The Autobiography of Henry VIII_ With Notes by His Fool, Will Somers - Margaret George [195]
I wanted to laugh, but it never came.
“There are those who, I’m told, can actually strike a bargain with Satan. They sit down and work out a contract with him, just as you do with the money-lenders of Antwerp. ‘So-and-so much interest to be paid on the loan of twenty thousand pounds, due on Whitsun of 1542,’ you say, and it is done. ‘My soul in exchange for such-and-such,’ they say, and it is done. Cromwell appears to have—I mean, there are so many signs—”
He meant it. All the playfulness and deceit was gone from his face.
“My dear son, you—”
“Catherine!” said Surrey, as if a spell were being broken. Catherine had seen us deep in talk, and come over. She tugged playfully at her cousin’s arm.
“They are taking seats,” she chided him, “and you will not be able to see.”
Her presence took us out of that dangerous realm where we had entered, just for a moment. She grinned up at Surrey. They were cousins, first cousins. I could see little resemblance between them. Surrey was slender and blonde, Catherine small and auburn-haired. Both had pale skin, that was all.
I reached out my arm to her, and together we found seats and prepared to listen to a series of compositions performed on a reed instrument by a young man from Cornwall.
He was small and dark, like all his people. The melodies were haunting, dreamlike, unlike anything I had heard before. They spoke to a soft, lost side of myself.
Afterwards I talked to him. I had a bit of trouble understanding his accent, as his mother tongue was Cornish. I complimented him on his musicianship and enquired after the sources of his melodies.
“I modelled them on native melodies, Your Grace,” he said. “There are similar tunes across the sea in Brittany,” he added. “Often my father and I cross there, and while he does his business, I do mine.”
“And what is his business?”
“He is a fisherman, Your Grace.”
“And yours?”
“A musician.”
“And only that?”
“Aye. It’s what I’m called to.”
“But what of your father’s trade?”
He shrugged. “Perhaps somewhere a musician/div>
She reached out and slid her hand along my cheek. The faint light from the boatmen’s torches lit the left side of her face—a half-mask.
“You are a half moon,” I murmured, leaning over to kiss her. She returned that kiss heartily, hungrily, sweetly. I quivered, shuddered, erupted with desire.
“Nay, nay—” she was whispering, her voice rising in urgency. “My Lord!”
I was ashamed. I had frightened her, threatened her chastity. “Forgive me,” I said. My breath was still coming in short gasps.
She drew her cloak around her. Jesu, how could I have insulted her so? She was crying.
“Catherine, I meant no harm. But this—this is unnatural.” At that moment I knew it, felt it. “We must be wed straightway. It is meant to be. No more standing before the Thames, alive with longing.” Even the slap-slap-slap of the water against the riverbank sounded sexual to me. “I will speak to Cromwell tomorrow.”
Still she kept her face buried in her cloak, her shoulders hunched. I reached out a steadying hand. “Hush now.” I soothed her. When she had done crying, I put one arm around her and led her back to her waiting barge. She leaned against me all the way, and yet when the time came to play her part to her waiting uncle Norfolk, she smiled gaily and threw off the hood of the cloak as she joined him in the Howard barge.
Her cousin Surrey, the Lady Norris, Mary, widow of my lost son Fitzroy: all the Howard youngsters awaited her in the barge, and she outshone them all. As the rowers pulled away from the riverbanks, and the sound of music and the faint lantern light echoed and reflected on the water, I wondered what it was to belong to such a great tribal family, and how it felt.
XC
I awoke well before dawn, savouring the spring sweetness. Every hour seemed precious now, every aspect of the day steeped in a rare