Philippa Gregory - The Boleyn Inheritance

Yet here she sits, in the royal box, with her head held high, dropping her handkerchief to signify the start of a charge, smiling with her usual politeness on the victor, leaning forward to put the circlet of bay leaves on his helmet, to give him a purse of gold as his prize. Pale under her modest, ugly hood, doing her duty as Queen of the Joust as she has done her duty every day since she set foot in this country. She must be sick to her belly with terror, but her hands on the front of the box are gently clasped and do not even tremble. When the king salutes her, she rises up from her chair and curtsies respectfully to him; when the crowd calls her name, she turns and smiles and raises her hand when a lesser woman would scream for rescue. She is utterly composed.

“She knows?” asks a quiet voice in my ear, and I turn to the Duke of Norfolk. “Can she possibly know?”

“She knows everything but what is going to become of her,” I say.

He looks at her. “She cannot know. She cannot have understood. She must be too stupid to understand what is going to happen to her.”

“She isn’t stupid,” I say. “She is incredibly courageous. She knows everything. She has more courage than we know.”

“She’ll need it,” he says unsympathetically. “I am taking Katherine away from court.”

“Taking her away from the king?”

“Yes.”

“Is that not a risk? Will you deprive the king of the girl of his choice?”

The duke shakes his head. He cannot hide his triumph. “The king himself has told me to take her from court. He will marry Katherine as soon as he is rid of Anne. It is he who wants Katherine taken away. He wants her away from court so that she is not exposed to gossip while this false queen is ended.” He bites down on a smile; he is almost laughing. “He wants no shadow of gossip attached to Katherine’s unsullied name.”

“The false queen?” I pick out the strange new title.

“She was not free to marry. The marriage was never valid; it has not been consummated. God guided his conscience, and he did not fulfill his vows. God prevented him from consummating the marriage. The marriage is false. The queen is false. It is probably treason to make a false declaration to the king.”

I blink. It is the king’s right, as God’s representative on earth, to rule on such matters, but sometimes we mortals are a little slow to follow the whimsical changes of God. “It is over for her?” I make a little gesture to the girl at the front of the box who stands now to acknowledge the salute of the champion, and raises her hand and smiles at the crowd who shouts her name.

“She is finished,” the duke says.

“Finished?”

“Finished.”

I nod. I suppose this means that they will kill her.

My brother has finally sent the documents that show that indeed I was never married before I came to England, that my marriage to the king was my first wedding, and it is valid, as I know, as everybody knows. The documents arrived by messenger today, but my ambassador cannot present them. The king’s Privy Council is in almost constant meeting, and we cannot find out what they are discussing. Having insisted on having this document, they now cannot be troubled even to see it; and what this new indifference means I cannot guess.

God knows what they are planning to do with me; my horror is that they will accuse me of something shameful and I will die in this distant land, and my mother will believe that her daughter died a whore.

I know that terrible trouble is brewing because of the danger that has come to my friends. Lord Lisle, who welcomed me so kindly to Calais, has been arrested and no one can tell me the charges he faces. His wife has disappeared from my rooms, without saying good-bye. She did not come to ask me to intercede for him. This must mean either that he is to die without trial – dear God, perhaps he is dead already – or that she knows I have no influence with the king. Either way this is a disaster for him and for me. Nobody can tell me where Lady Lisle is hiding, and, in truth, I am afraid to ask. If her husband is charged with treason, then any suggestion that he was a friend of mine will count against me.

Their daughter, Anne Bassett, is still in my service, but she claims that she is ill and has taken to her bed. I wanted to see her, but Lady Rochford says that it is safer for the girl if she is allowed to be alone. So her bedroom door is shut, and the shutters in her room are closed. Whether she is a danger to me or I am to her, I dare not ask.

I have sent for Thomas Cromwell who, at least, is blessed with the king’s favor since he was made Earl of Essex only a few weeks ago. Thomas Cromwell at least must stand my friend while my women whisper behind their hands and everyone at court is poised for disaster. But my lord Cromwell has, so far, sent me no reply. Someone surely must tell me what is happening.

I wish we were back at Hampton Court. It is hot today, and I feel cooped up, like a gyrfalcon in a crowded mews, a white falcon, hardly of this world: a bird as white as the winter snows and born to be free in the cold, wild places. I could wish myself back at Calais or even Dover when the road ahead of me lay to London and to my future as Queen of England, and I was full of hope. I could wish myself almost anywhere but here, looking through the little leaded window panes to a bright blue sky, wondering why my friend Lord Lisle is in the Tower of London, and why my supporter Thomas Cromwell does not reply to my urgent request that he come to me at once. Surely he can come and tell me why the council has been meeting in all but secret for days? Surely he will come and tell me why Lady Lisle has disappeared and why her husband is under arrest? Surely he will come soon?

The door opens and I start up, expecting him; but it is not Cromwell, nor his man, but little Katherine Howard, her face wan and her eyes tragic. She has her traveling cape over her arm, and as soon as I see it I feel a wave of nausea from sheer terror. Little Kitty has been arrested; she, too, has been charged with some crime. Quickly I go to her and take her hands.

“Kitty? What is it? What is the charge?”

“I’m safe,” she gasps. “It’s all right. I am safe. I am just to go home to my grandmother, for a while.”

“But why? What do they say you have done?”

Her little face is twisted with distress. “I am not to be your maid-in-waiting anymore.”

“You are not?”

“No. I have come to say good-bye.”

“What have you done?” I cry out. Surely this girl, not much more than a child, cannot have committed any crime? The worst thing that Katherine Howard is capable of is vanity and flirtation, and this is not a court that punishes such sins. “I will not let them take you away. I defend you. I know you are good girl. What do they say against you?”

“I have done nothing,” she says. “But they tell me it is better for me to be away from court while all this is happening.”

“All what? Oh, Kitty, tell me quickly, what you know?”

She beckons me, and I bend down so that she can whisper in my ear. “Anne, Your Grace I mean, dearest queen. Thomas Cromwell has been arrested for treason.”

“Treason? Cromwell?”

“Ssh. Yes.”

“What has he done?”

“He conspired with Lord Lisle and the Papists to put the king under an enchantment.”

My mind is spinning, and I don’t fully understand what she is saying. “A what? What is that?”

“Thomas Cromwell made a spell,” she says.

When she sees I still do not understand the word, she gently takes my face and draws it down so that she can whisper in my ear again. “Thomas Cromwell employed a witch,” she says softly, without any inflection. “Thomas Cromwell hired a witch to destroy His Majesty the king.”

She leans back to see if I understand her now, and the horror in my face tells her that I do.

“They know this for true?”

She nods.

“Who is the witch?” I breathe. “What has she done?”

“She has put the king under a spell so he is unmanned,” she says. “She has cursed the king so that he shall not have a son by you.”

“Who is the witch?” I demand. “Who is Thomas Cromwell’s witch? Who has unmanned the king? Who do they say she is?” Katherine’s little face is pinched with fear. “Anne, Your Grace, my dearest queen, what if they say it is you?”

I live almost withdrawn from the world, emerging from my rooms only to dine before the court, where I try to appear serene, or, better still, innocent. They are questioning Thomas Cromwell, and the arrests go on; other men are accused of treason against the king, accused of employing a witch to blight his manhood. There is a network of plotters unfolding. Lord Lisle is said to have been the focus in Calais; he aided the Papists and the Pole family who have long wanted to recapture the throne from the Tudors. His second in command at the fortress has fled to Rome to serve under Cardinal Pole, which proves the guilt. They say that Lord Lisle and his party have worked with a witch to make sure that the king should not have a fruitful marriage with me, shall not make another heir to his reformed religion. But at the same time, it is said that Thomas Cromwell was aiding the Lutherans, the reformers, the evangelicals. It is said he brought me in to marry the king and ordered a witch to unman the king so that he could put his own line on the throne. But who is the witch? the court asks itself. Who is the witch who was friends with Lord Lisle, and was brought to England by Thomas Cromwell? Who is the witch? What woman is indicated by both of these nightmares of evil? Ask it again: what woman was brought to England by Thomas Cromwell, but is friends with Lord Lisle?

Clearly, there is only one woman.