The Boleyn Inheritance Page 24

  “Then let me say the truth: I don’t want to go to Richmond with Queen Anne. I don’t want to bear witness against this queen.”

  His sharp, dark eyes look up quickly at me. “Witness of what?” he demands.

  I am too weary to fence. “Witness of whatever you want me to see,” I say. “Whatever the king wants me to say, I don’t want to say it. I don’t want to bear witness against her.”

  “Why not?” he asks, as if he did not know.

  “I am sick of trials,” I say from the heart. “I am afraid of the king’s desires now. I don’t know what he wants. I don’t know how far he will go. I don’t want to give evidence at a queen’s trial – not ever again.”

  “I am sorry,” he says without regret. “But we need someone to swear that she had a conversation with the queen in which the queen made it clear that she was a virgin untouched, absolutely untouched, and moreover quite ignorant of any doings between a man and a maid.”

  “She has been in bed with him night after night,” I say impatiently. “We all put her to bed the first night. You were there; the Archbishop of Canterbury was there. She was raised to conceive a son and bear an heir; she was married for that single purpose. She could hardly be ignorant of the doings of a man and a maid. No woman in the world has endured more unsuccessful attempts.”

  “That is why we need a lady of unimpeachable reputation to swear it,” he says smoothly. “Such an unlikely lie needs a plausible witness: you.”

  “Any of the others can do that for you,” I protest. “Since the conversation never happened, since it is an impossible conversation, surely it does not matter who says that it took place?”

  “I should like our name entered as witness,” the duke says. “The king would be pleased to see our service. It would do us good.”

  “Is it to prove her a witch?” I ask bluntly. I am too weary of my work and sick of myself to pick my way around my ducal uncle tonight. “Is it, in fact, to prove her a witch and have her sent to her death?”

  He draws himself up to his full height and looks down his nose at me. “It is not for us to predict what the king’s commissioners might find,” he says. “They will sift the evidence, and give the verdict. All you will provide is a sworn statement, sworn on your faith before God.”

  “I don’t want her death on my conscience.” I can hear the desperation in my voice. “Please. Let someone else swear to it. I don’t want to go with her to Richmond and then swear a lie against her. I don’t want to stand by while they take her to the Tower. I don’t want her to die on the basis of my false evidence. I have been her friend; I don’t want to be her assassin.”

  He waits in silence till my torrent of refusals is finished, then he looks at me and smiles again, but now there is no warmth in his face at all. “Certainly,” he says. “You will swear only to the statement that we will have prepared for you, and your betters will decide what is to be done for the queen. You will keep me informed of whom she sees and what she does in the usual way. My man will go with you to Richmond. You will watch her with care. She is not to escape. And when it is over, you will be Katherine’s lady-in-waiting, you will have your place at court, you will be lady-in-waiting to the new Queen of England. That will be your reward. You will be the first lady at the new queen’s court. I promise it. You will be head of her privy chamber.”

  He thinks he has bought me with this promise, but I am sick of this life. “I can’t go on doing this,” I say simply. I am thinking of Anne Boleyn, and of my husband, and of the two of them going into the Tower with all the evidence against them, and none of it true. I am thinking of them going to their deaths knowing that their family had borne witness against them, and their uncle passed the death sentence. I am thinking of them, trusting in me, waiting for me to come to give evidence for their defense, confident in my love for them, certain that I would save them. “I cannot go on doing this.”

  “I should hope not,” he says primly. “Please God that you will never do it again. In my niece Katherine, the king has at last found a true and honorable wife. She is a rose without a thorn.”

  “A what?”

  “A rose without a thorn,” the duke repeats. He keeps his face perfectly straight. “That is what we are to call her. That is what he wants us to call her.”

  Katherine, Norfolk House, Lambeth,

  June 1540

  Now, let me see, what do I have? I have the murderers’ houses that the king first gave me, and their lands. I have the jewels I earned by a quick squeeze in a quiet gallery. I have half a dozen gowns, paid for by my uncle, most of them new, and hoods to match. I have a bedchamber of my own at my grandmother’s house and my own presence chamber, too, and a few maids-in-waiting but no ladies as yet. I buy dresses almost every day; the merchants come across the river with bolts of silk as if I were a dressmaker on my own account. They fit me with gowns, and they mutter with their mouths filled with pins that I am the most beautiful, the most exquisite girl ever to be stitched into a too-tight stomacher. They bend to the floor to hem up my gown and say that they have never seen such a pretty girl, a very queen among girls.

  I love it. If I were more thoughtful, or a graver soul, then I know I would be troubled by the thought of my poor mistress the queen and what will become of her, and the disagreeable thought that soon I shall marry a man who has buried three wives and maybe will bury his fourth, and is old enough to be my grandfather, as well as very smelly… but I cannot be troubled with such worries. The other wives did as they had to do, and their lives ended as God and the king willed; it is really nothing to me. Even my cousin Anne Boleyn shall be nothing to me. I shall not think of her, nor of our uncle pushing her onto the throne and then pushing her onto the scaffold. She had her gowns and her court and her jewels. She had her time of being the finest young woman at court; she had her time of being the favorite of her family and the pride of us all. Now I shall have mine.

  I will have my time. I will be merry. I am as hungry as she was, for the color and the wealth, for the diamonds and the flirting, for the horses and the dancing. I want my life, I want the very, very best of everything; and by luck, and by the whim of the king (whom God preserve), I am to have the very, very best. I had hoped to be spotted by one of the great men of the court and chosen for his kinswoman and given in marriage to a young nobleman who might rise through the court. That was the very pinnacle of my hopes. But instead, everything is to be different. Much better. The king himself has seen me, the King of England desires me; the man who is God on earth, who is the father of his people, who is the law and the word, desires me. I have been chosen by God’s own representative on earth. No one can stand in his way, and no one would dare deny him. This is no ordinary man who has seen me and desired me; this is not even a mortal. This is a half god who has seen me. He desires me, and my uncle tells me it is my duty and my honor to accept his proposal. I will be Queen of England – think of that! I will be Queen of England. Then we shall see what I, little Kitty Howard, can count as my own!

  Actually, in truth I am torn between terror and excitement at the thought of being his consort and his queen, the greatest woman in England. I have a vain thrill that he wants me, and I make sure that I think about that and ignore my sense of disappointment that although he is almost God, he is only a man like any other, and a very old man, and an old man who is half impotent at that, an old man who cannot even do the job in the jakes, and I must play him as I would any old man who in his lust and vanity happened to desire me. If he gives me what I want, he shall have my favor; I cannot say fairer than that. I could almost laugh at myself, granting the greatest man in the world my little favor. But if he wants it, and if he will pay so highly for it, then I am in the market like any huckster: selling myself.

  Grandmother, the duchess, tells me that I am her clever, clever girl and that I will bring wealth and greatness to our family. To be queen is a triumph beyond our most ambitious dreams, but there is a hope even beyond that. If I conceive a son a
nd give birth to a boy, then our family will rise as high as the Seymours. And if the Seymour boy Prince Edward were to die (though God forbid, of course), but if he were to die, then my son would be the next King of England and we Howards would be kinsmen to the king. Then we would be the royal family, or as good as, and then we would be the greatest family in England, and everyone would have to thank me for their good fortune. My uncle Norfolk would bow his knee to me and bless me for my patronage. When I think of this, I giggle and cannot daydream anymore, for sheer delight.

  I am sorry to my heart for my mistress Queen Anne. I would have liked to stay as her maid and to see her become happy. But what cannot be, cannot be, and I would be foolish indeed to mourn over my own good fortune. She is like those poor men executed so that I can have their lands, or the poor nuns thrown from their homes so that we can all be richer. Such people have to suffer for our benefit. I have learned that this is the way of the world. And it’s not my fault that the world is a hard place for others. I hope she finds happiness as I will do. Perhaps she will go home to her brother in wherever-it-is. Poor dear. Perhaps she will marry the man whom she was betrothed to marry. My uncle tells me that she was very wrong to come to England when she knew she was bound to marry another man. This was a very shocking thing to do, and I am surprised at her. She always seemed such a well-behaved young woman; I cannot believe that she would do such a naughty thing. Of course when my uncle speaks of a prior betrothal I cannot help but think of my poor, dear Francis Dereham. I have never mentioned the promises we exchanged, and, really, I think it best that I just forget all about it and pretend that it never happened. It is not always easy to be a young woman in this world that is full of temptation for sure, and I do not criticize Queen Anne for being betrothed to another and then marrying the king. I wouldn’t do it myself, of course, but since Francis Dereham and I were not properly married, nor even properly betrothed, I do not consider it. I didn’t have a proper gown, so clearly it wasn’t a proper wedding or binding vows. All we did was the daydreaming of little children and a few innocent kisses. No more than that, really. But she could do worse, if she is sent home, than to marry her first love. I myself shall always think of Francis with affection. One’s first love is always very sweet, probably sweeter than a very old husband. When I am queen, I shall do something very kind for Francis.

  Anne, Westminster Palace,

  June 10, 1540

  Dear God, save me, dear God, save me, every one of my friends or allies is in the Tower, and I do not doubt but they will soon come for me. Thomas Cromwell, the man given the credit for bringing me to England, is arrested, charged with treason. Treason! He has been the king’s servant; he has been his dog. He is no more capable of treason than one of the king’s greyhounds. Clearly, the man is no traitor. Clearly, he has been arrested to punish him for making my marriage. If this charge brings him to the block and the executioner’s axe, then there can be little doubt that I will follow.

  The man who first welcomed me into Calais, my dearest Lord Lisle, is charged with treason and also with being a secret Papist, party to a Papist plot. They are saying that he welcomed me as queen because he knew that I would prevent the king from conceiving a son. He is arrested and charged with treason for a plot that names me as one of the elements. It is no defense that he is innocent. It is no defense that the plot is absurd. In the cellars of the Tower are terrible rooms where wicked men go about cruel work. A man will say anything after he has been tortured by one of them. The human body cannot resist the pain that they can inflict. The king allows the prisoners to be torn, legs from body, arms from shoulders. Such barbarity is new to this country; but it is allowed now, as the king turns into a monster. Lord Lisle is gently born, quietly spoken. He cannot tolerate pain; surely he will tell them what they wish, whatever it is. Then he will go to the block a confessed traitor, and who knows what they will have made him confess about me?

  The net is closing around me. It is so close now that I can almost see the cords. If Lord Lisle says that he knew I would make the king impotent, then I am a dead woman. If Thomas Cromwell says he knew that I was betrothed and that I married the king when I was not free to do so, then I am a dead woman. They have my friend Lord Lisle; they have my ally Thomas Cromwell. They will torture them until they have the evidence they need and then come for me. In all of England, there is only one man who might help me. I don’t have much hope, but I have no other friend. I send for my ambassador, Carl Harst.

  It is a hot day and the windows are all standing wide open to the air from the garden. From outside I can hear the sound of the court boating on the river. They are playing lutes and singing, and I can hear the laughter. Even at this distance I can hear the sharp note of forced merriment. The room is cool and in shadow, but we are both sweating.

  “I have hired horses,” he says in our language, in a hiss of a whisper. “I had to go all over the city to find them, and in the end I bought them from some Hanseatic merchants. I have borrowed money for the journey. I think we should go at once. As soon as I can find a guard to bribe.”

  “At once.” I nod. “We must go at once. What do they say of Cromwell?”

  “It is barbaric. They are savages. He walked into the Privy Council with no idea that there was anything wrong. His old friends and fellow noblemen stripped him of his badges of office, of his Order of the Garter. They pecked at him like crows tear at a dead rabbit. He was marched away like a felon. He will not even stand trial; they need call no witnesses, they need prove no charges. He will be beheaded by a Bill of Attainder; it needs only the word of the king.”

  “Might the king not say the word? Will he not grant him mercy? He made him earl only weeks ago to show his favor.”

  “A feint, it was nothing but a feint. The king showed his favor only so that his spite falls more heavily now. Cromwell will beg for mercy, sure of forgiveness; he will find none. He is certain to die a traitor’s death.”

  “Did the king say farewell to him?” I ask, as if it is an idle question.

  “No,” the ambassador says. “There was nothing to warn the man. They parted as on any ordinary day, with no special words. Cromwell came into the meeting of the council as if nothing was out of the ordinary. He thought that he had come to command the meeting as Secretary of State, in his pomp and his power, and then, in moments, he found himself under arrest and his old enemies laughing at him.”

  “The king did not say good-bye,” I say in a sort of quiet horror. “It is as they say. The king never says good-bye.”

  Jane Boleyn, Westminster Palace,

  June 24, 1540

  We are seated in the queen’s room in silence, sewing shirts for the poor. Katherine Howard is missing from her place; she has been staying with her grandmother at Norfolk House, Lambeth, all these weeks. The king visits her almost every evening; he takes his dinner with them as if he were a private man, not king at all. He is rowed across the river in the royal barge; he goes openly, taking no trouble to conceal his identity.

  The whole of the city is buzzing with the belief that only six months into the marriage the king has taken a mistress in the Howard girl. The spectacularly ignorant claim that since the king has a lover, therefore the queen must be pregnant, and everything is well in this most blessed world: a Tudor son and heir in the queen’s belly and the king taking his own amusement elsewhere as he always does. Those of us who know better do not even take the pleasure of correcting those who know nothing. We know that Katherine Howard is guarded like a vestal virgin now, against the king’s feeble seductive powers. We know that the queen is still untouched. What we don’t know, what we cannot know, is what is going to happen.

  In the absence of the king, the court has become unruly. When Queen Anne and we ladies go to our dinner, the throne is empty at the head of the room, and there is no rule. The hall is avid, like a buzzing hive, seething with gossip and rumor. Everyone wants to be on the winning side, but no one knows which that will turn out to be. There are ga
ps at the great tables where some of the families have left court altogether, either from fear or from distaste at the new terror. Anyone who is known for Papist sympathies is in danger and has gone to his country estate. Anyone who is in favor of reform fears that the king has turned against it with a Howard girl favorite again and Stephen Gardiner composing the prayers, which are just as they were when they came from Rome, and the reforming Archbishop Cranmer is quite out of fashion. Left behind at court are the opportunist and the reckless. It is as if the whole world is becoming unraveled with the unraveling of order. The queen pushes her food around her plate with her golden fork, her head bowed low so as to avoid the bright, curious stares of the people who have come to see a queen abandoned on her throne, deserted in her palace, who come in their hundreds to see her, avid to see a queen on her last night at court, perhaps her last night on earth.

  We return to our rooms as soon as the board is cleared; there are no entertainments for the king after dinner because he is never here. It is almost as if there is no king, and in his absence no queen, and no court. Everything is changed, or waiting fearfully for more change. Nobody knows what will happen, and everyone is alert to any sign of danger.

  And there is talk, all the time, of more arrests. Today, I heard that Lord Hungerford has been taken to the Tower, and when they told me of his crimes, it was as if I had walked from the midday sun into an ice house. He is accused of unnatural behavior, as my husband was: sodomy with another man. He is accused of forcing his daughter, as my husband George was accused of incest with his sister Anne. He is accused of treason and foretelling the king’s death, just like George and Anne, charged together. Perhaps his wife will be invited to witness against him, just as they asked me to do. I shiver at the thought of this; it takes me all my willpower to sit quietly in the queen’s room and make my stitches neat on the hems. I can hear a drumming in my ears; I can feel the blood heating my cheeks as if I am ill with a fever. It is happening again. King Henry is turning on his friends again.