The Autobiography of Henry VIII_ With Notes by His Fool, Will Somers - Margaret George [123]
“Magnificent, Your Grace.” Chapuys came perilously near, his sparkling eyes seeking any idiosyncrasy that might betray a person’s weakness. I reined in a little to the right, keeping him well away from my leg, laughing nonchalantly all the while. “I am impressed by your devoutness. To make a pilgrimage in January is highly unusual—and must betoken a need of some sort.”
I felt anger burst in me like sparks from a dry log. He knew! No, impossible. He merely tried me, probing to see where my weakness lay. “I go to inspect the ‘holy’ site before deciding its fate. I would be loth to condemn anything without a hearing.”
“As you did the Queen? Riding away that July morning and never seeing her in person again?”
I sighed. Our little round-robin concerning “the Queen” was to begin again. It had a number of set lines:
I: I assure you, I left no Queen behind at Windsor.
Chapuys: I assure you, you did. A grieving Queen who loves you sore.
I: I do not understand. Oh—you are referring, perhaps, to the Princess Dowager?
Chapuys: Nay, to the Queen.
And so on. The exchange had once been mildly amusing. Now, like so many other things, it had become tedious and irritating to me. Perhaps we should have the lines copied out on two cards such as actors use, so the next time we met we could merely exchange them and be done with it.
I cut off his amiable baiting. “You will see her dwidth=h in the presence of witnesses. The scroll would not list their reasons, merely their names.
What would I do with those heaps of scrolls? For I did not delude myself that they would be returned to the palace blank.
The sky was clear, the sun small and shrunken, like a withered apple. Nothing was alive on the land; there was no movement anywhere. How easy to believe that this reflected the state of the kingdom: silent and suspended. It did; but by May all would be altered.
Chapuys moved close to me again. “My knee feels a sudden ache,” he said. “There will be a change in the weather, I fear.”
How womanish southerners were! Coming from a land of pomegranates and soft breezes, they could not endure the shift of a breeze. Or was this a trick, an excuse to gallop ahead to Beaulieu House, to speak with Mary in private? How transparent he was.
I patted my silver flask, filled with a blood-warming drink from Ireland called uisgebeatha. I handed it to Chapuys. “Drink this. It will stifle your knee.”
He took a draught and wheezed. “ ’Tis poison!”
“Not to the Irish, so I am told.”
Chapuys shook his head. “My knee—I beg you, it tells the truth. I suggest we seek shelter—”
The sky was ringing clear. “What, in broad daylight? We have another five hours of good riding ahead of us,” I assured him.
On we went, stopping for a brief rest and refreshment, then continuing, to make the most of the short winter day. The sun swung over and behind us, throwing long shadows before us.
And then the shadows faded, although the sun had not set. Exactly when this happened I know not—only that I suddenly became aware that we had been shadowless for some time, heading into a blue twilight. Then I turned and saw it: a great woolly blanket of clouds swathing the sun, and the wind running before it, stinging cold. And hanging from the cloud like a weighty grey curtain was the snow, moving faster than any horse could gallop. It would catch us in less than an hour.
My hands shook, and I felt colder inside than the wind on my face. There was nothing around us—no village, no manor house, not even a peasants’ dwelling. I had exulted in the stark open spaces we had passed through since