Page 87 of Love, Remember Me

"I am sorry, Lady Rochford, but you are to be incarcerated with the queen, and not allowed to come and go at will. Food will be brought to you. You will want for nothing."

"Send me my confessor!" the queen demanded. "If I am to be denied my freedom, and access to my husband, then I must be allowed a priest, sir. Surely the king will not deny me a priest!" Her voice was high and beginning to border on the hysterical.

"I will ask, madame," was the captain's noncommittal reply. He bowed again, and backed from the queen's chambers.

Both she and Lady Rochford heard the key turn in the lock behind him. Wordlessly the two women ran to the other exits to the apartment, but they were all locked. Even the hidden door to the secret passageway that led to the king's apartments was bolted from the other side. Lady Rochford peered from the windows of the apartment, and it was as if an icy hand had gripped her heart. Below, at ten-foot intervals, were yeomen of the guard standing armed.

"He knows!" the queen whispered frantically. "What else can it be, Rochford?He knows!"

"Say nothing until you are accused," Lady Rochford whispered back. "You cannot be certain what the king has been told."

Lady Jane Rochford could feel herself slipping back in time, back to a similar situation in which her sister-in-law, Anne Boleyn, found herself accused. Anne had been guilty of nothing, but to save her husband, George Boleyn, Lady Jane had agreed to testify against her. Her sole evidence had consisted of the fact that Anne and her brother had spent an afternoon in a closed room together. Jane had told the court in a pretrial hearing that she believed Anne desired to conspire against the king, but that her husband, George, had sought to dissuade her. Just tell of how they were closeted for that afternoon, she was instructed. The rest will come out through others.

Jane Rochford had done as she was told. But Cromwell and the others had betrayed her. She had testified, and then listened in horror as her words were interpreted to imply that Anne, the queen, had committed incest with George, Lord Rochford.

"Ahh, God, no!" she had cried out, and been forcibly removed from the courtroom. They had not let her see her husband again. She had not been able to tell him that she had said no such thing; that she had been tricked; that she did really love him. She had never told George that she loved him. Instead she had been sent away from court with thanks for her loyalty and the promise of reward one day. Her appointment to Anne of Cleves's household was that reward, and later she had been appointed to Catherine Howard's service, which was far better. The king had had no love for the German princess, but he loved and adored Cat Howard.

Jane Rochford had waited for what seemed like many years to revenge herself upon Henry Tudor. In her exile from court, she had thought often of how she would hurt him as she had been hurt. She wanted him to feel the pain that she had felt when they had entrapped her into betraying her husband; when her husband was executed so cruelly. That she risked her own life meant nothing to her at all. She had no husband. No children. The king had to pay for killing George. He would lose the one he loved most in all the world, even as she had lost the one that she loved most in all the world.

That was why she had encouraged Thomas Culpeper and Catherine Howard into adultery. It had not been hard. The queen was a flighty, silly girl with ridiculous romantic notions. She had not the wit of a flea. She had honestly believed as long as she kept the king content, she could play her wanton little games and get away with them. As for Culpeper, he was a proud young man with a great opinion of himself,andhe had fallen in love with Catherine Howard. She did not know which of them was the greater fool. How could they not see their foolish love was doomed?

Who had told on them? Lady Rochford wondered. She had intended to expose them herself, but not until the queen was well along with a bastard child. The king, she knew from the queen, had not been able to perform satisfactorily of late. He would know any child got on the queen was not of his making. He would either have to expose her or accept the bastard as his own. Either way, he would suffer the tortures of the damned. But now, Lady Rochford realized, something had happened. Some new unknown element had been introduced. Someone else had informed on the queen. Who was it? And why? What exactly did they know? She was a little afraid. If they knew about the queen, did they know about her?

Taking the queen's cold little hand in hers, she patted it, saying, "Remember, Catherine Howard, admit to nothing. You do not know what anyone has said, and for now it is just their word against yours. The king loves you best of all his wives, even your cousin Anne. He will believe you, but you must not panic."

Cat shuddered. "Do not mentionhername to me. I cannot help but remember how she ended up.I do not want to die, Rochford!"

"Then say nothing, and when accused, deny everything," Lady Rochford said silkily. "Naught can happen to you if you are clever. There is no proof of anything untoward in your behavior." At least no proof that they can find, she thought, but if they can find nothing, they will manufacture it. That is how the king ridded himself of Anne Boleyn, but then he was out of love with her by then, and enamored of the Seymour chit. He is still in love with this girl. Ohh, I wish I could find out what it was they knew. Perhaps we can bribe one of the servitors who brings our food. I must know what is going on!

Nyssa had been frantically seeking her husband, and finally found him with the Duke of Norfolk. "The queen is confined to her apartments under guard, with only Rochford to attend her. The others have all been dismissed!" she told them breathlessly. "The archbishop, I learned from one of the guards, is in charge of the investigation."

"Jesus Christus!" Norfolk swore volubly. "Could you learn anything else, madame? Why is Catherine confined? There is no other woman, I know, and the king absolutely adores her. What has gone wrong?"

"Do you really care?" Nyssa demanded of him. "Is your distress for Catherine Howard, or for yourself, my lord duke?"

"Your wife's tongue could easily lose her her head," the duke said sourly to his grandson.

"My lord," Nyssa said angrily, "I have addressed you, and yet you ignore me. You do it all the time, and I resent it. Varian and I are here at court at the request of your niece, the queen. We would far prefer to be home with our children. If this queen you set up is tumbled down, are we not all in danger?"

Thomas Howard looked directly at Nyssa and said a single word, "Aye." His long face was grave, his eyes, usually fathomless, worried.

For a brief moment Nyssa felt sorry for him. Her voice dropped and she beckoned him closer to her. "The queen may be caught in adultery, my lord," Nyssa told him softly. "I cannot be certain, but why else would the archbishop be involved in this matter?"

"What do you know?" he asked quietly.

She told him, even as Varian put a protective arm about her.

"Why did you not tell me before this?" the duke asked her.

"Because," Nyssa said bluntly, "you would have exposed her to save your own self. I knew eventually she would be found out. I hoped when that day came, Varian and I would be long gone from court, and forgotten by a vengeful king out to destroy the Howards."

A wintry smile touched the duke's lips. He nodded, understanding her rationale. Like him, she had an instinct for survival. Her family came first in her life, even as his had always come first in his. "You will not be able to flee to your Winterhaven now, lest it look like you run to escape some guilt or culpability," he told her. "You will have to ride out whatever storm there is here with the rest of us."

"I know that," Nyssa told him, "and I will never forgive you if harm comes to Varian or our children through the Howards."

"I know that," he responded. "You are a woman with a long memory for a fault, madame. Keep silent on what you know, for what you know may not be at the root of the problem at all. I will go to the archbishop myself and ask him what this is all about. He will tell me."

"And will you tell us?" she asked him. "Or will you husband the information and leave us to wonder?"

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