The Boleyn Bride Read online

  Our marriage was little noted, not the grand affair I had dreamed of all through my girlhood; instead it was lost amidst the shuffle of court pageants and celebrations, and the many other young and comely couples who chose to be married at the same time in honor of the Prince and Princess of Wales.

  For a fortnight there were weddings almost every day, and the royal couple smilingly attended each one, including our own, showering the bride and groom with gold coins poured from a great golden loving cup held over their heads; poor petite Princess Catherine had to stand on her tiptoes every time.

  How Thomas frowned at the sight of my red gown and the amount of bosom I was displaying in church upon our nuptial day! But, most surprisingly, the shopkeeper’s grandson was too well-bred to mention it, though it was more likely that he had learned his manners like a monkey aping others’ antics. I saw the anger in his eyes, but I only smiled. To all eyes I was serene and pleasant, smiling at his side as I spoke the requisite words, pretending I was reciting a lesson my tutor had set me as I cemented my doom by pledging myself “to my wedded husband, to have and to hold from this day, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to be bonny and buxom in bed and at board, ’til death us depart, if Holy Church will it ordain, and thereto I plight thee my troth.”

  Our wedding night was dismal, the disappointment I knew it would be. With the businesslike efficiency of a clerk, a doctor accustomed to examining the human physique, or a dentist pulling his ten-thousandth tooth, Thomas Bullen mounted and entered me. He ignored my pain, uttering not a single soothing or sympathetic word. Nor did he caress me or attempt to comfort, or even pleasure, me with his touch. He never asked how I fared during the entire procedure. Procedure—that is the most apt word for what transpired behind the curtains of our marital bed. There was not a shred of tenderness throughout. He grunted once as he spent his seed, then rolled off and went to sleep with his back to me. As he softly snored, it was all I could do not to tiptoe from the bed, seize the poker from the fire, and bash his head in as he slept. I hated him so much! I lay awake for a long time wondering if a jury would believe I was so upset by this brutal assault upon my modesty that my sanity had temporarily fled. If I cried prettily and said I was sorry, mayhap they would pardon me, but nay, I couldn’t take the chance. I was never all that keen on gambling. Besides, a pardon would surely mean the convent, and I could never abide that. My vanity would never suffer me to don a nun’s habit and shut myself off from the world. I suppose, I sighed, there are some things worse than being Thomas Bullen’s bride!

  When the royal couple departed for Ludlow Castle in Wales, Thomas and I set out for Hever Castle in Kent.

  Beneath a slate gray sky, with an icy wind that portended snow tugging at the long, trailing skirt of my blue velvet riding habit and the dyed celestial blue ostrich plumes in my round velvet cap, I sat morosely on my mount, twirling my riding crop between my kid-gloved fingers, and stared longingly after Princess Catherine’s gilded litter.

  With her went my dream of serving the woman who would, God willing, one day be England’s Queen, of being the most beautiful and brightest of her ladies-in-waiting, the adored and acknowledged beauty of the court, the muse of poets, the inspiration of artists, the one whom every man wanted to bed and every woman wanted to be. Instead, I was on my way to Kent, to become mistress of a country manor house, to immerse myself in housewifery, to squander my beauty upon the laundry and the larder, and to, as my husband so elegantly phrased it, “get started breeding” his heirs. Before the groom cupped his hands beneath my heel to boost me up into the saddle, Thomas had given my belly a little pat and told me to exercise great caution riding lest I jostle out his heir should he happen to be already growing inside of me.

  My dark eyes flashed furiously at him. Defiantly, I raised my arm high, brandishing my whip, and brought it down with a hard, stinging smack on my ginger mare’s flank, and took off at a plunging, reckless gallop. Riding breakneck without caring that might indeed be the end result.

  “My lady wants exercise,” I heard Thomas say to our astonished retainers, to try to save face and gloss over his wife’s disobedience, before he dug in his spurs and hurried to catch up with me.

  He grabbed my horse’s reins and glared at me.

  “That is enough, Elizabeth,” he said, a warning concealed inside his quiet words and glacial eyes. “Do not make a scene. Either lag behind or match your pace to mine; if you pass me again, your flank, not your mare’s, shall be the next to feel the whip.” His words were so soft, his face so calm, he might have been commenting on the weather and whether it might snow again before we reached Hever.

  I nodded and smiled as best becomes an obedient Christian wife and let my horse fall into step beside his; I would be damned if I would follow meekly behind one who was so far below me. Oh how I hated him! He was dead and boring and had no passion except for acquisition, to rise high, and to always be on the winning side—the only side that matters, according to my sage “lord and master” Thomas Bull-In.

  When we arrived, windblown and weary, lightly dusted with snowflakes, I thought we were stopping for the night, lest we be caught in heavy snow. When my husband told me nay, we were home, I thought that dour clerk’s exterior concealed an unsuspected and well-hidden clown and he had just uttered the most amusing jest. But ’twas no jest! This was indeed Hever Castle, the manor over which I, Elizabeth Howard, the Duke of Norfolk’s adored only daughter, was to preside as mistress, ruling the servants like a queen in miniature.

  It was hardly worthy of the name Castle! Small as manors go, it was a horrid boxy thing of sandy-colored stone with a drawbridge, moat, and battlements. It had been built in the thirteenth century, my husband informed me, to which I replied with biting arrogance, “I am not blind—I can see that!”

  “The crenellations and other improvements were made in 1384,” Thomas continued, to which I thought it best to merely nod and force a smile rather than inquire as to what other improvements he referred. My eyesight must after all be failing, for they completely eluded me.

  I could tell that the shopkeeper’s grandson, proud of his little so-called castle, sensed my disapproval, so I decided to throw the dog a bone and pronounced it “rather picturesque and quaint.”

  “I am sure the gardens are lovely come spring,” I offered with a conciliatory smile. After all, I did have to live here and sleep with him whenever he was here, which I hoped would not be too often.

  Thomas beamed and said, “Aye,” especially the rose and knot gardens he had had made in the latest fashion, and rode on across the drawbridge with a satisfied smile.

  In the cobbled courtyard, I met my mother-in-law for the first time, the formidable Lady Margaret Butler, who was to share our abode and watch me with a hawk’s eye. Standing stoop-backed in the doorway, she was weighed down with gold and jeweled necklaces; ropes of beads and pearls; talismans; protective and good luck charms, some of them rather rough-hewed and crude, tied to leather or frayed woven cords; gem-studded brooches; heavy bracelets; and rings on every finger. She wore a gown of deep green velvet over a kirtle and under-sleeves of the most brazenly bright and god-awful gaudy purple damask I had ever seen in my life, and in the waning winter light, her gray hair, rather haphazardly pinned and sans a proper headdress of any kind, appeared distinctly blue. To my great astonishment the crookbacked old beldam was smoking a pipe.

  My jaw dropped. In my cosseted and sheltered existence, I had never seen a woman smoke before.

  “Coltsfoot,” she said in a nigh incomprehensible Irish brogue. “To ease me asthma,” she added, blowing a puff of foul smoke right in my face.

  A poultice reeking of lavender and weeping down her wrinkled cheeks into the dingy, sagging folds of her neck was tied over her brow, “for the misery in me head,” she explained. In her other hand, the one not encumbered with a clay pipe, she clutched a large golden goblet of crab-apple wine, which a doctor whose name I didn’t catch had rec
ommended for some indistinguishably uttered ailment the old blue-haired witch was afflicted with, which hopefully, for my sake, would carry her off to sleep perpetually in her tomb very soon.

  As she ushered me inside, she took from her overskirt a pretty little enameled box with a design of pink and white water lilies and offered me a pinch of lily root snuff. “There’s naught better for clearing the head,” she said and then frowned when I declined and said with the most frigid, stiff-backed politeness I could muster that my head was quite clear and that I never partook of snuff, ending with a sniff that I hoped indicated that I did not think much of those who did.

  I felt a tugging at my skirt and heard a fiendish gibbering and leapt back as a hairy little goblin climbed Lady Margaret’s skirt and began dancing on her shoulders and gleefully pulling the pins from her hair and flinging them every which way. A monkey! I pressed a hand to my pounding heart and sighed with relief. I had thought it was the old witch’s familiar! But, no, it was her beloved pet. “Prince Piddle Pants, like another son he is to me,” the crazy old crone introduced him to me, beaming with pride, though the creature in question wore no pants, probably because he soiled every pair that was put on him, hence the name. She acted as though she were presenting me to royalty and, when I failed to respond in the expected manner, glared daggers at me and barked loudly like a mongrel cur that God, or perhaps the Devil, had gifted with speech. “Curtsy! Where’s your manners, girl? Do you not know to curtsy when you’re presented to a prince?”

  I spun around and stared at my husband. Surely he did not expect me, the Duke of Norfolk’s daughter, to curtsy to a monkey? When I was at court, in the daily presence of the royal family, even they did not expect us to bow and curtsy to their pets, yet this Irish heiress, the Earl of Ormonde’s daughter, who, by her look and manners I surmised had been stolen at birth by gypsies before being restored to the bosom of her noble family just in time to marry Thomas’s father, expected me to curtsy to a monkey, a most undignified creature who had just proven I was right about how he had acquired his name by unleashing a thick yellow stream of urine over his mistress’s velvet-clad shoulder and her clanking, tangled cascade of necklaces.

  Thomas leaned near and whispered into my ear, “My lady-mother is getting on in years, and we must humor her little whims and caprices if we want a peaceful house, Elizabeth.” With those words, he put a hand upon my shoulder and, with a subtle downward jerk of his chin, pressed down hard, compelling me to do my duty and dip my knees. So I forced a frigid smile and curtsied to that god-awful creature and her pet.

  I nearly vomited on the threshold, so overwhelmed was I by the commingled odors of monkey urine, lavender, coltsfoot, crab apple, aged and unwashed flesh, a hint of dying rose perfume, and dirty hair. I teetered and reeled for a moment, vainly trying to steady myself as the undaunted Lady Margaret cackled, “Perhaps your wife is breedin’ already, Thomas?” and slapped me on the back to propel me over the threshold. I felt even sicker at the thought, though I knew this was what was expected of me. When the golden wedding ring was slipped onto my finger, I became an expensive broodmare; it was the role every wife assumed, and I must accept and endure it as best I could, as every woman must.

  To my surprise, the interior of Hever Castle was far superior to the exterior; it permeated an air of comfortable luxury, warm instead of chilly as one would expect in a larger, statelier abode like the ones I was accustomed to. Everywhere polished woods gleamed; there were diamond-paned windows and even some stained glass, fine tapestries Thomas boasted that he had brought back from diplomatic missions to Brussels and the Low Countries, and a quantity of good gold and silver plate displayed on gleaming tabletops and inside elegant, carved wooden cabinets and cupboards. Not a speck of dust did my discerning eye spy. The candles were of beeswax instead of rank tallow, and strewing herbs gave the air a pleasant scent as did the applewood logs glowing and emanating a toasty warmth from the large, elaborately carven fireplace. Well-trained servants in clean and impeccably tailored liveries hovered at the ready to take my cloak and gloves and offer me a cup of mulled wine and sugar wafers. At least I would not be entirely deprived of comforts. I sighed gratefully and let the cloak fall from my shoulders onto the floor.

  Weary from the road, we retired early. But Thomas did not spare me. Even if I might already be breeding, he was taking no chances in leaving my womb to languish empty. So the bull was in again. Bull-In. He rode me relentlessly, without passion or fervor— it was a business transaction for both of us, and he was very eager to ensure the succession of his line; he wanted to do all that was possible to ensure I was pregnant before he rode back to court.

  The next morning I found I could not rise. A dark depression had fallen over me and lay heavy as a stone upon my breast.

  I was trapped. I was Thomas Bullen’s wife, his broodmare, and nothing but death could set me free. Through this marriage, which had brought my husband esteem and glory, I had fallen far from the star I was meant to be. I was a diamond lost, buried in bucolic mud.

  Here I was stuck in rustic Kent, queen of my husband’s larder and laundry, empress of the stillroom, storerooms, and stables, instead of shining bright in London, dancing, splendidly appareled, satin-shod and diamond-bright, at masques and balls, drawing every eye. I would even have been content in god-forsaken Wales amidst ice, naked trees, and bleak marshes—after all, it would not be forever. London would soon enough beckon, and then I would be attending Princess—someday Queen—Catherine, winning her friendship and favor, bathing her fingers in rosewater and brushing her long golden hair out at night, sitting above the salt at the royal table, and being courted and admired.

  I refused my breakfast tray. When Matilda insisted that I must eat something, I threw it across the room. I lay there contemplating the dark wooden pillars of my marriage bed, carved to depict the Seven Deadly Sins, grotesque, leering, and ugly, until I could no longer bear the sight of them and ordered the sniveling, anxiously hovering Matilda to draw the sapphire and silver damask bedcurtains shut tight around me, to block out the morning light streaming through the diamond-paned windows, and envelop me in darkness as black as my own hopeless soul. I had no desire to get up and play my unwanted role of lady of the manor, so I simply refused to do it and went back to sleep.

  My husband came in around noon and found me sleeping. He grasped my dark hair, wound it around his fist, and jerked me awake. My knees banged hard against the floor, bleeding through my shift, and the pain in my scalp brought tears to my eyes.

  Tightening his grip upon my hair, Thomas yanked me to my feet and drew my face close to his, staring hard into my eyes.

  “You will get up and order my house, mistress!” he said, thrusting me toward my maid as he barked an order at her to get me dressed.

  “A lady leads by example,” he said, “and you will not lead my servants into laxity and sloth!”

  His fists found my ears and his palms stung my cheeks, and I could not hear his retreating words, so loud was the ringing that filled my head, nor whatever rubbish that sniveling fool Matilda was spouting as she nervously hovered and fidgeted, darting a hand out to wipe the blood away with her apron as though she were afraid to touch me.

  As she was lacing me into my buff velvet gown, the same one I had worn the day I found out I was betrothed to Thomas Bull-In, Lady Margaret staggered in with a knowing cackle and Prince Piddle Pants capering on her shoulder and shoved a poultice made from the exquisite shy little white flowers of Solomon’s seal onto my swollen ear, making me wince and cry out at the sudden throbbing pain that nearly made me faint.

  “It takes but a day or two to cure any bruise, black or blue, gotten by falls or woman’s willful carelessness in stumbling upon her husband’s fists,” she trilled, and even had the audacity to wink before she shuffled out in what were clearly a man’s old well-worn cracked leather slippers several sizes too large for her dirty feet.

  3

  And so my life began. I swallowed my pride
and let my inner fire be doused. I stopped fighting. I smiled and traipsed gracefully through my days, always beautifully dressed, kind and stern by turns with the servants as the moment warranted, and smiling and gracious to our guests, ensuring their every comfort and need was met. I ordered my husband’s house and took my ease, reading, embroidering, or playing my lute in the gardens when spring and summer came, walking aimlessly through the fall of autumn leaves in a billowing cloak until the nip of winter drove me back indoors again to brave the loathsome company of my mother-in-law and Prince Piddle Pants.