The Boleyn Inheritance Read online

  Little Katherine Howard came in and said that they were all ridiculous and that the good butter of England had made me gain a little weight and they were blind if they did not see how well it suits me. I was so grateful to her for that. She is a foolish, frivolous little thing, but she has the cleverness of a stupid girl, since, like any stupid girl, she thinks about only one thing, and so she has become very expert in that. And the one thing that she thinks about? All the time, every moment of every day, Kitty Howard thinks about Kitty Howard.

  We surrender other pleasures for the time of Lent. There are no court entertainments of the merry kind, though there are readings of holy texts after dinner, and the singing of psalms. There are no masquings nor mumming and no jousts of course. I am greatly relieved by this because, best of all, it means that there is no possibility of the king coming in disguised. The memory of our first disastrous meeting still lingers with me, and I fear it stays with him, too. It was not that I did not recognize him that was so offensive; it was the blatant fact that at first sight I was utterly repelled by him. Never since that day, by word, deed, or even look, have I let him know that I find him so unpleasant: fat, very old, and the stink of him turns my stomach. But however much I hold my breath and smile, it is too late to make amends. My face, when he tried to kiss me, told him everything in that moment. The way I pushed him off me, the way I spat the taste of him from my mouth! I still bow my head and flush hot at the terrible embarrassment. All this has left an impression with him that no later good manners can erase. He saw the truth of my view of him in that one swift glimpse, and – what is worse – he saw himself through my eyes: fat, old, disgusting. Sometimes I fear his vanity will never recover from this blow. And since his vanity is damaged I think his potency has gone with it. I am certain that his manhood was destroyed by my spit on the floor, and there is nothing I can do to recall it.

  And that is another thing we give up for Lent. Thank God. I shall look forward to this time every year. For various blessed feast days and forty wonderful days every year of my married life, there will be forty nights when the king will not come to my chamber; when I will not smile at his entrance, and try to arrange myself in such a way that it is easy for him to lever his great bulk above me, and try to show my willingness but not wantonness in a bed that stinks of the festering wound of his leg, in half-darkness, with a man who cannot do the task.

  The burden of this insulting misery night after night is utterly defeating me; it is humbling me to dust. I wake every morning in despair; I feel humiliated, though the failure is all his. I lie awake in the night and hear him fart and groan with the pain of his swollen belly, and I wish myself away, almost anywhere rather than in his bed. I shall be so glad to be spared, for these forty days, the terrible ordeal of his attempt and his failing and my lying awake and knowing that tomorrow night he will try again, but still he will not be able to do it, and that each time he fails he blames me a little more and likes me even less.

  At least we can have this time when we are allowed a little peace. I need not worry how I should help him. He need not work above me like a great heaving boar. He will not come to my room; I can sleep in sheets that smell of lavender instead of pus.

  But I know that this time will end. Easter will come with the celebrations; my coronation, which was planned for February and put off for our grand entrance into London, will now take place in May. I must take this time as a welcome rest from the presence of my husband, but I must use this time to make sure that when he comes back to my chamber we can deal better together. I must find a way to help him to come to my bed, and for me to help him to do the act.

  Thomas Cromwell must be the man to help me. Kitty Howard’s advice is what I should have expected of her: the seductive skills of a naughty girl. How she must have behaved before she was taken into my rooms I dare not imagine. When I am a little more settled myself, I shall have to talk to her. A girl – a child – such as her should not know how to drop a shift and smile over a naked shoulder. She must have been very badly guarded and very ill advised. The ladies of my court must be as above criticism as myself. I shall have to tell her that whatever flirtatious tricks she knows she must put them aside. And she cannot teach them to me. I cannot have a shadow of suspicion over my behavior. A queen has died in this country for less.

  I wait for the dinner to end and for the king to leave his place and walk between the tables, greeting men and women as he goes. He is affable tonight, his leg must be less painful. It is often hard to tell what ails him, for he is bad-tempered for so many different reasons, and if I inquire after the wrong cause, that can give offense, too.

  As I see him walk away I look down the hall and catch Thomas Cromwell’s eye. I crook my finger and he comes to me, and I rise and take his arm and let him lead me away from the dining table and to a window overlooking the river, as if we are admiring the view and the icy night with a dozen sparkling stars.

  “I need help, Master Secretary,” I say.

  “Anything,” he says. He is smiling, but his face is strained.

  “I cannot please the king,” I say in the words I have rehearsed. “Help me.”

  At once, he looks quite sick with discomfort. He glances around him as if he would shout for help for himself. I am ashamed to be speaking so to a man, but I have to get good advice from somewhere. I cannot trust my women, and to speak to my advisors from Cleves, even Lotte, would be to alert my mother and brother whose servants they are. But this is not a true marriage; this is not a marriage in deeds as well as words. And if it is not a marriage, then I have failed in my duty to the king, to the people of England, and to myself. I have to make this marriage a real one. I have to do it. And if this man can tell me what is wrong, then he must do so.

  “These are… private matters,” he says, his hand half covering his mouth as if to stop any words coming out. He is pulling at his lip.

  “No. This is the king,” I say. “This is England. Duty, not private.”

  “You should be advised by your women, by your Mistress of Maids.”

  “You made the wedding,” I say, groping for words. “Help me make it true.”

  “I am not responsible…”

  “Be my friend.”

  He glances around as if he would like to run away, but I will not release him.

  “These are early days.”

  I shake my head. “Fifty-two days.” Who has counted the days more carefully than me?

  “Has he explained his dislike of you?” he demands suddenly. The English is too fast for me, and I don’t understand the words.

  “Explained?”

  Cromwell makes a little noise of irritation at my stupidity and glances around as if he would summon one of my countrymen to translate. Then he checks himself as he remembers that this must be a complete secret.

  “What is wrong with you?” he says very simply and very quietly, his mouth to my ear.

  I realize that my face is stunned, and quickly I turn to the window before the court can see my shock and distress.

  “It is me?” I demand. “He says it is me?”

  His little dark eyes are anguished. He cannot answer me for shame, and that is how I know. It is not that the king is old or tired or sick. It is that he does not like me, that he does not desire me, perhaps even that I disgust him. And I guess from Thomas Cromwell’s scrunched-up, worried little face that the king has already discussed his repulsion with this nasty little man.

  “He tell you he hate me?” bursts out of me.

  His agonized grimace tells me that yes, the king has told this man that he cannot force himself to be my lover. Perhaps the king has told others, perhaps all his friends. Perhaps all this time the court has been laughing behind their white hands at the ugly girl from Cleves who came to marry the king and now repels him.

  The humiliation of this makes me give a little shudder and turn away from Cromwell, and I do not see his bow and his swift retreat as he rushes to get away from me as you would avoid
a person with poisonous bad luck.

  I spend the rest of the evening in a daze of misery; I cannot put words to my shame. If I had not served such a hard apprenticeship at my brother’s court of Cleves I should have fled to my bedroom and cried myself to sleep. But I long ago learned to be stubborn, and long ago learned to be strong, and I have faced the dangerous dislike of a powerful ruler before, and survived.

  I keep myself alert, like a wakened frightened falcon. I do not droop, and I do not let my pleasant smile slip from my face. When it is time for the ladies to retire, I curtsy to the king my husband without betraying for a moment my anguish that he finds me so disgusting that he cannot do to me what men can do to beasts of the field.

  “Good night, Your Grace,” I say.

  “Good night, sweetheart,” he says with such easy tenderness that for a moment I want to cling to him as my only friend at this court and tell him of my fear and unhappiness. But he is already looking beyond me, away from me. His glance is idly resting on my ladies, and Katherine Howard steps forward and curtsies to him and then I lead them all away.

  I say nothing during the slow taking off of my gold collar, my bracelets, my rings, net, my hood, my sleeves, my stomacher, the two skirts, the padding, the petticoats, and the shift. I say nothing when they throw my nightdress over my head and I sit before the mirror and they brush my hair and plait it and pin my nightcap on my head. I say nothing when Lady Rochford lingers and asks kindly if I need anything, if she can be of service to me, if my mind is easy tonight.

  My priest comes in, and the ladies and I kneel together for the nighttime prayers, and my thoughts beat in rhythm to the familiar words while I cannot help but think that I disgust my husband and have done from the very first day.

  And then I remember it again. That first moment at Rochester when he came in all puffed up in his vanity and looking so very ordinary, exceptional only in that he stepped up to me, just like a drunken tradesman might do. But this was not a drunken old man of the country town; this was the King of England playing knight errant. I humiliated him before the whole court, and I think he will never forgive me.

  His dislike of me springs from that moment, I swear it. The only way that he can bear the memory of it is to say, like a hurt child: “Well, I don’t like her either.” He recalls my pushing him away and refusing to kiss him, and now he pushes me away and refuses to kiss me. He has found a way to redress the balance by naming me as the undesirable one. The King of England, especially this king, cannot be seen to be the undesirable one, especially to himself.

  The priest finishes the prayers, and I rise to my feet as the maids troop from the room, their heads bowed, as sweet as little angels in their nightcaps. I let them go. I ask for no one to wake with me though I know I will not sleep this night. I have become an object of disgust, just as I was in Cleves. I have become an object of disgust to my own husband, and I cannot see how we shall reconcile and make a child while he cannot bear to touch me. I have become an object of disgust to the King of England, and he is a man of utter power and no patience.

  I am not weeping for the insult to my beauty because now I have a far greater worry. If I am an object of disgust to the King of England and he is a man of utter power and no patience, what might he do to me? This is a man who killed one beloved wife with studied cruelty; the second that he adored he executed with a French sword; and the third, who had given him a son, he left to die of poor nursing. What might he do to me?

  Jane Boleyn, Hampton Court,

  March 1540

  That she is not happy is a certainty, but she is a discreet young woman, wiser by far than her years, and she cannot be led into confidences. I have been as kind and as sympathetic as I can to her, but I don’t want her to feel that I am probing for my own sake; and I don’t want to make her feel any worse than she must do already. For certain she must feel very friendless and strange in a country where she is only starting to grasp the language and where her husband shows such obvious relief when he can avoid her, and such blatant attention to another girl.

  Then in the morning, after Mass, she comes to me as the girls are preening themselves before going to breakfast. “Lady Rochford, when will the princesses come to court?”

  I hesitate. “Princess Mary,” I remind her. “But only Lady Elizabeth.”

  She gives a little “ach” noise. “Yes. So. Princess Mary and Lady Elizabeth.”

  “They usually come to court for Easter,” I say helpfully. “And then they can see their brother, and they can greet you. We were surprised that they did not greet you on your entry to London.” I stop myself. I am going too fast for her. I can see her frown as she struggles to follow my speech. “I am sorry,” I say more slowly. “The princesses should come to court to meet you. They should greet their stepmother. They should have welcomed you to London. Usually they come to court for Easter.”

  She nods. “So. I may invite them?”

  I hesitate. Of course, she can; but the king will not like her taking the power upon herself in this way. However, my lord duke will not object to any trouble between the two of them, and it is not my job to warn her.

  “You can invite them,” I say.

  She nods to me. “Please write.”

  I go to the table and pull the little writing box toward me. The quills are ready-sharpened, the ink in the little pot, the sand in the sifter for scattering on the wet ink, and there is a stick of sealing wax. I love the luxury of court; I love to pick up the quill and take a sheet of paper and wait for the queen’s orders.

  “Write to the Princess Mary that I should be glad to see her at court for Easter and that she will be welcome as a guest in my rooms,” she says. “Is that the right way to say it?”

  “Yes,” I say, writing rapidly.

  “And write to the governess of the Lady Elizabeth that I shall be glad to see her at court, too.”

  My heart beats a little faster, like it does at a bearbaiting. She will walk straight into trouble if she sends these letters. These are an absolute challenge to the absolute power that is Henry. Nobody issues invitations in his household but he, himself.

  “Can you send these for me?” she asks.

  I am almost breathless. “I can,” I say. “If you wish.”

  She puts out her hand. “I shall have them,” she says. “I shall show them to the king.”

  “Oh.”

  She turns to hide a little smile. “Lady Rochford, I would never do anything against the king’s wishes.”

  “You have the right to have what ladies you please at your court,” I remind her. “It is your right as queen. Queen Katherine always insisted that she appoint her own household. Anne Boleyn, too.”

  “These are his daughters,” she says. “So I shall ask him before I invite them.”

  I bow; she leaves me with nothing to say. “Will there be anything else?” I ask her.

  “You may go,” she says pleasantly, and I walk from the room. I am rather conscious that she tricked me into giving her bad advice, and she knew of it all along. I must remember that she is far more astute than any of us ever credit.

  A page in Norfolk livery is idling outside the queen’s rooms. He passes me a folded note, and I step into one of the window embrasures. Outside, the garden is bobbing with yellow Lenten lilies, daffodils, and in a chestnut tree that is studded with fattening sticky buds there is a blackbird singing. The spring is coming at last, the queen’s first spring in England. The summer days of picnics and jousts and hunting and pleasure trips, boating on the river and the summer progress around the great palaces will start again. Perhaps the king will learn to tolerate her; perhaps she will find a way to please him. I shall see it all. I shall be in her rooms, where I should be. I lean against the polished paneling to read my note. It is unsigned, like every note from the duke.

  The king will keep company with the queen only until the moment that France quarrels with Spain. It is agreed. Her time with us can be measured in days. Watch her. Gather eviden
ce against her. Destroy this.

  I look around for the boy. He is leaning against the wall and idly tossing a coin, catching one side up and then the other. I beckon him to me. “Tell your master that she wants the princesses at court,” I say quietly in his ear. “That is all.”

  Katherine, Hampton Court,

  March 1540

  The king is most angry at dinner tonight. I can tell from the way that he leads in the queen and does not glance over to me as he usually does. I am sorry about this because I have a new gown (another one!) in creamy yellow, and it is gathered under the bust so that my breasts are on display in the most ravishing and shameless way. But it is a waste of time and trouble trying to please a man. When you are at your very best, his mind is elsewhere, or when he agrees to meet you, he has to go off somewhere else, with less than half a decent excuse. Tonight, the king is so cross with the queen that he hardly looks at me, and I have wasted my new gown for nothing. On the other hand, there is a most delicious young man sitting at the Seymour table who is clearly appreciating the gown and the contents; but I have no time for young men anymore, sworn as I am to a life of self-denial starting this Lent. I see Tom Culpepper trying to catch my eye, but I don’t even look at him. I will not easily forgive him for promising to meet me and then failing me. I shall probably live and die a spinster, and it will be his fault.