Philippa Gregory 3-Book Tudor Collection 1 (163 page)

‘I'll take one of the grooms'.' He went quickly into the tack room and came out with a common cape of fustian.

‘Are you in so much of a hurry you can't wait for your cape?'

‘I'd rather go now,' he said simply, and that stolid certainty made me more afraid than I had ever been before for the safety of my son.

‘Have you got money?'

‘Enough,' he grinned. ‘I just won a purse of gold off Sir Edward Seymour. A good cause, isn't it?'

‘How long d'you think you will be?'

He thought for a moment. ‘Three days, maybe four. No more. I'll ride without stopping. Can you wait four days for me?'

‘Yes.'

‘If matters get worse then take Catherine and the baby and go. I will bring Henry to you at Rochford, without fail.'

‘Yes.'

One more hard kiss and then William put his foot in the stirrup and leaped up into the saddle. The horse was fresh and eager but he held her to a walk as they went under the archway and out onto the road. I shaded my eyes with my hand and watched him go. In the bright sunlight of the stable yard I shivered as if the only man who could save me was leaving.

Jane Seymour did not reappear in the queen's apartments and a strange quietness fell over the sunny rooms. The maids still came in and did their work, the fire was lit, the chairs arranged, the tables laid with fruit and water and wine, everything was prepared for company but none came.

Anne and I, my daughter Catherine, Aunt Anne, and Madge Shelton sat uneasily in the big echoing rooms. My mother never came, she had withdrawn from us as completely as if we had never been born. We never saw my father. My uncle looked through us as if we were panes of Venetian glass.

‘I feel like a ghost,' Anne said. We were walking by the river, she was leaning on George's arm. I was walking behind her with Sir Francis Weston, Madge was behind me with Sir William Brereton. I could hardly speak for anxiety. I did not know why my uncle had named these men to me. I did not know what secrets they brought with them. I felt as if there were a conspiracy and at any moment a trap might be sprung and I had walked into it, knowing nothing.

‘They are holding some kind of hearing,' George said. ‘I got that much from a page who went in to pour the wine for them. Secretary Cromwell, our uncle, the Duke of Suffolk, the rest of them.'

Carefully, my brother and sister did not exchange a glance. ‘They can have nothing against me,' Anne said.

‘No,' George said. ‘But they can trump up charges. Think of what was said against Queen Katherine.'

Anne suddenly rounded on him. ‘It's the dead baby,' she said suddenly. ‘Isn't it? And the testimony of that foul old midwife with her mad lies.'

George nodded. ‘Must be. They have nothing else.'

She whirled on her heel and took off towards the palace. ‘I'll show them!' she cried.

George and I ran after her. ‘Show them what?'

‘Anne!' I cried. ‘Don't be too hasty!'

‘I have crept around this palace like a little mouse afraid of my own shadow for three months!' she exclaimed. ‘You advised me to be sweet. I have been sweet! Now I shall defend myself. They are holding a secret hearing to try me in secret! I shall make them speak out! I shan't be condemned by a pack of old men who have always hated me. I shall show them!'

She ran across the grass to the doorway into the palace. George and I froze for a moment, and then we turned to the others. ‘Do go on walking,' I said wildly.

‘We will go to the queen,' George said.

Francis put out a quick instinctive hand to keep George with him.

‘It's all right,' George reassured him. ‘But I'd better go with her.'

George and I ran across the grass and followed Anne into the palace. She was not outside the king's presence chamber and the soldier on the door said she had not been admitted. We drew a blank and waited, wondering where she had gone, when we heard her steps running on the stairs. She had the Princess Elizabeth in her arms, gurgling and laughing at being snatched up from her nursery, watching the flicker of light as Anne ran with her.

She was unbuttoning the child's little gown as she ran. She nodded to the soldier who flung open the door for her and she was into the presence chamber before they realised she was upon them.

‘What am I accused of?' she demanded of the king as she was half-over the threshold.

Awkwardly he rose from the head of the table. Anne's angry black gaze raked the noblemen seated around him.

‘Who dares say a word against me to my face?'

‘Anne,' the king started.

She turned on him. ‘You have been filled with lies and poison against me,' she said rapidly. ‘I have a right to better treatment. I have been a good wife to you, I have loved you better than any other woman has ever done.'

He leaned on the back of his heavy carved chair. ‘Anne …'

‘I have not brought a son to full term yet but that is not my fault,' she said passionately. ‘Katherine did not either. Did you call her a witch for it?'

There was a hiss and a murmur at her naming the most potent word in that casual way. I saw one fist clench with the thumb between second and third finger, making the sign of the cross, to ward off witchcraft.

‘But I have given you a princess,' Anne cried out. ‘The most beautiful princess that ever was. With your hair and your eyes, undeniably your child. When she was born you said that it was early days and we would have sons. You were not afraid of your shadow then, Henry!'

She had half-stripped the little girl and now she held her out for him to see. Henry flinched back though the child called out ‘Papa!' and held out her arms for him.

‘Her skin is perfect, she has not a blemish on her body, not a mark anywhere! No-one can tell me that this is not a child blessed by God. No-one can tell me that she is not going to be the greatest princess this country has ever had! I have brought you this blessing, this beautiful child! And I shall bring you more! Can you look at her and not know that she will have a brother as strong and as beautiful as she is?'

Princess Elizabeth looked around at the stern faces. Her lower lip trembled. Anne held her in her arms, her face bright with invitation and challenge. Henry looked at them both, then he turned his head away from his wife, and he ignored his little daughter.

I had thought that Anne would fly into a rage that he did not have the courage to face them, but when he turned his head away the passion suddenly went out of her as if she knew that his mind was made up, and that she would suffer for his stubborn wilful stupidity.

‘Oh my God, Henry, what have you done?' she whispered.

He said only one word. He said ‘Norfolk!' and my uncle rose from his seat at the table, and looked around for George and for me, hovering in the doorway, not knowing what we should do.

‘Take your sister away,' he said to us. ‘You should never have allowed her to come here.'

Silently, we stepped into the room. I took little Elizabeth from Anne's arms and she came to me with a cry of pleasure and settled on my hip,
her arm around my neck. George put one arm around Anne's waist and drew her from the room.

I looked back as we went out. Henry had not moved. He kept his face turned away from us Boleyns and our little princess until the door shut behind us and we were closed out, and still we did not know what they were discussing, what they had decided, nor what would happen next.

We went back to Anne's rooms, the nursemaid came and took Elizabeth away. I released her with regret, conscious of my desire to hold my own baby. I was thinking of William, wondering how far he was down the road to fetch my son. The sense of foreboding hung over the palace like a storm.

As we opened the door to her private room, a lithe figure sprang forward and Anne screamed and fell back. George had a dagger at the ready, he nearly stabbed before he stopped himself.

‘Smeaton!' he said. ‘What the devil are you doing here?'

‘I came to see the queen,' the lad said.

‘For God's sake, I nearly ran you through. You shouldn't be here without invitation. Get out, lad. Go!'

‘I have to ask … I have to say …'

‘Out,' George said.

‘Will you bear witness for me, Your Majesty?' Smeaton cried over his shoulder as George thrust him towards the door. ‘They called me in and asked me so many questions.'

‘Wait a minute,' I said urgently. ‘Questions about what?'

Anne dropped into the windowseat and looked away. ‘What does it matter?' she said. ‘They'll be asking everybody everything.'

‘They asked if I had been familiar with you, Your Majesty,' the lad said, blushing as scarlet as a girl. ‘Or with you, sir,' he said to George. ‘They asked if I had been a Ganymede to you. I didn't know what they meant, and then they told me.'

‘And you said?' George demanded.

‘I said no. I didn't want to tell them …'

‘Good,' George said. ‘Stick to that and don't come near the queen or me or my sister again.'

‘But I'm afraid,' the lad said. He was trembling with earnestness, there were tears in his eyes. They had questioned him for hours about vices he had never even heard of. They were hardened old soldiers and princes of the church, they knew more about sin than he would ever learn. And then he had come running to us for help and was finding none.

George took him by the elbow and walked him to the door. ‘Get this into your thick and pretty head,' he said flatly. ‘You are innocent, and you have told them so, and you just might get away with it. But if they find you here, they will think that you are our lad, suborned by us. So get out and stay out. This is the worst place in the world to come for help.'

He pushed him to the door, but the lad clung to the frame even as the soldier waited outside for a word from George to throw him down the stairs.

‘And don't mention Sir Francis,' George said in a rapid undertone. ‘Nor anything that you have ever seen or heard. D'you understand? Say nothing.'

The boy still clung on. ‘I have said nothing!' he exclaimed. ‘I have been true. But what if they ask me again? Who will protect me? Who will stand my friend?'

George nodded to the soldier who made a swift downward chopping blow on the boy's forearm. He released the door with a yelp of pain as George slammed it in his face. ‘No-one,' George said grimly. ‘Just as no-one will protect us.'

Next day was May Day. Anne should have been woken at dawn with her ladies singing under her window and the maidens processing with peeled willow wands. But no-one had organised it and so, for the first year ever, it did not happen. She woke haggard and pale at the usual time and spent the first hour of the day on her knees at the prie dieu, before going to Mass at the head of her ladies.

Jane followed behind in white and green. The Seymours had brought in the may with flowers and singing, Jane had slept with flowers under her pillow and had, no doubt, dreamed of her husband-to-be. I looked at her bland sweet face and wondered if she knew how high were the stakes in the game she was playing. She smiled back at my hard face and wished me a joyous May morning.