VIII

authorised her admittance. What presumption. I find I am both amused and annoyed.
    Thinking this, I am watching her. She squirms under the scrutiny; looks at her hands, the floor, the windows – then begins to fumble with the fastenings of her cloak.
    I say, “I saw you the day the child died – remember?”
    Her fingers freeze on the cloak’s lacings. “Yes.”
    “I remember seeing you.”
    Another silence. Jane resumes her task and succeeds in untying the bows. She takes the cloak off, in the smallest, most self-effacing movement possible, and hangs it over one forearm, like a lady’s maid carrying the garments of her mistress.
    I say, “Are you here to seduce me, Jane?”
    “No!” The shock jolts her; makes her look at me directly, if only for an instant. “No. Lord, no…” I watch as a deep blush spreads over her entire face and throat, and her hands clutch each other, fingers twisting painfully.
    I think: Whatever her brother’s up to, he has kept her in the dark. Is she really so simple?
    I say, “Then why are you here?”
    She bites her lip. “I would like to… My brother says I should ask… if you would like me to play some songs on the virginals for you. He thinks it might help you rest…”
    Christ. And she thinks this is what her brother genuinely means. Poor, artless cow.
    I say, “Does he? And what do you think… Jane? Do you think it will help me rest?”
    Her eyes flick up to me; return to the floor. She says, “I think perhaps you might find a little comfort in the quiet company of a simple girl who has no… no opinions or demands… who wants only to serve her sovereign in whatever way she can.”
    Ah. Maybe not so artless after all.
    For a moment I remain, watching her. Then I turn and walk to the far end of the gallery – to the door to my apartments.
    I open the door without glancing back. I could shut it behind me – I almost do.
    Almost, but not quite. For a moment I hesitate. Then I stand aside, holding the door open – leaving room for her to pass.

 
♦  ♦  ♦  XIV   ♦  ♦  ♦
     
     
    I stride down the passageway, fast. Guards fall back as I slam into the room.
    “Up. Up. Get up.”
    Faces turn; women servants, startled in the middle of their domestic tasks, drop what they are doing and curtsey hastily.
    I drag open the bed curtains. Anne’s face – angry, alarmed, puffy-eyed from crying – stares at me from a mountain of pillows.
    “I want to see the body that killed my son. Again.”
    This new pregnancy has indeed produced a sign: another male foetus – dead.
    Anne’s hands are gripping the coverlet. I grab one thin wrist and pull. She has a job to get to her feet in time before I drag her bodily from the bed.
    The servants have disappeared. She stands on the rug, her feet bare, her white nightshift falling straight to her ankles; but she stands as erect as if she were wearing the crown jewels.
    I walk round her, twitching up the cloth of her nightshift, which she snatches from me and holds in fistfuls. I say, “Tell me. What is so rotten in this body that it cannot hold a child?”
    “It can.”
    “A boy child. Girls count for less than nothing. As you know.”
    She looks at me, feral, glaring, her long hair disordered; strands of it across her face. She says, “It was the shock of your accident.”
    I stop. There is a table beside me. I lean back against it, my hands on the edge, and regard her with interest. I say, “Ah, I see. It is my fault, then?”
    My left leg has healed, but at last week’s tournament, forgetting how weakened it has become, I misjudged a manoeuvre in the joust and took a bad fall from my horse. They tell me I lost consciousness for two hours.
    Anne’s eyes flash with something like fear and something like contempt. She says, “No, I didn’t say that. But I was so alarmed by the news that you were lying senseless…” She stops; compresses her lips; begins again: “In other pregnancies you have been concerned for my… my peace of mind. Now you should comfort me. But instead you taunt me.”
    Comfort me . I think of the ravaged figure I saw under the stairs the day she was delivered of the last dead boy. I say, “Taunt you? With what?”
    “The attentions you are paying to…” She lowers her voice to a whisper, “… that whey-faced bitch.”
    “I’m sorry, to whom?”
    “To another lady. Don’t think I haven’t heard. I know what has been going on.”
    I raise my eyebrows. “Well. I am glad to