Chapter 2 #3
It is her surrender, and I give them to her and go out of the room, closing the door behind me.
As I walk through the presence chamber, I hear the sound of her running feet and a little breathless sob.
She is looking for a friend to have a good cry and rail against me, and someone to take a letter to her parents, and someone to take the sleeves back to the royal wardrobe.
We are rid of her. My work – my spiteful courtier work – is done.
HALF AN HOUR later, the king stalks into the queen’s presence chamber, ignoring all of us ladies-in-waiting, though we are dressed to perfection and waiting for him. He tells Anne he will speak with her privately.
Her face lights up; she thinks he has come for a passionate quarrel and reconciliation, as they used to do.
She leads the way into her privy chamber and closes the door on us.
She thinks she will fly at him and slap his face, and he will grab at her and kiss her into submission.
Perhaps they will whirl from anger to lust, from privy chamber to bedchamber, and we will all be late to dinner.
But she is wrong. She is the queen now; the days of fighting and lovemaking are gone.
I stand close to the privy-chamber door to prevent anyone eavesdropping, and I hear the low heated mutter of the king’s banked-down rage and the quick staccato reply of Anne denying whatever he is saying.
Then he says one thing loudly: ‘If she is causing this much trouble between us, then she must go.’
The door jerks open, and he comes out to the presence chamber.
I think: at any rate, we have won. He has named Agnes as trouble and insisted that she must go.
But at that very moment, from the gallery end of the presence chamber, the king’s friends stroll in, merry as ever, George among them, and – to my utter amazement – on George’s arm is Agnes – not tear-stained and shamed; but rosy and chattering, smiling as if she walks into court every day with my husband at her side . . . and she is wearing the new sleeves.
Anne Parr, one of the ladies, touches my hand and says: ‘The queen wants you.’
I cannot tear my eyes from Agnes’ triumph. ‘What?’
‘The queen. In her privy chamber.’
I curtsey to the king; but he does not see me. George does not acknowledge me. Suddenly, I am invisible; everyone is smiling at Agnes, who is spreading her arms and pirouetting to show off her new sleeves.
I go into the privy chamber, and Anne is bleached white with rage.
‘Agnes just walked in,’ I tell her. ‘On George’s arm. In the new sleeves.’
‘The king says she’s to stay at court,’ she says, through gritted teeth. ‘He says you’re not to torment her. He says that if you cause this much trouble, you are to go.’
I can hardly hear her. ‘I?’
George opens the door and closes it quickly behind him. ‘Get out there,’ he says to Anne. ‘Go quick – don’t give her another moment to show off. And smile: for God’s sake, look as if it’s nothing to you. It was a catfight between your ladies: Jane and Agnes. Nothing to do with you at all.’
‘After what he said to me at the hunt?’
‘Because of that!’ George says urgently.
‘You must be more queenly than ever. She’s nothing beside you – a passing fancy.
Put her out of his head. Shine her down.
You can do it! You’ve always done it before.
He has to forget that he said he raised you from nothing; he has to forget that he said Katherine was your better.
We make it a petty quarrel between two women.
It’s not about him seeing you for real: it’s Jane.
It’s Jane’s fault. It’s Jane being a scold and bullying Agnes. ’
‘It’s not!’ I find my voice. ‘Agnes knows I was obeying Anne’s order, and she’ll have told the king.’
‘Anne’ll deny it,’ George says briskly. He gently pinches her cheeks to bring the colour to them, and then he kisses her swiftly on the lips to give her courage and pushes her towards the door. ‘Go on,’ he says. ‘I’ll come as soon as I’ve got Jane out of the way.’
She raises her chin and sets her shoulders back. She breathes in, like an actor preparing to walk on a stage, and she goes without another glance at me.
‘Out of the way?’ I demand. ‘What d’you mean?’
‘My love – you’ve got to take the blame for quarrelling with Agnes.’
‘There was no quarrel! How could there be a quarrel between a maid-of-honour and the senior lady-in-waiting? I dismissed her, as you told me to! The duke told me to! Anne told me to! I didn’t loosen the saddle girth and kill the girl!
I’ve done far less than Anne wanted! I’m not taking the blame for this. ’
‘You are,’ he says shortly. ‘Agnes stays at court, and you retire. The king says he won’t have you causing trouble.
’ He throws up his hand to stop me arguing.
‘I know! We know! These are Courtenay’s words in His Majesty’s mouth.
But better for us all if you just go. We’ll get you back within weeks, and Courtenay will be sorry he put up a girl against us.
Of course. But you’ve got to leave tonight.
I’ve got your horse saddled and a guard ready to ride with you. ’
‘But I did it for Anne!’ I protest. ‘For you! For the Boleyns! For the Howards! You can’t repay me by throwing the blame on me.’
‘We don’t blame you,’ he says quickly. ‘We love you as always. It’s just a setback. The Spanish party win this round: we’ll win the king back.’
‘I want to see the duke.’
‘He’ll be at dinner.’
‘I won’t go without seeing him.’
George sighs. ‘Don’t get upset. Go and change into your travelling clothes. I’ll ask His Grace to meet you in the stable-yard.’
Thomas Howard the Duke of Norfolk will intervene for me.
He will invite me to stay at his great London house at Lambeth for a few days while it all blows over.
He has as much influence as the Courtenays.
He is my patron; I am under the shield of his name; he loves me.
He trusted my word against his own wife.
I tumble my books and my jewel case into a little box.
I tell the man at the door of our chambers to carry it down to the stable-yard and put it in the cart with the rest of my things; but this is packing for show: pretend goods into a pretend box, like a play.
I am not really leaving. I change into my riding gown, and I pull on my hat and cape, and then I run down the stairs and into the stable-yard, where the Boleyn guard is mounted and waiting, and my horse saddled and ready.
I try to smile at my waiting maid. ‘We’re going nowhere,’ I tell her, and then Thomas Howard the Duke of Norfolk comes out of one of the doors from the king’s side of the palace, and I know I am safe.
‘You ordered Agnes Trent from court?’ he asks, with no preamble, his face more hawklike than ever.
‘As you told me.’
‘The girl went straight to Courtenay and complained of you, and he went to the king.’
‘But you will intervene for me,’ I say.
He shrugs; his black eyes are set deep, the eyelids drooping down. ‘Anne won’t defend you; your own husband doesn’t speak up for you. Why should I?’
‘Because I’ve worked for you since I was a girl!’ I exclaim. ‘You’re my patron! You’re promised to me – and I to you. Who will serve you when I’m gone? Who will be your eyes and ears in the queen’s rooms?’
He laughs with genuine amusement. ‘Oh, don’t you worry about that. There’s Mary Shelton, or my sister, or my daughter Mary; there’s half a dozen Howards in the queen’s rooms, and half a dozen more I could buy with pennies. But you – you’re too visible now – you’re of no use to me.’
‘You said you would protect me! You promised me . . .’ I am as shocked as a child.
‘You were my spy,’ he concedes. ‘And if you had been born in the sex of that handsome fool your husband, I would have made you into a great diplomat, an ambassador – far better than him. If you had the allure of your sister-in-law Anne, you’d have made a better queen than her – far better.
But you’re just a very pretty, over-educated young woman, Jane.
There’s nothing for you to do at court but quarrel with other pretty girls. ’
‘You know it was not a quarrel! You know it was not pretty girls quarrelling!’
He turns away as if he is leaving. I have to make him turn back. ‘I know something about your half-brother Thom,’ I hiss. ‘He has proposed to Margaret Douglas, the king’s niece. They say they will marry in secret.’
He pauses and nods. ‘Not much of a secret – I knew that.’
‘I know more,’ I gabble. ‘Something about Anne. Something serious!’
He waits.
‘The king isn’t potent with her! He’s lost desire.’
He is silent for a moment. ‘That’s a great secret – a grave secret, and it’s a disaster for Anne – but who can tell it?
Anything that detracts from the majesty of the king is treason.
You’re a traitor to even say it. I did not hear it.
Go to the country, Jane, and study silence.
’ He turns on his heel and leaves me, as if there is nothing more to be said, as if he will never speak to me again.
I am stunned. I let him go without a word of complaint.
The groom brings my horse, and George returns and silently helps me up the stone steps of the mounting block. He squeezes my hand in sympathy. ‘I’ll get you back as soon as I can.’
‘I’m no traitor!’
‘No, of course not. It’s just that you’re no use right now.’
‘I thought he would protect me?’
He shakes his head. ‘Not him! He’s got a heart of stone, that man. But Anne and I love you. We’ll bring you back.’
‘He said I have to study silence.’
‘Well, you’re going to the right place for that,’ he says cheerfully.
‘Beaulieu? I’ll have a hundred things to do.’
‘You’re not going to Beaulieu.’
I stare down at him from the height of the mounting block. ‘Not going home? Then where am I going?’ I can hear the sharp note of panic in my voice. ‘I’m not going to Hever with Mary Boleyn!’
‘No, you’re going home to your father.’
I am as cold as if I were entering the Tower by the water gate. ‘George, are you divorcing me? Putting me aside like Queen Katherine? Putting me out of my house like our uncle did to his wife?’
‘No! No! Not I!’ He laughs at my consternation.
‘We’re not to be parted forever! But if the king commands you leave court – what can I do?
’ His charming smile is so like Anne’s. ‘We’re too finely balanced.
We can’t carry the weight of the king’s dislike.
The Spanish party have got Agnes in his bed.
She whispers their words in his ear; she’s turned him against us.
And we’re blaming all that on you. If the king doesn’t want you here, then you’re no use to us. We’ve dropped you.’