The Taming of the Queen (62 page)

‘Yes,’ I say.

‘On purpose?’

‘Yes.’

‘But you are forgiven?’

‘He wanted to break my spirit and I think he has done so. Don’t ask me more, Nan.’

We sleep fitfully, I have no dreams of the dark castle and the woman with the wrenched limbs, or the dead wives behind the bolted doors. One of the worst things that can happen to a proud woman has happened to me, I need not fear my dreams any more. When the maids come in the morning with the ewer of hot water they find me throwing off my soiled linen and ordering the bath. I want to get the smell of his suppurating leg out of my skin, out of my hair. I want to get a fetid taste out of my mouth. I feel as if I am soiled, I feel as if I am foul and I can never be washed clean. I know that I am broken.

Shaming me has cheered the king back to health. Suddenly he is well enough to dine with the court and this afternoon he is wheeled into the garden with me at his side. Nan, Lady Tyrwhit and little Lady Jane Grey walk with me, the rest of my ladies stroll behind us, and the king holds my hand as I walk beside the chair. There is a spreading beech tree in the centre of the king’s privy garden and he stops the chair in the shade and someone fetches a stool for me to sit beside him. Gingerly I lower myself to the seat. He smiles as he sees I cannot sit without pain.

‘You are amused, my lord husband?’

‘Now we’re going to see a play.’

‘A play? Here?’

‘Indeed yes. And when it is over you can tell me the title.’

‘Are you speaking in riddles my lord?’ I ask. I can feel my fear rising.

The little iron gate to the privy garden creaks slightly, opens wide, and guards come running in, a huge number of them, crowding into the small garden. There are at least forty of them in the bright livery of the king’s yeomen of the guard. I rise to my feet. For a moment I think that there is a mutiny against the king and he is in danger. I look round for the pages who wheeled him here, for the gentlemen of the court. Nobody is within calling distance. I stand before him; I will have to shield him from whatever comes. I will have to save him if I can.

‘Wait,’ he cautions me. ‘Remember, it is a play.’

These are not traitors. They are followed by Lord Wriothesley with a rolled letter in his hand. His dark face is alight with triumph. He comes towards me smiling and he unfurls the letter, showing me the seal, the royal seal. It is a warrant for my arrest. ‘Queen Kateryn, known as Parr, you are under arrest for treasonous heresy,’ he says. ‘Here is the warrant. You must come with me to the Tower.’

I have no breath. I throw one anguished look at my husband. He is beaming. I think this is the greatest joke, the greatest masque, that he has ever performed. He has broken my spirit and now he will break my neck and I cannot complain, I cannot protest my innocence. I cannot even beg him for a pardon because I cannot breathe.

Even my sight is dim, though I see Nan running towards us across the grass, her face screwed up in fear. Behind her little Jane Grey hesitates, steps forward, shrinks back, as Lord Wriothesley brandishes his warrant and says again: ‘You must come with me to the Tower, Your Majesty. No delay, please.’ His face is bright. ‘Please don’t make me order them to take you by force.’

He turns to the king and he kneels to him. ‘I have come. I will do as you commanded,’ Wriothesley says, his voice oozing contentment. He rises up again, and he is about to nod to the guards to surround me.

‘Fool!’ Henry bellows at him, full-voiced. ‘Fool! Knave! Arrant knave! Beast! Fool!’

Wriothesley falls back before the king’s red-faced sudden rage.

‘What?’

‘How dare you?’ Henry demands. ‘How dare you come into my own garden and insult the queen? My beloved wife! Are you mad?’

Wriothesley opens and closes his mouth like one of the fat fish in the carp ponds.

‘How dare you come in here and distress my wife?’

‘The warrant? Your Majesty! Your royal warrant?’

‘How dare you show her such a thing? A woman sworn to my interests who has no mind but my mind, who has no thought but mine, whose body is at my command, whose immortal soul is in my keeping? My wife? My beloved wife?’

‘But you said that she should be—’

‘Are you saying that I would order the arrest of my own wife?’

‘No!’ Wriothesley says hastily. ‘No, of course not, Your Majesty, no.’

‘Get out of my sight,’ Henry shouts at him as if he is driven to madness by such disloyalty. ‘I can’t bear you! I never want to see you again.’

‘But, Your Majesty?’

‘Go!’

Wriothesley bows to the ground and stumbles backwards through the garden gate. The guards fumble their exit and rush after him, pushing their way out of the sunlit garden, desperate to get away from the furious king. Henry waits till they are all gone and the gate has clanged shut, the guard standing outside it with his back to us. Only when it is all still and quiet again does the king turn to me.

He is laughing so much that he cannot speak. For a moment I fear that he is having a fit. The tears squeeze out of his puckered eyelids and run down his sweating cheeks. He is dangerously flushed, and as he holds his shaking belly he chokes for air. Long minutes pass as he hoarsely cackles before he can steady himself. He opens his little eyes and wipes his wet cheeks.

‘Lord,’ he says. ‘Lord.’

He sees me standing before him, still frozen with shock, and my ladies blank-faced, waiting.

‘What’s the title of the play, Kate?’ he pants, still laughing.

I shake my head.

‘You who are so clever? So widely read? What is the title of my play?’

‘Your Majesty, I cannot guess.’

‘
The Taming of the Queen
!’ he shouts. ‘
The Taming of the Queen
.’ I hold my slight smile. I look at his sweating scarlet face and I let the sound of his renewed laughter break over me like the hoarse cawing of the ravens at the Tower.

‘I am the dog-master,’ he says, abruptly abandoning his joke. ‘I watch you all. I set you all at each other’s throats. Poor curs. Poor little bitch.’

The king sits in the garden till the shadows lengthen along the smooth green grass and the birds start to sing in the tops of the trees. The swallows weave along the curves of the river, swirling above their own silvery reflections and dipping into the water to drink. The courtiers come in from playing games and they walk languidly, like happy children with flushed faces. Princess Elizabeth smiles up at me and I see a scatter of freckles over her nose like dust on marble, and I think I must remind her maid to make sure that she wears a sun bonnet whenever she goes out.

‘It’s been a beautiful day,’ the king says contentedly. ‘God Himself knows what a wonderful country this is.’

‘We are blessed,’ I agree quietly, and he smiles as if the credit for the summer and for the weather and for the sun sinking over the glassy river is somehow all due to him.

‘I shall come to dinner,’ he says, ‘and after dinner you may come to my room and you must talk to me about your thoughts, Kate. I like to hear what you have been reading and what you think.’

He laughs as he sees me suddenly go pale. ‘Ah, Kate. You need fear nothing. I have taught you everything you need to know, have I not? It is my translations that you read? You are my dear wife, are you not? And we are friends?’

‘Of course, of course,’ I say. I bow as if I am delighted at the invitation.

‘And you may ask anything of me. Any little gift, any little favour. Anything you like, sweetheart.’

I hesitate, wondering if I dare speak of the broken woman in the Tower, Anne Askew, waiting to hear if she is to live or to die. He has said I can ask anything of him, he has just said I am to fear nothing. ‘Your Majesty, there is one small thing,’ I start. ‘A little thing to you, I am sure. But it would be the greatest wish of my heart.’

He raises his hand to stop me. ‘My dear, we have learned today, have we not, that there are no things, not even the smallest things, that come between a husband and wife like us? The greatest wish of your heart could only be the greatest wish of mine. We have nothing to discuss. You need never ask anything of me. We are as one.’

‘It is my friend. . .’

‘You have no better friend than me.’

I understand him. ‘We are as one,’ I repeat dully.

‘Holy unity,’ he says.

I bow my head.

‘And loving silence.’

‘She’s dead,’ Nan tells me brutally, as they are brushing my hair before dinner. The movement of the heavy brush through my thick hair, the occasional painful pull, seems to be part of her news. I don’t put up my hand to stop Susan, the maid, from grooming me as if I were a mare going to the stallion. My head rocks to one side and then the other with the harsh pulling motion. I see my face in the mirror, my white skin, my hurt eyes, my bruised mouth. My head going one way and then another like a nodding doll.

‘Who is dead?’ But I know.

‘Anne Askew. I just had word from London. Catherine Brandon is at her London house. She sent me a note. They killed her this morning.’

I choke. ‘God forgive them. God forgive me. God send her soul to heaven.’

‘Amen.’

I gesture that Susan is to go away but Nan says: ‘You have to have your hair brushed and your hood pinned. You have to go to dinner. Whatever has happened.’

‘How can I?’ I ask simply.

‘Because she died never mentioning your name. She took the rack for you and death for you, so that you could go to dinner and, when your chance comes again, you can defend the reform of the church. She knew you must be free to speak to the king even if all the rest of us are killed. Even if you lose us all, one by one. If you are the last one left, you must save reform in England. Or she will have died for nothing.’

I see Susan’s aghast face in the mirror behind my own.

‘It’s all right,’ I say to her. ‘You need not bear witness.’

‘But
you
must,’ Nan says to me. ‘Anne died without admitting that she knew any one of us, so that we would be free to go on thinking, talking and writing. So that you would carry the torch.’

‘She suffered.’ It’s not a question. She was in the torture room of the Tower, alone with three men. No woman has ever been there before.