Page 80 of Boleyn Traitor
‘The Duchess of Cleves.’ He sees my face. ‘Oh, all right: the queen. But anyway, Kitty Howard won’t serve her any more. She’s going home to her grandmother. The king can court her there without scandal.’
I am completely silent. Of course, the king, nearly fifty, in the first months of his fourth marriage, cannot court a girl of sixteen, his wife’s maid-of-honour, without scandal – not at Lambeth nor anywhere else.
But my first thought is for my own safety: ‘Thomas Cromwell’s servants will be fearful – many people inform for him: the investigators of the monasteries, the network of mayors and sheriffs and merchants...’
‘You mean you, I suppose? For Christ’s sake, Jane, don’t waste my time pretending you care about Cromwell’s slaveys. Your name needn’t come into it – if you’re prepared to be helpful now.’
‘What can I do to help you, Uncle?’
‘Did Cromwell have a plan to release the king from this false marriage? He says that he did? He says that he can set it in motion in return for his freedom. D’you know what it is?’
I don’t hesitate. ‘Yes, I do.’
‘What is it?’
‘He can tell you it himself? In return for his freedom?’
My uncle looks at me, hawklike. ‘Or you can tell me now?’
I have no choice. ‘The queen is to have Richmond Palace and 8,000 nobles a year,’ I tell him. ‘In return, she has to agree to an annulment – that she was precontracted.’
‘Precontract again?’ he says incredulously, just as I did.
‘Yes,’ I say firmly. ‘He thought it the only solution.’
Thomas Howard takes my chin in his hand and turns my face towards the light. I don’t waver under his eagle-eyed inspection. ‘Not the only solution, I think. Wasn’t there some discussion of a witch overlooking the king’s marriage bed? Some enchantment cast on the king’s potency? D’you know why Lord Hungerford is in the Tower?’
Something about the way his thumbnail digs into my chin reminds me that he is strong and I am only a woman, but I know that my woman’s frailty has taught me to be quicker-witted, more cunning. I can fool him. I can fool him now.
I gasp and cross myself. ‘God save us all. I know nothing about Lord Hungerford but what everyone knows: that he was cruel to his wife and perverse.’
‘So – no queen witch this time around?’ he asks. ‘Not like t’other one.’
‘There’s no need for accusations of witchcraft, it’s all done by agreement,’ I urge him.
‘Then why is Lord Hungerford condemned to die?’ he asks.
I turn a blank face to him; he will believe I know nothing. ‘For rebellion, isn’t it? And predicting the king’s death?’ I give a little start. ‘Oh yes, they say he used a witch, didn’t he? In Wiltshire, though? An old woman? Nothing to do with the queen?’
‘Quite separate?’
‘Oh yes.’
‘Very well.’ He is satisfied. ‘And have you brokered this agreement with the queen? Is she ready to declare herself as good a maid as when she came into this country and that the king was inspired by God to leave her as that?’
‘She’ll consent,’ I assure him.
‘And you’ve got ladies lined up to give evidence that the king was in her bed, night after night, and chose not to consummate the wedding, for his conscience’s sake? Nothing about impotence?’
‘Nothing about impotence,’ I repeat, as if learning from him.
‘Very well,’ he says, with quiet satisfaction. ‘Cromwell is a master at this stuff; I give him that. You take the queen to Richmond Palaceon the tide and bring your ladies back to swear their evidence when I tell you. And prepare the duchess to swear an oath as well.’
‘And if this is all done as Thomas Cromwell planned, does it earn him a pardon?’
‘Why should you care?’ my uncle demands. ‘Unless you share his faith, his treasonous faith? Unless you have worked with him as his spy and his crony in treasonous plots? Unless you’re a traitor like him? Are you a traitor? Another Boleyn traitor?’
I am silent. My spymaster, with his dark-eyed smile and reluctant snort of a laugh, will have to fall without a word from me. He has hundreds of friends, thousands of dependents. Someone should speak for him; I cannot. ‘No, of course not. I’ll do what I ought to do, in obedience to you, Uncle.’
