The Autobiography of Henry VIII_ With Notes by His Fool, Will Somers - Margaret George [184]
The lingering lust on his face was replaced by the original greed. He chose cloth-of-gold, patterned with scarlet threads running crosswise. It would make him appear golden and shining all over, a god of youth.
Envy tore through me. As you are now, so once was I....
My bulky figure glistened back at me from the mirror. As I am now, so shall you be.... I finished the lines with fierce satisfaction. Preen and prance and love your cloth-of-gold looks now, my lad, they can’t last, they never do. I kept mine longer than any man has a right to, but they’re gone and there’s no bringing them back. Damn you! You don’t believe I was once magnificent, do you? Wolsey, Katherine, they would tell you, but they’re dead....
“Enjoy it, Culpepper,” I said, indicating the material.
LXXXV
It was time to talk to Crum. Crum, who had evidently never known a human passion, and so could never mourn its passing. Jolly, sensible Crum. Lately I had come to envy him, had come to believe that I had been cursed in the nature I had—always yearning, always feeling, always hurting. I wondered what it must be like to go through life as Crum, taking things only as they are, neither less nor more. Well, his sensible head would help me choose the Queen’s new household.
“It has been a long time since a brand-new household was set up,” he observed. “The seven years between Your Grace’s mother’s death and Queen Katherine’s Coronation were the last long period England was without a Queen.” He tactfully did not state the obvious: that for a long time I had had two Queens simultaneously, and my widowerhood after Anne’s death had lasted exactly one day. Probably he thought nothing of it, made no moral judgment. A rare man, Crum.
“Today I have a new palace to offer her, one no Queen has ever set foot in—Nonsuch. I would assure that the Queen’s royal apartments be readied in time to receive my bride in January.”
“We must make the assignments for her English servitors,” Crum said. “She brings only ten Flemish ont>
Approaching the grey stones, now sleek with ice, I felt my heart pounding so loudly it sounded, in my ears, like the beating of a falcon’s wings, just as he leaves the wrist. Be quiet, be quiet, be calm ... no, do not! Soar all you like, my sweeting.
Into the castle, past the stunned guards. All was quiet, most of the castle empty, drained into the Great Hall, where everyone was gathered on this second day of 1540, drinking, talking. I bade my party join them, and forbade anyone to follow me as I sought out the Lady Anne. They obeyed.
Now I made my way to the great Privy Chamber, wherein Anne was presumed to be, the passage leading up to the door so dark that I had to grope along, feeling as if I were participating in a masque, in an intricately staged New Year’s entertainment, as I had done so many times before.
The hard iron of the chamber door was unyielding, stiff. I wrenched it, and it shrieked, like a witch’s cry, and the door swung slowly, slowly open. I felt the hairs on my scalp rising, tingling, with the suspense of that groaning, sliding door....
Her dress was of cloth-of-gold. Magnificent! Her back was to me, as she gazed out the tiny, slitted window onto the white landscape below.
“Anne!” I cried.
She jumped, then jerked round. I could see nothing of her, as the light was coming from directly behind her. She made no sound beyond a horrified gasp of terror.
My long brown woollen cloak! I had forgotten to remove it, and now stood before her dressed like a highwayman. No wonder she feared me—feared for her life. I ripped it off me and stood before her, in my golden and green robes of state.
“Anne!” I cried in joy. “It is I, King Henry!”
She screamed, then clapped her hands over her mouth. “Herr steh mir bei! Wie in aller Welt—!”
She did not recognize me. “I am Henry, the King!” I repeated.
A woman came scurrying in from the adjoining chamber, along with a guard. The guard, whose face looked young but who had the body of an old hog, bowed. Then he jabbered something in the ugliest language