Innocent Traitor by Alison Weir

that golden, athletic younger man beneath the layers of flesh and the puffy, ruined face.
    The King invites us to accompany him on the hunt tomorrow, then moves off with his bride to circulate among the other guests. I suddenly find myself next to Anne of Cleves—still smelling a trifle high—who greets me in her deep guttural English and glances humorously in the direction of the royal couple.
    “A fine burden Madam Katherine has taken upon herself!” she murmurs.
    “I’m sure she will cope,” I say, tart. “His Majesty thinks very highly of her.”
    “As he did of the late Queen, and most of the ones before her,” retorts Anne. “Excepting, of course, myself.” She smiles. “But I am not complaining. And I am delighted that my dear brother has found happiness at last.” It is an open secret that Madam of Cleves was not exactly displeased at being so unceremoniously dumped by the King. She did well out of it financially and now leads a comfortable life that is mercifully free from court intrigue. And she kept her head!
    I smile back stiffly. I do not much like this German princess with her penetrating observations. Really, she should consider well that she is speaking to the King’s own niece. But Anne suddenly grasps my arm.
    “I hope I have not offended you,” she states shrewdly. “I assure you, His Majesty has been very good to me, most generous. I am happy to be his dear sister and to stay in this lovely England.”
    I incline my head and move on, reflecting that my uncle had not exaggerated—the woman smelled awful. Do they never change their body linen in Cleves?
    I join my husband, who is deep in conversation with my cousins the Lady Mary and the Lady Margaret Douglas, who is a bridesmaid to the Queen.
    “I am sure you are pleased to see your father, the King, so happily settled,” Henry says to Mary, as I take up my position at his side.
    “It is a blessing after what happened with the others,” she replies, peering at him intensely with shortsighted eyes. Mary, at twenty-seven, is a year older than I am; but where I am strong and healthy, she is a tiny, thin woman, plagued by ill health, imagined or chronic, and whatever bloom she once had has long since dulled, blasted by tragedy and disappointment. Today, she is wearing a tawny gown of figured corded damask, its white lawn undersleeves banded with crimson velvet. Her frizzy red hair is parted severely under her French hood, and her thin fingers are fiddling anxiously with the gold prayer book that is attached by a ribbon to her girdle.
    I feel a certain pity for Mary, but I can’t help being irritated by her. She’s had a hard life, and it is true that the King treated her with great severity when he put away Katherine of Aragon, but then the wretched girl had been so stubborn, refusing to acknowledge that her mother’s marriage had been unlawful. One does not defy the King thus and get away with it, and my uncle kept her apart from her mother to teach her obedience. He would not let Mary visit Katherine, even when the old Queen was dying. Instead, Mary was proclaimed a bastard, the fruit of an incestuous union, and sent to wait on her half sister Elizabeth, Anne Boleyn’s child, who had just been born. What surprised us all was that Mary, who had been thwarted of marriage and motherhood by her debased status, quickly developed a touching affection for Elizabeth. And she was kind to her when Elizabeth, in her turn, was declared baseborn after Anne Boleyn’s fall. It is astonishing that, despite their mothers being deadly rivals, these two sisters have so much in common and are evidently devoted to each other. Furthermore, both are deeply fond of their brother, Edward.
    Neither of the King’s younger children is here today. Prince Edward, now five years old, is at Havering, and the Lady Elizabeth is at Hatfield. They are missing a merry occasion, but then I suppose that, as ever, His Majesty is fearful of them catching some contagion