The Boleyn Prince

Chapter 30

"We are going to court for Christmastide!"

Mary winced as the excited shrieking of her maids travelled down the gallery, pounding on her already throbbing head.

"I will busy the maids with a task, Your Grace," Jane Seymour said softly as she hurried off in the direction of the commotion.

Mary leaned her head back against the solid oak chair and closed her eyes. She longed for a hot cloth to drape over her aching head. To sweat some of the pain out.
It was an affliction she tried to bear with Gods good grace, but over the last year her migraines had become worse. They were lasting days, nearly a full week now.

She was sure she had heard her maid saying they were to spend Christmas at court, ridiculous as that was. It was not possible. She had not attended any festivities since before the start of her troubles. She neither wished to go, nor be invited.
The idea of seeing Anne Boleyn sat beside her father, in the same chair her mother used to sit in, receiving homage from England's nobility whilst playing at being Queen made her feel sick to her stomach.
Besides, how could her maid know what the plans of her household were before she did? No, she must have misheard.
Yet try as she might, she could not stop the nagging feeling that something was not right. She raised herself up from her chair and hurried after Jane Seymour as fast as her pulsating head would allow.

"Mistress Howard, contain your girlish exuberance. You can be heard at the other end of the gallery and the Duchess has a dreadful headache," she heard Jane Seymour scolding them.

The door to the gallery creaked as Mary push it wider and the smiles on her maids' faces fell at once into forced sober neutrality.

"I beg your pardon, Your Grace," Joan Browne apologised with a deep curtsey.

"I heard you say that we are all to attend court for Christmastide," Mary said.

"Not me, Your Grace. Kathryn said that we were."

Mary turned her attention to her youngest maid. "And how would you know that Mistress Howard?

The cheeks on the face of her youngest maid burned red. "I heard His Grace's pages saying so this morning, Your Grace."

"Then I am sorry to disappoint you child, but that is simply idle talk. I have little expectation of attending court for Christmas or anytime in the future."

Mary felt a degree of pity for her young maid. For all intents and purposes, she was living in a form of exile and her household was condemned to the same.
Exile did not suit the vivacious such as Kathryn. She would thrive in court.
It must seem so glamorous in comparison to the quiet solitude of the countryside. The fashions, the revelry, the dancing. A spirited young girl like her would not choose the life she now lived.

"What is it, Jane?" Mary said as she returned to her chair, noting her companion's quizzical face.

"I suspect that Mistress Howard was not truthful to you, Your Grace?

'Why would she lie?"

"Your Grace, there has been talk about Mistress Howard's behaviour. It seems she is a favourite of a number of the dukes' gentlemen. Young Master Culpepper, in particular, is said to have been taken with her since he arrived and was heard boasting about the favours, she has shown him."

"What sort of favours?"

"Carnal favours, Your Grace. If it were just Master Culpepper's boasts, I would pay it no head. He is arrogant certainly and I can well believe the truth would be no barrier to his telling a good tale. but my own maid told me just the other day that another of the dukes' gentlemen, John Hailes, almost provoked him into a fight when he said that he would not be the first to receive Mistress Howard's favour since Hailes has taken her to the Dukes own rooms on more than one occasion."