Read Online The Taming of the Queen by Philippa Gregory - Free Book Online

They have to prop me so that I am sitting up, or I choke on bile. They know that. You must make sure that they do that when I am in your bed as well as my own. There must have been something tainted in the dinner that made me sick. They have all but poisoned me. I shall send for the cooks in the morning and punish them. They must have used some bad meat. I need to vomit.’
    At once I am out of the bed, my soiled gown slick against my legs, fetching a bowl from the cupboard, a flask of ale. ‘Will you take a drink of small ale now? Shall I send for the doctors?’
    ‘I shall see the doctor later. I was quite dizzy in the night.’
    ‘Ah, my dear,’ I say tenderly, as if I am a mother speaking to a sickly boy. ‘Perhaps you can take a drink of ale and sleep again?’
    ‘No, I can’t sleep,’ he complains peevishly. ‘I never sleep. The whole court sleeps, the whole country sleeps, but I am wakeful. I keep watch all night while lazy pages and slothful women sleep. I keep watch and ward over my country, over my church. D’you know how many men I will burn in Windsor next week?’
    ‘No,’ I say, shrinking.
    ‘Three,’ he says, pleased. ‘They’ll burn them in the marshes and their ashes will float away. For questioning my holy church. Good riddance.’
    I think of Nan asking me to speak for them. ‘My lord husband . . .’
    He has drained his cup of ale in three great gulps, and he gestures for more. I serve him again.
    ‘More,’ he says.
    ‘They left some pastries for us in the cupboard too, if you might want one,’ I offer doubtfully.
    ‘I think one might steady my stomach.’
    I pass him the plate and watch as, absent-mindedly, he folds one after another over and over and posts them into his little mouth and they disappear. He licks his finger and dabs at the crumbs on the plate and passes it back to me. He smiles. He is soothed by the food and the attention. It is as if sugar can sweeten him.
    ‘That’s better,’ he says. ‘I was hungry after our pleasures.’
    His mood is almost miraculously improved by ale and pastries. I think that he must carry a monstrous hunger with him all the time. He suffers with a hunger so great that he eats beyond nausea, a hunger so great that he mistakes it for nausea. I manage a smile.
    ‘Can’t you pardon those poor men?’ I ask very quietly.
    ‘No,’ he says. ‘What o’clock is it?’
    I look around. I don’t know: there is no clock in the room. I cross to the window and pull back the hangings, open the windowpane inwards, crack open the shutter and swing it outward to see the sky.
    ‘Don’t let the night air in,’ he says crossly. ‘God knows what pestilence might be on it. Close the window! Close it tight!’
    I slam the window closed on the fresh cool air, and peer through the thick glass. There is not a glimmer of light in the east though I blink my eyes to rid them of candlelight and wish it into being. ‘It must be early still,’ I say, longing for the sunrise. ‘I can’t see any dawn.’
    He looks at me like an expectant child wanting to be entertained. ‘I can’t sleep,’ he says. ‘And that ale is resting on my belly. It was too cold. It will give me colic. You should have mulled it.’ He moves a little and belches. At the same time a sour smell comes from the bed where he has farted.
    ‘Shall I send to the kitchens for something else? A warm drink?’
    He shakes his head. ‘No. But stir up the fire and tell me that you are glad to be queen.’
    ‘Oh! I am so very glad!’ I smile as I bend and put on some kindling and then some great logs from the basket by the fireplace. The embers glow. I stir them with a poker, raising the logs so they rest one against another and flicker into life. ‘I am glad to be queen, and I am glad to be a wife,’ I say. ‘Your wife.’
    ‘You are a housewife,’ the king exclaims, pleased with my success at fire-making. ‘Could you cook my breakfast?’
    ‘I have never cooked,’ I say, a little on my