Thomasin felt the indignity of meeting like this, wishing she had arranged it differently.
“Thomasin Marwood?” Anne Boleyn said suspiciously.
For a moment, Thomasin was struck dumb. But she told herself that at least this was an opportunity to deliver the letter, then she need have no more dealings with Anne. She reached inside her sleeve.
“Danvers told me that you were waiting for me, but I think he must have been mistaken, surely?” Anne laughed. “Because there is nothing thatyou, Mistress Marwood, could have to say tome.”
Thomasin drew in her breath at Anne’s rudeness. To add to her confusion, Queen Catherine paused in the doorway, seeing the parted curtains.
“Well?” Anne demanded, without seeing the queen behind her. “What is it you could have possibly wanted to say to me?”
Even Rafe blushed at her tone.
It was impossible to deliver the letter now. Thomasin had to think quickly.
“You are right,” she said, loudly enough for Catherine to hear. “I am waiting here to accompany my Mistress to her chamber. If you would please excuse me.”
“My apologies, my Lady,” she heard Rafe say to Anne, “I must have misunderstood Mistress Marwood’s situation.”
Without waiting for an answer, Thomasin hurried away and dropped a curtsey before Queen Catherine. Maria Willoughby raised her eyes in a question, but there was no time to explain now — better to let her think there had been a miscommunication.
The queen smiled, still glowing from her earlier triumph. “Thank you for waiting, Mistress Marwood. I am well-appointed with caring ladies. Let us depart.”
As she walked away, carrying Catherine’s long gold train, Thomasin could feel Anne’s eyes shooting daggers into her back. If Anne had not already loathed Thomasin, she surely did now.
The queen’s chambers had been prepared for her bedtime routine by the time they had slowly climbed the stairs.
Catherine stood quietly as her ladies undressed her. The dazzling costume was being dismantled, piece by piece. Slippers and stockings, headdress and pins, mountains of skirts. The sequins glinted in the candlelight. Each item was folded and stored in the chest, revealing the tired, grey-haired queen in her simple white shift beneath it all.
“You were the centre of the hall; all eyes were upon you,” said little Catherine Willoughby, dancing about the floor in delight.
“I was, wasn’t I?” Queen Catherine smiled at the child’s excitement.
“It was like you were the sun, bright as day.” The little girl skipped around the chest, watching it fill with gold: sequins, fabric, ribbons.
“Come, Catherine,” called her mother, “fetch the brush then get yourself ready for bed.”
When her daughter had passed over the silver-handled brush, Maria Willoughby teased out the queen’s long hair, thin and greying. She drew out the tangles, stroke by stroke until it lay soft and fine about her shoulders like silk. Thomasin and Ellen’s job that evening was to smooth down the sheets on Catherine’s bed, wiping away any remaining traces of the lavender that had been used to refresh it. Ellen gathered the pillows and plumped them up, while Lady Mary fetched her nightgown.
They had little warning when the king strode into the chamber. Henry had appeared silently, unannounced, breaching protocol by entering Catherine’s private rooms without knocking. He was the king, Thomasin reminded herself, so technically these chambers were his and he might do as he pleased, but it was still intrusive, especially at such a late hour.
The women froze, dropping into curtseys at once. This did not bode well.
King Henry surveyed the scene. Thomasin could see his trimmed ginger beard with its grey flecks, his small blue eyes, his red, bullish throat. Once she had feared that this man might be her father, but she no longer felt that was a possibility.
“Madam,” he said shortly, “that was quite a performance.”
Thomasin was amazed. Had he come here to compliment Catherine? Had her intention to impress him yielded such immediate results?
“Thank you, my Lord.” Queen Catherine raised her eyes.
“But it must not happen again. Given your position and age, it is not seemly for you to appear in such a role, or in any masque. Your appearances in public must be sombre and dignified, nothing else.”
The women were all struck by a terrible realisation.
Thomasin willed that Catherine would not reply, would not try to argue her position.
“But my Lord, I have always…”
