Chapter 1 #6
‘Then stay and clean her up. She has to be up and riding and dancing as soon as she can.’
‘Women’s work,’ is all the old woman says, smiling grimly, as if women’s work is well-known to be dancing and riding and conceiving and cleaning up bloodstained sheets and broken hearts. She takes the bloody linen out to the stool room.
‘Pay the woman when she’s finished,’ my mother-in-law says to me. ‘And tell her to keep her mouth shut.’
She turns to go, and sees George and Anne, still entwined. ‘Oh, go to your room, George,’ she orders him with sudden irritability. ‘You shouldn’t be here at all.’
‘But what are we to say?’ I ask.
She pauses in the doorway. ‘We say nothing. We never announced a baby. There was no baby; we never said there was.’
‘She told the king.’ I point out quietly, when George and Anne are silent.
‘She admits to him that she made a mistake; she missed a course or two, and she hoped . . . We never say “miscarry”. Nor “dead-birth”. We never say “dead”.’
‘I went to France, Lady Mother,’ George points out quietly. ‘I told the King of France that Anne was with child and that we’d visit when he was born.’
‘The King of France isn’t going to complain, is he?
He’ll be merry as May Day at our grief. But it doesn’t matter what he thinks.
What matters is what our king thinks. What matters is that our king never hears the word “miscarry” again.
Never hears anyone say his baby was “dead-born”.
He heard it enough times from the first wife. He’s never to hear it from Anne.’
OVER THE NEXT few days, I watch us Boleyns and Howards tell a bold-faced lie and dare anyone to contradict us.
I am the key to the cypher of lies, as people whisper questions to me that they would not dare ask Anne’s mother Elizabeth Boleyn, or her uncle Thomas Howard.
Again and again, I confide – in strictest confidence – that Anne thought she was with child, but her course was just late, by a month or so: a little mistake, natural to a new wife.
The quickest way to spread a story in this court is to swear secrecy.
The only person with a right to know is the king; and he asks nothing.
His court, the reformation of his religion, the revolution in his country – his entire life – is based on the belief that his first wife could not bear him a son because their marriage was invalid and so not blessed by God.
His new marriage is valid, ergo it is blessed by God, ergo he will have a son.
It is a matter of logic: the king’s own brand of logic that cannot be denied.
Whatever happened to Anne (and we all stoutly maintain that nothing happened), the king’s seed cannot fail.
Since the perfect king has a perfect wife, he is bound to get a perfect son on her.
Gertrude Courtenay pays us another unwanted visit, and I manage to talk for half an hour without deviating from our lie.
Everything I say will be on the desk of the Spanish ambassador within an hour and read in Toledo within the month.
She tries to make me admit it was a deadbirth, and I widen my limpid grey eyes and say that a young wife, a young mother, is apt to make mistakes and that next time there will be no mistake and there will be a boy.
Gertrude Courtenay can take that back to the Spanish ambassador, the old lords, and the hidden Papists.
She can tell it to the West Country that her family commands as if it were their fiefdom; she can whisper it to the Lady Mary and write it to the old queen.
It makes no difference if the Spanish party believe our lie or not.
There is a new law of England – Anne’s law, passed by Anne’s parliament – that says that Anne is queen and her son will be the next king.
Whether her son comes this year or next, that is still the law.
Anne rises up from her bed in days. She dines with the court, keeps the king in a ripple of laughter, dances with him, smiling into his warm face, and praises him for the reforms he is proposing for the Church, and no one remarks that her belly was rounded and now it is flat.
Only the Duke of Norfolk, Anne’s uncle, speaks of it. But never to his niece the queen, nor to her mother – his sister. It is me, that he follows to the edge of the great hall after dinner, as they take away the tables to make space for dancing.
‘Is she quite well now?’ His dark eyes sweep my face; his hard lean face is turned towards me.
‘She is, Your Grace.’
Anne is laughing with the king, leading him to the card table to play whist with George and the king’s brother-in-law, Charles Brandon.
‘Is she able to get another child? She got Elizabeth easily, didn’t she? My sister tells me nothing but lies.’
‘Do you trust anyone, Your Grace?’ I ask curiously.
‘I trust you,’ he tells me. ‘You’ve never coined the truth to me, nor clipped it. You keep your eyes open, and you’re not squeamish. That’s why I prefer you to any other, my little poppet. Will she get another?’
‘The midwife said she can, if the husband could do his part.’
‘God’s breath! The midwife said that? And everyone heard her? She questioned the king’s potency?’
‘Oh – she didn’t know she was speaking of the king. They gave her my name. She thought she was speaking about George. She thought it was my dead-birth.’
He makes a little grimace of sympathy. ‘No reason for you to give up hope, anyway. You’re not yet thirty – plenty of time.’
I nod. A child will bind me even closer into this family. I want them to think me a true Boleyn, mother to a boy of the House of Howard, loyal by blood.
‘Now, Jane, I’ll want to know the moment that Anne conceives. You tell me at the very first sign. Not when Anne wants it given out. You tell me the moment you know anything – anything.’
A good courtier needs a patron, and a man of power needs information. We are paired, like a falcon and the falconer. I hunt for him; he protects me.
‘I hear Anne’s pressing for another new law in which everyone swears loyalty?’ he asks me. ‘Is it not enough for her that her children: Elizabeth and all the ones to come, are named as the only heirs?’
‘It’s not enough,’ I say. ‘She wants all the hidden Spanish party forced to a public oath. Too many bow their head to Anne as queen and her children as heirs, but are secretly loyal to the old queen and Lady Mary.’
‘Face-value was always good enough before.’
‘No, this is an end to false faces.’
‘They have to swear loyalty to a babe unborn?’
‘Or face a charge of treason.’
‘It’s clever,’ he says begrudgingly. ‘I give you that – it’s clever. And it’ll expose the Spanish party. But it doesn’t suit me – it disinherits my son-in-law.’
The king’s bastard son Henry Fitzroy has been married to the duke’s daughter for nearly a year.
It’s not a full marriage, it has not been consummated, and now the great triumph of the wedding might come to nothing.
Under Anne’s new law – the young man will only ever be an acknowledged royal bastard, never a royal heir.
‘D’you regret the wedding?’ I ask curiously. Mary Howard does, for sure. She is cold as ice when she and her husband meet publicly. Most of the time they are apart.
‘The king’s like a wet nurse over the precious boy,’ the duke grumbles. ‘Says he’s still too young to bed his own wife.’ He scowls for a moment. ‘Can’t you get Anne to drop a word for me? She’s no friend of mine these days, but we’re still family, for God’s sake!’
‘She’s at work on her own account,’ I warn. ‘The king didn’t like her taking to her bed. And now, there’s Agnes Trent.’
‘That little slut?’ The duke drops his voice to a bad-tempered growl.
‘You can tell Anne I’m with her against Agnes.
We can’t have a Spanish party favourite slipping into the king’s bed.
We can’t have the king distracted from Anne.
Get rid, Jane. Do whatever you have to do. Just make sure she goes.’
ANOTHER NIGHT, AND though Anne could not have been more charming through a long day of amusements and entertainments, the king does not send word that he is coming to her bedroom.
‘You can be my bedfellow tonight, Jane,’ she says, pretending to be cheerful as the ladies plait her hair and I hand her her white cap.
‘His Grace said that he will rise early for prayer,’ I say.
She nods. ‘There is no king more devout than ours.’
All the ladies agree, and curtsey and leave us.
‘Did he?’ Anne asks abruptly.
‘No.’
‘Is he with Agnes?’
‘I don’t know. I really don’t,’ I say, though I do.
‘He doesn’t want me as he used to do,’ she says restlessly. She sits by the fireside and puts out her hand for the posset of herbs that she takes every night to make her womb rich and ready for his seed. ‘He’s one of those problems where the solution is the problem itself.’
‘Aporia.’
‘For Christ’s sake!’ she snaps. ‘Your endless learning! Who cares?’
We are silent for a moment. ‘So, what’s the question?’ I ask patiently. ‘What’s the question that contains its own answer?’
‘The king can’t desire a willing woman,’ she says simply.
‘He’s never forced anyone!’
She shows me a bitter smile. ‘No. But he desires refusal. He likes the old Romances – a mistress that flees from desire, a beautiful woman who refuses the finest of knights. He’s all Lancelot and Guinevere – forbidden love.
So that’s what I did – I was a heroine in a Romance.
I gave him the challenge: throw down the queen, and then throw down the pope, if you want to win me.
As big a quest as killing any dragon. He did it.
Just like in the Romances, he triumphed and won his reward – the fair lady: me. ’
She looks deep into the fire as if she is telling fortunes.
‘And now the virgin is on his knee. The storm-tossed maiden has made it into port and tied up. So, what now? What can a knight errant do with a woman who is wooed and won? Wedded and bedded? Of course – nothing. The story’s ended.
Satisfaction is no joy for him – when the disguises come off, there I am!
His wife: bound to him. By law, I can’t refuse him, and he cannot desire a woman who does not refuse him. ’
‘He loves the chase . . .’
She shakes her head. ‘No, it’s worse than that.
Normal men love the chase and the capture.
But for him, there is nothing but chase.
He doesn’t want capture; he doesn’t want satisfaction.
He wants to seek, forever seek, and never find.
He likes to see himself bravely seeking, he likes pursuit more than he likes me, found and taken. ’
‘He got Elizabeth on you . . .’ I protest.
‘Before we were married!’ she exclaims impatiently.
‘Don’t you see? That was still part of the quest?
Don’t you remember the fuss I made about swiving him?
I refused him for six years and drove him half mad – I only let him into my bed when he made me a marquess and promised we would marry.
I only agreed to marry him when he had defied the pope himself.
But there’s only ever one first time.’ She glares at me as if I should have a solution.
‘Jane, I was the greatest quest of his life, and now I am the one woman in the world that he cannot desire. He can swive a smiling slut who doesn’t matter, he can long for an unobtainable maiden with all his heart, but he can’t stand up for an honest loving wife. ’
THREE NIGHTS LATER, long after midnight, the king sends Francis Weston to say that he is coming to Anne’s bed.
They have been drinking all night, and the king leans on the door frame as they bring him in.
I leave the king and queen, side by side in bed, like effigies on a tomb, and go through the darkened galleries to our Rochford rooms.
George is in his night robe, blinking at the flames of our fireplace. He raises his head, pours me a drink and pulls up a chair for me. ‘Have a drink. God knows I’ve had enough. He’s in bed?’
‘He is, but I don’t know if it’ll do any good.’
He raises a scornful eyebrow. ‘Christ knows, we’ve done all that we can.
We sent him to her pot-valiant. We swear he’s the greatest lover since Sir Gawain.
We tell him we all desire her; we’re all panting like dogs for her, but she’ll stoop to no one but him.
It excites him to think that we all want her but only he can have her.
We’ve lit the fuse tonight – she’ll just have to jump on him before he fizzles out. ’
‘She’s his wife! She can’t play the whore.’
He shrugs. ‘She’s got to do something to get another baby off him. Anything that works. French tricks . . . anything.’
I hesitate, standing behind his chair as he gazes into the fire.
‘But, George, as a wife she can’t provoke lust. It has to be a holy act to make a prince.
The king’s conscience won’t allow French tricks, and it’s against church law for her to mount him.
She shouldn’t stoop to whorish games; it’s . . . it’s not queenly.’
George snorts derisively. ‘She won’t get fucked being queenly.’
I lean forward and wind my arms around him. After a moment, he tips his head back against me with a sigh, and I kiss his temples and his frowning forehead. ‘And what about us?’ I whisper. ‘Shall we go to bed?’
‘To sleep,’ he says. ‘I’ve drunk so much that I’m less use than the king himself.’