The Taming of the Queen (57 page)

‘You have been very fair and honourable to tell me this,’ I say. ‘I shall see that you are rewarded, William.’

He bows his head. ‘I don’t seek any reward.’

‘Will you go back to this man and say that you have looked and that I have nothing?’

‘I will.’

I put out my hand to him, and as he bows and kisses it I see that my fingers are trembling and the little bird on my other hand is shaking as he clings to my thumb. ‘You don’t even think as I do, William. You are kind to protect me when we don’t even agree.’

‘We may not agree, Your Majesty, but I think you should be free to think and write and study,’ he says. ‘Even though you are a woman. Even if you listen to a woman preacher.’

‘God bless you, William, in whatever language He chooses, whether through a priest or through your own good heart.’

He bows. ‘And the woman preacher . . .’ he says very quietly.

I turn in the doorway. ‘Mistress Askew?’

‘They have moved her from Newgate.’

The relief is tremendous. I cry out. ‘Oh! God be praised! She is released?’

‘No. No, God help her. They have taken her to the Tower.’

There is a moment of blank silence as he sees that I understand what he is saying. They have not released her into the custody of her husband; they have not bound her over to keep the peace. Instead, they have moved her from the prison where they keep the common criminals, to the prison where they keep those accused of treason and heresy, near to Tower Hill where they hang the guilty, not far from Smithfield meat market where they burn the heretics.

I turn to the window behind me, and I unlatch it and swing it open.

‘Your Majesty?’ William gestures to the open cages, to the parrot on his perch. ‘Your Majesty? Take care . . .’

I hold the little canary up to the open window so that he can see the blue sky. ‘They can go, William. They can all go. Indeed, they had better go. I don’t know how long I will be here to care for them.’

I am dressed in complete silence, my ladies handing me my things without a word, in well-practised choreography. I don’t know how to reach Anne Askew behind the thick stone walls of the Tower. It is the prison for enemies who will not be freed for years, for the gravest traitors, for evil people who have to be held without any chance of escape. For a prisoner to enter through the watergate, concealed from the City and from all the people who might rise up to defend him, is to set sail on the river Lethe – towards oblivion.

At the heart of my fear for Anne is that I don’t know why they would move her from Newgate to the Tower. She has been arraigned for heresy, she has been questioned by the Privy Council, why do they not leave her at Newgate until they send her for trial, or grant her pardon and send her home? Why would they move her to the Tower? What is the point of it? And who has ordered it?

Nan comes forward and curtseys as Catherine stands behind me and fastens my necklace. The priceless sapphires are heavy and cold on my neck. They make me shiver.

‘What is it, Nan?’

‘It’s Bette,’ she says, naming one of my younger maids-in-waiting.

‘What about her?’ I ask shortly.

‘Her mother has written to me and asked for her to be sent home,’ she says. ‘I have taken the liberty of saying that she can go.’

‘Is she ill?’ I ask.

Nan shakes her head with a pursed mouth, as if she would say more but she is angry.

‘So what’s the matter with her?’

There is an embarrassed silence.

‘Her father is a tenant of Bishop Gardiner,’ Catherine Brandon remarks.

I take a moment to understand her. ‘You think the bishop has advised Bette’s parents to remove her from my keeping?’

Nan nods. Catherine curtseys and leaves the room to wait for me outside.

‘He’d never admit to it,’ Nan says. ‘So there’s no point in challenging him.’

‘But why would Bette leave me? Even if he advised it?’

‘I’ve seen it before,’ Nan says. ‘When Kitty Howard was charged. The younger maids, those who didn’t have to stay to give evidence, all found excuses to go home. The court shrank like linen on a washday. Same as when the king turned against Queen Anne. All the Boleyns disappeared overnight.’

‘I’m not like Kitty Howard!’ I exclaim in a rush of sudden temper. ‘I am the sixth wife, the sixth disregarded wife, not the fifth guilty wife. All I have done is to study and listen to preachers. She was an adulteress, or perhaps a bigamist, and a whore! Any mother would take her daughter away from service to a young woman like that! Any mother would fear the morals in a court like that! But everyone says that my court is the most virtuous of any in Christendom! Why would anyone take their daughter away from me?’

‘Kitty’s maids left in the days before she was arrested,’ Nan says levelly, not responding to my anger. ‘Not because she was light, but because she was doomed. Nobody wants to be in the court of a falling queen.’

‘A falling queen?’ I repeat. I hear the words: it sounds like a comet, like something in the night sky. ‘A falling queen.’

‘William told me that you opened the window and let your birds fly away,’ she remarks.

‘Yes.’

‘I’ll go and close it again, and call them back if I can. There’s no point in showing that we are afraid.’

‘I’m not afraid!’ I lie.

‘You should be.’

As I lead my ladies in to dinner I look around as if I fear that the court too will be slipping away. But I cannot see any absences. Everyone is there, in their accustomed places. Those who believe in reform do not feel they are newly endangered, it is only those of my household, those who are close to me. Everyone bows respectfully and deeply as I go by. It seems as if nothing is changed from every other night. The king’s place is laid, the cloth of state hangs over his great reinforced chair, the servers bow as they come into the room and present the finest dishes to his empty throne as ritual demands. He will dine in his own rooms with his new circle of favourites: Bishop Stephen Gardiner, the Lord Chancellor Thomas Wriothesley, Sir Richard Rich, Sir Anthony Denny, William Paget. When dinner is over I may leave the great hall to sit with the king in his rooms, but until then there must be someone at the head table. The court needs a monarch, the princesses need a parent to dine with them.

My gaze goes across the room and I note that the Seymour household has an empty place laid at the head of the table. I glance at Anne. ‘Is Edward coming home?’ I ask.

‘I wish to God he was here,’ she says bluntly. ‘But I don’t expect him. He doesn’t dare leave Boulogne: the place would fall in a moment.’ She follows my gaze. ‘That place will be for Thomas.’

‘Oh?’

‘He has come to see the king. They can’t raise the
Mary Rose
. They’re trying some new way, pumping her out as she lies on the ocean bed.’

‘Really?’

Thomas comes into the great hall, bows to the empty throne and then bows to me and to the princesses. He winks at Elizabeth and takes his place at the head of the Seymour table. I send out dishes to him, to the Duke of Norfolk, and to Lord Lisle, without favouritism. Without looking directly towards Thomas, I can see that he is tanned like a peasant, the skin at his temples lined from smiling into the sun. He looks well. He has a new jacket in velvet – deep red, my favourite colour. Dozens of dishes come from the kitchen, the trumpeters announce each fresh course with a scream of sound. I take a small portion from everything that is presented to me, and I wonder what the time is now, and if he will come to me after dinner.

It takes forever for the feast to be over, and then the court rises from the tables and the men stroll about and talk to one another, and approach the ladies. Some people settle to cards or games, the musicians play and a few people start to dance. There is no formal entertainment this evening, and I step down from the dais to make my way slowly towards the king’s rooms, pausing to talk to people as I go.

Thomas appears at my side and bows. ‘Good evening, Your Majesty.’

‘Good evening, Sir Thomas. Your sister-in-law tells me that you have spoken with the king about the
Mary Rose
.’

He nods. ‘I had to tell His Majesty that we made an attempt to raise her but that she was stuck fast on the seabed. We’re going to try again with more ships and more ropes. I will send swimmers down to try to make her watertight below decks and pump her out. I think it can be done.’

‘I hope so. It was a terrible loss.’

‘Are you going to see the king?’ he asks, his voice very low.

‘I go every evening.’

‘He seems very displeased.’

‘I know.’

‘I told him that since my marriage to Mary Howard is not to go ahead, I am still looking for a wife.’

Carefully, I don’t look up at him. He extends his arm. I rest my fingers on it. I sense but I do not grip the strength of his forearm. I walk beside him, our paces matching. If I stepped a little closer my cheek would touch his shoulder. I don’t step any closer.

‘Did you say that you hope for Princess Elizabeth?’

‘I did not. He was not in the mood for conversation.’

I nod.

‘You know, there was something in Mary Howard’s refusal that I still don’t understand,’ he says quietly. ‘The Norfolks all agreed, Henry Howard the oldest son, and the old duke himself. It was Lady Mary herself who refused.’

‘I can’t imagine her father allowing a daughter to have her own way.’

‘No,’ he says. ‘That’s true. She would have had to fight like a wild cat to oppose her father and her brother, acting together. She would have had to defy them openly. It makes no sense. I know that she doesn’t dislike me, and it was a good match. There must have been something about the terms of the marriage that were completely unacceptable to her.’

‘How unacceptable?’

‘Unbearable. Unimaginable. Anathema.’

‘But what could such a thing be? She could know nothing against you?’

His wicked smile gleams. ‘Nothing of that gravity, Your Majesty.’

‘And yet you are sure it was her refusal? Her determined refusal?’

‘I hoped you might know.’

I shake my head. ‘I am surrounded by mysteries and worries,’ I say to him. ‘The preachers who spoke in my rooms are arrested, the books that the king gave me to read are banned, it is even illegal to own the king’s Bible, and my friend Anne Askew has been moved from Newgate Prison to the Tower. My ladies are slipping away from my rooms.’ I smile. ‘This afternoon I let my birds go.’

He glances around the room and smiles at an acquaintance as if he is merry. ‘This is very bad.’

‘I know it.’

‘Can’t you speak to the king? A word from him would restore you.’

‘I’ll talk to him this evening if he is in a good mood.’

‘Your only safety is in his love for you. He
does
still love you?’

I make the tiniest gesture, of denial. ‘Thomas, I don’t know that he has ever loved anyone. I don’t know that he can.’

Thomas and I cross the king’s presence room filled with petitioners, lawyers, doctors and hangers-on watching our footsteps, estimating our confidence at every stride. He pauses at the door of the king’s privy chamber.

‘I can’t bear to leave you here,’ he says unhappily.