The Cardinal's Court by Cora Harrison

Author:Cora Harrison
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780750982887
Publisher: The History Press

10

The queen was to have supper in her own chambers this evening and she had invited the cardinal to share her meal. The rest of the guests from the court and the cardinal’s household dined together at the first sitting in the great hall. George was in charge, very flushed with the excitement of his promotion and totally unable to quell the un-Lenten-like atmosphere of fun and of excess that gradually arose as no quelling glances were sent from the high table. Voices grew louder, servants scurried around, yeoman of the pitcher house were kept busy refilling cups and glasses. Harry Percy, Gilbert Tailboys, Anne Boleyn and Bessie Blount were on the high table. They formed one mess just across the tablecloth from me and I studied them anxiously. Gilbert was getting very drunk and I feared that it was not good for him. I knew very little about epilepsy, apart from a mention in Suetonius of the epilepsy that afflicted Julius Caesar, but I hoped that this excessive alcohol would not bring on another fit. Anne Boleyn was tempting him to drink more and more. She almost seemed to be flirting more with Gilbert than with Harry and I could see that Bessie was fast moving from a forced expression of amusement to tight-lipped anger. Once everyone rose to partake of the ‘void’ in the cardinal’s room next door and allow the table in the great hall to be re-laid for the household officers, I went forward to meet the four of them.

‘Just a minute, Gilbert,’ I said, catching him by the arm and drawing him back. Mistress Boleyn gave me a quick glance from her black eyes, which I met with a bland smile. She put the tips of her fingers on Harry’s sleeve and went forward with him. Again there was that swift upward motherly glance to check that he was well. He smiled down at her and there was a great sweetness in that smile. I began to see what they saw in each other. People are complicated. He fell in love with her milk-white skin, her black eyes, her swaying and graceful figure; she, I reckoned, originally may have been attracted by his position as the heir to the mighty earl, liked the warm colouring of his cheeks, the curl of his brown hair, but then his helplessness would have pulled down the barriers. Mistress Anne Boleyn had a pretty face, a sheaf of midnight black hair, a gorgeous figure and an alluring voice, but under all of that she had a strong nurturing instinct.

And Harry, poor fellow, disliked by his own father, was a lost boy in need of the tender care of a mother.

I looked after them with a tinge of pity. There would be no possible future in that romance, no matter how much the lady personified Perseverance’ as she had done in the pageant of Château Vert. Life would have been easier for both of them if they had been boy and girl on neighbouring farms.

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