Chapter Twelve Howard
CHAPTER TWELVE
Howard
Howard tries not to look at Culpepper over the following days, but she is always aware of his presence.
He seems to be everywhere she goes. If there is dancing, he is requesting every lady’s hand but hers.
If there is music, he claps politely from the back row of seats, in accordance with his status.
If there is hunting, he is the person who delivers the killing blow upon the boar.
He never speaks to Howard unless she addresses him, although sometimes she feels his gaze upon her.
What would Boleyn do? It is her constant refrain. But she does not have Boleyn’s strategic mind. She cannot see three or four steps ahead in a game of beadulác, so how is she supposed to see her way out of this trap?
The palace is mercifully empty during the day while most of Henry’s court and Howard’s servants are busy preparing for a dragon-baiting.
Howard can see the arena from her bedchamber: the barriers being erected around a circular pit; the thrones on which she and Henry will sit.
Culpepper, as the chief organiser, is in the centre of all of it.
She watches him laughing with the workers as he directs them.
One of her noblemen approaches him and he bends his head to the other man, at once showing deference to his superior status while also encouraging the earl to lean his head in too – an intimacy entirely engineered by Culpepper.
She cannot decide if Culpepper knows the brilliant game he is playing, or whether it is instinctive, easy amiability.
When the two men have finished talking, they part ways with a mutual slap on the back, and Culpepper turns to his task without any indication that he knows that he has just gained favour with one of the most influential men in Howard’s territory.
In the afternoon, the whole palace trips across the gardens to witness the sport.
Howard’s arm is slipped through Henry’s, and she turns her face up to the brittle sun that is never far from this side of Elben.
She loves this about Plythe: how open it is, all wide windows and wider views.
The trees and forests of Brynd or Mathmas, or the claustrophobia of the destroyed palace of Hyde are not for her.
Here, on the other side of the gatehouse, the narrow footprint of the palace widens to incorporate hunting grounds, herb gardens and jousting lawns. The cymbal sound of the Kyttle Falls is muted by a row of beech trees.
Howard looks back towards the palace. When she first saw it, she thought it looked like something chopped from the heavens, or raised by godly hands from the riverbed.
And she is set on a path that means she could lose it all.
“Here we are,” Henry says. Howard turns her attention to the makeshift arena.
The two thrones have been set on the lawn, side by side, for the monarch and his queen.
Her throne is almost as magnificent as Henry’s: a mahogany seat carved with her emblem – a nightingale – entwined with the Tudor rose.
Naked women and fauns frolic across the wood, so that when she sits on it, she is stuffed between an orgy.
Henry seats her gallantly and cocoons her hand in his. She clenches the other in her lap.
The rest of the court takes their places at the barriers, the higher- ranking nobility sitting and the lower ranks standing behind them.
Cromwell and Wolsey have seats affording the best view.
They confer with each other in low tones, the least interested in the spectacle about to play out before them.
Howard casts her eye across her inner circle, ensuring her ladies are behaving themselves.
Ursula Askew stands a little distance from the others.
It is unlike her to not be in the centre of a gathering, and Howard wonders whether there has been some disagreement.
Seated at the front, on account of being Howard’s half-sister, is Legh.
Beside her is Lady Tylney, and behind them stands Susanna Horenbolt.
Susanna despises violence of any kind. They all joke that she is too soft for court.
Lady Tylney reaches a hand over her shoulder and, without looking, takes Susanna’s.
Howard is very aware of the way in which Henry is holding hers.
Is it loving? Is it caring, as Tylney’s is?
Or is it because Howard is his, and the ring upon her finger is not symbol enough of his possession?
She wonders what Voda Kelaverinn would make of all this bloodsport.
“Are you excited, little rose?” Henry says.
She startles, then covers it with a fluttering hand across her chest. Henry’s eyes follow her fingers. She used to liken him to a wolf. Now she wonders if he is a vulture.
“Of course, my king.”
“Have you laid a bet with young Culpepper yet?”
She doesn’t let herself look at the man in question.
“A bet?”
Henry tweaks her cheek. “Is there any substance in that beautiful head of yours? A bet on the sport. On the winner.”
Was that an insult or a compliment?
“Oh. No.” Is she being too dull? Or does he enjoy her dullness?
She cocks her head and leans over the arm of her throne, letting her dress fall off her shoulder.
“All I shall wager is that you could defeat any creature in that arena,” she says.
He stills, searching her eyes. Then he leans towards her, their foreheads touching.
“You are quite ravishing, Howard, do you know that? I can hardly bear to watch the sport with you here and so tempting.”
There it is – the ember of desire that has been so absent lately.
“I could be more tempting still, if it would not be so scandalous,” she says.
On impulse, she leans over even further and nips his earlobe.
She feels sure of herself for the first time in many moons.
She knows what she must do and say at last. She is the Howard she was raised to be, not the Howard that Boleyn and Cleves and all those other women want her to be.
The ember fades.
Henry lifts her from her throne and pulls her into his lap. She can feel his hardness through her gown, digging into her lower back. He holds her round the waist with one hand. The other he slips beneath her gown, letting its folds conceal his arm as he finds her core and dips a finger into her.
“Wet for me already,” he whispers.
“Of course, my king,” she says. She finds a fixed point – the apex of the trees on the other side of the arena – and stares at it as he pushes one, two, three fingers inside her.
It is delicious and scandalous and she didn’t ask for it, and yet she is wet and getting wetter, so it must be what she wants.
A stir goes around the arena, and for a moment Howard thinks that the courtiers have noticed what is happening on the king’s throne. But then she sees movement from beyond the treeline, where Plythe’s bestiary is situated, and she catches her breath.
Culpepper is leading a dragon across the lawn.
Its front and hind legs are manacled, two by two, so it is forced to walk in an awkward, loping gait.
There is an iron muzzle over its long jaw.
A wild dragon. Tame dragons are bred for particular jobs – small to be lap dragons; large wings and eyes and smaller bodies for hunting dragons; cropped wings and muscled back legs for the dragons sometimes employed in labour in the fields or mines; pearlescent scales and more fat than muscle for the ceremonial dragons used in royal weddings.
This dragon has none of those features. Its front legs are as long as its back legs, and its wings are in perfect proportion to its body, which is gnarled and covered with the scars that accumulate from a life of catching cattle and battling other dragons for territory.
Culpepper expertly lashes the dragon’s hide, darting this way and that with a long whip. He has another set of chains in his other hand, ready to manacle the dragon to the stake embedded in the centre of the arena.
“Will it be a fair fight?” Susanna asks Lady Tylney, just loud enough for Howard to hear.
“It will certainly be entertaining,” Lady Tylney replies, with a tight glance towards the king.
Culpepper fastens the dragon to its stake, and the beast utters a stifled roar at this further indignity. Culpepper lashes it again, then turns and grins at Henry. “Your Majesty, the creature is hungry!”
“Then let us feed it!” Henry replies, his voice sonorous with glee. He pushes deeper into Howard. She places both hands on the arms of his throne. Do they all know what he is doing to her? Do they all see? What must they think of her? Do they think she is enjoying it? Is she enjoying it?
With the skill of a hunter, Culpepper unshackles the dragon’s legs, unclips the muzzle and steps back, out of the dragon’s reach.
The creature roars full-throatedly at last, aiming to incinerate as many of its spectators as possible.
But it has been fed iced meat and its fires are dulled.
It would be too quick a fight if the dragon had all its faculties.
At a signal, a pack of hunting hounds are produced, their ribcages showing from a long fast.
Culpepper ducks out of the arena as the hounds are released. Henry beckons him over with his free hand.
“An excellent entertainment you have arranged, Culpepper. The dragon’s magnificent.”
“He’s a fine beast, Your Majesty. It almost makes me pity him for what is to come.”
He bows to Henry, bows to Howard. She inclines her head towards him. Sweat prickles the back of her neck.
“He is a handsome creature,” she says, hoping that entering the conversation will mask her confused desire.
“He is. I would say like yourself, except your beauty is without compare. And you have fewer scars,” Culpepper says.
The hounds are circling the dragon, licking their lips and growling.
“Her bite is kinder too,” Henry says, nuzzling her neck. He does not see the look Culpepper grants Howard: earnest and questioning.
A hound darts forward and snaps at the dragon’s soft belly. The crowd cheers.