TEN
Thomasin, Ellen and Mary, Lady Essex, were sent out to gather cherries from the orchard while Catherine met with her supporters.
The orchard was a small, walled enclosure, attached to the side of the palace complex, best placed to catch the sun.
Mary grumbled as they trod the path, placing her hand upon the small of her back.
“It’s bad today. Shooting through my hip and all down my leg.” She eased herself down onto a stone bench. “You two make a start. I’ll help when the pain has eased.”
“Is there anything we can fetch you?” Ellen asked.
“Nothing, but a few moments’ rest, I thank you. It’s what you get after having children, you mark my words — your body will never be the same again.”
She arched her back and rolled back her shoulders, turning her face towards the sun.
Thomasin and Ellen took their baskets and picked their way through the long grass, which was dotted with wildflowers. The trees were spread out, with their little packages dangling enticingly between clumps of leaves.
“I fear it is too early in the season for many,” Ellen said, pulling down a nearby branch. “There are one or two, but most will be too hard yet.”
“Some are pale,” Thomasin admitted, inspecting a tree, “but there are a good few here. I think the orchard being so sheltered brings them on early.” She plucked a few firm, pale red fruits and dropped them into her basket.
“I suppose they could always be candied, or made into a conserve,” said Ellen, following her lead.
“I wonder what they are saying in the queen’s chambers right now,” Thomasin mused after a while.
“Not the truth, that is for sure,” Ellen replied swiftly.
Thomasin paused, her hand upon a branch. “What do you mean?”
“Well, no one is being brave enough to tell her the truth, are they?”
“What do you mean? What is the truth?”
Ellen stopped and looked at her cousin. “That she cannot win this. The king will have his way. He always does, no matter what the court finds. It can only cause more heartache and pain for the queen the longer she fights it.”
Thomasin looked at her cousin aghast.
“What?” said Ellen indignantly. “Surely you must see that? You don’t think Henry is ever going to return to her bed, when there is Anne, and a thousand others like her ready and willing?”
Thomasin swallowed. “I know, but it’s just … the way you put it, it’s so harsh.”
“But that’s the problem. No one is telling Catherine the truth.
No one is being direct. She can’t win. Not for all the Popes and Emperors and foreign lawyers.
She can’t win because Henry doesn’t wish it.
And while they explore new legal arguments and find new biblical quotations, it only draws out her suffering. ”
“Would you be the one to tell her, like this, as bluntly as you spoke to me?”
“Not for the world.”
“There we are, then.”
Thomasin turned back to the cherries, but Ellen had not yet finished.
“But someone must. She is living with false hopes, breaking her own heart.”
“I think the king has already done that for her.”
“Indeed. But the time has come for her to recognise the truth.”
A silence fell between them. Thomasin gazed at the dancing green leaves before her.
“What has brought about these thoughts?” she asked Ellen eventually.
Her cousin sighed. “Seeing how the queen suffers daily. How the king acts. Anne herself. It has gone on too long. He will never return to her.”
“But she will never give up her queenship.”
Ellen made no reply.
“What? You think she should step aside and admit that the marriage was untrue, and live as the dowager princess of Wales that she was twenty years before?”
“It may be the only way. I do not think Henry will wait much longer.”
Thomasin thought of the impatient king striding past her this morning. She could not deny he was a man who got his own way.
“He and Anne are so close now, together so often,” Ellen continued. “What if she were to conceive a child? What then?”
“There is no point speaking of things before they have happened.”
“I disagree,” said Ellen quietly. “Sometimes it is better to be prepared.”
Mary was rising from her seat and approaching them among the trees.
“Have you many?” she asked. “Shall I pick more?”
“If you can find any ripe ones,” Thomasin suggested. “We can take a few more. The queen doesn’t want us back yet.”
When their cherry baskets were full, they sat on the benches and turned their faces towards the sun. The peaceful moment did not last long, as a figure appeared in the orchard doorway.
Ellen got to her feet at once. “It’s Sir Henry Letchmere. I’ll go and speak to him.”
Thomasin watched her go in surprise. The pair greeted each other politely, then he offered her his arm and led her into the rose garden beyond the gate.
“Is he her sweetheart?” asked Mary.
“I don’t know,” confessed Thomasin, wondering at this new Ellen. “She has not spoken to me on the matter.”
“No, but she keeps her feelings close, that one,” Mary observed. “She conceals her griefs and joys, but that doesn’t mean she doesn’t feel them.”
Thomasin suddenly felt that she had quite overlooked her cousin, accepting her assurances of stoicism without probing much beneath the surface.
“I fear,” she said softly, “that I have been so concerned about my own matters that I have not been the cousin she deserves.”
Mary patted her knee. “You are both young. It is natural. Plenty of time to put it right.”
“Is life really this hard?” Thomasin turned to her companion suddenly, thinking of Rafe. “Why can’t it be happy and simple, without disagreements and pain?”
“It is the way of the world. These things are sent to try us.”
“But how much do we need to be tested? The queen, in her situation, surely has already suffered enough?”
Mary looked down into her cherries. “You would think so, wouldn’t you?”
“Then what is God’s purpose, in making us suffer this way?”
“I am an old woman now, my girl. I have lost loved ones, weathered storms, survived illness and hard times. What I have learned in that time, is that it is impossible for us to understand his plan. We must be accepting of our situation and do the best we can with the cards we have been dealt.”
Thomasin’s indignation rose at this. “But what then, of our own will? Do we just give up and not fight to make things better? Must we be passive victims of our destiny?”
“No, child, you did not listen to my message. That last line in particular: do the best we can with the cards we have been dealt. We must accept what we cannot change and use all our strength, cunning and wisdom to play the game.”
“It is hard sometimes to think of it as a game.”
“Not a game, then, as children play, but a battle of wits. Like a game of chess, where we stand to gain or lose, depending upon which move we choose to make.”
Thomasin nodded, thinking again of Rafe. But what card should she play now? Should she fight again for their relationship, or wait for him to come to her, having realised the error of his ways?
Presently, Ellen returned to the orchard, her cheeks flushed. She quietly collected her basket of cherries from the foot of the bench.
“How does Lord Letchmere?” asked Thomasin.
“Very well, thank you. He has asked me to attend the dancing tonight. Will you come too, Thomasin, if the queen permits?”
It was an opportunity to see Rafe, even if things were difficult between them. Perhaps they could clear the air.
“Yes, queen permitting. I had not realised you had established that kind of friendship with Lord Letchmere.”
Ellen thought for a moment. “Nor did I. But I think we just did.”
On their way up to Catherine’s apartments, after delivering the cherries to the kitchen, they met Thomas More and Bishop Fisher coming out.
“Ladies,” said More, “good afternoon. I trust you are in good spirits?”
“Well enough, my lord,” said Thomasin, pleased to see her friend. “But you have been summoned from Chelsea, I fear?”
“It is no trouble. I will catch the return tide and rejoin your parents.”
“I’m sorry for your trouble. They are well?”
“Very well indeed. I left them enjoying the peace of my physic garden.”
“How fares the queen?” asked Mary.
“Somewhat ill, I fear. She is confronted by a stalemate with little more than her faith to comfort her.”
Thomasin and Ellen exchanged glances.
“She will be grateful for your company,” More continued. “Do whatever you can to cheer her. God keep you, ladies. I must away. Will you come, Bishop?”
Fisher nodded a similarly grave adieu and followed.
They found Catherine before her fire, her hands outstretched towards it.
She did not turn or speak as they entered, and a warning look from Maria was enough to deter them from approaching.
Quietly, Thomasin and Ellen slipped into the furthest chamber, where the queen’s bed stood waiting, and set about the business of making it fresh and dusting down the hangings.
“The signs don’t look good for dancing,” Thomasin whispered to Ellen, as the gloomy mood penetrated the walls of the queen’s apartments.
“Let’s light some more candles and stoke up the fire in here,” Ellen suggested. “A little brightness often helps.”
But Catherine seemed to take no notice of their efforts.
They strewed herbs on her bed, placed a scented pastille in the hearth and scattered rose petals in her water bowl, to no avail.
Dinner was served in the main chamber, a modest spread of which the queen ate little.
Thomasin watched her picking strands of meat delicately off the bone and sipping wine so that it barely came into contact with her lips.
Afterwards, she rose and announced her intention to retire early.
They assisted her in removing her heavy pearled headdress and drawing out her long, thinning hair.
Its ends were frayed and weak, like the feathers of some aged, momentous bird.
Their careful fingers found the pins in her sleeves, unlaced her bodice and removed her chains and brooches.
Thomasin placed them carefully upon their velvet boards.
Ellen slipped the soft kidskin shoes from the queen’s feet and packed them away with lavender.
They joined Catherine as she knelt in prayer, her knees bare under her night smock.
The moments seemed to drag as she mouthed her way through her devotions, the night deepening around them.
At one point she paused, and Thomasin waited for her to rise, but she stifled a sob and resumed her prayer.
Finally, she rose to her feet, moving painfully back into the chamber, where little Catherine Willoughby had lit many candles to cheer her.
A very faint smile raised the corners of her lips when she saw the girl awaiting her with bowed head.
Thomasin and Ellen assisted Catherine as she climbed into bed, pulling up her sheets and smoothing them over her.
Ellen fetched the prayer book she always kept at her bedside, along with the small silver cross she had brought from Spain all those years ago.
Often she would hold it in her hand before sleep.
With a sigh, the queen called Maria to her side and dismissed the rest of the women with a wave of her hand.
Thomasin followed her cousin out of the chamber on soft feet.
“Do you think…?” whispered Ellen.
Thomasin knew exactly what she was about to say. “It is still early. We might slip out for an hour or so, as we are no longer needed.”
“Mary will cover for us.”
“Quickly then, before I change my mind!”
Feeling daring, Thomasin slipped out of the outer doors, where the guards eyed her in surprise. She pressed a finger to her lips.
“We won’t be long, promise.”