Anne Boleyn: A Novel (41 page)

“And you weren’t the only one. Who else?”

“I don’t know...ah! No, no, no! Norreys...Norreys had her!”

Cromwell was busy writing. At last he looked up.

“Loose him, and throw him in the corner as he is. Then he can go to the Tower.”

As he climbed the steps to the ground floor of the house, Cromwell could hear the sound of anguished, crazy sobbing coming from the cellar. No doubt Smeaton was finding the realization of what he’d done worse than the last half an hour of simple torture, Cromwell thought dispassionately. He drafted an order for the arrest of Sir Henry Norreys, and asked for an emergency meeting with the Dukes of Norfolk and Suffolk, on a matter closely concerning the honor and well-being of the King’s Grace.

“Gentlemen,” Cromwell said, “the thing is so vile I hardly know how to begin.”

They were shut up in his closet at Greenwich; both Norfolk and Suffolk were half a head taller than the Secretary, and he stood looking up at them. They had refused his offer to sit down.

“Our ears can bear it,” Suffolk said roughly. “Come, let’s hear it; the whole court is buzzing with rumors like a beehive!”

“It concerns my niece the Queen,” Norfolk said. “I knew it when I heard her musician had been sent to the Tower.”

“It does,” Cromwell agreed. “Gentlemen, I suggest once more that we sit down; this may take longer than you think. And I’m tired; I had an exhausting afternoon.”

He pulled up a chair to his writing table and laid his finger on a roll of parchment.

“I shan’t waste time reading this to you; I’ll tell you the contents. It’s the confession of Mark Smeaton, the Queen’s lute player, made in my presence today. He confesses to adultery with her.”

“What!”

The word escaped Suffolk like an oath. He stared at Cromwell, his thick brows beetling in disbelief.

“Smeaton! That sniveling boy...impossible! She wouldn’t...”

“She would, and has,” Cromwell interrupted. “There is no question about it, my Lord,” he said gently. “No question at all.”

Slowly the Duke sat back in his chair, and Cromwell smiled faintly at him.

“It may seem difficult to believe,” he continued. “But His Grace will be convinced when he hears the evidence.”

“If His Grace is convinced, so are we,” Norfolk spoke for the first time.

Suffolk nodded. He understood at last; Smeaton...that wretched pretty youth with less spine than a woman. Cromwell must have had him tortured. Adultery—^he said the word to himself. Adultery would mean death. He looked at the ugly little Secretary with new eyes.

“This is painful for you, my Lord,” Cromwell said to Norfolk. “The Queen is your own blood...”

“If she were my own daughter,” the Duke answered shortly, “I should feel nothing but loathing for her crime.”

“Crimes,” the Secretary corrected. “Smeaton was not the only one. He named Sir Henry Norreys. You see, the affair will have terrible consequences, now that one of the King’s intimate friends is involved. And as a powerful member of the Queen’s faction at court, he will be arrested. There will be a great outcry among his friends and hers.”

Norfolk leaned forward.

“The Queen is the figurehead of that faction,” he said. “Are you suggesting that they will oppose his arrest...and hers?”

“I think it very likely,” Cromwell answered. “That’s why I’ve sent for you, my Lords. The King will need the support of all his loyal subjects, if this stain on his honor is to be wiped away. More than partisanship for the Queen is involved in this, for her friends have a political and religious interest at stake. If she falls, however justly, those interests will suffer. If this faction is destroyed, not only the King’s welfare, but the welfare of England will be safeguarded.”

“In other words, Anne is an adulteress, and her friends are traitors, isn’t that it?” Suffolk said impatiently. He had no time for hypocrisy; the charge had been trumped up against her, that was obvious. As her bitter enemy, he would prosecute it with the utmost vigor and send her to her death if he could, but he refused to sit there play-acting with Cromwell.

“Come into the open, for God’s sake,” he said. “We haven’t time to waste on a lot of niceties. Anne stands for the Protestant party, and against an alliance with the Emperor. She has dug her own grave; now you want a means of sending the rest of her supporters into it with her!”

“Politically she has become a disaster to the country,” Cromwell explained. “The imperial Ambassador made it plain to me a little while ago that as long as she remained Queen, the Emperor would not mend his quarrel with England. And we need to mend that quarrel. We need to hold the balance against France, who has left us to side with Rome. We must have the alliance, my Lords, and we must protect the interests of the Princess Mary, until a son is born to the King. And no son will be born of her now.

“All this you know; I’m repeating it because this is the only time these added reasons for her complete destruction can be put forward. The Queen must die, and all those who might be tempted to rise in her defense must be struck down before they have the chance to move. You asked for plain words, now you have them. The onus will fall on the King’s Council, of which you are leading members. The jury who will try her will be headed by you, especially you, my Lord Norfolk. His Grace will not tolerate an acquittal of any of the persons who may be charged in this.”

“Then the King knows,” Norfolk said softly.

“He knows,” came the answer. “He knows everything and has left the conduct of it to me. He will not be officially informed until tomorrow at the joust.”

“We have only her, and the lute player, and Norreys,” Suffolk said. “What about her father? And her brother? Above all, her brother!”

“Lord Wiltshire will make no move to save her; he has withdrawn his support in public for the last four months. Wiltshire will follow the King, which is lucky; if a father abandons his own daughter, who would question her guilt?”

There was no pretense between them now.

“George will,” Norfolk retorted. “George Boleyn will fight for her to the last drop of his blood. You’ll have to arrest him the moment hands are laid on her.”

The Secretary looked from one to the other before answering.

“I have already the means to do that,” he said quietly. “He too has been accused.”

“Of complicity?” Suffolk stared. “By God, you must have worried Master Lute Player with sharp teeth!”

“Smeaton never mentioned him. An hour ago his wife. Lady Rochford, came to see me. She had heard of the musician’s arrest and suspected some trouble for the Queen.” He paused; he had hardly been able to credit his good fortune at the time. It was still almost unreal.

“Jane accused him of complicity?” Norfolk exclaimed.

“Of incest.”

For a moment there was silence. It was Norfolk who broke it.

“Great God!” he said at last. “And you’ll charge him with it?”

“He shall go to the Tower when she does,” Cromwell answered, “and he will also be tried by you.”

“When will the arrests be made?” Suffolk asked.

“Tomorrow evening, after the joust. That is the King’s wish.”

“The lute player, Norreys, and her brother,” Suffolk said again. “That’s three at least.”

“She shall be kept in the Tower for a few days,” Cromwell said, “and questioned. At the end of that time we may have more...Now, my Lords, have I made the situation clear?”

“Perfectly,” Norfolk answered, rising, “perfectly clear. His Grace can rely on his loyal peers to see that these foul crimes are properly expiated.”

“I shall convey that to him.” Cromwell smiled. “And in return, my Lord, pay my respects to your niece, Mistress Seymour. I hope to prove myself her faithful servant.”

The joust and the hours that followed seemed like a nightmare to Anne; the events of that first day in May had an air of unreality, as if she moved and spoke in a waking dream. A formal message requested her presence at the jousting field, and for the first part of the afternoon, she sat in her place by the King’s side, unwanted and ignored, like Catherine of Aragon at the bear-baiting all those years ago, trying to watch the tournament. The atmosphere had been oppressive, as if some violent storm were about to break, though the sky over their heads was blue and cloudless. She hardly saw the bouts, or noticed who won or who was vanquished, aware only of that immovable figure by her side, his gaze directed straight ahead. She remembered starting when he suddenly moved beside her. Someone had passed him a message; the paper was screwed up in his hand as he turned to look at her for a long moment, before he quitted his seat abruptly, taking half his gentlemen with him, and left the jousting field without a word of explanation.

She would never forget that look, never forget the small eyes blazing with hatred and something that was much like triumph as they met her own.

She knew, as he turned his back on her without a word, that at last the end had come.

The whispers rose around her all that evening. The King had gone straight to Westminster from Greenwich, to York Place, where they had spent so many days together after Wolsey’s death, where he had met her after her progress through the City, with his arms outstretched, hoping she was pleased, hoping that the child she was visibly carrying was going to be a son.

She was left alone in the half empty palace for the rest of the day, for most of the courtiers had followed him to Westminster.

When one of her women left her rooms that evening to see if her brother George was among them, she ran back screaming to the Queen that guards were posted round the door.

That night was passed as a semi-prisoner, isolated from help as completely as if she were in the Tower. No one replied to her frantic questions or came in answer to her repeated summons. All was silence till the next morning—May second. And then she was told to attend before the Council.

She saw her Uncle Norfolk sitting at the long table in the Council Chamber with Suffolk and Sir William Paulet. Paulet stayed in her memory of that nightmare ordeal; he had not shouted and accused her like the others. He had not roared at her that she had lain with Smeaton and Norreys like a common whore...that she was going to be burned...Norfolk had said that.

When she denied the charges, Suffolk bellowed at her not to lie. The two men had confessed, he said. They had all had the satisfaction of seeing her break down and weep; that was when Paulet suggested that the Queen might be given a chair.

She had been too dazed to realize what had happened; when they brought her back to her apartments she stood rooted in the middle of the floor, the words chasing each other around her whirling brain. Adultery...she was under arrest on a charge of adultery with Smeaton...SMEATON...she cried the name aloud to her terrified women...Smeaton...and Norreys. They had confessed; confessed what, she demanded, rounding on Margaret Wyatt like a madwoman. What had those fiends been saying to her, trying to make her admit...What was this all about?

No one could answer; they begged her not to rage, to calm herself, and she could see the fear in their faces while they tried to comfort her. The blow had been struck so suddenly that she was breaking, and in terror she realized it; she was giving way, she thought hysterically. The agony of that night, lying half awake, half in tormented sleep, knowing that she was threatened by some unknown danger, that the King had gone to York Place, leaving her under a guard, that no one was able to reach her or tell her what had happened...She was breaking down before they ever dragged her in to the Council and bullied and threatened her with burning at the stake.

When Norfolk and her chamberlain came with an escort that afternoon, she had to be supported down the stairs and out into the gardens; when she saw the barge waiting at the jetty, she faltered and stopped.

“Where are you taking me...Uncle, for God’s sake...”

“To the Tower, where you belong! Delay any more and I’ll have you carried!”

Four women surrounded her in the boat; her aunt, Lady Boleyn, who was a stanch Catholic and friend of the Princess Mary, Mrs. Stonor, Mrs. Cosyns and one other. They were all enemies, she thought wildly, looking around for Margaret, or Meg Shelton or anyone she knew who should have come with her...Her protests died away as the barge began to move up the river, in the direction of the Tower.

Norfolk watched her from time to time; he saw that she swayed in her seat and that her eyes were closed. The parapet was lined with crowds who stretched and pointed at the soldiers on guard in the barge, and the woman sitting in cruel prominence. It was the Queen, they shouted. The Queen, under arrest! Nan Bullen, going to the Tower!

“They’ve seen you, Madame,” Norfolk taunted grimly. “Open your eyes and take a last look at your subjects!”

She obeyed him, clinging to the shreds of her self-control, and saw the curiosity and hatred of the people who watched her sailing slowly past. Some of them cheered ironically, and waved, shouting insults. It was just three years since she’d sailed in Catherine’s barge along the same route, to lodge in the palace buildings at the Tower before her coronation.

They were delighted, rejoicing...She swallowed, fighting back more tears, helpless, foolish tears because the rabble were against her too.

“When my brother hears how I’ve been treated,” she said shakily to Norfolk’s back, “when he hears of this he’ll make you pay...” The Duke glanced over his shoulder at her and laughed. Panic seized her.

“Where is he? Where is George?”

“At York Place,” Norfolk snapped. “Now hold your tongue!”

The walls and turrets of the Tower were white in the late spring sunshine; she watched it growing larger as the barge approached, and unconsciously her hands gripped the edges of her seat. The landing stage was farther down the wall; the royal landing stage where she had disembarked that other May, with the Lord Mayor and the Tower Governor and dignitaries drawn up to meet her.

The barge was turning in against the tide; above her head the portcullis of Traitor’s Gate stood out like black teeth in a gaping maw. The barge slid under it, into the gloom, beneath the stone archway. Ahead lay the wet steps leading up to the Tower and at the top of them she saw the Governor, Sir William Kingston. Kingston, who had always hated her and favored Catherine in the old days. Kingston, who had taken Wolsey on the last stages of his fatal journey. Now Kingston was waiting to take her into his custody.