The Other Boleyn Girl. Philippa Gregory

      Anne and Father were delayed by spring storms and I found myself hoping, childishly, that her boat would sink and she would drown. At the thought of her death I felt a confusing pang of genuine distress mixed with elation. There could hardly be a world for me without Anne, there was hardly world enough for us both.

      In any case, she arrived safely enough. I saw my father walking with her from the royal landing stage up the gravelled paths to the palace. Even from the first-floor window, looking down I could see the swing of her gown, the stylish cut of her cloak, and a moment of pure envy swept through me as I saw how it swirled around her. I waited till she was out of sight and then I hurried to my seat in the queen’s presence chamber.

      I planned that she should first see me very much at home in the queen’s richly tapestried rooms, and that I should rise and greet her, very grown-up and gracious. But when the doors opened and she came in I was overcome by a rush of sudden joy, and I heard myself cry out ‘Anne!’ and ran to her, my skirt swishing. And Anne, who had come in with her head very high, and her arrogant dark look darting everywhere, suddenly stopped being a grand young lady of fifteen years and threw out her arms to me.

      ‘You’re taller,’ she said breathlessly, her arms tight around me, her cheek pressed to mine.

      ‘I’ve got such high heels.’ I inhaled the familiar perfume of her. Soap, and rosewater essence from her warm skin, lavender from her clothes.

      ‘You all right?’

      ‘Yes. You?’

      ‘Bien sur! How is it? Marriage?’

      ‘Not too bad. Nice clothes.’

      ‘And he?’

      ‘Very grand. Always with the king, high in his favour.’

      ‘Have you done it?’

      ‘Yes, ages ago.’

      ‘Did it hurt?’

      ‘Very much.’

      She pulled back to read my face.

      ‘Not too much,’ I said, qualifying. ‘He does try to be gentle. He always gives me wine. It’s just all rather awful, really.’

      Her scowl melted away and she giggled, her eyes dancing. ‘How is it awful?’

      ‘He pisses in the pot, right where I can see!’

      She collapsed in a wail of laughter. ‘No!’

      ‘Now, girls,’ my father said, coming up behind Anne. ‘Mary, take Anne and present her to the queen.’

      At once I turned and led her through the press of ladies in waiting to where the queen was seated, erect in her chair at the fireside. ‘She’s strict,’ I warned Anne. ‘It’s not like France.’

      Katherine of Aragon took the measure of Anne with one of her clear blue-eyed sweeps and I felt a pang of fear that she would prefer my sister to me.

      Anne swept the queen an immaculate French curtsey, and came up as if she owned the palace. She spoke in a voice rippling with that seductive accent, her every gesture was that of the French court. I noted with glee the queen’s frosty response to Anne’s stylish manner. I drew her to a windowseat.

      ‘She hates the French,’ I said. ‘She’ll never have you around her if you keep that up.’

      Anne shrugged. ‘They’re the most fashionable. Whether she likes them or not. What else?’

      ‘Spanish?’ I suggested. ‘If you have to pretend to be something else.’

      Anne let out a snort of laughter. ‘And wear those hoods! She looks as if someone stuck a roof on her head.’

      ‘Ssshhh,’ I said reprovingly. ‘She’s a beautiful woman. The finest queen in Europe.’

      ‘She’s an old woman,’ Anne said cruelly. ‘Dressed like an old woman in the ugliest clothes in Europe, from the stupidest nation in Europe. We have no time for the Spanish.’

      ‘Who’s we?’ I asked coldly. ‘Not the English.’

      ‘Les Français!’ she said irritatingly. ‘Bien sur! I am all but French now.’

      ‘You’re English born and bred, like George and me,’ I said flatly. ‘And I was brought up at the French court just like you. Why do you always have to pretend to be different?’

      ‘Because everyone has to do something.’

      ‘What d’you mean?’

      ‘Every woman has to have something which singles her out, which catches the eye, which makes her the centre of attention. I am going to be French.’

      ‘So you pretend to be something that you’re not,’ I said disapprovingly.

      She gleamed at me and her dark eyes measured me in a way that only Anne could do. ‘I pretend no more and no less than you do,’ she said quietly. ‘My little sister, my little golden sister, my milk and honey sister.’

      I met her eyes, my lighter gaze into her black, and I knew that I was smiling her smile, that she was a dark mirror to me. ‘Oh that,’ I said, still refusing to acknowledge a hit. ‘Oh that.’

      ‘Exactly,’ she said. ‘I shall be dark and French and fashionable and difficult and you shall be sweet and open and English and fair. What a pair we shall be. What man could resist us?’

      I laughed, she could always make me laugh. I looked down from the leaded window and saw the king’s hunt returning to the stable yard.

      ‘Is that the king on his way?’ Anne asked. ‘Is he as handsome as they say?’

      ‘He’s wonderful. He really is. He dances and rides, and – oh – I can’t tell you!’

      ‘Will he come here now?’

      ‘Probably. He always comes to see her.’

      Anne glanced dismissively to where the queen sat sewing with her ladies. ‘Can’t think why.’

      ‘Because he loves her,’ I said. ‘It’s a wonderful love story. Her married to his brother and his brother dying like that, so young, and then her not knowing what she should do or where she could go, and then him taking her and making her his wife and his queen. It’s a wonderful story and he loves her still.’

      Anne raised a perfectly arched eyebrow and glanced around the