The Taming of the Queen Read Online Free PDF Page A

bedchamber, silently in chapel, or even desperately whenever I am alone for a moment. In the dark hours before the early summer dawn, when I am feverish and sleepless, I think that I have conquered my desire for Thomas, but when I wake in the morning I am aching for his touch. I never pray that he will come for me. I know that he cannot. I know that he must not. But still, every time the door of the chapel opens behind me, my heart leaps because I think it is him. I can almost see him, standing in the bright doorway, I can almost hear him saying: ‘Come, Kateryn, come away!’ That’s when I twist the beads of the rosary in my hands and pray that God will send me some accident, some terrible catastrophe, to stop my wedding day.
    ‘But what could that be but the death of the king?’ Nan demands.
    I look blankly at her.
    ‘It’s treason to think of it,’ she reminds me, her voice low under the hum of the liturgy from the choir stalls. ‘And treason to say it. You cannot pray for his death, Kateryn. He has asked you to be his wife and you have consented. It’s disloyal as a subject and as a wife.’
    I bow my head against her reproach; but she is right. It must be a sin to pray for the death of another, even of your worst enemy. An army going into battle should pray for as few deaths as possible even while they prepare themselves to do their duty. Like them, I must prepare myself to do my duty, risking myself. And besides, he is not my worst enemy. He is constantly kind and indulgent, he tells me that he is in love with me, that I will be everything to him. He is my king, the greatest king that England has ever had. I used to dream about him when I was a girl and my mother would tell me of the handsome young king and his horses and his suits of cloth of gold, and his daring. I cannot wish him ill. I should be praying for his health, for his happiness, for a long life for him. I should be praying for many years of married life with him, I should be praying that I can make him happy.
    ‘You look terrible,’ Nan says bluntly. ‘Can’t you sleep?’
    ‘No.’ I have been getting up all through the night to pray that I shall be spared.
    ‘You have to sleep,’ she rules. ‘And eat. You’re the most beautiful woman at court, there’s nobody even comes near you. Mary Howard and Catherine Brandon are nothing beside you. God gave you the gift of great beauty: don’t throw it away. And don’t think that if you lose your looks he’ll desert you. Once he decides on something he never changes his mind, even when half of England is against him . . .’ She breaks off and corrects herself with a little laugh, ‘Unless of course – suddenly – he does, and everything is upside down and he is determined on the opposite course and no-one can persuade him otherwise.’
    ‘But when does he change his mind?’ I ask her. ‘Why?’
    ‘In a moment,’ she says. ‘In a heartbeat. But never that you could predict.’
    I shake my head. ‘But how does anyone manage? With a changeable king? With a slippery king?’
    ‘Some don’t,’ she says shortly.
    ‘If I can’t pray to be spared, what can I pray for?’ I ask. ‘Resignation?’
    She shakes her head. ‘I was talking to my husband, Herbert. He said to me that he thinks that you have been sent by God.’
    At once I giggle. Nan’s husband, William, has never troubled much about me before. I measure my growing importance in the world if now he realises that I am a heavenly messenger.
    But Nan is not laughing. ‘Truly he does. You have come at the very moment that we need a devout queen. You will save the king from sliding back to Rome. The old churchmen have the king’s ear. They warn him that the country is not just demanding reform but becoming Lutheran, completely heretical. They are frightening him back to Rome, and turning him against his own people. They are taking the Bible from the churches of England so that people cannot read the Word of God for themselves.