Chapter 47 Greenwich Palace, April 1541
Greenwich Palace, April
I COME INTO THE royal bedroom at Greenwich and find Katheryn is still in bed. She has a handful of counters from the gaming tables spread over her embroidered sheets, and a written calendar of dates.
‘What’s this?’ I ask.
‘I’m not quite sure,’ she says. She is breathless; the calendar is scribbled over and corrected several times. She has marked question marks at the foot of the page and a week of bold ticks at the top. ‘I’m not quite certain?’
‘You’re trying to calculate your courses?’ I ask her.
She looks up with relief. ‘Jane, d’you know if it’s due? I think I am late?’
I have been a courtier to five queens. It is an essential tool of my trade. ‘Yes,’ I say. ‘You’re a few days late; but it could mean nothing.’
‘But I could be with child?’ She looks up from the counters and the calendar. ‘I could be with child?’
‘Only if you conceived as soon as the king came back to your bed. It’s too early to say. Certainly, too early to tell anyone.’
‘It must be then!’ she agrees. ‘He said God blessed him. I am with child; I know I am! I have a great desire for sugarplums.’
‘You always do,’ I point out.
‘Far more than usual,’ she says stubbornly. ‘I shall tell the king.’
‘No wait,’ I say. ‘We don’t want to get his hopes up and then disappoint him.’
The look she turns on me is that of a far older wiser woman. ‘Jane,’ she says. ‘Remember how he was before Lent? I have to get crowned.’
She is right: she must be crowned. We thought he would die then, and his illness is not cured but just in abeyance; it is a tertian fever it will flare up again and again.
He could die before her baby quickens. A dowager queen veiled in black with a baby in her belly would be unbeatable. It’s worth the risk.
‘I’ll tell him after mass,’ she says, throwing back her fine linen sheets. ‘I’ll wear blue – get me my blue gown with blue sleeves, Jane. I’ll wear blue like the Virgin Herself.’
‘The annuntiati,’ I agree, hearing the snort of laughter of a ghost.
SHE ASKS ME the correct way to inform a king that his queen is with child, and I tell her lord chamberlain, who informs the king’s lord chamberlain.
When mass is over, we ladies wait on our side of the chapel while the king gets Culpeper to haul him to his feet.
I prompt her to curtsey very prettily, and step forward and whisper in his ear, blushing. Culpeper studies the floor.
The king takes her hand, kisses her on the mouth, turns her as if she were a little puppet, to face the altar and says: ‘Rejoice, highly favoured one. The Lord is with you. Blessed are you among women!’
Everyone says ‘Amen!’ or ‘Thanks be to God!’ and gives a muted cheer.
The Seymours look as if they have swallowed a furball and are going to have to go quietly into a corner to retch it up.
But even they cross themselves and say: ‘God bless you and keep you well!’ to Kitty, who stands, flushed and so proud, among them all, with the king holding her hand and her eyes filled with tears, not crying so as not to spoil her looks – just tears of happiness.