“Things have changed. It is far more suitable now that you take a more dignified position. Remember your years and the wrath of God. You are not to dance. Not in the hall, not in these chambers.”
Everyone waited for her response, but Queen Catherine was quiet.
King Henry took her silence as acquiescence. “Good. That is understood. Then I shall bid you goodnight.”
No one rose until he had left. The women exchanged glances, sensible of the blow that had just been inflicted.
Maria Willoughby went towards Catherine and helped her to her feet. “My Lady?”
But the rosy face had turned pale. The dancing, glittering Catherine had turned cold. “Maria, stay and help me into bed. The rest of you, go.”
“Oh, my Lady,” began Lady Mary, her sympathetic heart reaching out to Catherine.
“Go, I say, go!” There was steel in her tone.
Thomasin dared not wait. The women hurried out of the bedchamber into the anteroom, where the truckle beds were being pulled out.
“That was cruel,” said Ellen, “such a cruel thing to say.”
“He might have just kept his tongue,” added Lady Mary. “The mistress is quite broken by it.”
“She was so happy before. I have never seen her so happy.”
Lady Mary nodded. “Where is his compassion for a woman he once loved? The woman who bore him so many children?”
The chamber door clicked. Thomasin turned to see Lady Howard being admitted by the guards. She looked at the gathered women quickly and read their mood.
“I passed the king. What has happened?”
Lady Mary frowned at her. “You would know if you had been here, attending to the queen.”
At once, the pert little figure stiffened. “Countess, it is not your place to speak thus to a duchess.”
But Lady Mary simply turned her back and began to unfold blankets.
Lady Howard went to the queen’s closed door and rapped on it sharply. Maria Willoughby appeared, but solemnly shook her head, sending the woman away with a flushed face. Lady Howard turned back to the room, feeling the other women’s eyes on her.
“The queen does not require me tonight,” she announced, “so I will sleep in the Howard chambers and return in the morning.”
Lady Mary stared down at her blankets. No one else spoke. Thomasin busied herself with the layout of the truckles.
The door closed.
Lady Mary stood up, flexed her back and breathed a sigh of relief. “I remember his first wife,” she said. “Anne of York, daughter of King Edward IV. She was the sister to the king’s long-dead mother, God rest her soul. Anne and I were born within a twelvemonth of each other and were girls together at court. She was so kind, so thoughtful, such a gracious lady. She never had a cross word to say to anyone.”
“What happened to her?”
“It was a good match for him, but they were not happy. I could see it in her face. And like our dear queen, she suffered from the loss of many children. Four, if I recall, lost at birth or soon after.”
“That is very sad.”
“Her health was never good either. She died of some complaint in her mid-thirties. I was a chief mourner at her funeral. Sir Thomas married just over a year later. That one —” she nodded at the door after Lady Howard — “was only fifteen at the time of the wedding and had already been promised to someone else.”
“Only fifteen?”
Thomasin was only eighteen herself, and the idea of having been married for the past three years filled her with horror.
“She was in love with the Duke of Westmorland, her father’s ward, and it was long understood that they would be a match; then Sir Thomas Howard swept in and took a fancy to her.”
