Boleyn Traitor, page 37
‘How many in her family?’ he asks. ‘How many babies did her mother bear?’
‘About ten,’ I say, as if we are in a stable discussing a broodmare.
‘Anne of Cleves was only one of four,’ he says thoughtfully.
I catch my breath. ‘The duchess, your sister?’
He gives me a sly little smile. ‘Jane, you know I’ve got to have a second son and a third if I can. And six miles upriver, there is a beautiful, fertile, royal woman, eating up a fortune in my royal palace, while her brother befriends the French and marries into their royal family. She’s more useful than ever, and she’s costing me as much as a sister as she would as a wife.’
‘Except that you love the queen so much,’ I remind him. ‘And she adores you. Nobody loves you more than she does. And she’s so pretty. I think she could have married any king in Europe, but she only has eyes for you.’
‘Oh, yes. Yes, I do.’ It is as if I have reminded him of a detail which had slipped from his mind. ‘And she’s very young, and from fertile stock.’
Greenwich Palace, May
1541
‘NOT WHELPING?’ MY uncle descends on me at the May Day festivities, which are subdued, since we have no Whitsun coronation ahead of us and nothing to celebrate.
‘She made a mistake with her courses; she did not miscarry,’ I specify.
‘Aye, I know that’s what you’re all saying,’ he says unpleasantly. ‘That’s what t’other one said, last time. I don’t see why you women think it’s better to say that she’s a fool who can’t count than a heifer who can’t get in calf.’
I am silent.
‘He goes to her bed?’ he confirms.
‘He does.’
‘And does his business?’
I am not such a fool as to reply.
‘So she should take?’
I nod.
‘Make sure she does,’ he says to me, as if I can summon a baby from the air that blows so sweetly off the river. ‘I wouldn’t give you three pence for her, if she does not.’
At once, the breeze feels cold. ‘Why would you say that? He’s not turning against her? She’s done nothing wrong.’
‘He married her to get another son; if she can’t give him one, he’ll find someone who can.’
‘She’s your niece,’ I say desperately. ‘You don’t want him going back to Anne of Cleves or picking another maid-of-honour from another family. Where would you be, without a Howard girl on the throne?’
‘Where I am now,’ he says bluntly. ‘I work like a dog for him in the north against the Papists, and all I hear is “Cromwell would have done it better. Cromwell would never have allowed this!” If she wants my support, she’d better get a baby in her belly and a crown on her head.’
I put my hand across my mouth to stop a rush of panic-stricken words. I don’t want to gabble my fear that my uncle is demanding something that no woman can make happen. If we laid all the dead-borns to the king’s door, there would be more dead babies than live ones. He has sired a dozen ghosts. But it is against the law to even think this.
I REMEMBER THE OTHER May Day, when the king rode away after the joust, and nobody knew why. This time, he misses the masque for a meeting with his privy council. The whole court is on alert for Kitty’s fall but it is the north of the country: in arms again, and the king furiously sending an army to put them down, blaming Reginald Pole in faraway Italy, and Reginald’s mother Margaret Pole in the Tower. She was once the richest woman in England, but now she is so poor that the royal tailor sends her clothes. She was a princess but is now so powerless that she is not even allowed to claim her innocence. They will not bring her to trial; they will not let her speak.
The May Day masque was to be a celebration of the king’s return to health, his restoration to virile youth, and the queen’s pregnancy. But since he is not attending and she is not pregnant, the musicians play quietly, so as not to disturb the privy council, and we mark out the steps rather than putting on a show. We were going to do Aphrodite, goddess of love and fertility, again, but Kitty’s heart is not in it, and she sits on her throne looking like a child left out of a game.
The young men of the court get drunk from boredom, and the older ladies-in-waiting leave early. I see how a court loses its ability to make magic – even when the machinery is still grinding away. Thomas Culpeper glances now and then towards Kitty, ignoring his lover Bess Harvey, but she does not even look at him. As the evening drags to a close, he works his way across the room towards me, with a word to one man and a pretty bow to a girl. I watch him coming.
‘Lady Rochford.’
I cannot show a cold mask to this young man who bows and takes my hand as confidently as if he is about to draw me into an embrace. I know well enough that his charm is a habit, a courtier’s mask; but there is something about Thomas Culpeper that is quite irresistible, almost like a perfume: the scent of desire.
‘I so wish you were my friend, Lady Rochford.’
‘Master Culpeper, I wish you nothing but well.’
‘I want you to be my friend with the queen.’
‘I’ve never said a word against you.’
He takes my hand, draws it under his arm, and leads me away from the dancers towards the open doors to the shadowy gallery where Kitty met him only a few weeks ago. I am standing where she stood when she gave him his Easter gift, but we are closer than they were, my hand held between his arm and his chest. I can feel the warmth of his body through his embroidered silk jacket and the hard sheath of the muscle over his ribs. I am vividly aware of his body under his clothes; I feel again the almost-forgotten sensation of desire for the scent of a man, for the touch of his skin, for the soft prickle of chest hair against my cheek.
‘I am afraid I have offended Her Majesty,’ he says, when we are far apart from everyone and cannot be overheard.
‘I wouldn’t know.’
He looks down at me, his brown eyes very warm. ‘Ah, Jane, be my friend: you do know.’
Ridiculously, I feel the heat in my cheeks of a blush.
‘She surprised me with kindness; she gave me a gift, a generous gift, and I was stupid when I should have been courtly. I was rude when I should have been loving.’
‘I dare say she’s forgotten all about it.’
‘Oh, don’t say that, Jane, dearest Jane. Speak for me – tell her that I am a fool. That I was hiding my true feelings. Tell her that I worship the ground she walks on. I will write her a poem …’
‘Then write your poem,’ I say coolly. ‘Or a song, or ride in a joust for her. It is all courtly love, after all. It does not matter.’
He leans so close to me that I can feel the warmth of his breath on my cheek. If I turned, our lips would meet. ‘It does matter,’ he whispers. ‘I will not lie. It is not courtly love: it is desire. How can I write a poem about that? I love her – not as a courtier, but as a man. I desire her – not as a queen, not as a lady far above me, but as a woman. Will you tell her that?’
I pull away from him. ‘No, of course not,’ I say coolly. ‘It is not my place to speak to the king’s wife like that. It’s not your place either.’
His joyous shout of laughter turns heads. He snatches both my hands and kisses them. ‘Ah, Jane, I love you, too!’ But he cannot stop laughing. ‘D’you think I don’t know women?’ he demands. ‘You’ll tell her what I’ve said, the first moment you’re alone together. And she’ll ask you for my exact words, and you’ll remember them exactly! And I’ll know that you have told her the first moment that I next see her. I’ll see it in her face and in yours.’
I want to deny this; but I’m laughing like a girl at his knowingness, at his smiling confidence, and I push him away, back to the dancers. ‘Go away, Master Culpeper; this is a May Day dance that you are leading me on, and I will not carry messages for you.’
He steps back and bows low to me, throws a quick, intense glance at Katheryn, who is pretending not to see us, but is head to head with Mary Howard, who really does seem to manage to then see nothing at all.
‘WHAT DID HE want?’ Kitty demands, the moment the last maid has left her bedroom. She drags me down to sit beside her on her bed. ‘What did he say?’
‘A lot of nonsense,’ I say dampeningly.
‘He’s a very nonsensical young man,’ she agrees eagerly. ‘I’m surprised you even listened to him. What did he say that was such nonsense? Why were you laughing?’
I cannot resist the temptation to tell her. ‘At any rate, you have your revenge. He says that he loves you.’
‘Courtly love.’
‘He says not. He says he loves you for real.’
She gives a little crow of delight and bounces to her knees on her bed. ‘He does! Did he say he was sorry for being so rude about my gift?’
‘Yes. He asked me if you were displeased with him.’
‘Oh! Oh! And you said yes?’
‘I did better than that. I said that I didn’t think you even remembered it.’
She claps her hands. ‘You are clever. That was best. And he is sorry?’
‘Very sorry. He called himself stupid.’
She beams. ‘Serves him right. He is stupid.’
I nod. ‘And now you have your revenge.’
She sits back and holds her hands over her heart. ‘When shall I see him?’
‘No, you can’t see him,’ I correct her. ‘I only told you because I knew it would delight you. This is where it ends: with your victory. You wanted him beneath your feet. You have him there. That’s the end of the story.’
She widens her eyes at me; they have turned green with desire. ‘Oh, but, Jane, I have to see him.’
‘You can’t,’ I say simply. ‘It was only once, when I was there, when you were carrying the king’s child. Now you’ve got nothing to do, night or day, but conceive the king’s child. Any other thought, any other action is a waste of your time. And a danger to your reputation. You can’t be alone with any man until you have the king’s baby in your belly.’
She closes her eyes for a moment, her hands still clasped over her heart. ‘When I think of him, I just melt,’ she whispers.
There is a loud bang of the outer door. Kitty’s eyes fly open. ‘Is that the king?’
It is his vice chamberlain, announcing that the king will come to Kitty’s bed tonight. I hurry to tie her cap on her hair, to straighten her sheets. I see the joy drain from her face, her rosy cheeks go pale. I can almost see her grow dry and cold.
The double doors open, and the king limps in, Thomas Culpeper under his arm on his lame side. The king’s page and Culpeper manhandle him to sit on the edge of the high bed beside her, then lift his legs and swing them up. The mattress sinks down on his side; the ropes of the bed creak. Kitty is thrown off balance and rights herself by holding to the bedpost.
They heave the king up to the pillows and pull the covers up to his fat chest. He lies like a rounded effigy, the bedclothes heaped over his stiffly upright feet, his thickly bandaged leg, and then the mountain of his enormous belly and his rolling chest. Beside him, Kitty looks tiny, like a kidnapped child. She does not look at Thomas Culpeper, nor at me. Her gaze is on her clasped hands, as if she is praying that none of this is happening.
‘Goodnight, Your Majesties, God bless you.’ Thomas Culpeper and the page bow out behind me.
I curtsey as I leave the room last. We walk backwards to the door so that I see – we all see – the old king turn his big fat moon face towards the girl who sits so still beside him, and we then see him lunge towards her.
THE NEXT DAY, just as we are about to knock on the queen’s door and go in to wake the king and queen, a weary messenger comes to the king’s rooms with a letter from Scotland. Sir Anthony Browne has the authority to break the seal, and he tells us that the baby heir to the throne of Scotland has died, and – uncanny, unlucky, unbelievably – his newborn brother Robert has died, too.
This unbearable tragedy for the King of Scots is the happiest news anyone could have brought our king. Sir Anthony hands him the letter as he sits up in bed beside Kitty. The king reads it himself and then demands that Sir Anthony read it aloud to him as a satisfied smile spreads across his face. The king had wanted the tall, beautiful Queen of Scotland, Mary of Guise, as his own wife; Anne of Cleves was his second choice. Now, he sees this tragic loss of two baby boys as God’s punishment for Mary of Guise, who preferred another man to him. Scotland – which had two little princes – now has no male heir; but England does! We have a prince, and they do not.
‘That Mary of Guise made a great mistake when she refused my suit!’ Henry says joyfully, reaching out both arms like a child for his men to pull him out of bed.
I wait at the door; but I can see from here that Henry was potent last night, and Kitty is fighting to hide her shame. Her nightcap has been pulled off and her blonde hair is a tangled mess. Her face is white, as if she is ill. She pulls the bedclothes up to her chin; she turns her face away. Thomas Culpeper and the king’s page are courteously blind to her tumbled hair, the bite marks on her bruised neck. They heave the king to the side of the bed, get his fat feet in his slippers and his voluminous robe around his shoulders and tied around his swollen belly.
‘Mary of Guise! Great mistake!’ the king exults, but Kitty and Culpeper do not remember the many women that the king considered for his fourth wife. The king smiles at me, knowing that I will understand his joy.
‘What’s she got to show for it now?’ he demands beaming at me. ‘Married to a madman and two sons in the grave! She must be breaking her heart this morning. She must be crying her lovely grey eyes out!’
I curtsey. I imagine she is breaking her heart, but it will be for the loss of her two baby sons, not because she refused this selfish old man.
‘You hear that, sweetheart?’ The king, halfway to the door, pauses and turns back to bellow at Kitty.
She nods, her head bobbing like a doll.
‘A great lady could ‘ave been in your place; but she married another king,’ he tells her. ‘And now she’s got nothing, because God did not bless the marriage. You get a son – you hear? And you will triumph over her as soon as you do, as I triumph over her now!’
Kitty nods. I know that she has no idea what he is talking about, but it doesn’t matter. He is so delighted with himself, with the world, this morning, that he won’t wait for a reply. The three of them – Thomas Culpeper, the king, and the page – their arms interlinked, stagger past me like drunks, followed by Sir Anthony and a few other young courtiers. Only the king is looking around, smiling. The rest look at their boots, as shamed as Kitty, who sits in bed in a crumpled nightgown, nodding and nodding while a crimson blush rises from her collar bones to her forehead.
‘We’ll go on progress,’ the king decides at the threshold, bringing everyone to a stumbling halt. ‘North. Triumphant progress. And we’ll meet James of Scotland on the border. I’ll commiserate with him for his loss, and we’ll set a peace. He’ll want a peaceful kingdom, now that he doesn’t have a son. He can’t risk his life fighting us, if he doesn’t have an heir. But I do! I’ll remind him that I do. This summer – we’ll go this summer.’
THE GROOMS OF the household try to plan a route without Thomas Cromwell’s expertise or his maps and eye for detail, then change it as the king demands different halts and visits on the way north. I, too, plan a progress which will show Kitty to the people of the northern lands, as a bringer of peace. I pick out coronets for her to wear to remind everyone that she is a king’s wife now, blue gowns to remind everyone of the Holy Mother, dark-purple gowns to remind them she will be the king’s widow. She will be dowager queen and – with luck – queen regent.
‘You must visit the royal nurseries before we go,’ I tell her. ‘Establish yourself as stepmother to the prince and Lady Elizabeth.’
She makes a little grimace. ‘Must I? Why do I have to?’
‘It makes you stronger … If people see you as the prince’s stepmother, taking an interest in his upbringing, being a mother to him – if the king sees you as mother to the prince, he’ll crown you queen.’
‘The Seymours are never going to let me near their precious boy. And besides, I don’t like little children.’
‘They will. I have agreed it. And when you see him, you must pet him, make much of him, put into his head that you’re his new mother. He’ll be king one day; and then your title will be in his gift – your pension, too.’
Kitty is never lazy when it comes to her own interests. Raised as the daughter of a poor relation in an ambitious house, she knows all about positioning in the family, at court, in the world.
‘And Lady Elizabeth. Yes, her too,’ I insist over her protest. ‘You have to be stepmother to all of them. You’ve got to get on good terms with Lady Mary as well. You can’t have her opposing you as regent.’
‘I can’t be her mother! She’s years older than me! And she hates me!’ Kitty protests.
‘She’s coming on progress with us,’ I warn her. ‘You’ll ride before her as her stepmother. She’ll be respectful to you, and you must look loving and kind to her. You have to look sure of yourself. You have to act like a queen crowned.’
‘And if I do, will he crown me at York? He was going to crown Jane Seymour at York, wasn’t he?’
‘I think he will.’ I cannot keep my own excitement from my voice. ‘Especially now that it would be such a snub to James of Scotland and an insult to Mary of Guise who have lost both their sons. Yes. I think he will.’
Holy Cross, Waltham, Essex, May
1541
KITTY’S VISITS TO Lady Elizabeth and little Prince Edward are a triumph. The king is mawkish about the motherless three-year-old boy and weeps over him. Kitty is horrified by his tears, and the stilted wariness of the child. I put a firm hand in her back and push her towards the little boy. The king gives a gulping sob, and Kitty puts out a tentative hand, and the child bows. Realising how pretty they would look together, Kitty puts her arm around his shoulders and bends down to put her bronze head against his, her cheek to his round face. The child’s staring eyes widen, but still he says nothing but the formal greeting that has been drilled into him. When I take him back to his nurse, I realise he has wet himself with fear.
