Greenwich Palace, May, 1541
Greenwich Palace, May
‘NOT WHELPING?’ MY uncle descends on me at the May Day festivities, which are subdued, since we have no Whitsun coronation ahead of us and nothing to celebrate.
‘She made a mistake with her courses; she did not miscarry,’ I specify.
‘Aye, I know that’s what you’re all saying,’ he says unpleasantly. ‘That’s what t’other one said, last time. I don’t see why you women think it’s better to say that she’s a fool who can’t count than a heifer who can’t get in calf.’
I am silent.
‘He goes to her bed?’ he confirms.
‘He does.’
‘And does his business?’
I am not such a fool as to reply.
‘So she should take?’
I nod.
‘Make sure she does,’ he says to me, as if I can summon a baby from the air that blows so sweetly off the river. ‘I wouldn’t give you three pence for her, if she does not.’
At once, the breeze feels cold. ‘Why would you say that? He’s not turning against her? She’s done nothing wrong.’
‘He married her to get another son; if she can’t give him one, he’ll find someone who can.’
‘She’s your niece,’ I say desperately. ‘You don’t want him going back to Anne of Cleves or picking another maid-of-honour from another family. Where would you be, without a Howard girl on the throne?’
‘Where I am now,’ he says bluntly. ‘I work like a dog for him in the north against the Papists, and all I hear is “Cromwell would have done it better. Cromwell would never have allowed this!” If she wants my support, she’d better get a baby in her belly and a crown on her head.’
I put my hand across my mouth to stop a rush of panic-stricken words.
I don’t want to gabble my fear that my uncle is demanding something that no woman can make happen.
If we laid all the dead-borns to the king’s door, there would be more dead babies than live ones.
He has sired a dozen ghosts. But it is against the law to even think this.
I REMEMBER THE OTHER May Day, when the king rode away after the joust, and nobody knew why.
This time, he misses the masque for a meeting with his privy council.
The whole court is on alert for Kitty’s fall but it is the north of the country: in arms again, and the king furiously sending an army to put them down, blaming Reginald Pole in faraway Italy, and Reginald’s mother Margaret Pole in the Tower.
She was once the richest woman in England, but now she is so poor that the royal tailor sends her clothes.
She was a princess but is now so powerless that she is not even allowed to claim her innocence.
They will not bring her to trial; they will not let her speak.
The May Day masque was to be a celebration of the king’s return to health, his restoration to virile youth, and the queen’s pregnancy.
But since he is not attending and she is not pregnant, the musicians play quietly, so as not to disturb the privy council, and we mark out the steps rather than putting on a show.
We were going to do Aphrodite, goddess of love and fertility, again, but Kitty’s heart is not in it, and she sits on her throne looking like a child left out of a game.
The young men of the court get drunk from boredom, and the older ladies-in-waiting leave early.
I see how a court loses its ability to make magic – even when the machinery is still grinding away.
Thomas Culpeper glances now and then towards Kitty, ignoring his lover Bess Harvey, but she does not even look at him.
As the evening drags to a close, he works his way across the room towards me, with a word to one man and a pretty bow to a girl. I watch him coming.
‘Lady Rochford.’
I cannot show a cold mask to this young man who bows and takes my hand as confidently as if he is about to draw me into an embrace.
I know well enough that his charm is a habit, a courtier’s mask; but there is something about Thomas Culpeper that is quite irresistible, almost like a perfume: the scent of desire.
‘I so wish you were my friend, Lady Rochford.’
‘Master Culpeper, I wish you nothing but well.’
‘I want you to be my friend with the queen.’
‘I’ve never said a word against you.’
He takes my hand, draws it under his arm, and leads me away from the dancers towards the open doors to the shadowy gallery where Kitty met him only a few weeks ago.
I am standing where she stood when she gave him his Easter gift, but we are closer than they were, my hand held between his arm and his chest. I can feel the warmth of his body through his embroidered silk jacket and the hard sheath of the muscle over his ribs.
I am vividly aware of his body under his clothes; I feel again the almost-forgotten sensation of desire for the scent of a man, for the touch of his skin, for the soft prickle of chest hair against my cheek.
‘I am afraid I have offended Her Majesty,’ he says, when we are far apart from everyone and cannot be overheard.
‘I wouldn’t know.’
He looks down at me, his brown eyes very warm. ‘Ah, Jane, be my friend: you do know.’
Ridiculously, I feel the heat in my cheeks of a blush.
‘She surprised me with kindness; she gave me a gift, a generous gift, and I was stupid when I should have been courtly. I was rude when I should have been loving.’
‘I dare say she’s forgotten all about it.’
‘Oh, don’t say that, Jane, dearest Jane. Speak for me – tell her that I am a fool. That I was hiding my true feelings. Tell her that I worship the ground she walks on. I will write her a poem . . .’
‘Then write your poem,’ I say coolly. ‘Or a song, or ride in a joust for her. It is all courtly love, after all. It does not matter.’
He leans so close to me that I can feel the warmth of his breath on my cheek.
If I turned, our lips would meet. ‘It does matter,’ he whispers.
‘I will not lie. It is not courtly love: it is desire. How can I write a poem about that? I love her – not as a courtier, but as a man. I desire her – not as a queen, not as a lady far above me, but as a woman. Will you tell her that?’
I pull away from him. ‘No, of course not,’ I say coolly. ‘It is not my place to speak to the king’s wife like that. It’s not your place either.’
His joyous shout of laughter turns heads.
He snatches both my hands and kisses them.
‘Ah, Jane, I love you, too!’ But he cannot stop laughing.
‘D’you think I don’t know women?’ he demands.
‘You’ll tell her what I’ve said, the first moment you’re alone together.
And she’ll ask you for my exact words, and you’ll remember them exactly!
And I’ll know that you have told her the first moment that I next see her. I’ll see it in her face and in yours.’
I want to deny this; but I’m laughing like a girl at his knowingness, at his smiling confidence, and I push him away, back to the dancers. ‘Go away, Master Culpeper; this is a May Day dance that you are leading me on, and I will not carry messages for you.’
He steps back and bows low to me, throws a quick, intense glance at Katheryn, who is pretending not to see us, but is head to head with Mary Howard, who really does seem to manage to then see nothing at all.
‘WHAT DID HE want?’ Kitty demands, the moment the last maid has left her bedroom. She drags me down to sit beside her on her bed. ‘What did he say?’
‘A lot of nonsense,’ I say dampeningly.
‘He’s a very nonsensical young man,’ she agrees eagerly. ‘I’m surprised you even listened to him. What did he say that was such nonsense? Why were you laughing?’
I cannot resist the temptation to tell her. ‘At any rate, you have your revenge. He says that he loves you.’
‘Courtly love.’
‘He says not. He says he loves you for real.’
She gives a little crow of delight and bounces to her knees on her bed. ‘He does! Did he say he was sorry for being so rude about my gift?’
‘Yes. He asked me if you were displeased with him.’
‘Oh! Oh! And you said yes?’
‘I did better than that. I said that I didn’t think you even remembered it.’
She claps her hands. ‘You are clever. That was best. And he is sorry?’
‘Very sorry. He called himself stupid.’
She beams. ‘Serves him right. He is stupid.’
I nod. ‘And now you have your revenge.’
She sits back and holds her hands over her heart. ‘When shall I see him?’
‘No, you can’t see him,’ I correct her. ‘I only told you because I knew it would delight you. This is where it ends: with your victory. You wanted him beneath your feet. You have him there. That’s the end of the story.’
She widens her eyes at me; they have turned green with desire. ‘Oh, but, Jane, I have to see him.’
‘You can’t,’ I say simply. ‘It was only once, when I was there, when you were carrying the king’s child.
Now you’ve got nothing to do, night or day, but conceive the king’s child.
Any other thought, any other action is a waste of your time.
And a danger to your reputation. You can’t be alone with any man until you have the king’s baby in your belly. ’
She closes her eyes for a moment, her hands still clasped over her heart. ‘When I think of him, I just melt,’ she whispers.
There is a loud bang of the outer door. Kitty’s eyes fly open. ‘Is that the king?’
It is his vice chamberlain, announcing that the king will come to Kitty’s bed tonight. I hurry to tie her cap on her hair, to straighten her sheets. I see the joy drain from her face, her rosy cheeks go pale. I can almost see her grow dry and cold.
The double doors open, and the king limps in, Thomas Culpeper under his arm on his lame side.
The king’s page and Culpeper manhandle him to sit on the edge of the high bed beside her, then lift his legs and swing them up.
The mattress sinks down on his side; the ropes of the bed creak.
Kitty is thrown off balance and rights herself by holding to the bedpost.