The King's Unspoken Son
H enry Carey, born around March 1526, was the son of Mary Boleyn—sister to Anne Boleyn The boy first heard the rumor about himself in a whisper behind a tapestry. “He’s the king’s,” a woman’s voice breathed, the words running like cold water down the stone passage. “Look at the nose. That is not a Carey nose.” Henry froze, a thin, sharp-faced child of ten, a wax tablet in one hand, ink-stained fingers on the other. For a breathless moment he stared at the tapestry’s writhing hunt scene, as if the stags and hounds might turn and tell him what it meant. Then the voices moved on, skirts rustling, and he was alone again with the echo. The king’s. He carried the words with him like a secret illness. I. The Shadow of Two Fathers Officially, Henry Carey had a father: William Carey, gentleman of the privy chamber, who had died when Henry was small enough to remember only the smell of leather and horse and spice, a hand on his head in blessing, and then black cloth everywhere. Uno...