She quickly pulled her gaze away from the Boleyns. “No, I wasn’t.”
Mary, Lady Essex, entered the hall and took a seat with them, arranging her skirts as if she had come in a hurry.
“Move along a bit, quickly, do. Lady Salisbury follows hard upon my heels, and she is none too pleased about it.”
“The queen sent her down here to dine?”
“She did indeed!” Lady Mary reached for the remains of the pork. “Although the countess almost begged to be allowed to stay upstairs. The queen said she wished to be alone with her daughter and dismissed her, so she sulked for a while in the antechamber, until her stomach got the better of her. Oh, here she is!”
The figure paused at the end of the hall. For a moment, Margaret Pole, Countess of Salisbury, surveyed the scene, with its laughing, feasting crowd. She was at too great a distance for Thomasin to see her expression, but she couldn’t help feeling an unexpected pang of sympathy for the woman, who was, after all, of royal blood. She was cousin to the king’s own mother, and her brother had been executed as a young man during the reign of Henry’s father. Margaret Plantagenet, as she had been then, had grown up at the Yorkist court, witnessed turbulent times, and seen loved ones depart in the most brutal of manners. It could not have been easy for her to stand there, alone, so disregarded.
“Someone should go to her and invite her to her place,” Thomasin said.
“But what is her place?” asked Lady Mary. “Royal but not quite royal enough. The ghost of a past era.”
“We should invite her to sit with us, as a courtesy,” said Thomasin. “I will do it. I can’t bear to see her lingering like that.”
“You are kinder than I,” said Ellen, blankly.
“She will not like it.” Lady Mary shook her head. “She thinks herself too good to sit with the likes of us.”
“But I should still offer it,” Thomasin insisted, despite herself, preparing to rise to her feet.
Her kindness proved unnecessary, though, for at that moment, Lady Salisbury was spotted by the king himself. Henry rose to his feet and extended his hand.
“Cousin,” he called down the length of the hall. “You are welcome to court.”
All eyes turned towards the woman at the end, even those of the Boleyns.
Now Lady Salisbury was on safer ground. Court protocol had set in and the king’s olive branch drew her forwards. She walked in a stately manner towards the top table and dropped a deep curtsey; she who had curtseyed to the kings, dukes and lords of former eras. Who had danced, as a child, at the glittering, stylish court of the king’s own grandfather, the legendary Edward IV. What did she make of this new court, this new world, with all its challenging ideas?
Thomasin resumed her seat.
“There,” said Ellen, “you are spared that duty.”
Henry invited his cousin to take a seat close to him at the top table, which she did with something between gratitude and modesty, placing herself daintily beside the chair that was usually occupied by the queen. Thomasin strained to hear their conversation, but fortunately Henry’s voice carried, as he hadlaid off the confidential tone he had employed for his discussion with Cardinal Wolsey.
“And how fares the Princess Mary, Lady Salisbury?”
Thomasin noticed that he used the girl’s title: he was still not denying Mary her legitimacy in public, no matter how much he questioned his marriage to her mother.
“She is very well, my lord, in good health and heart, and looking forward to seeing her father.”
Henry nodded. “As am I, as am I. Bring her to my chamber first thing in the morning. No, not first thing, as I am dictating letters. Bring her at ten of the clock, not a moment later.”
“Yes, my lord.”
“And how is she progressing with her lessons?”
Lady Salisbury flushed with pride. “Never better. Her Latin and Greek are fluent and she has a good grasp of mathematics and geometry, better than any child of her age I have taught.”
A brief frown chased across the king’s brow. “But what of her maidenly talents?”
Lady Salisbury checked herself. “She plays delightfully on the virginals, and can sing and dance with ease and elegance. Her stitching is small and neat.”
Henry nodded. “You know I am thinking of her future, always of her future, now that certain delicate questions have arisen, and there will be the need to provide for her as the wife of some leading lord.”
“Delicate questions, my lord? Regarding the princess?”
