Page 91 of Boleyn Traitor
‘It’s hardly worth making a fuss...’
‘You tell her. I’ll cut down her household. She will lose two attendants.’
The door is flung open; the king, on this boring afternoon, is playing the part of a delighted husband and father visiting his wife and his daughter. He is wreathed in smiles. The noblemen come in behind him, all delighted to see us ladies in such picturesque harmony.
Kitty jumps to her feet with delight and takes Lady Mary’s hand to lead her forward.
‘I’ll tell her later,’ I say.
TO MY SURPRISE,my father is in the king’s entourage. I curtsey to him, and he rests his hand in blessing on my hood and kisses my brow. When the queen plays cards with the king and Lady Mary, we sit together in the window seat.
‘Why are you at court, my lord Father?’ I ask nervously. ‘Not an inquiry or anything?’
The king is talking pleasantly to Lady Mary. Katheryn is pulling at his sleeve.
‘You make me sound like aCassandra, constantly bringing bad news,’ he smilingly complains. ‘Of course there’s no inquiry! Who could organise one, now that Lord Cromwell is gone? I only came to present my compliments to the king and my translation of theCommentaries of the Turkfor his new year’s gift. I’m not a born courtier like you, Jane. I don’t enjoy the life as you do. I don’t have the patience for it.’
‘I don’t enjoy it as I used to,’ I tell him. ‘I know too much. It’s as if I’ve gone behind the scenes of a masque and seen the machinery that makes the thunder and the wheels that turn to make the waves of the sea. I don’t delight in the spectacle now that I have to put my weight on the wheels. I’m part of the machine, not the audience.’
He is more interested in the metaphor than in me. ‘Make great waves then,’ he recommends, glancing at the king. ‘Make sure you’re the one working the machinery.’
Hampton Court, January
1541
IN THE END,we all have to set our hands to the wheel to make the magic of a royal court for the new year celebrations. A visit of Anne of Cleves throws the machinery into its highest gear. She curtseys as low to Kitty as if her former maid is an empress, and she sits with the duchesses, halfway down the table that she once supervised as queen. After dinner, there is dancing, and the king watches his two wives take hands as partners, and he beats his hand in time to the tune.
Everyone seems to have forgotten that Anne is so ugly that no man could desire her. Nobody thinks that her breasts are slack and that she smells. She is beautifully dressed – she must be spending a fortune on new clothes, all cut revealingly in the French style to suit her curves. She has brought lavish gifts for the king – two horses barded in imperial purple velvet – and he repays her generously. Even Katheryn shares some of her spoils, passing on the king’s gifts that she doesn’t want: two puppies that Anne snatches up and kisses, and a gold ring that Kitty puts on Anne’s finger.
After her short stay, when it’s time for her to go, Anne bids a cheerful farewell to all her old false friends, and I walk with her to the clock tower yard, where her horse and guards are waiting.
‘You are happy?’ I ask.
‘Happier than you, I think,’ she says. ‘For I am as you said I should be: free of the show and free of the fear. I live without a master. Just think: I’m going to ride six miles through the frosty park and get home before dusk in time for my dinner. I shall eat what I like; I shall sleep alone in my big bed. I shall wake tomorrow, and then – I shall do whatever I want to do!’
‘I’m glad for you.’
‘But what will happen when he dies?’ she asks in German, so that no eavesdropper could understand us.
Even so, I glance around. ‘It’s against the law to speak...’ I start to caution her.
‘I know. But it can’t be long. Look at him.’
‘Your place is secure,’ I say. ‘He made it the law that you should be paid your pensions and recognised as his sister.’
‘And you?’ She looks at me. ‘Katheryn Howard’s young; she’ll outlive him by decades, just as I thought that I would. I thought that I would be a regent queen, ruling over England until my stepson was of age and then he would honour me as a good stepmother. But it will be Kitty, not me. The king will name her as regent in his will, and then you and the Howard family will be the power behind the throne of a queen regent ruling England.’ She looks at me, speculatively. ‘You know how to do it. Actually, you’d be good at it!’
I lower my eyes so that she does not see the flare of my ambition. ‘I’ve thought of it,’ I admit.
She laughs in genuine amusement. ‘It would be funny, after his hunger for a son, if his kingdom was ruled by a woman! It would be so funny if the woman was a Boleyn.’
IREMEMBER MY FATHER’Sgloomy prediction that no one could pack a jury like Thomas Cromwell when Sir Thomas Wyatt, our old friend, the poet, is arrested suddenly without warning and taken to the Tower. He is wearily familiar with the prison rooms; he was released last time only because Cromwell had enough evidence against Anne without having to throw Thomas Wyatt into the scales against her. But this time, Wyatt’s only friend is Sir John Wallop, ambassador to France, and he is suddenly recalled from Paris, and they are imprisoned together.
And that is where it rests, in an eerie silence and stillness. Their houses are searched and their servants questioned; but nothing is found against them. The two men are housed in the Tower but notcharged. It is as if someone knows there is a crime, but he lacks the skills to make a water-tight case against them. No one seems to know how to write a writ of attainder to have them killed. All the old lords are on edge, waiting for news, terrified that something will point to one of them: an embroidered banner in the bottom of an old chest, a receipt for a horse. But whoever has ordered this inquiry does not know their business. They have started with accusation and now look for evidence. But a clever advisor sendsbread on waters passing forth. My spymaster spread lies to breed lies long before he made an accusation, knowing very well,thou knowest not what evil shall come on the earth.
I loiter in the gallery outside the privy council room when the old lords are coming out and talking indiscreetly to their friends; but since they know nothing, I learn nothing. If there was a circle of hidden plotters, they have been well-warned by the arrests. It is true – as my father said – that nobody can run an inquiry now Cromwell is gone.
‘ISTHOMASWYATTactually guilty of anything?’ I ask my uncle.
