Greenwich Palace, Spring. 1536 #3
Nicholas Carew’s broad smile shows that he knows that Anne is choking on jealousy as bitter as poisoned soup. He bows as if grateful for her praise. ‘I’m so proud,’ he says to the king. ‘I’m so honoured.’
‘None more deserving,’ says the king, though George is standing right beside his sister.
I am thinking furiously, while my hands are clasped in delight, and I am smiling at Nicholas Carew.
Something’s gone very wrong here: we’ve lost ground with our king, and even with the French king – what has he heard from his spies that I don’t know?
Poor miserable Mary Talbot left Henry Percy’s house four years ago, why is she raking up his marriage to Anne now?
Everything on the surface looks as if it is flowing our way, but something is wrong.
Somehow the tide has turned, and it is against us.
I AM SURPRISED TO see my father enter with the other lords for dinner in the great hall. He is amiable with them, a lord among his equals, friendly with everyone – a true courtier. I wonder if he has found the time to ask Will Somer if his fool’s mind can imagine death.
He comes over to me when they are clearing the tables away for dancing, and I kneel for his blessing.
‘I didn’t know you were coming to court again so soon,’ I say as I rise, and he kisses me.
‘Your mother needed some things from the London merchants. All well? In good spirits?’
He has never before come to court to enquire after me. ‘Have you heard anything?’
‘No, no, all’s well,’ he says. He tucks my hand in his arm and leads me away from a noisy dance. The music drowns out our conversation.
‘Father, is everything all right?’
‘Indeed, I hope so! You’re obedient to the head of your house, the Duke of Norfolk?’
‘I don’t see him very often. He and the queen are barely speaking – since her illness.’
‘Better not get involved in these family quarrels,’ my father silences me, as if he does not want to know; but usually he is a man who wants to know everything.
‘I’m not involved,’ I say calmly. ‘Father, have you heard anything? Is someone acting against us? Have you heard that the Boleyns are losing influence?’
‘I’ve heard nothing. Are you losing influence?’
‘George didn’t get the Garter again, for the second year, though he was promised it for sure,’ I admit. ‘And Henry Percy’s wife is making wild accusations . . .’
‘Your patron, your advisor, is Thomas Cromwell?’ he interrupts. ‘You report to him? You confide in him?’
I nod cautiously.
‘And he’s still at one with the Boleyns? For the reform of the Church, for the destruction of the corrupt abbeys?’
‘Yes – except Anne thinks the king should bring Master Cromwell under greater control – the abbeys should reform, not close; others should open as schools and centres for charity. She thinks that Master Cromwell is greedy and corrupt . . .’
‘No – you be advised by him.’ My father shakes his head. ‘Nobody wants to give away Church wealth to the poor – certainly not the king. The wealth of the lords, of the king himself, is not to be decided by ladies.’
‘But the reform of the Church came from the ladies!’ I exclaim. ‘All the new learning started in the queen’s rooms . . .’
‘Learning, yes, but now that great wealth is involved, it is of interest to the men. Faith can be the work of ladies, but wealth is the business of men. And nothing happens in this kingdom unless Thomas Cromwell agrees it. Even I am here on a commission from him.’
‘What sort of commission?’
‘As a judge on first evidence. A new inquiry.’
‘Inquiry into what?’
My father glances around; but there is no one near in earshot. ‘That’s the thing. I’ve not been told. I’ve just been summoned to hear the first evidence, to see if there’s a case to answer.’
I pause, thinking. ‘Master Secretary is preparing another treason trial?’
He nods. ‘For sure, but I don’t know who is the accused.’
‘Oh, Father, he’s not going to act against Princess Mary, is he? Not now? Anne is demanding that she swear the oath. But they can’t try a princess for treason?’
‘Lady Mary,’ he corrects me. ‘No, the king would never use us lords against her; she’s too well-loved. And Carew is one of her greatest advocates, and he just got the Garter. It has to be someone else. Someone whose star is falling.’ He looks at me expectantly.
I shake my head. ‘No one’s really falling – Mary Shelton’s been replaced as favourite by Jane Seymour, and the Seymours are in high favour – but that’s just bedroom gossip.
We’re planning a May Day celebration, and George and Henry Norris are the lead jousters – so the king favours them.
And then a progress to Dover and across the narrow seas to honour the Lisles at Calais, so the old royal family are in high regard. No one’s out of favour?’
‘Well, someone’s going to face an inquiry by the lords,’ my father warns me.
‘So it must be either a courtier or a churchman. A commoner would go to the common courts. But Jane, if Master Cromwell asks you anything about anybody, make sure you tell him all you know – he’s certain to know it already.
Don’t hold anything back. You don’t want him to doubt you as well as . . . whoever he is doubting.’
‘I do. I always tell him everything.’
We turn to watch the dancers. The king is seated on his throne, beating time with his hand.
Anne is beside him; as we watch, she says something charming – I can tell it is charming by the turn of her head – and the king nods and smilingly replies, then looks across the room to where Jane Seymour is waiting, hesitantly, for her turn to step forward.
‘Pity about the horse,’ my father says.
‘What horse?’
‘Thunder, that big bay of the king’s. The one that fell.’
‘But I saw him get up? He was sound?’
‘He was unhurt, but the king had him beheaded,’ my father says. ‘For treason, I suppose.’ He has to hide a smile. ‘Falling on the king is clearly the act of a traitor. The punishment for traitors is beheading. Ergo, the horse was beheaded. Rather like the beast trials of Prytaneum, Athens.’
I think of the beautiful animal, the bright-coloured coat and the big, dark intelligent eyes. ‘Oh, poor horse, poor beautiful horse!’ I exclaim. ‘That’s not justice!’
‘He is Supreme Head of the Church,’ he reminds me. ‘And king of England. Justice is whatever he says it is.’ He pauses. ‘That’s why I say to report everything to Cromwell.’
AS IF HE knows my father has spoken to me, Master Cromwell summons me to his dark chamber next day.
It is modestly furnished, as if the king’s secretary needs nothing more than bare floorboards, a table, and a high-backed chair with a rush seat for him, and a second chair set on the other side.
The writing chest that he takes everywhere is locked with the little brass key in the lock.
There is a table and chair for a clerk, laid out with all the instruments for spying: knives for cutting letterlocks; a hair-thin wire for lifting a wax seal and replacing it unbroken; badger-hair brushes for dusting sand on invisible sticky letters; candles ready to make lemon-juice words appear on singed paper.
‘What is this?’ I ask, putting my hand on a series of copper wheels, one inside another, each wheel rim engraved with letters.
‘An Italian device,’ he says. He shows me how the inner wheel has a pointer to a letter of the alphabet, geared to the outer wheel so it can be set to show six letters forward or ten letters back, with another cog to alter the selection of letters between paragraphs.
‘It translates in and out of code,’ he says.
‘You just agree with your correspondent what gearing to use and when to change it.’
‘Clever,’ I admire it. ‘It must make a code very fast to write.’
‘My clerks need to work fast. I’ve never known a busier time.’
‘We are busy at court, too,’ I agree, putting down the code wheel. ‘The queen wants to make a special May Day for the king, as he cannot ride this year.’
‘She has told her ladies that he cannot ride?’
‘Everyone knows. Master Cromwell, why did you want to see me?’
‘It’s always a pleasure to see you. And does she speak of his poetry?’
‘We all speak of poetry.’
‘But the queen and her brother, your husband, and your cousin, Mary Shelton, and her friend, Thomas Wyatt – all noted poets, aren’t you?
Young Lord Thom Howard, too? You study metre and rhyme and all that sort of thing, criticise each other’s work, write alternate witty lines – I wouldn’t know; I’m not an educated man . . .’
‘Of course, we discuss each other’s poetry.’
‘The king’s poetry?’
‘We all laugh at an awkward rhyme.’
‘You laugh at the king’s awkward rhymes?’
‘Not especially. We all tease and torment each other.’
‘Does the queen complain of his infidelity?’
‘You know she does. The love that she feels for him cannot tolerate a rival . . .’
‘And of his failure to love?’
‘Well . . . she fears he prefers others . . .’
‘But in bed? She says he fails her? She calls him incapable?’
‘Of course, he was so badly injured just months ago!’ I exclaim. ‘And the wound on his leg won’t heal . . .’
‘She’s told you this? She says that he is impotent?’
I feel cornered by my own patron. Everyone knows when the king beds his wife – he comes to her bedroom in a procession, accompanied by half of his friends.
The nights when he lies stock-still as a statue are obvious to the lords who fetch him in the morning and find him as they left him, even the serving women changing unspotted sheets know that he has done nothing.
No one says anything, it’s treason to suggest the king is not in perfect health and vigour.
I lower my voice. ‘Isn’t every man—’
‘And have you told many people?’
‘No! I only told George. But that was an earlier conversation. Years ago.’
His broad brown face creases with sympathy. ‘Years ago? How long has this been going on?’
‘I don’t remember . . . before I left court. After . . . About two years ago.’