VIII

them, ruddy with cold, float the faces of the spectators, who are packed together on the benches of the grandstands, wrapped in furs or woollen cloaks, keeping warm with stamping and chanting, and burning their fingers and mouths on roasted chestnuts sold in twists of paper.
    At one end of the tiltyard stands a huge mock castle – The Castle of Loyalty – its turrets rising fifty feet from the sandy floor. The battlements are lined with boys from the chapel choir, posing as ladies in gowns and long wigs. As my horse approaches I can see that chestnut shells are being lobbed at them from the stands; they duck below the parapet to retrieve them and chuck them back. Above them, real ladies – Catherine’s maids of honour – stand on each turrettop. Most are waving in response to shouts from the crowd, or struggling with veils flapping in their faces. One, however, is looking at me.
    I return her stare with interest. It’s not that she is beautiful; Catherine has other maids of honour who are prettier. But she seems somehow compelling, significant: it’s as if I have been told something about her, though I can’t remember what, or as if I have seen her in a dream.
    Her dress is white and gold, like the others’ – but on her, it puts me in mind of armour. Her hair – what little of it shows beneath her hood – is dark. She stands very erect, seemingly untouched by the wind. And her eyes… Even across this space I can see there is something commanding in that black gaze.
    But the moment passes: I turn my horse, ready to head back up the other side of the tilt. I put those dark eyes out of my mind.
    First event: an assault on the castle. Francis Bryan and Tom Wyatt have volunteered to defend the west face of the fortress against my team of four, which is made up – besides myself – of George Boleyn, Henry Norris and an athletic young courtier named Edward Seymour.
    The north and south sides of the castle are bounded by a deep ditch – but not the west side. Here there is only the rampart: nine feet of packed earth, its surface smooth, without handhold or foothold. At the top, behind a fence made of wooden stakes, Bryan and Wyatt are waiting.
    We are armed – ready. The trumpets blow and we speed into the attack, yelling, swiping and stabbing at the two men with our long-handled pikes.
    It is fiendishly difficult to fight men above you. You must direct the power of your blows upwards; you will find your arms, neck and lungs are quickly in distress.
    Nevertheless, we go at it hard. I can see that Seymour, beside me, is eager to impress. We are both tall, with a good reach; there is lashing, striking and clanking as we engage the pikes that jab and slash at us from above.
    Up there on the bank, Bryan’s lean figure is busy and flashy as a theatrical, while Wyatt is a confident heavyweight. He changes weapons: his sword’s edge may be blunted, but still, one horizontal swipe is enough to splinter the shaft of Norris’s pike.
    Norris calls for a replacement weapon and we fight on. I swap pike for sword and manage to scramble some way up the bank, but Wyatt beats me back with a few smart blows. Seymour, following in my scraped and smeary footprints, returns just as quickly.
    Drenched in sweat already, my chest heaving for breath, I back up and run at the mud bank again. Planting my feet wide apart as I run to combat the steep incline, I get close enough to the top this time to fight hand to hand, but can’t get my balance. My free hand flails for the fence; I can’t reach it. I’m forced back.
    I call my team to regroup a little way from the bank. Quick conference; hard to speak between gasping breaths. I give instructions: fresh assault, new tactic.
    Boleyn doesn’t have Seymour’s height but he’s belligerent, like a tough little dog. He and Seymour now attack from the ground with their pikes so vigorously that Bryan and Wyatt can scarcely look over the fence.
    Meanwhile, Henry Norris and I, under cover of this assault, use our swords to dig holes in the bank to make footholds for climbing.
    It works. I climb, and manage to grab hold of one of the palings of the fence before I can be beaten down. Holding on, I fight hand to hand with Wyatt, all the time being supported from below by the blows of my comrades’ pikes. One of my best strikes leaves Wyatt’s shoulder-armour half hanging off.
    By now Norris has made it up his scooped footholds too. The fight is fierce; Bryan and Wyatt must combat two of