The Taming of the Queen (54 page)

I fall asleep almost at once, and almost at once I dream that I am climbing a circular stair in an old castle, not one of our palaces – it is too cold and damp for any of the king’s houses. My hand rests on the outer wall and there is icy water beneath the arrow-slit windows. The stair is dark, barred with moonlight, the steps worn and uneven. I can hardly see my way from one window to another. I hear someone whispering from the foot of the stair, his voice echoing up the tower: ‘Tryphine! Tryphine!’ and I give a little gasp of fear for now I know who I am, and what I am going to find.

The stair arrives on a stone landing at the top of the tower facing three small wooden doors. I don’t want to open the doors, and I don’t want to enter the rooms behind them; but the whisper of my name ‘Tryphine!’, hissing up the stair behind me, forces me on. The first door opens with a ring handle that moves under my grip, lifting the latch on the inside of the door. I don’t like to think who might hear this, who might be in there, turning their heads, seeing the latch lifting, but I feel the door yield against my hand and I push it open. I can see the little room by the light of the moon coming in through the narrow window. I can see just enough to make out a piece of machinery taking up the whole length of the room.

I think at first that it is some kind of loom for weaving tapestry. It is a long raised bed with two great rollers at either end, and a lever in the middle. Then I step a little closer and I see that a woman is strapped to it, arms above her head, horribly wrenched out of shape, her feet, strapped to the bottom end, turned out as if her legs are broken. Someone has lashed her hands and feet and hauled on the lever so the rollers turn over and the gulf between them widens. This has dragged her arms out of their sockets and her elbows have popped out of joint, her hips and knees and even her ankle bones are torn apart. The agony makes a white mask of her face, but even so, I recognise Anne Askew. I stumble back from the torture room and fall against the next door. That room is empty and silent. I draw a breath in momentary relief at being spared any further horror but then I smell smoke. There is smoke coming from the floorboards, and the boards themselves are getting hotter. And now, in the strange life of the dream, I am myself tied, hands behind my back. I am standing, strapped to a stake, and I am lashed with chains so that I cannot move, and my feet are no longer on floorboards but are shifting anxiously on cords of wood. It is getting hotter and hotter and there is smoke in my eyes and mouth, and I am beginning to cough. I gasp and I feel my throat scorched by the hot smoke. Then I see a little flicker of the first flame from the wood under my feet, and I cough again, flinching away from it. ‘No,’ I say, but I cannot speak for smoke, and as I breathe in the heat of the smoke burns my throat and I cough and cough . . .

‘Wake!’ Nan says. ‘Wake up! Here.’ She presses a cup of ale into my hand. ‘Wake up!’

I cling to the cold cup, my hands covering hers. ‘Nan! Nan!’

‘Hush. You’re awake now. You’re safe now.’

‘I dreamed of Anne.’ I am still choking as if the smoke were still burning my lungs.

‘God bless her and keep her,’ Nan says instantly. ‘What did you dream?’

Already the horrific clarity of the dream is fading from me. ‘I thought I saw her . . . I thought I saw the rack . . .’

‘There’s no rack in Newgate,’ Nan says, firmly practical. ‘And she’s not a common traitor to be racked. They don’t torture women, and she is a gentleman’s daughter. Her father served the king, no-one can lay a hand on her. You just had a bad dream. It means nothing.’

‘They wouldn’t rack her?’ I clear my throat.

‘Of course not,’ Nan says. ‘Many of them knew her father, and her husband is a wealthy yeoman. They’ll hold her for a couple of days, hoping to give her a fright, and then send her home to that poor husband of hers, like they did before.’

‘She won’t stand trial?’

‘Of course they’ll say that she must face a jury and threaten her with a guilty verdict. But they’ll send her home to her husband and tell him to beat her. Nobody is going to torture a lady with a noble father and a wealthy husband. Nobody is going to send a woman as argumentative as that into a public courtroom.’

Despite Nan’s words I can’t sleep, and next morning I have my maids pinch my cheeks and powder me with rouge to try to make me look less haggard. I must not resemble a woman sleepless with fear, and I know that the court is watching. Everyone knows that my woman preacher is in Newgate Prison today; I have to appear completely indifferent. I lead my ladies to chapel and then to breakfast as if we are in good spirits, and the king himself, wheeled in his chariot, meets me at the door to the great hall. There, to my amazement, bounding through the great front doors, is George Blagge, like Lazarus up from the grave, released from prison, fat and cheerful as ever, a man accused of heresy but galloping into the king’s presence like a friend returned from an adventure.

Stephen Gardiner has a face like thunder. Behind him Sir Richard Rich scowls as this man, thrown into prison for nothing worse than attending the sermons in my rooms, kneels before the king and looks up to show him a beaming face.

‘Pig! My pig!’ cries the king, laughing and leaning forward in his chair to pull him to his feet. ‘Is it you? Are you safe?’

George snorts in his joy and at once Will Somers triumphantly snorts in reply as if a herd of swine were celebrating George’s return. The king roars with laughter; even William Paget hides a smile.

‘If Your Majesty had not been so good to his pig, I should have been roasted by now!’ George crows.

‘Smoked like back bacon!’ the king replies. He turns in his chair and narrows his eyes at Stephen Gardiner. ‘Wherever the hunt for heretics leads you, those that I love are exempt,’ he says. ‘There is a line that I expect you to observe, Gardiner. Don’t forget who my friends are. No friend of mine could be a heretic. To be loved by me is to be inside the church. I am the head of the church: no-one can love me and be outside my church.’

Quietly I step forward and rest my hand on my husband’s shoulder. Together we look at the bishop who has arrested my friends, my yeoman of the guard, my preachers, my bookseller and the brother of my doctor. Stephen Gardiner drops his eyes before our gaze.

‘I apologise,’ he says. ‘I apologise for the error.’

I am triumphant at this public humiliation of Stephen Gardiner, and my ladies rejoice with me. George Blagge is welcomed back to court with the king’s declaration of his love for him, and the king’s declaration of his protection over those who love him. I take it that we are to be reassured by this. The tide that was flowing so strongly in favour of tradition and against reform has gone still, and is now on the turn, as tides ebb and flow, drawn by some invisible power. Perhaps it is the pull of the moon, as the new philosophers suggest. At court, where the tides of power are pulled this way and that by the turn of the expressionless moon-face of the king, we know that we reformers are a spring tide once again, flowing strong and high.

‘So how can we get Anne Askew released?’ I ask Nan and Catherine Brandon. ‘The king released George Blagge for love of him. Clearly, we are rising high again. How quickly can we set her free?’

‘Do you think you are strong enough to act?’ Nan queries.

‘George’s return shows that the king has gone as far as he wants with the old churchmen. Now we return to favour.’ I am certain. ‘And anyway, we have to take a risk for Anne. She can’t stay in Newgate. It’s at the very heart of disease and the plague. We have to get her out of there.’

‘I can send one of my men to see that she is housed well, and well fed,’ Catherine says. ‘We can bribe the guards to let her have some comforts. We can get her into a clean cell and get her books as well as food and warm clothes.’

‘Do that,’ I nod. ‘But how can we get her released?’

‘What about our cousin Nicholas Throckmorton? He can go and speak with her,’ Nan suggests. ‘He knows the law, and he is a good Christian of the reform faith. He must have listened to her speak in your rooms a dozen times. He should go and see what can be done and we can speak to Joan, Anthony Denny’s wife. Anthony is in constant attendance on the king these days – he will know if the Privy Council mean to go ahead against her. It is he that will take the arraignment for her trial into the king for signature, or dry-stamp it himself. He’ll take the king’s letter to the jury if he means to dictate the verdict. Sir Anthony knows everything, and he will tell Joan what is planned.’

‘Are you sure he’s on our side?’ I query. ‘Are you sure he is faithful to the side of reform?’

Nan makes a little gesture with both hands, like a woman weighing one purse against another. ‘His heart is with reform, I am sure of it,’ she says. ‘But like all of us, he wants to keep the king’s favour. He’s not going to take a single step that might turn the king against him. Before anything else he is a powerless subject at the court of . . .’

‘A tyrant,’ Catherine whispers defiantly.

‘A king,’ Nan corrects her.

‘But a king who favours us,’ I remind them.

With a new confidence I go to the king’s rooms before dinner and when I find him and his gentlemen talking of religion I give my opinion. I take good care not to be bold or proud of my learning. That’s not hard: the more that I learn, the more sure I am that I have very much to learn; but I can at least join in a conversation with those men who have taken up reformation as others take up archery – to please the king and to give themselves something to do.

‘So Tom Seymour has no wife,’ the king remarks in the middle of one of our conversations. ‘Who’d have thought it?’

It is like a physical blow to hear his name. ‘Your Majesty?’

‘I said, Tom Seymour has no wife,’ he says, raising his voice as if I am going deaf. ‘Though I gave my blessing for the marriage and the Howards told me it would go ahead at once.’

I cannot think what to say. Behind the king I see the impassive face of Thomas Howard, Duke of Norfolk, father of Mary, who should have been Thomas’s bride.

‘Was there an obstacle?’ I ask quietly as if I am moderately surprised.

‘The lady’s preference, apparently.’ The king turns to the duke. ‘Did she refuse? I’m surprised you allow a daughter such freedoms.’ The duke bows, smiling. ‘I am afraid to say that she is not an admirer of Thomas Seymour,’ he says. I grit my teeth in irritation at his sneering tone. ‘I think she is not confident of his beliefs.’

This is to imply he is a heretic. ‘Your Majesty . . .’ I start.

The duke dares to speak over me. I break off as I realise that he thinks he can interrupt me – the Queen of England – and that no-one has challenged him.

‘The Seymours are all famously in favour of reforming the church,’ Norfolk says, hissing the ‘s’ through his missing front tooth like the snake that he is. ‘From Lady Anne in the queen’s rooms, to his lordship Edward. They’re all very intent on their scholarship and their reading. They think they can instruct us all. I’m sure we should be grateful, but my daughter is more traditional. She likes to worship in the church that Your Majesty has established. She seeks no change except as you command.’ He pauses. His dark eyes flicker downwards as if he might manage to squeeze out a tear in memory of his son-in-law. ‘And she loved Henry Fitzroy with a true heart – we all did. She cannot bear another man in his place.’