still. Only his eyes could move and they took in my face, scanning from my mouth to my eyes and then taking in the sky behind me and the ravens whirling around the tower above my head.

"He is lovely," I whispered.

George, dismounting in a more leisurely fashion from his horse, tossed the reins to a stable lad and looked over my shoulder. At once the dark blue eyes switched to scrutinize the new face.

"Looking at his uncle," George said with satisfaction. "Good. Mark me well, lad. We shall make each other's fortune. Isn't he a Tudor, Mary? He's the very spit of the king. Well done."

I smiled looking at the rosy cheeks and the golden hair which gleamed in threads from under the lace cap, at the dark blue eyes which looked from George's face to mine with such calm confidence. "He is, isn't he?"

"It's odd." George lowered his voice to a whisper for my ears only. "Just think, we might swear fealty to this little sc.r.a.p. He might be King of England one day. He might be the greatest man in Europe and you and I might have all our dependence on him."

I tightened my grip on the board and felt the warm little body strapped tight to the wooden frame. "Please G.o.d keep him safe, whatever his future," I whispered.

"Keep us all safe," George returned. "For it will not be an easy road to get him onto the throne."

He took the baby from me and handed him casually to his nurse, as if he were impatient of speculating, and led me toward the front door of the house. I checked, just on the doorstep was a tiny girl of two years old, dressed in the short clothes of babyhood, looking up at me. A woman had firm grip of her hand. Catherine, my daughter, looked up into my face as if I were a stranger.

I dropped to my knees on the stone cobbles of the courtyard. "Catherine, d'you know who I am?"

Her little pale face trembled but did not crumple. "My mother."

"Yes," I said. "I wanted to come and see you before but they would not let me. I have missed you, my daughter. I have wanted to have you with me."

She glanced upward at the maidservant holding her little hand. A squeeze of her palm told her to reply. "Yes, Mother," she said in a small voice.

"Did you remember me at all?" I asked. The pain in my voice was evident to everyone within earshot. Catherine looked up to the maid who held her hand, she looked back to my face. Her lip trembled, her face crumpled, she burst into tears.

"Oh G.o.d," George said wearily. His firm hand under my elbow forced me up and over the threshold into my home, then he pushed me firmly toward the great hall. The fire was lit, even though it was midsummer, and the big chair before the fire was occupied by Grandmother Boleyn.

"How do," George said succinctly. He turned on the household which had followed us into the hall. "Out. And go about your business," he said shortly.

"What's the matter with Mary?" my grandmother asked him.

"Heat, and sun," George improvised at random. "And horse riding. After giving birth."

"Is that all?" she asked acidly.

George thrust me into a chair and dropped into a seat himself. "Thirst," he said pointedly. "I should think that she is half-dead for a gla.s.s of wine. I know that I am, madam."

The old lady beamed at his rudeness and gestured at the heavy sideboard behind her. George got to his feet and poured a gla.s.s of wine for me and one for himself. He downed his in one gulp and poured another.

I rubbed my face with the back of my hand and looked around. "I want Catherine brought to me," I said.

"Leave it," George counseled me.

"She hardly knows me. She looks as if she has forgotten me altogether."

"That's why I said leave it."

I would have argued but George persisted. "She would have been dragged out of her nursery when they heard the bell, and stuffed into her best gown and taken downstairs and told to greet you politely. Poor child was probably sick with fright. Lord, Mary, don't you remember the fuss when we knew that Father and Mother were coming? It was worse than going to court for the first time. You used to vomit in terror and Anne used to go around in her best dress for days at a time. It's always terrifying when your mother comes to see you. Give her a little while to become comfortable again and then go quietly to her room and sit with her."

I nodded at the good sense, and settled back into my chair.

"All well at court?" the old lady asked. "How is my son? And your mother?"

"Well," George said briefly. "Father has been in Venice for the last month, working for the alliance. Wolsey's business. Mother is well, in attendance on the queen."

"The queen well?"

George nodded. "She's not on progress with the king this year. Much diminished at court."

The old lady nodded at the familiar story of a woman traveling too slowly toward her death. "And the king? Is Mary still his favorite?"

"Mary or Anne," George said, smiling. "He seems to have a taste for Boleyn girls. Mary is still favorite."

My grandmother turned her acute bright gaze on me. "You're a good girl," she said approvingly. "How long are you here for?"

"A week," I said. "That's all I was allowed."

"And you?" she asked, turning to George.

"I think I'll stay a few days," he said idly. "I had forgotten how pretty Hever is in summer. I might stay and take Mary home when we have to go back to court."

"I shall be with the children all day," I warned him.

"That's all right," he smiled. "I shan't need company. I shall write. I think I shall become a poet."

I took George's advice and did not approach Catherine until I had gone to my little room, up the tiny winding stair, washed my face in the bowl of water, and looked out of the leaded windows over the darkening parkland around the castle. I saw a flicker of white of a barn owl and heard his interrogative hoot, and then the answer from his mate in the woods. I heard a fish jump in the moat, and saw the stars start to p.r.i.c.k silver dots in the blue-gray sky. Then, and only then, I went to the nursery to find my daughter.

She was seated in front of the fire on her stool, a bowl of milk with bread on her lap, her spoon suspended halfway to her mouth as she listened to the talk over her head as her nursemaid gossiped with another maid. When they saw me, they leaped to their feet and Catherine would have dropped her bowl if the nursemaid had not been quick to s.n.a.t.c.h it from her. The other maid disappeared with a flick of her gown, and the nursemaid seated herself beside Catherine and made a fine show of watching my daughter eat, and making sure that she was not too close to the fire.

I took a seat and said nothing, until the fuss subsided a little and I could watch Catherine as she spooned the last of her supper. Her nursemaid took the bowl out of her hands and I nodded to her to leave the room and she went without saying another word.

I felt in the pocket of my gown. "I have brought you a little present," I said. It was an acorn on a string, cleverly carved into a face. The little cup of the acorn made a hat on the head. At once she smiled and put out her hand for it. Her palm was plump like a baby's still, her fingers tiny. I put the acorn into her hand and felt the softness of the skin.

"Shall you give him a name?" I asked.

A little frown puckered the smoothness of her forehead. Her golden-bronze hair was pulled away from her face and half-hidden by her nightcap. I gently touched the ribbon of the nightcap and then the golden ringlets which bobbed below the brim. She did not flinch from my touch, she was all-absorbed in the acorn.

"What shall I call him?" Her blue eyes flashed up at me.

"He's from an oak tree. He is an acorn," I said. "That's the tree that the king wants us all to plant. It grows into strong wood for his ships."

"I shall call him Oakey," she said with decision. She clearly had no interest in the king or his ships. She twitched the string and the little acorn bobbed. "Dancing," she said with satisfaction.

"Would you like to sit on my lap with Oakey and I could tell you a story about him going to a great revel and dancing with all the other acorns?" I asked.

For a moment she hesitated.