Chapter 48 Greenwich Palace, Spy Wednesday 1541
Greenwich Palace, Spy Wednesday
SPY WEDNESDAY IS the day before Maundy Thursday, named for Judas Iscariot, and I think of my master, the greatest spy in England, as if this were his memorial day – to honour spies.
I think: what would he advise me – with the king disappearing from court?
What would he do when the king came out, refusing to even remember that he nearly died?
What would he do with a young queen who may have a royal heir in her belly?
I think: he would have prepared for everything, for anything. That’s what I must do.
Katheryn tries to escape the long masses and prayers in these final days of Lent, and I have to bribe her into church with beautiful black-lace Spanish mantillas that Queen Katherine of Aragon left in the royal wardrobe.
But she refuses outright to wash the feet of seventeen poor women – one for each year of her life.
‘It’s far worse for the king; he has to do fifty,’ I tell her. ‘Old men, too.’
‘It’s worse for me because I have no need to humble myself,’ she says. ‘I wasn’t born a queen. I am not an old king. Why do I have to wash their disgusting feet?’
‘They’re not disgusting; they’re washed already,’ I tell her. ‘And every queen of England has done it.’
‘I can’t bear it!’ she says with a little wail. ‘Why do I have to?’
‘Because Our Lord washed the feet of the disciples,’ I said. ‘The pope himself does it in Rome. The king does it. You can certainly do it.’
‘Only if you show me exactly how, and if you promise me a favour after.’
‘Oh, very well,’ I say impatiently.
We set up a line of stools, and her young maids-of-honour throw themselves into the roles of being old and poor.
They limp and cough and insist on being carried and seated.
They roll down their stockings and slip off their satin shoes, screaming with laughter and accusing each other of having smelly feet.
‘No laughing,’ Kitty says crossly. ‘The poor don’t laugh, do they? Why do I have to do this properly if no one else does!’
I show her how each poor woman will have her feet in the bowl before her, and all Kitty has to do is pour a jug of water into the bowl and touch the top of the foot.
‘Jane Seymour did it beautifully,’ I prompt her. ‘She saw it as part of queenly service.’
Down the line of seated giggling maids Katheryn goes, her face set and serious, pretending to pour from an empty jug, touching their feet with one extended fingertip.
Margery Horsman takes the jug from her at the end of the line of stools, dries her hands, and hands her a purse.
Kitty turns and walks back up the line, giving each woman a penny.
She stops at the end of the line and looks at me. ‘Then, do I just walk away?’
‘Bless them and wish them a Happy Easter.’
Katheryn turns back with the most angelic smile. ‘God bless you, smelly old ladies, and Happy Easter,’ she says.
The girls shriek with laughter. ‘God bless you, Queen Katheryn!’ they call. ‘God bless your sweet face! God bless your goodly belly and the baby inside it! God save you get another the way you got that one! God hope you enjoy it next time!’
‘Enough!’ I say sternly. ‘And put the stools straight.’ I turn to Katheryn. ‘That was well done. Do it just like that.’
‘And now my favour!’ She is suddenly bright with mischief; she draws me away from the noise of the girls taking the stools back to their rooms.
‘What favour?’
‘The favour you promised, if I do this?’
‘What d’you want?’ I ask uneasily.
‘I have a craving,’ she whispers.
‘No more than ten sugarplums,’ I rule.
She beams at me. ‘It is a person, not a plum. But just as mouthwatering . . .’
‘What person?’
‘I wonder if you can guess? You who always know everything?’
‘I won’t guess a person,’ I say unhelpfully.
‘I’ll tell you then! I want to see Thomas Culpeper, privately, in my rooms.’
‘You can’t,’ I say at once. ‘Your presence chamber is always filled with people, and your privy chamber with courtiers. You can’t see a man in your bedroom. There is nowhere you can see him alone.’
‘I want to give him a gift for Easter,’ she says. ‘No harm in that.’
‘Depends on the gift,’ I say warily.
‘Just a cap – a velvet cap,’ she whispers. ‘Nothing special. The sort that the king gives his favourites at Easter. Just like that. To thank him for being so good to my husband when he was ill.’
‘You needn’t thank him; it’s his duty. Are you going to see the Seymours and thank them?’
‘Oh, don’t be so dull, Jane! I’ve bought a cap for him, and I want to give it to him, and he’ll think of me as he wears it.’
‘This is nonsense,’ I say.
‘But there’s no harm in it,’ she pleads. ‘I’m with child. I can’t do wrong. Nobody could say anything against me, after all?’
‘I don’t even know where you could meet.’
‘I’ve thought of that! Just outside my bedroom door! In the gallery. I could be coming out of my rooms with you. Catherine Tilney can walk past with him, and we meet by accident. Just for a moment.’
‘What if someone else comes by?’ I ask.
‘Then I’ll pass him with a bow,’ she says. ‘And you can give it to him later, instead. Go on, Jane – there’s no harm in it.’
‘There’s no good either,’ I say, unconvinced.
‘Yes; but I want to!’ she says, like the child she is. ‘And I won’t wash disgusting old feet unless you agree, and I won’t even get up in the morning unless you agree.’
CATHERINE TILNEY HAS no objection to playing the part of Bialacoil – the welcoming friend in the stories of courtly love.
Henry Webb, the queen’s usher, fetches Thomas Culpeper to Catherine Tilney, who walks down the gallery arm in arm with him and then steps back as the queen comes out of her bedroom.
He stops still as he realises this is planned. He waits, like an experienced flirt, to see what she wants of him, how much she wants of him. Henry Webb goes to the other end of the gallery, looking down the stairs, ready to cough loudly if anyone comes up the staircase.
An accidental meeting between a queen and a courtier does not need guards.
An Easter gift between queen and courtier does not need secrecy.
But, equally, a secret meeting of lovers does not happen before three witnesses.
This event is indefinable – on a border between one world and another, in a gateway.
Culpeper may become known as the champion of the queen, her publicly acknowledged favourite, the king’s deputy at dancing and hunting.
His prestige will rise, and her reputation will be undamaged.
Their hidden fascination might turn into public devotion of loyal courtier to beloved queen.
Culpeper knows the rules of courtly love as well as Kitty.
I am hoping this meeting – on the border of indiscretion – will move them both into the safe roles of humble lover and distant mistress. But it is all over in a moment.
I see her speak to him briefly and pass him something small, folded in her hands.
He takes it and, obeying her hurried gesture, tucks it out of sight, under his cloak.
He says something that he thinks is funny – I see the cock of his head and his laughing smile – but she takes it badly.
She steps back, turns, looks at him sharply over her shoulder, says a few words, and comes away with a cross little swish of her gown.
I am hugely relieved. This is far better than him swearing a lover’s fealty.
He has offended her again, and she is no longer a half-lovesick girl, the youngest maid-of-honour, looking after him as he dances with his preferred flirt.
Now, she is fully aware of her importance.
Master Culpeper will discover that he cannot joke with Katheryn the queen as he did with Kitty the maid-of-honour; she will not forgive impertinence.
She says nothing until I am plaiting her hair for the night. ‘That’s a very stupid young man,’ she remarks.
‘I thought so,’ I reply agreeably. ‘He has facile charm.’
‘He does!’ she exclaims. ‘That’s just what he has.’ She hesitates. ‘What is that?’
‘Easy,’ I say. ‘Light.’ Now I am thinking of George and the cock of his head and his laugh.
‘Easy,’ I repeat, thinking of his smile.
‘Light,’ thinking George was always light-hearted, even in the worst of danger.
‘Courtly love – all surface, no depth.’ She catches my sadness.
I meet her eyes in the mirror. ‘Not lasting,’ I say. ‘Not real.’
‘Yes,’ she breathes. ‘Courtly love, not real. D’you know?
I gave him a cap of velvet with a gold brooch and a chain and gold-tipped laces – and he barely glanced at it!
He laughed and said I should have been kind to him when I was a maid.
As if I could have afforded such a thing then!
After I had sent Webb for him and Catherine Tilney, and made you allow me, and gone out into the gallery to see him alone. ’
‘He’s no lovesick troubadour,’ I say, with quiet satisfaction. ‘Not like a lover in a poem at all. Not worthy of the favour of a queen. Not good enough for you.’
‘Not at all!’ she says indignantly. ‘And he can be very sure that if I had been dallying with him and given him a cap when I was a maid, it would have been no laughing matter for him. I would have made him fall in love with me and left him broken-hearted. But I’m queen now, and I have no time for vain young men.
He can keep the stupid cap. He can wear it all the time, and I won’t notice. I shan’t bother about him again.’
I tie the ribbons of her white embroidered nightcap under her chin. She looks at her reflection with satisfaction. ‘It’s so lovely being with child, so the king doesn’t come to bed me. My room smells so nice. You can sleep here tonight, Jane. We don’t need men at all, not even young ones!’