The Taming of the Queen (38 page)

‘I will give him a hero’s burial,’ he says. ‘And I shall pay for it all.’

I cannot hide my surprise at his calmness, but he takes it as delight in his generosity.

‘I will,’ he repeats proudly. ‘And little Catherine Brandon need not fear for their sons’ inheritance. I shall leave them both in her keeping. I will not take them as my wards. They can inherit their father’s estate entire. I will even let her manage it till they are men. I will take nothing from them.’

He is cheered by his own munificence. ‘She will be glad,’ he announces. ‘She will be thrilled. She can come to me and thank me personally as soon as she returns to court.’

‘She’ll be in mourning,’ I point out. ‘She may not want to serve in my rooms any more. She may not want to come to court. Her loss . . .’

He shakes his head. ‘Of course she will come,’ he says certainly. ‘She would never leave me. She has lived in my keeping since she was a girl.’

I say nothing in reply to this. I can hardly tell the king that a widow might prefer to spend the very first days of her widowhood in prayer, rather than entertaining him. Usually, a widow keeps to her house for the first three months, and Catherine will want to be with her fatherless boys. But then I realise: he will not know this. Nobody told him to wait before summoning me on the death of my husband. He would not imagine that anyone might not want to be at court. He has never lived anywhere but court, he has no idea of a private life or tender feelings that are not watched by the world. Within days of the death of my husband, he commanded me to court to play cards with him and flirt with him. Only I can stop him putting this burden on Catherine.

‘Perhaps she would rather stay at her home, at Guildford Palace.’

‘No, she would not.’

Nan comes to me one evening, long after dinner, when the court is closed down for the night and I am ready for bed. She nods to my lady-in-waiting, dismissing her from my bedroom, and takes a seat by the fireside.

‘I see you have come for a visit,’ I say drily, taking the seat opposite her. ‘D’you want a glass of wine?’

She gets up and pours us both a glass. We pause for a moment to savour the scent and taste of the deep red Portuguese wine and the light clarity of the Venetian glasses. Each glass, each perfectly blown glass, is worth a hundred pounds.

‘What would Mother say?’ Nan asks with a little smile.

‘
Don’t take it for granted.
’ I can quote her at once. ‘
Don’t let down your guard. Never forget your family.
’ And, more than anything else: ‘
How is your brother? How is William? Does William have glasses as fine as this? Can’t we get some for him?
’ We both laugh.

‘She always thought that he would be the making of the family,’ Nan says, sipping her wine. ‘She didn’t disregard us, you know. It’s just that she put all her hopes on William. It’s natural to look to the son and heir.’

‘I know. I don’t blame her. She didn’t know that William’s wife would betray him and our name, cost us so much and then have to be set aside.’

‘She didn’t foresee that,’ Nan agrees. ‘Nor this.’

‘No.’ I shake my head with a smile. ‘Who’d have dreamed it?’

‘Your rise to greatness,’ Nan raises her glass in a toast. ‘But it comes with dangers.’

Nobody knows more about the dangers for a queen than Nan. She has served every one. She has given evidence on oath against three. Sometimes she has even told the truth.

‘Not for me,’ I say confidently. ‘I’m not like the others. I don’t have an enemy in the world. I’m famously room-handed, I’ve helped anyone who asked me. I have done nothing but good for the royal children. The king loves me, he made me Regent General and an editor for the English liturgy. He puts me at the heart of the court, of everything he cares about: his children, his country and his church.’

‘Stephen Gardiner is no friend of yours,’ she warns. ‘And neither are any of his affinity. They would throw you down from the throne and out of the royal rooms at the first moment they could.’

‘They wouldn’t. They might disagree with me; but this is a matter of debate, not enmity.’

‘Kateryn, every queen has enemies. You have to face it.’

‘The king himself supports the cause of reform!’ I exclaim irritably. ‘He listens to Thomas Cranmer more than to Stephen Gardiner.’

‘And they blame you for that! They planned for him to have a papist wife and they thought he had married one. They thought you were for the old church; they thought that you shared Latimer’s convictions. That’s why they welcomed you so warmly. They were never your friends! And now that they think you have turned against them, they won’t be your friends any longer.’

‘Nan, this is madness. They may disagree with me but they wouldn’t try to drag me down in the eyes of the king. They won’t falsely accuse me of God-knows-what because we don’t agree about the serving of the Mass. We differ; but they are not my enemies. Stephen Gardiner is an ordained bishop, called by God, a holy man. He is not going to seek my destruction because I differ from him on a point of theology.’

‘They went against Anne Boleyn because she was for the cause of reform.’

‘Wasn’t that Cromwell?’ I ask stubbornly.

‘It doesn’t matter which advisor it is, what matters is if the king is listening to him.’

‘The king loves me,’ I say finally. ‘He loves only me. He would not listen to a word against me.’

‘So you say.’ Nan puts out her foot and pushes a log further into the fire. A plume of sparks flies up, she looks awkward.

‘What is it?’

‘I have to tell you that they’re proposing another wife.’

I almost laugh. ‘This is ridiculous. Is this what you came to tell me? It’s nothing but gossip.’

‘No, it isn’t. They are proposing another wife more amenable to returning the church to Rome.’

‘Who?’ I scoff.

‘Catherine Brandon.’

‘Now I know that you are mistaken,’ I say. ‘She is more of a reformer than I am. She named her dog after Bishop Gardiner. She’s openly rude to him.’

‘They think she will join them if they offer her the throne. And they believe that the king likes her.’

I look at my sister. Her face is turned away from me, fixed on the embers of the fire. She fidgets, putting on dry wood.

‘Is this what you came in to tell me? Did you come so late tonight to warn me that the king is thinking of another wife? That I must defend myself?’

‘Yes,’ she says, still not meeting my eyes. ‘I am afraid so, yes.’

The fire crackles in the silence. ‘Catherine would never betray me. You’re wrong to say such a thing. She’s my friend. We study together, we think alike. It’s really vile, Nan, it’s black-babbling to say such a thing.’

‘It’s the crown of England. Most people would do anything for it.’

‘The king loves me. He doesn’t want another wife.’

‘All I am saying is that the king is sentimental over her, he’s always liked her, and now she is free to marry, and they will be pushing her forward.’

‘She would never take my place!’

‘She would have no choice,’ Nan says quietly. ‘Just as you had no choice. And anyway, some people say that he has been her lover for years. They say that Charles and he shared her. Charles never refused the king anything. Perhaps when he got a beautiful young wife, young enough to be his daughter, the king had her too.’

I get to my feet and go the window. I want to throw open the shutters and let the night air into the room as if the place stinks like the king’s bedroom of corruption and disappointment.

‘This is the vilest gossip,’ I say quietly. ‘I should not have to hear it.’

‘It is vile. But it is widely repeated. And so you do have to hear it.’

‘So what now?’ I say bitterly. ‘Nan, do you always have to be so ill-tongued? Must you always breathe sorrows in my ear? Are you telling me that he would put me aside for Catherine Brandon? Shall he have a seventh wife? What about another after her? Yes, he likes her, he likes Mary Howard, he likes Anne Seymour! But he loves me, he favours me above all others, more than any previous wife. And he has married me! That means everything. Can’t you see that?’

‘I am saying that we have to keep you safe. There must be nothing that anyone can say against you. No hint against your reputation, no suggestion of disagreement between you and the king, nothing that could make him turn against you. Not even for a moment.’

‘Because it only takes a moment?’

‘It only takes a moment for him to sign a warrant,’ she says. ‘And then it is all over for all of us.’

Catherine Brandon comes back to court as commanded, and she does not wear mourning. She comes first to my rooms and curtseys before me, and before all my ladies I give her my condolences for her loss and welcome her back to my service. She takes her seat among them and looks at the translation that we are working on. We are studying the gospel of Luke in the Latin and trying to find the purest, clearest words in English to express the beauty of the original. Catherine joins in as if she is here by choice, as if she does not want to be at her own home, with her sons.

At the end of the morning when we put away our books to go out riding I beckon her to come with me as I change into my riding dress.

‘I am surprised that you came back to court so soon,’ I say.

‘I was commanded,’ she says shortly.

‘Weren’t you secluded, and in mourning?’

‘Of course.’

I rise from my seat before the silvered looking-glass and I take her hands. ‘Catherine, I have been your friend since I first came to court. If you don’t want to be here, if you want to go home, I will do my best for you.’

She gives me a little sad smile. ‘I have to be here,’ she says. ‘I have no choice. But I thank Your Majesty for your kindness.’

‘Do you miss your husband?’ I ask curiously.

‘Of course,’ she says. ‘He was like a father to me.’

‘I think the king misses him.’

‘He must do. They were always together. But I don’t expect him to show it.’

‘Why not? Why should the king not show his grief for the loss of his friend?’

She looks at me as if I am asking her a question to which everyone must know the answer. ‘Because the king cannot bear grief,’ she says simply. ‘He cannot tolerate it. It makes him angry. He will never forgive Charles for leaving him. If I want to stay in favour, if I want my sons to have their inheritance, I will have to conceal the fact that Charles has deserted him. I cannot show him my grief as it reminds him of his own.’

‘But he died!’ I say impatiently to the man’s widow. ‘He didn’t leave the king on purpose, he just died!’

She gives me a slow sad smile. ‘I suppose if you are King of England, you think that everyone’s life is dedicated to you. And those that die have let you down.’

I don’t want to hear Nan’s bleak warnings, I prefer to see the gloze of Catherine’s false smile as the court is at peace among itself with no quarrels or dogfights, and God’s goodness to England shines out in the sunshine and the golden leaves of the trees in the meadows that run beside the river. The country is at peace, the news from France is that they plan nothing against us, the battle season is coming to a close and Thomas has survived another year. It is a blissful end of summer. Every day starts bright and every evening ends in a warm glow. The walls of the palace are golden in the sunset reflected in the river. Henry enjoys a return to good health. His servers haul him onto his horse every morning and we hunt every day, easy runs, through the water meadows alongside the river, and it is like being married to a man of my own age when his huge hunter outpaces mine and he goes past, yelling like a boy.