Page 74 of Boleyn Traitor
‘Yes! I understand!’ I am desperate that she is not smeared with a witchcraft accusation. ‘But he can annul it? He’s Head of the Church?’
He smiles at me. ‘Wouldn’t that be tyranny?’ He stops teasing when he sees the fear in my face. ‘Oh, very well, it can be done! If you insist on it – for argument’s sake. We can say that her childhood betrothal still stands, that God spoke to the king at the altar, so he did not consent in his heart and did not consummate his marriage. And as it is not consummated, it’s easily annulled. How’s that?’ He looks at me with an air of triumph.
‘Prior contract again?’ I ask incredulously. ‘Is Queen Anne to be the third royal bride that was married before? Isn’t that rather a lot?’
‘Would you prefer that we go down the Papist and witchcraft route so that Lord Lisle dies, Lord Hungerford dies, his priest and his physician and Mother Roche die on the common scaffold, and even poor old Lady Margaret Pole? And all their evidence leads to the queen as master-planner and witch?’
‘Nobody would believe the queen is a witch.’
He shakes his head. ‘People believe anything if it is said often enough, loudly enough. You of all people know that, who lost your family to noise.’
‘There’s been enough deaths,’ I say quietly; my lips are so cold that I can hardly speak. ‘Someone should speak up against the deaths.’
‘You speak up!’ he says encouragingly. ‘You save them! Help me save them all! If the queen will agree that her marriage was no true wedding, that she was married before, then the king’s not impotent but guided by God to holy celibacy. There’s no fat ugly woman, no smells, no bewitching, and no witch – even the Lisles are safe! She can stay in England for the rest of her life. I will see she’s paid a pension: 8,000 nobles a year – a fortune – and she shall have Richmond Palace as her home.’
It is a fortune; but it is a poor exchange for the throne of England.
‘It’s not in exchange for the throne of England,’ Lord Cromwell says, reading my thoughts. ‘It’s instead of a scandalous accusation of witchcraft that would be the deaths of a dozen people and blacken her name forever as a fat, stinking woman that a king could not bear to bed.’
‘There must be another way!’
‘Not that I can imagine.’
My head is whirling. I can’t imagine another way out either. ‘Then – yes,’ I say simply. ‘I’ll advise her to lie. I’ll tell her to say that she was precontracted and take an annulment... if you swear she has no other choice.’
He bows his head. ‘I always prefer to leave people without a choice,’ he says. ‘It makes deciding so much quicker.’
Hampton Court, Spring
1540
THE SEASON OFLent is observed only lightly this year. We eat no beef, but the new Church of England confirms chicken and game and eggs as ‘fish’ for the forty days of fasting. Lady Lisle sends quail from her aviaries and dotterel for the queen’s table, and herdaughter Anne Basset gives the king marmalade to her mother’s recipe. But neither quails nor marmalade take the king’s gaze from Kitty Howard, who encourages him like a demure granddaughter hoping to be given a pony. Her inviting smiles disappear the moment that our uncle, wearing a new French cape, strides into the queen’s rooms with the other lords before dinner.
‘You won’t tell him about Thomas Culpeper, will you, Lady Rochford?’ she whispers urgently to me. ‘It was a kiss on Shrove Tuesday; he said he would give me up for Lent. I’d never do it again; it was only because it was Shrove Tuesday – like a pancake, you know. So sorry.’
‘I won’t mention it,’ I say, and she fades away among the other girls and keeps a good distance from her overpowerful uncle, who comes to me and kisses my cheek.
‘All well?’ he asks.
‘All well,’ I say. ‘Did you have a successful embassy to France, sir?’
One glance at his hawk-faced gleam tells me that he has won a treaty with our nearest neighbour and separated them from the alliance with Spain.
‘I did. But I came back to news that I should’ve heard first from you. Remember you’re a Howard, whoever your paymaster is. I expect you to keep me abreast of things in the queen’s rooms.’
‘I’ve withheld nothing,’ I reply, wondering what he can have learned on the road from Harwich. ‘I have no paymaster. I couldn’t have written secrets to you, anyway.’
‘The king told his council that he can’t consummate his marriage. You didn’t tell me.’
‘He said that?’ I show him a shocked face. ‘But he comes to the queen’s bed every few nights? And she’s said nothing to anyone.’
I see he is uncertain. He was sure that I had played him false; but now he is wondering if his informant is lying. ‘She’s said nothing?’
‘No, my lord. I would have told you.’
‘You must know! Don’t you listen at the door? You must have heard...’
I shake my head. ‘Sometimes His Majesty stays all night, and sometimes he calls for his page and goes to his own bed around midnight. He’s never said anything to us ladies. Nor has she. We’ve been hoping for a prince, as you know.’
