The Autobiography of Henry VIII_ With Notes by His Fool, Will Somers - Margaret George [193]
Now I relied on him more and more, telling myself that I must not, as to place so much trust and need on a single person was to court Fate overmuch. I had only to remember Wolsey, More, and Jane herself.
He stood before me in the work chamber, in his ordinary clothes. He seldom wore cap and bells anymore, as the costume offended his sensibilities and was necessary only if he performed in public. Before me, at eleven in the morning, it would have been absurd.
“Will,” I muttered, “I am utterly lost, forlorn.”
His dark quick eyes searched mine. “No, Hal”—he preferred to call me Hal, as no one else ever did—“you are bored. Call it by its proper name.”
“What is boredom, then? Define it for me.” Already boredom had flown, at Will’s magic touch.
“Boredom is that awful state of inaction when the very medicine—that is, activity—which could resolve it, is seen as odious. Archery? It is too cold, and besides, the butts need re-covering; the rats have been at the straw. Music? To hear it is tedious; to compose it, too taxing. And so on. Of all the afflictions, boredom is ultimately the most un-manning. Eventually it transforms you into a great nothing who does nothing—a cousin to sloth and a brother to melancholy.”
“You make it sound romantic, and doomed.”
He shrugged. “It can be. The odd thing about it is that it is so easily cured. One need only force himself to perform the ‘boring’ acti wood pattern that one had stared at when at a certain hurtful juncture at one’s life. Without these, ghosts were flown. Katherine had been here; Anne, too. Jane as maid of honour. Each of them had made the place so different, in her own time, that it seemed surrounded by different bricks; it seemed the windows should give out on different views.
I glanced out the east window from the Queen’s Privy Chamber. The same Thames flowed by, rushing now and swollen with the spring waters. I looked about me, rejoicing in the bare boards and open rooms. I always became excited at new beginnings, and that was what empty rooms meant to me.
Within my mind I heard music—vanished music from other rooms, other times. Such was my mood that morning that I did not question it but stood and listened. Slow, long, plaintive ... things that once had been, but were no more ... it had a sad beauty all its own.
They were real notes, though. A false one was struck, whereas a false one was never struck in memory....
I moved forward, turning my head. The sound was stronger in my left ear. It was coming from the rooms deeper within the Queen’s suite. I passed through the audience chamber, through the outer council chamber. The sound was richer. I stood in the entranceway that branched to both the left and the right, and I could not discern from whence the sound came. I waited some moments, holding my breath. My ears did not decide for me, but my intellect. I knew (being one, myself) that musicians always preferred natural light to artificial. Windows lined the left side of the Queen’s apartments, letting in God’s light. Therefore I went to the left, and—
Stopped absolutely, my breath frozen, movements arrested, while my mind recorded for all time the sight of a great, ivory-keyed virginal, all naked in a stripped room, with Mistress Catherine Howard leaning against it, picking out notes. I watched her labouring, alone in the room, an expression of pure delight on her face. I knew what it meant to be left alone for a whole day to play a new instrument, to learn and master it with no one listening. It surpassed sensuality, it surpassed almost all other experiences.
Each note sounded out loud and clear, flinging itself jubilantly into the spring air. I stood, hidden, as long as I dared. Then I felt it was deceitful, so to intrude and spy on an artist’s solitude, and I stepped out boldly.
“Mistress Howard,” I said simply, making my way across