Chapter 15 #3
There was a silence. Clearly it annoyed Audley, who was evidently not a man accustomed to resistance, especially from a mere woman.
He cleared his throat. ‘Let me make plain what I need from you, Lady Sharington,’ he said.
‘Are you aware that during this year past, your sister Lady Stent has made a number of visits to the King’s sister, the Lady Anna of Cleves, at Bletchingley Manor? ’
‘My sister did mention this in a letter to me,’ Marris agreed carefully.
She tried to calm her panicked thoughts, both for the sake of the baby as much as for herself.
How had Rose found out about Anna’s child?
Had someone confided the story of Richard’s birth in her, thinking, perhaps, that because she was Marris’s sister, she would be loyal?
If so, they had been gravely mistaken. And was Anna in danger?
Had she, like Queen Catherine, also been arrested?
Marris pressed her hands together to steady herself.
She knew so little of this web Rose had caught her in and she needed to keep her composure.
‘Did Lady Stent give any further details of her visits?’ Audley asked silkily.
‘No,’ Marris said.
Again, there was silence, then Audley resumed.
‘On one occasion last month, Lady Stent became concerned by some of the gossip she was hearing,’ he said. He drew a piece of paper towards him. ‘Namely that the King’s sister had lain with His Majesty at New Year last, and was subsequently brought to bed of a child.’
He heard Marris catch her breath and looked up, his eyes narrowing. ‘It is a shocking matter, is it not, madam? The King knows full well that he did not lie with the lady. Therefore, any child begotten on the Lady Anna must have been fathered by another man.’
Marris’s head was buzzing. ‘No,’ she whispered. ‘This must be a mistake. It cannot possibly be true. The Lady Anna is chaste and has always been.’
‘One would hope so.’ Audley looked positively pleased to see how pale and shaken she was. ‘However, Lady Stent also overheard one of the Lady Anna’s women, a Jane Rattray, speaking of the fall of Queen Katherine, saying: “What if God worketh this to make the Lady Anna of Cleves queen again?”’
Marris took a deep breath and reminded herself to tread cautiously. ‘It was foolish of Mistress Rattray, if she did indeed say such a thing,’ she agreed, ‘but it proves nothing more than that the Lady Anna’s waiting women would like to see her raised up to her former position once again.’
‘And what would you like, Lady Sharington?’ Audley pressed, leaning forward. ‘Would that also please you? I know that you and the King’s sister were once very close.’
Marris seized her chance. ‘Naturally I wish whatever is best for His Majesty the King,’ she said smoothly, ‘as I am sure the Lady Anna also does. As you know, my lord, I have not been in the Lady Anna’s service since autumn of last year and so have no knowledge of the allegations my sister has made, but they sound to be no more than idle chatter.
If that is all Rose has to offer then I would respectfully suggest, my lord, that she is wasting your time. ’
The tight feeling within Marris was starting to ease a little.
It seemed that the Privy Council were concentrating their enquiries on this current year and had no inkling of what had happened the previous one.
Rose, in her spite and ambition, had stirred up trouble only to miss the truth by a hairsbreadth.
Yet whilst that was an enormous relief, Marris did not know what she could do to help Bridget.
If Audley would not release her unless Marris denounced Anna, what was she to do?
‘There was a boy, born this summer.’ The Lord Chancellor’s smile now held more than a hint of triumph. ‘Lady Stent saw him with her own eyes.’
‘Ah, yes,’ Marris said. ‘I do know that Lady Bray was brought to bed of a boy this summer, her second child. When I sent a gift for his christening, she wrote to tell me that she intended to take him to visit the Lady Anna and ask her to stand as godmother. Perhaps it was he whom Lady Stent saw?’
Lord Audley tapped his fingers on the desk in an irritated manner.
‘You seem very certain that we are mistaken, Lady Sharington. Yet perhaps if you think a little, there may be something you remember that could assist me? I need to remind you that both your own and your sister Bridget’s futures could depend on your assistance in this enquiry. ’
‘You do not need to remind me,’ Marris said. ‘I understood you the first time.’
Audley cocked a brow. ‘Then you need to think of something useful to me.’ He sat back, steepling his fingers.
‘Lady Stent seems certain that although you had left Lady Anna’s service, you are still her confidante.
There are letters, she said, between the two of you, and gifts that the King’s sister frequently sends you.
Surely amongst your correspondence there must have been some hint of Lady Anna’s…
situation… in the last year? When you were her chief lady in waiting she frequently turned to you for help and advice.
She might have done so subsequently, particularly if she found herself in a delicate condition. Think carefully, now.’
Silence settled on the room. Outside, a hailstorm was rattling the windows. Audley gestured to one of the servants to light more candles.
‘So, Lady Sharington…’ He spoke softly. ‘I repeat, what can you offer me?’
Marris straightened her shoulders. ‘It is true that Her Highness the Princess of Cleves has been remarkably generous to me since I left her service, my lord,’ she said, deliberately using Anna’s full titles, ‘not out of any reason other than friendship. I am honoured by her regard.’ She looked him straight in the eye.
‘As such, I would never bear false witness against her. It seems to me that my sister’s suspicions are entirely without merit or substance.
What I offer you, my lord, is the assurance that there is no basis to Rose’s claims against Lady Anna and I am glad to have been able to help you with this matter. ’ She stood up.
‘Not so fast,’ Audley barked, and the guards moved forward, for all the world as though they expected Marris to make a run for it.
‘A period of reflection in the Beauchamp Tower whilst we speak with Lady Bray and Mistress Rattray might help you remember something more helpful, madam. Remember that Mistress North’s future also depends on this—’ He stopped abruptly at the sound of a heavy knock on the door.
‘Open in the name of the King’s sister!’ the stentorian cry came, and a moment later the door was thrown wide, and the Lady Anna of Cleves herself swept into the room, throwing off a heavy scarlet cloak to reveal a magnificent gown of cloth of silver.
She was flanked by a dozen men in her household livery and looked every inch a queen.
Marris heard Audley swear, as fluently and coarsely as any trooper.
She dropped a low curtsey and then realised she could barely stand for she was shaking so much.
Someone came to her side to assist her and she found her hand taken in Will’s comforting grasp.
The shock of seeing him was so great she shook even more.
‘Steady, my brave love,’ he said in her ear, keeping hold of her as he guided her back to her chair. ‘A moment more and we shall be out of this place.’
‘I thought you in Dover,’ Marris said faintly, but he shook his head, his eyes dancing. ‘I was at Richmond,’ he said, ‘fetching the King’s sister, so that she could give the Lord Chancellor her own opinion on the gossip that besmirches her name.’
‘My Lord Chancellor!’ Anna’s voice rang out.
‘I have become acquainted with the scurrilous rumours that you and the Privy Council see fit to give credence. It displeases me greatly that you would countenance them for a moment, and I am even more shocked that you would investigate them without so much a word to me!’
‘Your Highness…’ Audley was trying to smile ingratiatingly in the face of such royal outrage. ‘We intended no disrespect. We simply did not wish to trouble Your Highness over a matter that might well prove unfounded—’
‘Fools! Oafs!’ Anna’s command of English was greatly improved, Marris thought, and rather splendid.
‘Are the men of the Privy Council so far gone in suspicion that they think to question the King’s most loyal subjects?
Are you run mad that you see treachery where none exists?
You, the great men of this realm, lower yourselves to listen to mere gossip! ’
Audley drew breath to speak but Anna swept him aside.
‘You plan to send for my ladies behind my back, you harass them for no reason, even poor Lady Sharington who is great with child…’ Anna was shaking her head in reproof.
‘His Majesty the King knows the reverence in which I hold him and how much I esteem his good will. I would do nothing to put that at risk. Nothing! Now, cease this foolishness, my lord, and release my good friend, aye, and her sister Mistress North, whom the Council have already cleared of any wrongdoing. Unless, of course, you prefer to accuse me here, now, to my face?’
Audley’s eyes narrowed with fury. There was a minute when it looked as though he might go that far.
He looked around the room, at the stolid men at arms, at Sir William with his hand resting suggestively on the hilt of his sword, at the clerks and scriveners who filled the doorway, shuffling and whispering together.
Then he shrugged lightly, spreading his arms wide.
‘I am sure there is no need for such high drama, Your Highness,’ he said smoothly. ‘It is clearly no more than a misunderstanding on the part of Lady Stent, who shall hear from us on our disapproval.’