I sank into a curtsy. "If it please Your Majesty."

"You have been at your parents' home, all this long time?"

"Yes. At Hever Castle, Your Majesty."

"You must have rested well. There is nothing in that part of the world but sheep and cows, I think?"

I smiled. "It is farmland," I agreed. "But there was much for me to do. I enjoyed riding out and looking at the fields and talking to the men who work them."

For a moment, I could see that she was intrigued by the thought of the land, which after all her years in England she still only saw as a place for hunting and picnics and the summer progress. But she remembered why I had left court in the first place. "Did His Majesty order your return?"

I heard a little warning hiss from Anne behind me but I disregarded it. I had a romantic, foolish thought, that I did not want to look this good woman in her honest eyes and lie to her. "The king sent for me, Your Majesty," I said respectfully.

She nodded and looked down at her hands where they were quietly clasped in her lap. "Then you are fortunate," was all she said.

There was a brief silence. I wanted very much to tell her that I had fallen in love with her husband but I knew that she was far above me. She was a woman whose spirit had been hammered and forged until she could only ring true. Compared with the rest of us she was silver, while we were pewter, a common mixture of lead and tin.

The great double doors swung open. "His Majesty the king!" the herald announced and Henry strolled into the room. "I am come to lead you into dinner," he started, and then he saw me and stopped in his tracks. The queen's considering gaze flicked from his transfixed face to mine and back again.

"Mary," he exclaimed.

I forgot even to curtsy. I just stared at him.

A little warning tut from Anne failed to recall me. The king crossed the room in three long strides and took my hands in his, and held them to his chest. I felt the scratch of his embroidered doublet under my fingers, the caress of his silk shirt through the slashings.

"My love," he said in a low whisper. "You are welcome back to court."

"I thank you..."

"They told me that you were sent away to learn a lesson. Did I do right to say you could come back unlearned?"

"Yes. Yes. Perfectly right," I stumbled.

"You were not scolded?" he pressed.

I gave a little laugh and looked up at his intent blue gaze. "No. They were a little cross with me, but that was all."

"You wanted to come back to court?"

"Oh yes."

The queen rose to her feet. "So. Let us go to dinner, ladies," she said generally. Henry threw a quick glance at her over his shoulder. She held out her hand to him, imperious as a daughter of Spain. He turned to her with the old habit of devotion and obedience and I could not think how to recapture him. I stepped behind her and bent low to arrange the train of her gown while she stood, queenly; despite her stockiness, beautiful; despite the weariness in her face.

"Thank you, Mistress Carey," she said gently. And then she led us in to dinner with her hand resting lightly on her husband's arm, and he inclined his head to her to hear something she said, and he did not look back at me again.

George greeted me at the end of dinner, strolling to the queen's table where we ladies were seated with wine and sweetmeats before us. He brought me a sugared plum. "Sweets for the sweet," he said, planting a kiss on my forehead.

"Oh George," I said. "Thank you for your note."

"You were bombarding me with desperate cries," he said. "Three letters I got from you in the first week. Was it so awful?"

"The first week was," I said. "But then I became accustomed. By the end of the first month I was rather taking to the country life."

"Well, we all did our best for you here," he said.

"Is Uncle at court?" I asked, looking around. "I don't see him."

"No, in London with Wolsey. But he knows all that is going on, don't you worry. He said to tell you that he will be hearing reports of you and he trusts you now know how to behave."

Jane Parker leaned across the table. "Are you going to be a lady in waiting?" she asked George. "For you are sitting at our table and on a lady's stool."

George rose unhurriedly. "I beg your pardon, ladies. I did not mean to intrude."

Half a dozen voices a.s.sured him that he did not intrude. My brother was a handsome young man and a popular visitor to the queen's rooms. No one but his sour-tongued betrothed objected to him joining our table.

He bowed over her hand. "Mistress Parker, thank you for reminding me to leave you," he said courteously, his irritation clear behind his sweet tones. He bent and kissed me firmly on the lips. "G.o.d speed you, little Marianne," he whispered in my ear. "You are carrying the hopes of your family."

I caught his hand as he was about to go. "Wait, George, I wanted to ask you something."

He turned back. "What?"

I tugged at his hand to make him lean down to me so that I could whisper in his ear. "Do you think that he loves me?"

"Oh," he said, straightening up. "Oh, love."

"Well, do you?"

He shrugged. "Whatever does it mean? We write poems about it all day and sing songs about it all night but if there is such a thing in real life I'm d.a.m.ned if I know."

"Oh George!"

"He wants you, I can tell you that. He's prepared to go through a degree of trouble to have you. If that means love to you then yes, he loves you."

"That's enough for me," I said with quiet satisfaction. "Wants me, and is prepared to go through a degree of trouble. That sounds like love to me."

My handsome brother bowed. "If you say so, Mary. If that is good enough for you." He straightened up and immediately stepped back. "Your Majesty."

The king stood before me. "George, I cannot allow you to spend the evening talking to your sister, you are the envy of the court."

"I am," George said with all his courtier charm. "Two beautiful sisters and not a care in the world."

"I thought we should have some dancing," the king said. "Will you lead out Mistress Boleyn and I will take care of Mistress Carey, here?"

"I should be delighted," George said. Without looking around for her, he snapped his fingers and, alert as ever, Anne appeared at his side.

"We're to dance," he said shortly.

The king waved his hand and the musicians struck up a quick country dance so we arranged ourselves in a ring of eight people and started the flowing steps first one way then the other. At the opposite side of the circle I saw George's familiar beloved face and, beside him, Anne's smooth smile. She looked as she did when she was studying a new book. She was reading the king's mood as carefully as she might look at a psalter. She was looking from him to me as if to measure the urgency of his desire. And, while never turning her head, she was checking the mood of the queen, trying to get an idea of what she had seen or what she felt.

I smiled to myself. Anne had met her match in the queen, I thought. No one could penetrate beneath the veneer of the daughter of Spain. Anne was a courtier beyond all others but she had been born a commoner. Queen Katherine had been born a princess. From the moment she could talk she had been taught to guard her tongue. From the moment she could walk she had been taught to step carefully and speak kindly to both rich and poor, for you never knew when you might need both rich and poor. Queen Katherine had been a player in a highly compet.i.tive, highly wealthy court before Anne had even been born.

Anne might look around all she liked to see how the queen was bearing up under the sight of me, close to the king, our gazes locked on each other, desire very hot between us. Anne might look; but the queen never betrayed any emotion more than polite interest. She clapped at the end of the dances and once or twice cried out congratulations. And then suddenly the dance ended, and Henry and I were left stranded without musicians playing, without other dancers encircling us and hiding us. We were left alone, exposed, still handclasped with his eyes on my face and me looking up at him in silence, locked together as if we might stay that way forever.

"Bravo," said the queen, her voice completely steady and confident. "Very pretty."

"He'll send for you," Anne said that night as we undressed in the room. She shook out her dress and laid it carefully in the chest at the foot of the bed, her hood at the other end, her shoes carefully set side by side under the bed. She pulled on her night shift and sat before the mirror to brush her hair.

She handed the brush to me and she closed her eyes as I set about the long strokes from head to waist.

"Perhaps tonight, perhaps during the day tomorrow. You'll go."

"Of course I'll go," I said.

"Well, remember who you are," Anne warned. "Don't let him just have you in a doorway or somewhere hidden and hurried. Insist on proper rooms, insist on a proper bed."

"I'll see," I said.

"It's important," she cautioned me. "If he thinks he can take you like a s.l.u.t then he'll have you and forget you. If anything, I think you should hold out a little longer. If he thinks you're too easy he'll not have you more than once or twice."

I took her soft hanks of hair in my hand and plaited them.

"Ow," she complained. "You're pulling."

"Well, you're nagging," I said. "Leave me to do it my way, Anne. I've not done so badly so far."

"Oh that." She shrugged her white shoulders and smiled at her reflection in the mirror. "Anyone can attract a man. The trick is to keep him."

The knock at the door startled us both. Anne's dark eyes flew to the mirror, to my reflected image looking blankly back at her.

"Not the king?"

I was already opening the door.

George was standing there, in the red suede doublet he had worn at dinner, the white fine linen shirt gleaming through the slashings, the red cap embroidered with pearls on his dark head.

"Vivat! Vivat Marianne!" He came quickly in and closed the door behind him. "He asked me to invite you to take a gla.s.s of wine with him. I'm to apologize for the lateness of the hour, the Venetian amba.s.sador has only just left. They talked of nothing but war with France and now he is filled with pa.s.sion for England, Henry and St. George. I'm to a.s.sure you that you're free to make your choice. You can take a gla.s.s of wine and come back to your own bed. You're to be your own mistress."

"Any offer?" Anne asked.

George raised a supercilious eyebrow. "Show a little elegance," he reprimanded her. "He's not buying her outright. He's inviting her for a gla.s.s of wine. We'll fix the price later on."

I put my hand to my head. "My hood!" I exclaimed. "Anne, quick! Plait up my hair."

She shook her head. "Go as you are," she said. "With your hair down around your shoulders. You look like a virgin on your wedding day. I'm right, aren't I, George? That's what he wants."

He nodded. "She's lovely like that. Loosen her bodice a bit."

"She's supposed to be a lady."

"Just a bit," he suggested. "A man likes a glimpse of what he's buying."

Anne untied the laces at the back of my bodice until the boned stomacher was a little looser. She tugged it down at the waist so it sat lower and more invitingly. George nodded. "Perfect."

She stepped back and looked at me as critically as my father had looked at the mare he had sent to the stallion. "Anything else?"

George shook his head.

"She'd better wash," Anne suddenly decided. "Under her arms and her cunny at least."

I would have appealed to George. But he was nodding, as intent as a farmer. "Yes, you should. He has a horror of anything rank."

"Go on." Anne gestured to the jug and ewer.

"You two go out," I said.

George turned for the door. "We'll wait outside."

"And your b.u.m," Anne said as he closed the door. "Don't skimp on it, Mary. You've got to be clean all over."

The closing door cut off my response which was not that of a young lady. I washed myself briskly in cold water and rubbed myself dry. I took some of Anne's flower water and patted it on my neck and hair and on the tops of my legs. Then I opened the door.

"Are you clean?" Anne asked sharply.

I nodded.

She looked at me anxiously. "Go on then. And you can resist for a bit, you know. Show a little doubt. Don't just fall into his arms."

I turned my face away from her. She seemed to me quite unbearably cra.s.s about the whole matter.

"The girl can have a bit of pleasure," George said gently.

Anne rounded on him. "Not in his bed," she said sharply. "She's not there for her pleasure but for his."

I didn't even hear her. All I could hear was the thud of my heart pounding in my ears and my knowledge that he had sent for me, that I would be with him soon.

"Come on," I said to George. "Let's go."

Anne turned to go back into the room. "I'll wait up for you," she said.

I hesitated. "I might not come back tonight."