Page 46 of Boleyn Traitor
‘Where’s Jane?’ I demand. ‘Where’s Jane Seymour?’
Margery Horsman looks up. ‘She’s gone. She’s gone with Sir Nicholas Carew to Beddington.’
Everyone looks blank, as if a maid-of-honour is allowed to leave her post, go off with a courtier, without a word to the mistress of the maids or the chief lady-in-waiting. As if Nicholas Carew can command a maid in the queen’s service. As if he is a courtier of any importance. Carew Manor at Beddington is his family house. He has taken Jane Seymour from her hard-won place in the queen’s rooms; he has taken her out of court without permission and without notice. And Jane is not the only one missing.
‘And where are the others?’ I look round. ‘Who isn’t here? Elizabeth Somerset, Lady Worcester? Anne Braye, Lady Cobham?’
‘The privy council sent for them,’ Margery Horsman tells me. Everyone has their heads bowed low over their sewing, as if they are afraid that if they look up from their work, they, too, will be summonsed.
‘What for?’ I ask.
‘They said there is an inquiry.’
‘Oh, that inquiry,’ I say confidently. ‘Yes, I know all about the inquiry.’
I walk confidently towards the door, and the yeomen of the guard swings it open for me without hesitation. I go down the stair to Thomas Cromwell’s dark chamber, and I tap on the first and then the second of the double doors. He is not there; but his clerk is carefully sorting papers, deeds of lands into separate piles. When he sees me, he turns the deeds face down, as if to hide the names of the owners, and bows.
‘Lady Rochford.’
‘Where’s Master Cromwell?’
‘I don’t know, your ladyship.’
‘He told me that he was going home to Stepney for May Day?’
‘He was leaving home as I came here.’
‘By horse? Going to join the king at Whitehall Palace? By barge? Has he gone to the Tower?’
‘I don’t know, your ladyship. I don’t know where he is.’
I come a little closer. ‘I have to tell him something important.’
‘Would you write it for him? I am going home to Stepney shortly; I can carry a message.’
This is no help to me, for I have nothing to tell him – unless he does not know that Anne has gone from court and that George has gone to the Tower, Jane Seymour to Beddington, and Lady Worcester and Lady Cobham to the inquiry. But surely, he must know this? The council could not act without his knowledge.
‘I’ll write to him,’ I decide.
He gives me a sheet of paper and a needle and thread, a knife, a pen and sealing wax, but I have no time to make a letterlock. I write what anyone can read:
Sir,
As you may know, the council has taken Anne in a barge to London? I believe that my husband has been taken to the Tower.Please tell me if I should join them, and how long a stay they will make so that I can send their clothes? Should I attend the queen?
Yours aye,
JB
‘Don’t give it to anyone else but your master,’ I tell him. He bows. He is of the Cromwell household; he would never give anything to anyone but Cromwell.
I cannot go back to the queen’s rooms and the frightened women sewing shirts. Instead, I go to the king’s side and knock on the door of the Boleyn rooms. I stare at the bright newly painted heraldic shield, the three black bulls and the red inverted chevron, before the door opens and the groom of the household bows to me.
‘Is Lord Wiltshire here?’ I ask.
‘No, your ladyship. He is at Westminster.’
‘Do you expect him home tonight?’
