Silly Voyeurs

Hello everyone!  Kathryn H here :)

So there's this really weird thing that's been happening.  It's going to sound really weird I know but just go with it for a minute.

I think people are watching me.

I KNOW I KNOW it sounds weird.  I told you it would!  It's not all the time, but it happens pretty regularly and at specific times of day.  The worst part is that I don't know if they're watching all of us or just me.  I don't want to ask the other Queens, but I feel like I should.  But if the other girls can't see them and I'm crazy, then they'll all just make fun of me.

I hate when they do that.  They think they're all soooo smart with their witty comebacks.  Whatever.  I'm prettier than all of them put together.  That's probably why all these people are watching me.  That's how it's always been.  The boys watch because they want me and the girls watch because they want to be me.

Growing up at Lambeth, no one wanted to be me.  My father was poor, my mother was dead, but I was still nobility so I had to heed my ridiculous grandmother [what an awful, skinny old witch] and deal with my snake of an uncle.  Who would want that?  Plus all the boys watched all the girls.  I was never any different from any of them.  [Except for Joan Bulmer.  She had a face like a bullfrog.  I hoped I was prettier than Frog Face!]

When I arrived at court, people started treating me differently.  From the ladies, there were whispers and glances and giggles.  Some of them ignored me outright.  My dearest Anne of Cleves had to explain it to me.  I still remember how she smiled at me, half laughing and half pitying, and said, "My dear girl, you're very pretty, and I think some of my household may consider you competition."

My face turned as red as Henry's hair.

Henry was one of the many men who started to watch me when I came to court.  I liked the way a lot of them watched me.  Smiling, with a sparkle of mischief in their eyes.  At first I thought that these people who are watching me now might be a memory of that.  Many of them smile.  But no one has that little sparkle.  I miss that, more than many things.  Seeing that and knowing that someone would actually talk and laugh--and flirt ;)--with me, rather than shoving me aside and calling me a silly little girl.

I don't think these people are watching me like anyone in the court ever watched me.  The continual gaze of courtiers was always so judgemental and calculating.  Even the ones who liked me.  The were judging me to be pretty and friendly and frivolous, and that sparkle of mischief happened only once they calculated how to use me.

Henry and Thomas were the only ones who ever looked at me without a plan.  Thomas never had a plan for anything, and, as for Henry, the plan for our brief life together was all my uncle's doing and Cranmer's undoing.

Then there were the people who didn't like me.  The people who just stared.  Totally cold.  I never knew why they hated me so much.  Those were the people who stared out at my execution.  I hated them so much just then, all those eyes looking and judging, thinking that they knew the whole story when they knew maybe only a quarter of it.  When they put the blindfold over my eyes, I was just relieved that I couldn't see them anymore.

These people watching me now, they are different.  They don't judge, they don't seem to want anything.  They seem generally pleased to be watching.  Which is a very comforting feeling.

I don't think I'll ask the other Queens about these watchers.  I think I want to keep them for myself.

I wonder if I can talk to them.  I found this catalog in our Celestial Mailbox [so dubbed by Jane; she's always giving things stupid little nicknames, blech] for a place called Victoria's Secret, and I wonder if I can get one of these watchers to place an order for me.

If not, I'll have to sneak Anne's mobile.  She boxed my ears last time she caught me, and I'd much rather avoid that.

Hearts,
K