The Rose Without a Thorn Read Online Free PDF Page A

bed and peep through the curtains and look at the girls and men laughing, whispering and fondling each other.
    Life was very different here from that in my father’s house, but, of course, there had not been all these young men and women in the service of the household, and I had not been able to observe how people behaved when they grew up.
    When my grandmother sent for me, I went to her in some trepidation, for I feared she was going to find some fault with me and decide she did not want me to remain in her house.
    I had begun to think that she had forgotten all about me, and was hoping that this was so, but now I knew that this could not be the case as she had sent for me. I realized that I did not want to leave. Life here fascinated me, particularly the night scenes I witnessed through the bed curtains. I sometimes wished that I could go out there and join in the fun which they seemed to enjoy so much.
    As I approached my grandmother’s apartments, I heard music. I rapped on the door and, as there was no command to enter, timidly I lifted the latch and walked in.
    My grandmother was seated on her chair, as she had been on our first encounter in that room. Beside her was a table on which was a tray of sweetmeats. She was eating—presumably one of them—and on a stool nearby her sat a young man playing the lute.
    He was beautiful, I thought, with dark hair falling about his face, almost to his shoulders, in graceful curls. He went on strumming and, glancing at me, gave me a very warm smile.
    My grandmother said: “ ’Tis Katherine Howard. Come here, child.”
    “Your Grace sent for me,” I said.
    “Did I?”
    As she had apparently forgotten, I wondered whether I had been wrong to come.
    “Silence, Manox,” she said to the musician, who immediately bowed his head and let his hands fall from the lute.
    She took a sweetmeat from the bowl and threw it toward him; he caught it with graceful dexterity and put it into his mouth.
    He then stood up, and said: “Your Grace would dismiss me?”
    She considered for a moment, then she said: “Nay, nay. I would hear you play a tune for me. One that my granddaughter, the Lady Anne, will be listening to at Court. So … Manox, stay.”
    “I thank Your Grace,” he said with great respect, but he was looking at me.
    “Now, Katherine Howard,” she went on. “Your new gown becomes you. You look more as Mistress Katherine Howard should than when you came here. And the women look after you well?”
    “Isabel does, Your Grace.”
    “And behaves to you as she should toward my granddaughter?”
    “I … I think so, Your Grace.”
    “You must always remember that you are a Howard. More so now that our star is rising high. You are the Lady Anne’s cousin and great things will come to her, and through her to us. Come closer, child, where I can see you better. Yes, there is a faint resemblance. Of course, she is a fine lady. She has been well tutored. All those years in France. There is no gainsaying that there is something about the French. They are our natural enemies, but that does not mean they have not a certain elegance. The Lady Anne likes well the French fashions. Those hangingsleeves. She only has to wear them and others follow. French fashions are everywhere at Court. I shall be leaving for Lambeth soon. I trust it is just a matter of settling this ‘secret matter.’ Secret no longer. We all know of it. You know of it, Manox, do you not?”
    “Oh yes, Your Grace.”
    “And is not our Katherine Howard a little like the Lady Anne? I thought I detected a resemblance when I saw her. Have you seen the Lady Anne, Manox?”
    “I glimpsed the lady when she called upon Your Grace recently.”
    “And did you see what I mean? Cousins of the blood, they are.”
    “Yes, indeed, Your Grace. There is a shared excellence. They both are blessed with beauty of a distinctive kind.”
    “Beauty. Bah! Many girls have beauty. There is that extra … the Howard look. Do you see what I