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I feel a little breathless. I have not seen a bullbaiting since I was last at court; I had forgotten what a savage excitement it is to see the yapping dogs and the great beast that they will pull down. It is rare to see a bull as big as this one, his muzzle scarred from earlier fights, his horns barely blunted. The dogs hang back and bark, sharp, persistent barks with the thrilling sound of fear behind them. He turns from one to another, threatening them with the sweep of his horns, and they fall back into a circle around him.
One rushes in, and at once the bull spins; you would not think such a great animal could move so quickly. His head plows low, and there is a scream like a human cry from the dog as the horns buffet his body; his bones are broken for sure. He is down and ca
I find I am crying out, though whether for the dog or for the bull I couldn’t say. There is blood on the cobbles, but the bull’s attack has left him unguarded to the other dogs, and another darts in and takes a bite at his ear. He turns, but at once another fastens on his throat and hangs there for a moment, his white teeth bared and gleaming in the torchlight, while the bull bellows for the first time and the roar of it makes all the maids scream and me among them, and everyone is now crowding to the windows to see as the bull rakes his head round and the dogs fall back and one of them howls with rage.
I find I am trembling, crying out for the dogs to go on! Go on! I want to see more, I want to see all of it, and Lady A
At once I turn to shout for the guards. This is an old man of nearly fifty, a fat man, old enough to be her father. She thinks at once that he is some drunk fool who has managed to push his way into her chamber. She has greeted a hundred men, a thousand men, with a smile and an extended hand and now this man, wearing a marbled cape and a hood pulled over his head, comes up to her and pushes his face into hers and puts his slobbery mouth on hers.
Then I bite off my shout of alarm; I see his height, and I see the men who have come in with him in matching capes, and I know him at once for the king. At the same moment, like a miracle, at once he does not seem old and fat and distasteful. As soon as I know he is the king I see the prince that I have always seen, the one they called the handsomest prince in Christendom, the one whom I was in love with myself. This is Henry, King of England, one of the most powerful men in the entire world, the dancer, the musician, the sportsman, the courtly knight, the lover. This is the idol of the English court, as big as the bull in the yard below us, as dangerous as a bull when wounded, as likely to turn on any challenger and kill.
I don’t curtsy because he is in disguise. I learned from Katherine of Aragon herself that one should never see through his disguises; he loves to unmask and wait for everyone to exclaim that they had no idea who the handsome stranger was, that they admired him for himself, without knowing that he was our wonderful young king.
And so, because I ca
He stumbles back, he, the great king, almost falls back before her contempt. Never in his life has a woman pushed him away; never in his life has he ever seen any expression in any woman’s face but desire and welcome. He is stu
He reels back as if he has taken a mortal blow to the face, to his heart. I have never seen him like this before. I can almost see the thoughts ru
He is shocked to his soul, and now he looks foolish and confused like a muddled grandfather. Lady A
She looks around the room for a guard to arrest this intruder, and she notices for the first time that no one is springing to save her. We are all appalled; no one knows what to say or do to recover this moment: Lady A
He turns wordlessly, he almost stumbles as he goes, his stinking leg giving way beneath him, and Katherine Howard, that clever, clever little girl, catches her breath in a gasp of absolute admiration and says to him: “Ooh! Forgive me, sir! But I am new to court myself, a stranger like you. May I ask – who are you? What is your name?”