The King's Pleasure, page 36
The wind blew from the northeast, the sleet fell down, the mud splashed up. Chapuys could stay nowhere long enough to have his clothes properly dried out and brushed; mud layer caked upon mud layer until they were as stiff as armor, and in the morning just as cold. And because he was travelling at speed he could not turn aside to rest for the night in any comfortable manor, but must hold to the road and lodge at inns where in such weather, with the Twelve Days of Christmas still being kept, chance travellers were not expected or welcomed.
He reached Kimbolton late in the afternoon of the second day in the year 1536. The place looked dead. He had brought two men with him, for even on such an urgent, hasty errand a man of his rank could not travel unaccompanied, and it took the full force of their united voices to provoke any stir of life. When, from the inner side of the leaden moat, the shouts were answered, “Who are you? What do you want?” Chapuys had reached the point of recklessness that enabled him to answer, “The Emperor’s Ambassador, come with the King’s permission to wait upon the Queen.”
“It will be,” Katharine said in the weak voice, so unlike her own, “my last public appearance. Prop me high. My collar, where is it? And the headdress I wore…at Blackfriars? Maria, this shawl is cozy, but it is peasant wear. The skirt of my purple gown; drape it over me, bedgown and all.” The Spanish Ambassador was going to be correctly received: she had already sent Llandaff to command the presence of Sir Edmund and Sir Edward, and Manuella to search for, if necessary borrow, some extra candles.
Filipez conducted Chapuys to a comfortless room and hurried away to fetch water, saying simply, “It will not be hot, sir. Since Her Grace has kept to her bed the only fire has been in her chamber.”
Chapuys had known that there was a lack of comfort, but he had not visualized a shortage of fuel. Gloomily he washed in water so cold that it seemed to burn, and changed his muddied riding clothes for others, much creased. There was no glass in the room, so he tidied his hair and beard by sense of touch alone and waited, growing more chilled every moment, until Filipez returned to say formally, “Sir, the Queen is ready to receive you.” Filipez had discarded the nameless garment, a kind of knitted shroud, which Jennie had made for him after he had confided to her that he felt the cold in the Castle more than the lack of palatable food, and had dressed himself in the rose and white tunic and hose designed for wear in places which, if high and draughty, had heaped hearths and the heat of many bodies to warm them.
At the door of the room where Katharine lay he announced the Spanish Ambassador in proper fashion and then slipped to take his place with Maria, Llandaff, de La Sa, Concepcion and Manuella, on the right-hand side of the bed. The two knights stood on the left. The Queen of England was receiving the Emperor’s Ambassador with all the style and formality that could be mounted at a few minutes’ notice and with such slender resources.
Between the low bow at the door and the dropping to his knees beside the bed, Chapuys noticed all that there was to see. A macabre scene; the Queen so bleached and emaciated, propped upon pillows frayed, mended, frayed again; the hangings of the bed were faded and tattered; some of the candles mustered on a table at the foot of the bed were not candles at all, they were rushdips, the lights of the poor. Chapuys had made thousands of them in his time, in Annecy a thousand years ago.
He seemed to notice nothing; to walk straight towards her. He knelt; she extended her hand.
“Messire Chapuys, you have come. I thank you for coming. I feared that I might be left to die, like a beast in a field.”
“Your Grace, you must not speak of dying. The King and the whole country are anxious for your recovery. The Princess is not with me, but that is because His Grace was averse to the idea of her travelling so far in such foul weather.”
For a long time he had dealt in half-truths; never the lie that could be nailed down, but now he was reckless. She shall die happy, if I can contrive it, he thought.
“I have many messages to convey to Your Grace. The King is concerned for your health and well-being…” The lies rattled out; a move to a more comfortable place; an increased allowance, more company. On the right-hand side of the bed the waiting woman who looked as if she had been crying for a week, choked and put her hand to her face; on the left-hand side the two knights shuffled their feet. And midway between them, propped in bed, Katharine’s ravaged face wore a look of incredulity and of understanding. Chapuys had time to think: That is their strength, these honest ones; they never attempt to deceive and they can tell the false from the true in others. But he was sorry that she had not believed and been cheered by his lies.
She asked a few questions of general interest and then said:
“I would like a few words with you, Messire Chapuys. I will not keep you long. You must be very weary.”
When the others had gone she said, “Tell me about my daughter. How is she?”
“I have not seen the Princess for a long time. But I have reports, from a reliable source, with fair regularity. Her health continues good, her spirits variable, but that is understandable.”
“I have messages for her; but they can wait.” She slipped down against the pillows and the headdress tilted. She lifted her hand to remove it and drop it on the floor beside the bed, and the movement allowed Chapuys to catch a glimpse of the shawl under the purple silk that she wore as a cape. His heart burned and his stomach knotted: Poor, foolish woman, had she only listened to reason, taken up arms, allowed Mary to take up arms…too late now. She was dying in less comfort than any merchant’s wife. The hearth in the room was wide, but the fire was small and dull.
“I understand,” she said, “that the Concubine is with child.”
Who had been foolish, or brutal enough to report that? In fact, Katharine had heard Maria telling Llandaff in the outer room; Maria was crying as she spoke and the words carried.
“That has been said before,” Chapuys said cautiously. “And with little truth. It was said in September. Nothing came of it. I sometimes think that the tale is put about to retain the King’s interest.”
“There are times when I pity her,” Katharine said, knowing what the loss of Henry’s interest meant. “Tell me truly, did he send me any message at all?”
“Yes. He said: Tell her, I commend her to God.”
It had been a grudging message and it was grudgingly repeated; but her sunken eyes brightened.
“What better message could he send?”
“Time was very short. I was anxious to set out and the King was awaited elsewhere.”
“I think I could sleep now. I have not slept well of late. Your coming has brought me great comfort. You have always been my truest friend…This is a disordered household and I apologize for it; but if you would send Maria to me—and tell Filipez to look after you well…”
He thought: Sleep, poor weary soul, and God grant the last merciful gift, a drifting from sleep into death, out of the world that has been so cruel.
Chapuys, Llandaff, de La Sa and Maria sat down to supper and Filipez served them with a dish of doves, freshly cooked and sent across from the other side of the house wrapped in woollen so that it was hot.
Maria de Moreto, her face swollen and in places almost transparent from weeping, said wildly:
“Have I not said, time upon time; that they could have done better by us had they willed? These doves did not fly in on the wind. They are from the dovecot in the garden. And while she could eat did she ever see one? She did not. And now that she cannot even sip broth…” She turned away from the offered dish and bent her head over her hands, crying again. “God will punish him,” she said; and everyone knew whom she meant.
The three very different men, the diplomat, the priest and the doctor, looked at her with a curiously similar expression of misery, distaste and resentment. They were all distressed, but they were also hungry and they had the male ability to dissociate emotional state from physical need. Maria’s outburst had ruined appetite and they ate almost guiltily.
Afterwards Chapuys talked with Dr. de La Sa.
“There is no symptom of any mortal disease that I can recognize,” the doctor said. “For the pain, once sporadic, lately constant, I cannot account at all. Nor indeed for the nausea. And she is certainly not being poisoned.” It was necessary to say this, for within a few days he, like the others, would be looking for new employment; and who would want a doctor whose last patient had died of poison? “As a rule, we all eat the same food—and very poor. And even when Filipez smuggles in some little offering from a kind woman whom he visits and Maria de Moreto cooks it, she is most careful and invariably eats herself, first. She has never been even mildly indisposed. I am positive, sir, that there is no question of poison. I think…”
“Yes?” Chapuys said.
“I think it began with her removal to The More. She has never been quite the same. It was an uprooting and neither Buckden nor this place—as I have said before—were suitable residences. And there is more to it…” Dr. de La Sa became for a moment heroic; for when he was unemployed the favor and patronage of the Spanish Ambassador would be his best hope. “Your communications have disturbed her…I have observed the effect. Only once has Her Grace taken me into her confidence in this regard and that was over the question of whether she should or should not make request for the King to be excommunicated…That decision, which I think she should never have been called upon to make, did her great damage…”
“It was for her own good. Everything I have done, Dr. de La Sa, has been for her good, from my wish to see her vindicated and reinstated.”
“And everything I have done…though as a doctor my concern has been with her physical welfare. You may not have noticed, sir, but even when you were formally received, I did not wear my doctor’s robe. I sold it, and other things, all I had of value, to help to pay the apothecary’s dues. It did not suffice and his reckoning against us is heavy now. If she lives the week out even the doses that deaden pain…”
“I will guarantee,” Chapuys said. “If she can be kept alive…” The Emperor’s resources were infinite. Let go the great wide issues, politics, religion, military alliances and concentrate on fuel for the fire, linen for the bed and an apothecary’s bill…It was many years since his mind had been called upon to operate at such a level, but his experience of penury in youth was useful now. “I will give you a warrant, Dr. de La Sa. And for Sir Edmund also…And believe me, if necessary I will go to the Emperor, to the Pope and explain how ill she has been used. I had no idea. Nobody has any idea…”
He slept badly on the thin hard mattress in the unheated room, broke his fast on a bit of dark barley bread and a cup of the sourest ale he had ever tasted. Sir Edmund and Sir Edward had heard his promise to Katharine of better conditions pending and they had sent across the courtyard a better, an edible supper dish. Then, over their own, they had discussed the situation and decided it would be inexpedient to send Chapuys away under a false impression.
“If we feed him well it will deny the truth of the letters and the petitions,” Sir Edmund said sensibly. “We said, and it was true, that we were in sore straits. He will stay until she recovers, or dies and in either case let him know what it is to live without means. How say you?”
“I say wait. If his promises have any worth, supplies will be ordered and the payment for them guaranteed. Boy, I will have some more ham.”
Katharine had slept better than usual and Maria coaxed her to take a little broth; but soon afterwards, while Concepcion was about to wipe her face and hands with a dampened cloth and Maria stood by with the comb ready, pain and nausea returned.
“The worst yet,” she said feebly; and Maria who had dared to hope a little, began to cry once more.
It was drawing on midday, but hardly light, the sky was low and dark, before Chapuys was admitted to her room, with Maria whispering at the door, “Do not tire her. Agree to whatever she says.”
He greeted her and said he was glad that she was better—meaning better than she had been earlier in the morning.
“I am dying, Messire Chapuys, and I know it. I do not grieve. I hope no one else will. I know that we must bear what we are called upon to bear, but the pain is fierce…However the drops are beginning to take effect. What is necessary for writing is on that table. I must make my will—though I have little to leave but debts.”
A married woman could not make a will without her husband’s consent, Chapuys remembered; but, as law in England now ran, she was not married; she was the widowed Princess of Wales. And that brought him straightaway into difficulty.
He said, “We will begin in the usual way—In the name of God, Amen. The other formalities we will leave to be put in later.” That dispensed with the writing of “I, Katharine, Queen of England,” which would invalidate the document, and with “I, Katharine, Dowager Princess of Wales,” which must inevitably offend her. “If you would just tell me your wishes…”
“I want Mary, my daughter, to have my gold collar, my priedieu, and my books.” Most of her books had been wantonly destroyed by the looters at Buckden. “And my furs. They are somewhat worn, but while the Concubine rules she will have no better…” So little to bequeath, really; less than any yeoman’s wife would leave. That extortionate dowry, half never paid, but what had been paid was substantial; the revenues due to her if she were, as Henry claimed, Arthur’s widow; all gone. “No, my friend, make an exception of my sable cloak, that to Maria de Moreto, with the rest of my clothes. And all else that is mine to be equally divided between Concepcion and Manuella.” Nothing, not even a memento to Llandaff, de La Sa and Filipez. “Write down that I commend my servants to His Grace and beg that they be given pensions and that he will discharge my debts and bury me with some respect. If not as Queen, the title he bestowed on me and then denied, then as one who regarded herself as his wife, and was always faithful, and chaste. Do I go too fast?”
“I have it all here,” Chapuys said, forcing the words through the iron stranglehold in his throat. “Now, if you could sign…”
She signed, and, handing back the pen, said, “So that is done with. I thank you.” She lay limp against the pillows and closed her eyes. In the silence the green logs, still damp despite Maria’s management, hissed a little.
Then Katharine opened her eyes and in a voice of more vigor and less certitude said, “My message for Mary. More important than my poor leavings…And more difficult. I should have written, but it needed thought and I put it off until, as you see, it is as much as I can do to sign my name. So, first give her my love, my dearest love. You know, Messire Chapuys, it was for Mary’s sake that I took my stand. Had my marriage been truly childless I should have agreed to be put away, though still regarding myself as lawfully married.” She stopped and brooded. “As you know, I eschewed violence and urged her to. I believed, I still believe that God would recognize her rights. So tell her, from me to be patient, and steadfast, and to obey her father to the limit of conscience, as she has done hereto. But say this also…” Something flashed in the dull eyes and changed the ravaged face. “If when he is dead any child of the Concubine’s, male or female, makes a bid for the throne…and if there is no possible alternative, then she will go into battle with my blessing…” She looked back over a lifetime of failure and knew that she had failed again, too weak now to pass on to Mary what she knew about waging war, things no woman brought up as Mary had been, could possibly know. The value of surprise, of doing the unexpected, apparently impossible thing, the importance of a strong rear, the worth of personal leadership and a sharing of hardship. It was too late, now. She must lie still and gather strength in order to issue her last order to Chapuys.
Chapuys looked ahead and foresaw a pretty tangle. The London he had left had been sibilant with whispers. If Anne bore a prince it might be her son who would one day challenge the Princess Mary’s rights. Another girl would seal her fate. It could very well not be her child at all who would push Mary aside…But such speculation was no subject for deathbed talk.
“And now, my friend, I want you to leave at once. Now, as soon as your horses are ready. When Mary hears of my death I wish her to have someone she can trust close at hand. I want her to have my message before some ill-advised person can use my death to provoke her into ill-advised action. It will snow later, but if you leave now you may just be ahead of it—moving southwards.”
The suggestion distressed him. He had intended to use his influence to gain her more comfort. He hated the idea of riding away and leaving her, dying, in this demoralized household. Maria de Moreto had broken down with the thoroughness of which only strong-minded women were capable, the girls were poor helpless creatures, and though both the doctor and the priest would do their duty in this room, they were men, so accustomed to discomfort that they hardly noticed the cold or the fact that the bed itself needed fresh linen.
“If that is your wish,” he said. “Though I am reluctant to leave you.”
“It is the last thing you can do for me. For all you have done and for all you have tried to do, I thank you from my heart…Let us have no long leave-taking. I wish you Godspeed. I pray God guard and bless you to the end of your days.”
He could not speak at all. He could only kneel again and kiss her hand, with reverence and love.
XXVII
By the time that he was in his cheerless room Chapuys was practical again. Pulling on his riding clothes and boots—still insufficiently dried, and stiff and cold—Chapuys was thinking: If I could wish one wish it would be for some good sensible woman to come and be with her till the last. Somebody not too grief-stricken; but kind. He must snatch a minute before he left to speak to Sir Edmund.
Over the courtyard the sky sagged, purplish, and the wind which yesterday had driven the sleet in his face had dropped, giving way to an unnatural hush, sure sign that the snowfall would not be long delayed.
