“From the lady Anne?” Mendoza raised his straggling eyebrows. “I will add that to my prayers.”
They were nearing the gate, where the carved arch bore the royal arms. A short walk took them across the Upper Ward towards the privy steps that led up to the queen’s watching chamber.
A page in the queen’s livery hurried out and bowed low.
“What is it?” asked Catherine, always impatient for news.
“Please, My Lady, the Venetian ambassadors have confirmed their visit.”
“When?”
“Tomorrow. They will arrive between ten and noon.”
Catherine turned to the bishop with a look of triumph. “There. Ambassador. I am not quite forgotten. I am queen yet.”
He inclined his head with a smile. “As ever, My Lady.”
TWO
Footsteps and voices in the corridor outside roused Thomasin from her dreams. The waking hour was approaching at Windsor, and the early servants were bringing coal and wood to rekindle the fires. The light in the chamber was dim, and the air hung heavy with sleep and smoke.
Thomasin had been on duty at Catherine’s bedside. Once a week the women took turns to pass the night in the painted chamber, with its silver and gold drapes and the piles of embroidered cushions. They helped Catherine undress, prayed with her, and read to her fromThe Lives of the Saints, before sleeping on one of the low truckle beds that were hidden away during daylight hours.
Catherine had only woken twice, through discomfort, complaining of the aches in her bones and wanting her legs rubbed with salve. That smell of mint and thyme, that oily balm, belonged in Thomasin’s mind to the darkest midnight hours. But now that the daylight was streaming in, there was no time to notice her own stiff limbs, or the cold, or her thirst, as the maids brought in a bowl of water, soap and towels, and Catherine was calling for assistance to rise.
“Quickly,” she urged, “quick fingers today. We have much to do before the ambassadors arrive.”
Thomasin grappled with the material, arranging the skirts, smoothing out the hem, while her head still reeled with sleep.
Catherine was impatient. Although she stood perfectly still, statuesque, Thomasin could feel the tension in her body, the nervous desire to be active, to proceed with the day, with fate, with the future. “Come, come,” she urged, “I must away, to chapel, to chapel, to God.”
All around them, Windsor was waking. Thomasin and Ellen followed Catherine through the corridors, past great windows and paintings, grey in the morning light. Ahead of them, candles and tapers were lit, budding into life with welcome flames. They passed open doors where the workers dressed the castle’s chambers in their gaudy best: carpets were dusted and draped across tables, patterned with exotic designs; cushions were beaten until the dust rose out of them in clouds; carved chairs were positioned.
Dozens of hands unrolled and shook out the hangings of gold and silver; feet climbed ladders against wooden panelling and careful fingers hung the drapes from unseen hooks. Fabric billowed like sails, glinting in the dim light, descending in soft waves. Catherine’s coat of arms, embroidered upon red tissue, were given the central position behind the chair of estate. Passing through, Thomasin saw the special touches being made for the Venetians and felt a mounting sense of excitement.
It was necessary to cross the courtyard to reach the chapel. The wind was harsh and Thomasin shivered under her thin cloak. It was a hard climb up the steep steps, while sleep still clung about her, before they reached the cool mustiness of St George’s. Here, the bones of the king’s forebears lay in repose, and the air carried a sense of expectation.
Thomasin and Ellen joined the other waiting women kneeling in a semi-circle behind the queen, as Catherine prostrated herself before the altar. Candles flickered as she lay her forehead upon the cool stones. Thomasin had been surprised when she had first seen Catherine do this, but she had quickly learned it was her way. Catherine took her faith seriously, not merely as a virtue, but as an example of piety to be modelled for her people. It was her very core, her true devotion, that made her pray like this, for hours each day. She denied plates of food when she was fasting, and refused to sleep when she was keeping a vigil.
Thomasin knelt in the centre of the women, their heads respectfully bowed. Over the winter months, she had come to know the companions of her long hours at Catherine’s side; she shared with them her duties, her meals and her leisure hours. Beside Ellen, there was the dark-haired Gertrude, with her melancholy eyes and the stout, smiling Mary, who had advice for them all.
To her left knelt the Spanish Maria Willoughby, neé Salinas, who spoke in a rapid, lilting tongue, and whose English was still thick and stilted. Often, in the evening, Catherine slipped into her native Spanish, and their talk would race away into the past, before Catherine would remember herself, smile at her English companions and steer the conversation back. Finally, beside Thomasin herself was Maria’s young daughter, the nine-year-old Catherine, tiny and delicate like a little bird, whom Thomasin had met in Catherine’s rooms last year.
“Let me take your arm,” said Catherine to Thomasin, as she rose from prayer. “I feel unsteady; it is time to break my fast.”
They emerged from the chapel’s gloom. The sky had changed from a pale grey to broken clouds, static as they hung above. Descending in pairs, Thomasin noticed a figure in a dark, furred cloak, waiting at the bottom of the steps. The queen’s chamberlain, William Blount, Lord Mountjoy, was approaching his fifties, a man of gentle gravity and much learning whom Thomasin had found kind and fair to all. She had noted his friendship with Thomas More, on the handful of occasions when the scholar had visited Catherine’s court, riding over from Chelsea.
“My Lady.” The chamberlain bowed low.
“What is it, Mountjoy, that cannot wait?”
“I thought you would wish to know, My Lady, that the ambassadors have been sighted on the road.”
Catherine lost no composure. “I go to break my fast. Let them have wine and pastries in my watching chamber.”
“Very good, My Lady.”
And Catherine swept across the courtyard, like a galleon in sail, moments before the horsemen thundered up to the outer gate.
