The Heretic Wind: The Life of Mary Tudor, Queen of England by Judith Arnopp (best ereader for students TXT) 📕

through and the air is cold and dank. The duke is waiting near amuddy border, the gravel path is puddled with yesterday’s rain and dead, soddenplants sprawl inelegantly across the yellowing grass. It is a ruin of thesummer splendour of July. The duke appears comically forlorn until, on hearingmy footstep, he looks up, and his former melancholy melts away.

“My lady.”

He rushes tomeet me and, as he bends over my hand, I prepare myself for the burn of aheretic’s kiss. I look down upon his bare head, noting the way his hair curlsabout the back of his ears, and then he stands and I find myself blinking intowide friendly eyes. He has a generous smile that I cannot help but replicate.

“I am pleasedto meet you,” I say and find, to my surprise, that it is not entirely untrue.He takes my elbow and guides me along the path.

“Oh, mind thepiddle,” he says and behind me, Susan and Margery titter quietly. I smother myown laughter, thank him for his gallantry, and allow him to lead me daintily throughthe puddles. Although he has little English, he waves the interpreter away andwe move off together through the decaying garden.

“Your Englishweather is…” He hugs his own shoulders and pulls a frozen face, and I cannothelp but laugh with him. I had not expected to like him. I had expected hornsand a tail, yet he is expansive, and very funny!

“Not always,”I say, fervently hoping he will understand. “Our summers are warm and sunny.” Isweep my arms in an arc, playing the part of the sun, and he smiles widely, noddinghis head. I notice one of his eye teeth is broken but it is attractive, and thecreases bracketing his mouth suggest he laughs often and loudly.

Despite thechilly day I am suddenly warm inside, more hopeful of the future than I havebeen for a long while. Marriage to a man who laughs and is gentle would be afine and unexpected thing.

“Do you hunt?”I ask, and he frowns at me.

“’Unt?”

“Hunt,” Irepeat, emphasising the H and aping the action of riding a horse and jumping afence. He laughs aloud, nods frantically and pretends to blow a horn. Despiteonly understanding half a dozen words of each sentence, I find myself warmingto him. For an hour or more we stroll about the ruined garden, oblivious to thedamp, the cold, and the fine drizzle that soaks my skirts to the knee. He istelling me a story of his childhood, a tale that I only half comprehend, when agust of wind showers him with freezing raindrops.

Covering mymouth with my hand, I try to stem my laughter, but he reaches out and pulls itaway.

“Do not ’ideyour face,” he says. “Too pretty.”

I cannot move.I stare at him entranced, my eyes roving his wet face, absorbing his thick-lashedeyes, his firm chin, his fine long nose.

Other than myfather, no man has ever told me I am pretty. In fact, I know it is untrue but Idon’t care. This man’s lies are like honey, sweetening my day, my sourdifficult life. I wish I could listen to them for the rest of my life.

He retains myhand in his and without any sense of embarrassment, I place my other over them,as a priest does at a wedding.

“I am very ’appyto ’ave meet you, my lady…” he whispers.

“Mary,” I say.“My name is Mary.”

Somehow oureyes are locked. It is impossible to drag my gaze away; even when his facegrows closer to mine, his eyes looming and merging into one, I cannot drawback. I have no wish to. As if governed by some external force, I tilt back myhead, part my lips and allow him to kiss me.

I have hadmany suitors, many disappointments, but this is the first time I have ever beencourted, the first time I’ve known the touch of a lover’s hand on my cheek, hislips against mine. Delight surges beneath my skin, his name echoing in my head.

In the weeksthat follow, I cannot stop thinking about him. His name finds a way into myconversations, he is the last thing I think of at night, my first thought inthe morning.

Don’t setyour heart on it, I tell myself, but the other Mary, the one I keep hiddenaway, refuses to obey. I no longer care about his Lutheran leanings, he hasunleashed something within me, something that is wild and quite ungovernable.It almost puts my passion for God in the shade.

A treaty isdrawn up; I am to be given a dowry of forty thousand florins providing I waiveall rights to the English throne. I do not care, my heart leaps and boundsquite frantically every time I think of his mouth and the soft kindness in hiseyes. I cannot wait to see him again.

Rumours fly;it seems everyone knows of our meeting and the kiss we shared, and when I passby, the courtiers put their heads together and I know they gossip about me. Still,I do not care.

Although we arenot permitted to meet again in private, he is present at the Christmas feast. Iwear my best clothes, pile as many jewels as I can upon my person so that hemight be impressed at my wealth and status. Our eyes meet often across thecrowd, he lifts his wine and silently drinks my health, and each time he doesso, something shifts deep in my belly. Whenever his lips kiss the rim of his cup,I envy it.

But my joy isspoiled when the emperor threatens war upon the German provinces and Philip issummoned home. To my sorrow, when he takes leave of England early in January,he does not make the time to bid farewell to me. I sink into sadness again, longingfor the day of his return.

Rumours of ourcourtship fly about the court, about Europe, and eventually reach the ear ofthe king. When he sends for me, I hurry to his privy chambers, sink to my kneesand lower my head. He does not bid me rise and when I finally pluck the courageto look up, I find his narrowed eyes upon me.

I duck my headagain and stay where I am, wracking my