At the King's Pleasure (Secrets of the Tudor Court) by Emerson Kate

Author:Emerson, Kate [Emerson, Kate]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Gallery Books
Published: 2012-01-03T00:00:00+00:00

37

Greenwich Palace, June 24, 1515

After he had heard Mass and broken his fast on midsummer day, the king mounted his horse and rode into the parkland surrounding the palace. It was the beginning of hart hunting season and he was eager for a kill. King Henry hunted every day he could manage it, sometimes coursing with greyhounds and at others shooting at deer from a standing. He laughed aloud with delight as three loud blats on a hunting horn signaled the release of the first relay of the running-hounds. The sound of their baying filled the clear morning air.

Accompanying the king was a small company of favored courtiers and some of their wives. The sisters married to Harry Guildford and Nick Carew giggled together as they set out. Lady Anne, who was some years their senior, disdained the company of these silly girls and chose to ride instead at her husband’s side.

In and out of the bedchamber, George was, for the most part, congenial company. Anne supposed that in their time together at Ashby de la Zouch she had learned to love him, after a fashion, in spite of the fact that he continued to doubt her ability to remain faithful to him. If jealousy was proof of love, she thought, then George must be most horribly in love with her! Ever since their encounter with her brother the previous month, he had been particularly attentive, bringing her little gifts and being even more generous in his lovemaking than he ordinarily was.

The hart they were chasing had been selected the previous evening after several of the king’s huntsmen, using lymers—hounds with extraordinary scenting abilities that had been trained to work on a leash and to trail only harts—had reported their findings to the king’s master of game and compared descriptions of potential quarry. The hart was the noblest prey, an animal that combined guile with innocence and, it was said, could not die of fright because it had a certain special bone in its heart. This bone, when retrieved from the carcass, was highly valued as a talisman. Anne herself had an amulet made from one. George had given it to her during her second pregnancy.

The progress of the hunt was tracked by various combinations of short and long notes on the horns. These told the riders how great the distance was between hart and hounds and signaled the release of each relay of hunting dogs. The hounds pursued their quarry in full cry, but the success of the hunt was never a sure thing. The scents left by other deer in the forested park sometimes confused them, and the hart itself, clever beast that it was, had been known to interrupt its own line of scent by crossing through streams or doubling back.

For the most part, there was constant noise from the baying of the hounds and the shouts of encouragement from the riders. But from time to time there were lulls when nothing could be heard but distant birdsong and the rustle of leaves overhead.

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