A Love Most Dangerous (41 page)

'Come,' came a voice from within.

The old man opened the door half way and signalled for
me to enter, closing the door behind me without a sound.

Thomas Cromwell was sitting behind a desk, his elbows
resting comfortably upon a leather document wallet, his hands clasped together
as if in prayer. He looked at me with searching eyes, the faintest glimmer of
amusement in his face.

'Well,' he said, 'you have led me a merry dance, Alice.' He gestured for me to sit opposite him.

'What do you mean, my lord?'

'You disappeared,' he said. 'You left Hampton Court Palace in unseemly haste.'

'That was none of my doing, my lord.'

He sniffed and glanced at a document close to his
elbow. 'So I gather. I'm afraid Sir Richard Rich can act in a rather impetuous
manner. Especially when he seeks to please the Duke of Norfolk.'

'I had assumed that my leaving the Palace was on the
order of the King.'

Cromwell unclasped his hands a moment. 'Not
expressly.' He clasped them together once again.

'You argued against the King, Alice Petherton,' he
said. 'And that made him angry.' He paused for a moment as if recalling the
scene, then he gave a sniff and continued. 'His Majesty made certain decisions
that day. But they did not include banishing you from court.'

'But I was banished, nonetheless.'

Cromwell did not answer. As if to say that this was a
topic now best forgotten.

He stared at me for a little longer which I found
unnerving. Then he shook his head a little as if something perplexed him. He
sighed and passed a glass of wine to me.

'The King has become morose,' he said.

'I am sorry to hear it,' I answered.

He held up one finger to silence me.

'He has grown morose,' he continued, 'distracted,
melancholy.' He paused and his jaws worked a little as if he was chewing over
his words to find the most palatable.

'In fact he has grown so out of sorts as to be,
ungovernable.' He paused, his mind whirring like a clock, and I imagined that
the word he had chosen was not, after all, to his taste.

'More exactly, he has grown turbulent, capricious.' He
smiled and I realised that these words were a gloss, that he had indeed, chosen
the word ungovernable quite deliberately. That, although he now amended it, he
had, in fact, wanted me to hear it. It felt as if he had proffered me a
precious gift.

'He has ever been masterful,' I said.

'As is his right,' he said. 'As a King should be.'

He unlocked his two index fingers from his praying
hands and allowed them to play with his lip. 'But this is somewhat different, Alice. It is as if he has fallen prey to a fever, as if he realises it but does not yet feel
inclined to recover.'

'Then you must wait for him to recover, my lord.'

'Alas, the affairs of a mighty nation can only pause a
little while. Even for the highest in the land.'

I could not help myself. I glanced around, alarmed in
case anyone should be listening.

'We are quite alone,' he said blandly.

I took a sip of my wine.

'To what do you attribute the king's disorder?' I
asked.

'His melancholy?'

I bit my lip at his swift correction of me, feeling
sick to my heart, and nodded.

'I attribute his melancholy,' Cromwell said, 'to you.'

The image of Anne Boleyn leapt into my mind. I managed
to blink it away but that was the most I could do for I was powerless to speak
or even to think.

And then I thought, I'm young, too young for this to
happen to me. I felt the icy edge of an axe upon my neck. Better to be back in
Crane's brothel than to have my life extinguished.

The tears started in my eyes and I could no longer
make out Cromwell's face.

'You are troubled to hear this,' he said. 'As you
should be.'

I wanted to wipe away my tears but my hand could not
move.

'But I have a remedy for the King's melancholy,' he
continued. 'You will return to court and allow your presence to be known to His
Majesty.'

I just managed to shake my head. 'I don't understand,'
I mumbled. 'I thought you said that I had caused his melancholy.'

Cromwell shook his head and frowned. 'Foolish girl,'
he said. 'It is your absence which has caused his melancholy. Had you not
realised that? He needs you back, in his company, in his bed. To beguile him
with your charms. He does not realise he needs you, not yet. But he does. And,
therefore, I need you. The Kingdom needs you.'

'And what if I don't wish it?' I whispered.

He gave a wintry smile. 'Your wishes do not come into
it. You will do as I say.'

'And if the King does not wish it?'

Cromwell sighed. 'Have you seen yourself in a
looking-glass, my dear? Henry Tudor is a King. But he is also a man.'

He unclenched his hands and began to scribble on a
piece of parchment.

'For the moment,' he said, 'I shall assign you
quarters here in Greenwich. I shall require you to make yourself seen by the King
within the next few days.'

He finished writing, dusted the ink and folded up the
document. 'Give this to Thomas Jones, my servant. The fellow who brought you
here. He shall arrange all.'

'I cannot see the King as I am,' I said. 'I have
nothing, my lord. No possessions, no clothes other than this gown and one other
too tattered to be shown.'

He frowned. 'How so?'

I took a deep breath and told him all that had
happened since Rich had taken me from Hampton Court. Cromwell listened
impassively at first, then with growing incredulity and finally, with a
sympathy I would not have imagined him capable of.

'You have suffered much,' he said. 'I am sorry for
it.'

He unfolded the document and picked up his pen, adding
some swift sentences to the end.

'You shall have gowns a-plenty, Alice,' he said. 'And an allowance of a forty pounds a year.'

Forty pounds? I stifled my amazement at the huge
amount. 'How will this be paid?' I asked. 'I am no longer a maid-of-honour. And
I know that the King won't pay me anything.'

'A friend will pay it,' he said. He clenched his hands
together as if to say there was an end to the conversation.

I glanced at him as he bent even closer to the
document and realised who that friend was. I wanted to thank him but thought it
wisest not to.

'Daniel Stokes tells me that you have a maid,' he
said.

'She is not a maid. She is the daughter of my friends
the Coopers.'

'Preposterous for a maid to have a maid,' he said.
Then he smiled like a wolf. 'But not for the King's favourite. Your apartment
has a small room to house her.'

He waved his hand to dismiss me and bent once more to
his documents.

I rose, gave a curtsy he did not see, and made for the
door.

'Timothy Crane?' he said. 'One of the Southwark
stews?'

'Yes, my lord.'

He picked up the document once again, wrote something
more in it and sealed it with great force as though he had never been more
determined in his life.

CHAPTER THIRTY SIX

The King's Great Anger

17th September 1538

I walked out of the Lord Privy Seal's office in a
daze. I do not know what I expected when I was summoned to the Palace but I had
not expected this.

Thomas Jones led me down the corridor, his joints
creaking like a horse in old harness, bearing aloft Cromwell's document as if
it were a pennant heading towards battle. He went in to the chamber where Sissy
was waiting, scooped her up and led us, creaking furiously, through long
corridors and down huge staircases.

At last we stepped through a door and found ourselves
in the open air. It was still dark and the night had the deep chill that comes
before dawn. Jones woke some torch-boys who were slumbering in a porch and
ordered them to bring a carriage.

He turned to me with an apologetic air. 'The carriage
may take some time. Boys seem unable to run as fast as they did in my youth.'

I smiled and thought of him as a child, running like
the wind to do some master's bidding, and creaking even then.

'Where are we going?' I asked.

'To the castle,' he said, pointing into the darkness.

'I can't see anything,' Sissy said, peering into the
distance.

'It's a quarter of a mile away,' I said. 'Too far to
see.'

'If it's that near we could walk,' said Sissy.

The old man shook his head at this suggestion. 'It is
not fitting for your mistress to walk,' he said.

Sissy turned to me, impressed by his words. She had
never known anyone considered important enough not to walk on their own two
feet.

A few minutes later a small carriage raced into sight,
the poor horse whipped furiously by one of the torch boys, the other boy
clinging perilously onto the back. Perhaps they'd heard Jones comment on their
slowness and were determined to prove him wrong.

Jones held the door open for us and we climbed in. I
watched as he hoisted his creaking frame beside the driver and we headed along
the drive at a prodigious rate.

'Slow down, you fool,' I heard Jones say and at the
same time there came a thump of fist on cheek. Either his words or the blow
took effect for the carriage slowed immediately. I was glad for the movement
was making my stomach churn. A few minutes later the carriage slowed still more
and then stopped. The door opened and Jones helped us out.

The two torchboys stood in front of us, the driver
rubbing his cheek. They held their torches high to light the way. I peered in
front of me. We stood in front of the castle. It was a very small castle,
little more than a glorified keep with the addition of one tower and a
fortified gate-house.

'Are we being sent into prison?' Sissy asked, her
voice trembling with fear.

Jones shook his head. 'Not at all. The outside looks
grim but inside there are plush and pleasant apartments. Your mistress will be
quite comfortable here.'

'But what about me?' she asked, her voice sounding
panicky. 'Where am I to go?'

'Hush, Sissy,' I said. 'You will stay with me.'

The torchboys led us into the castle and up a large
staircase. At the top of the stairs we came upon a long corridor. Jones
overtook the boys and strode along the corridor to the right. Half way along he
halted and threw open a door.

One of the boys hurried forward to light the room. I
stepped inside. It was a small  chamber with two doors leading off it. Although
it was small it was quite exquisite, quite beautiful. A low couch sat beneath a
window, with a comfortable chair nearby. To one side there was a table, two
chairs and a sideboard. Beside this was a large fireplace with a fire already
burning. Sissy looked around and gasped in amazement.

'Are we going to stay here, Alice?' she asked.

'For the present,' said Jones, lighting candles.
'There is a bedroom through there, with a small alcove for your servant. The
other door leads to a bath chamber.'

Sissy's hand went to her mouth with joy.

'You may be moved into somewhere more suitable, more
commodious at a later date,' Jones said.

I smiled and thanked him. That depended on me making
my presence known to the King and him being pleased at my doing so.

'Is there anything else you require?' Jones asked.

I shook my head. 'Nothing, thank you.'

He bowed and made to depart but I caught him by his
sleeve.

'There is one thing,' I said. 'Is there water in the
bath chamber?'

'The Lord Privy Seal commanded that the bath be
prepared with hot water, miss.'

I closed my eyes in ecstasy. Thomas Cromwell thought
of everything.

Although the hour was late and the day almost before
us we were exhausted so I insisted that we got some sleep. I hardly seemed to
have shut my eyes when I was woken by a knock at the door.

'Who is it?' I called.

'The laundry maids,' came the answer. 'We've got some
clothes for you.'

I jumped out of bed, all tiredness banished at this
news, and opened the door. Two young servants stood in front of me, laden down
with gowns and other clothing.

'Come in,' I said. 'Put them on the couch.'

The girls bustled in and gave me a dubious look. 'On
the couch, miss?' one asked. 'We should put them in the wardrobe for you.'

'No thank you,' I said. 'I want to look at them first.
I will put them in the wardrobe myself.' I paused. 'I mean my maid will put
them there.'