Boleyn Traitor, page 15
‘Yes. You’re right.’
‘Did you know already?’ I ask curiously.
His smile is hard to read in the shadows of the stair well. ‘Is Henry Norris the new favourite?’ he asks.
‘He’s always been a good friend.’
‘And Sir Francis is another?’
‘Weston or Bryan?’ I ask cautiously.
He smiles. ‘Two Francises, a Thomas, and a Mark, and a Richard and a Henry. So many! William Brereton?’
I shake my head. It is a relief to say no. ‘Elizabeth Somerset’s brother-in-law? Never! He only visits us to scold Elizabeth …’
‘And of course, George is constantly with his sister. In and out of her private rooms?’
‘Oh yes,’ I assure him. ‘George is always at her side. George keeps her safe. He can vouch for her.’
I can hear a noise from the king’s privy chamber above. I can hear Anne’s voice, and then I hear the irritable whine of a spoilt child – she must have ordered them to bring Princess Elizabeth to the king.
‘What’s happening?’ I ask Cromwell, looking up the stairs. ‘Is that the princess?’
‘The queen sent for her … after Norris misspoke, as you call it.’
‘But why?’ I ask. ‘Why Elizabeth in the middle of all this?’
‘It’s always a masque, isn’t it, with you people? It’s always some sort of play. I think the title of this one is: The Faithful Wife and the One True Heir.’
I go to the top of the stairs, and I see Anne waving the little girl’s nursemaids back to the nursery, putting her hand on the king’s arm and looking into his face, as if to persuade him of something. She is smiling her confident smile, baring her teeth, but he is oddly impassive, standing stiffly on his painful leg.
‘All’s well,’ Cromwell says reassuringly, coming up behind me.
It does not look as if all is well.
‘Is the king in pain?’ I ask. ‘Has his wound opened up? Will he be able to take part in May Day and go on progress to Calais?’
‘Oh, that’s been cancelled,’ he says casually. ‘No Calais.’
‘Cancelled? Why?’
He gives a little shrug, as if he does not know. ‘Perhaps Sir Nicholas Carew advised against it.’
‘Since when does Nicholas Carew say where we go on progress?’
‘Because he’s a friend of Spain, and now Spain is our friend.’ Cromwell smiles, as if it is a neat riddle that I might enjoy. ‘The Spanish party is our friend and so are the Lisles who keep Calais for us, trusted friends and kinsmen, just like the Poles and Courtenays.’
‘The Spanish party are our friends now?’
‘Dear friends,’ he agrees.
‘Even Sir Geoffrey, the blabbermouth?’ I query.
He smiles. ‘Sir Geoffrey is the most friendly of all, he keeps nothing to himself.’
Thomas Cromwell has been a trader in wool and secrets for so long that no one can tell whether he is showing the front or the back side of the weave.
‘You are joking with me,’ I say uncertainly.
He shakes his head. ‘I am very serious.’
Above, the music starts playing for the ladies to dance; the tune filters down the stone stairwell like an invitation to light-hearted play to those with happy feet. It is a summons to courtiers to take their place.
‘Are you coming, Master Cromwell?’
He shakes his head. ‘I must catch the tide back to Stepney. Tonight, I have work to do at my home. Tell me, what d’you think of Mark Smeaton?’
‘The lute player? The singer?’
His smile is inscrutable. ‘D’you think he will sing for me?’
‘If you ask him. But he’s very attached to the queen.’
‘So I hear,’ he says.
Greenwich Palace, May Day
1536
MAY DAY MORNING is magical as always. The choristers get up in the middle of the night to sing at sunrise under Anne’s window. We wake to the soaring sound of a May Day carol mingling with birdsong and swing open the shutters to hear them. There are gifts at the maids’ doors from their lovers, little things like crowns woven of white-flowering hawthorn and buttery primroses: real things as if it were real love.
We walk to the jousting arena carrying wands of willow like country girls, and the maids wear their hair down over their shoulders, plaited with white and coloured ribbons. Everyone is carefree but Anne, who is wound as tight as a silk bobbin, desperate that the king shall enjoy the day and not be reminded of the last joust when he thought he would die. We all pretend that he is young enough to joust, and strong enough to joust, but that he has decided – quite freely – not to ride today. His fear of falling, his terror of injury or death, is an open secret that no one mentions.
Never before has he sat in the royal viewing balcony in the octagonal tower for a whole May Day. He built the towers for an admiring crowd to watch him; not to be a spectator, seated in the king’s tower, surrounded by the Spanish party: Henry Courtenay of the old royal family on one side, Nicholas Carew the friend of Spain on the other. The Seymour boys pour wine and joke with him. In the opposite tower, the queen’s tower, Anne compresses her lips in a hard smile and puts Jane Seymour in the front row of the ladies, in the hopes that the sight of her will tempt the king over.
The jousters ride around the arena, their lances raised in salute to the king and the queen, and they halt between the two towers to read the poems they have composed. The king leans forward and makes his reply, reciting Thomas Wyatt’s poetry as if it were his own, with little pauses as if he is waiting for inspiration. Everyone cheers his extraordinary talent and he signals that the jousting can begin.
The challengers bow their bare heads, canter around the arena and go out to arm themselves. The servers pour wine and pass sweetmeats, and Anne in her balcony watches and applauds each passage, showing every sign of pleasure at the day, with one eye always on the octagonal tower opposite, where the king is drinking heavily and dining well and laughing with his men friends: the ringing bark of men without real amusement.
The last joust of the day is George and Henry Norris, evenly matched; but Norris’ horse won’t go forward, almost as if it knows that the joust is unreal and the joy manufactured. Norris spurs it on, and his squire runs up with a long whip to crack behind the big animal; but still George waits at his end, his horse sidling and ready to go, as Norris’ horse steps backwards and sideways, and tosses its head and shows the whites of its eyes and rears and turns and will not go on.
Some stupid girl – of course it’s Jane Seymour – says, ‘The horse! The horse knows something’s wrong!’
Margaret Shelton gasps to see her future husband fighting to control his horse and says, ‘He should get off. He should withdraw. Remember how the king—’
Anne throws back her head and laughs – a shriek of defiance. ‘It’s just a badly trained horse!’ she says rudely, and she calls out to Norris: ‘You can’t carry my favour, if you can only go backwards!’
We can’t see his face behind his visor, but he will be grinding his teeth in rage.
The king hauls himself to his feet and leans over the balcony of his viewing box. ‘Borrow my horse!’ he yells. ‘Yours is afeared. You’ll not get a good charge out of it.’
Henry Norris, rescued from public shame, pulls up his sweating horse and thankfully salutes the king. As soon as he turns his horse’s head away from the tilt rail, it becomes docile and walks easily from the arena to the saddling area behind the public stands.
We wait for a few moments as they hastily change the barding from Norris’ horse onto the king’s new charger and heave Henry Norris, stiff in his heavy armour, into the saddle. He rides up to the king’s viewing balcony, bows low, and thanks him for his generosity. The king is all smiles, showing his royal favour, as the crowd cheers him.
The big horse lifts its head, as if it knows the job it has to do, and Norris raises his lance first in thanks to the king, then in salute to Anne, and finally to George, who has waited all this time, walking his horse around the arena to keep it warm and ready. Norris canters around the arena. People cheer him: he is a popular challenger on the king’s own horse.
The two horses wheel and canter to opposite ends of the list. The riders tighten their reins to make their horses wait, while they press their spurs against their sides to urge them to be ready – to go from standstill to gallop at the signal. Anne rises to her feet, waits for all eyes to be on her, raises her handkerchief, and lets it fall. Simultaneously, they dig in their spurs and loosen the reins, and the animals leap forward into a flat-out charge, straight towards each other, a thundercloud of dust rising from their hooves. There is a tremendous smack as George’s lance catches Norris square on his armoured belly and splinters with a crack. Norris keeps his seat on the king’s horse, though the blow must have knocked the breath out of him.
They pull up at the far end and wheel around, cantering the circle of the arena, to settle the horses to their work, and to catch their breath behind their helmets. They ready themselves at the foot of the rail, turn their metal faces to watch Anne, who drops her handkerchief, and they spur forward again, and George has the best hit for the second time. They are usually evenly matched, but this May Day, Henry Norris is riding a strange horse and is angry with himself. Only at the last charge does he break his lance on George, redeeming himself before the crowd, who roar for him, and the tournament is over, and George – my George – is the victor.
The riders canter around the arena, steeled fist raised to acknowledge the applause; the musicians play, the ladies throw flowers, and I beam across the arena to Nicholas Carew in the king’s box – so who is the greatest knight today? Who should have been the new Knight of the Garter? But Nicholas Carew is alone in the king’s tower: the seat before him is empty; the king has gone – gone without awarding the prize, gone without accepting the cheers, gone without a wave at the crowd who have come all the way from London to see him.
His throne is empty; there is no one left in the viewing tower but Seymours and Henry Courtenay and Nicholas Carew – all men of the Spanish party and the old religion. Have they offended him? Can we be so lucky that they have offended him, and he walked out on them without a word? Have we won some extraordinary victory against them without doing anything? I don’t even know if the king saw the last tilt – did he see nothing but George’s triumphs? Or has he been taken ill and gone back to his rooms?
‘The king’s gone,’ I say quietly to Anne as I hold the box with chains of gold for her to award the winners.
‘Where?’ she asks, without turning her head.
‘I don’t know. He must have just left.’
Anne leans over the edge of the balcony to give the prizes; but only George rides up before her for the gold chain.
‘Where’s Norris?’ I ask him, leaning over the side of the balcony as Anne drapes the chain over his bare head onto his metalled shoulders.
‘Was he in a temper?’ Margaret Shelton asks from the other side.
‘No,’ he tells her. ‘The king came behind the stands and said they must go at once – back to Whitehall.’
‘By barge?’
‘The king said he would ride and Norris ride with him.’
‘He can’t ride,’ I say. ‘His leg …’
‘He’s gone on his horse,’ George answers.
The applause trails off, and people start to rise to their feet and climb down from the stands and leave. George’s horse sidles as he holds him close to the balcony to whisper with Anne.
‘Why? Why has he gone?’ she demands. ‘Without a word to anyone? We have the masque and the dancing to come? And the dinner? He’s learned a poem to recite at the dinner?’ She straightens up and smiles broadly for the people still watching, and claps her hands to praise her brother.
‘It must’ve been planned,’ George says quietly. ‘His groom had a fresh horse saddled and waiting. His outriders were waiting for him. Norris didn’t know. He stripped off his armour and left just as he was.’
Her smile never wavers. ‘Oh God, he’s impossible,’ she says through her teeth. She waves at the crowd of Londoners who raise a cheer. ‘I wish to God he had—’
‘—stayed,’ George finishes the sentence quickly.
Anne leans over the balcony as if she is kissing the winner’s brow. ‘Go after them,’ she whispers, so softly that only I, standing beside her, can hear. ‘Go after them and make sure that he’s happy and that Norris says nothing stupid about me. Especially after yesterday. Make sure Norris says nothing about anything.’
He reins his horse back and salutes her; then he turns and canters around the arena, raising his lance in recognition of the straggled cheers, and rides out. We get up, gather up our flowers and our favours, and walk back to the palace. I am thinking that we have special gowns and costumes for the May Day masque; but it’s hardly worth the effort if the king has chosen to leave his favourite palace on the best night of the year, to dine alone in London with Henry Norris, and George chasing after the two of them as they left him behind.
AND THEN, BEFORE dinner, as the choristers come in to sing the May Day carol, Mark Smeaton the lute player is nowhere to be found
‘Where is he?’ the master of the revels hisses at the master of music, who shrugs. They both look at me, since Mark is the king’s servant, attached to the queen’s household, and my responsibility.
‘Perhaps he’s died of love,’ Mary Shelton says. She turns her laughing face at the queen. ‘It’s all been too much for poor Mark, and now he’s died of love for you.’
Anne laughs as if she is amused. ‘We’ll sing without him, and it shall be his lament,’ she says. ‘Poor Mark, to die of love!’
Jane Seymour and Margaret Shelton, missing their partners George and Norris, have to find other partners for the dance – the fool Will Somer jumps up and does some clowning steps with Margaret. In a parody of courtly love, he kisses her hand and pretends to lift the hem of her gown to kiss her feet. He claps his hand to his heart and then – shockingly – to his groin. We laugh; anything is allowed. It is May Day – the usual rules are broken. Jane Seymour turns her blushing face away.
The king was never going to dance or act; but all this was planned to amuse him, the choreography designed for his gaze; the masque is a celebration of a scholar king – King Arthur the lawgiver. But all the compliments are aimed at a vacant throne, and the golden stool where he rests his foot stands empty. What’s the point of us pretending to be merry when he does not see our pretend joy? We dance and drink and sing until midnight, but we are discordant and out of time without our audience of one.
As soon as the great clock strikes twelve, and May Day is over, Anne gets to her feet, unable to conceal her boredom, and everyone bows, and all of us ladies withdraw with the queen. Three of us help her undress and get ready for bed, prepare her hot posset and turn down the covers of the great bed, although we know that the king is far away tonight, and will not bed her and make a baby on this most special night of magic and love. Instead, he has chosen to be a good ten miles from his wife – and no way of getting back by barge, as the tide is against us. A big milk moon has drawn a high tide westward up the river, and it feels as if all the waters of England, river and sea, sweet and salt, are in full flood against us.
Anne orders me to be her bedfellow, and she says her prayers and gets into bed. I lie awake beside her, thinking of Henry Norris’ horse and how its big hooves tore up the ground as it refused to go forward but reared and clawed back. How the king disappeared without a word, as if he had been only waiting for it all to be over. And why ride to Westminster on the best night of the year? Why take Henry Norris? Why him and no other favourites? Has he gone to meet Master Cromwell, engaged on private business at his house at Stepney? And where is Mark Smeaton tonight? Is he singing for Thomas Cromwell?
IN THE MORNING, Anne leads the ladies to the chapel as usual, though the king is missing from his place and the royal balcony empty. We trail back to the queen’s rooms with nothing to do. Of course, we have had a court of ladies before – the king has been absent on business – but never before like this: without preparation or announcement.
We talk over the joust and the evening dancing as if it was a pleasure to watch, as if anyone enjoyed it. Nobody mentions the sudden disappearance of the king and his absence this morning. There is no word from George, and Margaret has not heard from Henry Norris. Mark Smeaton does not reappear with a new song and an apology. Anne sets everyone to sewing shirts for the poor and makes Jane Seymour read aloud from an improving book in English – the country girl has no Latin.
We are sitting in busy boredom when there is a rap at the door of the queen’s presence chamber, and then the yeomen of the guard swing open the double doors, and Anne’s chamberlain announces:
‘The king’s council to meet with the queen.’
Anne gasps and rises slowly to her feet, her cheeks flushed, one hand on the back of her chair to keep her steady. She stands tall, her head raised for a crown.
I know at once what she is thinking: perhaps it has come, perhaps it is now: her great moment, the greatest moment of her life. Perhaps the king dropped dead on his ride to London, and the council has come to tell her that she is the mother of the first queen of England and will be queen regent for eighteen years until Elizabeth comes of age. Queen regent, and our time has come at last.
But her uncle the Duke of Norfolk is looking dark-faced and grim, not folding his thin lips over his excitement, as he did before when he thought the king was lying dead and his niece was carrying the next heir to the throne. Then, he was at her side for every step; now, he looks across a wide expanse of wooden floor, and says coldly: ‘We would speak with you, alone, Your Grace.’
Anne’s eyes narrow, trying to read his impassive face; but she makes a little gesture with her hand, and all of us ladies, even me, have to sweep from her presence chamber into the gallery outside, and there, stationed at the door, to make sure we don’t listen, are two yeomen of the guards, who close the double doors and stand before them, their pikes crossed.
