Anne Boleyn: A Novel (36 page)

She shook her head, and in the shadows he thought he saw her smile.

“Dear Uncle, have no fear of that. I never want to see the day when you agree to turn on me, as you now turn on her.”

She curtsied low to him, and glided out of the chapel, pausing to genuflect and cross herself before the door closed behind her.

On the seventh of January, Catherine, Queen of England lay dying in her room at Kimbolton Castle. The hangings were drawn back from the bed and she was propped up on a heap of cushions, with an old fur wrap drawn round her shoulders. She was too weak to sit up, or to raise her gray head from the cushions; she lay quiet at last, worn out in body and mind by mysterious vomiting and bouts of excruciating internal pain.

No one had been able to diagnose the illness, though the verdict of poison was on every tongue. Even her jailer. Sir Henry Bedingfield, watched the paroxysms of his prisoner with pity, and wondered whether what he heard was true. And if it were, which of the men and women sent by the Council to attend her had that terrible mark on their soul...

No one knew, and very soon it wouldn’t matter. She was at the end of her strength when the King allowed Chapuys to see her; it could do no harm, Bedingfield thought unhappily, and allowed the imperial Ambassador and his suite more facilities than he need have done. And for a day she showed improvement; she slept, and seemed refreshed and strong enough to talk to her own countryman for almost two hours. She had a lot to say, and such a little time to say it. That thought was in her mind, as she struggled to tell Charles’ envoy everything. In spite of her religious faith, human weakness made her upbraid her nephew for not coming to her assistance long ago, for leaving her daughter Mary helpless and motherless now, at the mercy of her father and that creature...The tears ran down her sunken cheeks at the mention of Mary. She would die without seeing her, for that anguished plea had been refused.

The Bishop of Landaff was called to her, and he celebrated Mass in her sickroom, and gave her the Communion. She lay so quietly with her eyes closed that her doctor, De Lasco, bent over her, thinking she was dead, but she was only praying, and then she asked for pens and paper and began her last letter to the King, her husband.

Her voice fell to a whisper, so that De Lasco had to lean over her with his pen poised, trying to hear for she was far too weak to write herself. She had written Henry many letters in the last ten years; letters pleading to be restored to her right place, or arguing obstinately against this or that attempt to make her change her mind. She had written angrily and in the bitterest sorrow and resentment, and lately she had not approached him at all, until she begged to see her daughter before she died. Now she was incapable of bitterness.

Her mind was strangely tranquil; even the agony of her anxiety for her daughter had faded before that pervading, deathly calm. She possessed only a few trinkets and a little money which she begged the King to give to the persons she named in her remembrance. De Lasco waited, watching her lips move, until the sound came again.

She pardoned him everything, and asked that God might do the same. There was another pause. De Lasco coughed, but she had turned her head away from him, and made a gesture with her hand for him to wait.

She had nothing more to say now, no reproaches or requests. She had forgiven him for everything, even for her death, she murmured, if her sickness came from human agency. She forgave, as she hoped to be forgiven. Even the woman who had begun it all, with her youth and her beauty and her terrible fascination. Anne was unhappy, so they said, and frightened now, suffering the humiliation Catherine remembered so well, as the King’s fancy lighted on one woman after another. She could remember her own jealousy and pain, and thanking God for the rigid upbringing which helped her to disguise it, to keep the women among her maids and speak to them at court...And in her heart she made excuses for him; he was young and vigorous and handsome, while she was staid and unable to keep up...She had loved him always, no matter what he did. Until the last year she had still looked on him as being led by others, influenced by the woman and her friends, ready to make excuses for him in her heart, because she still thought of him as the younger man that she had married, boyish and high-spirited, almost like a magnificent son...When he sent the gentle Carthusian monks to their atrocious deaths, that image vanished. And when word reached her that her enemy was suffering just as she had done, neglected and trembling for her position, Henry the King achieved his full stature in Catherine’s mind. In all victories, there is the germ of defeat. Her mother Isabella of Castile used to say that, and she who had achieved as much as any man should surely know.

With a great effort, the Queen said a short prayer for Anne Boleyn. It was the last time that image would torment her, either with jealousy or hate. Only the King remained, moving before her closing eyes, as near and real as if he stood at the foot of her bed. Her husband for twenty-six years. She could think of nothing in those moments but the good things of their life together; the laughter and generosity, the pleasure of making him gifts and opening his, of riding with him through the narrow London streets, or sailing down the Thames, with the infant Princess Mary on her knee. Christmas and Easter at Greenwich, the State balls when they led out the dancing, in those times when she wasn’t pregnant and full of hope for a living son...His kindness when she was ill, and their children died...

“Madame, the letter...have you finished?”

She turned to De Lasco.

“I will finish it now. Write this, my friend! ‘Lastly I do vow that mine eyes desire you above all things.’ Now give it to me, with the pen.”

She signed it, “Catherine, Queen of England,” and a blot ran from the signature as the pen slipped out of her fingers. She lay back exhausted, and at two o’clock that afternoon she died.

The day after Catherine’s death was a Sunday; when the news reached the court at Greenwich no one knew whether to show sorrow or jubilation. They only had the report of the King’s reaction to guide them, and it was cryptic. “Thank God we are free from the threat of war.”

There was a general feeling of relief; few had realized how near the Emperor Charles had been to taking up arms on his aunt’s behalf, for Henry to say that.

The Emperor was now more powerful than ever before; having beaten the Turks at Tunis, he was the acknowledged savior of Europe, and the King of France had revised his policy accordingly. Friendship with England had brought him nothing, while he had been ruthlessly used for Henry’s purpose. Because of it he was in danger of incurring Charles’s enmity so now the alliance with England was to be broken. If the Emperor decided to invade England on behalf of his aunt and his Cousin Mary, it wouldn’t be wise to be Henry’s ally at that moment.

The time had come when England was alone, and if the Emperor attacked Henry, could expect no help from France or anywhere else. Catherine had died just in time. Cromwell said so to the Duke of Norfolk when both men met in the gallery, waiting to attend the King at his public Mass. Cromwell was dressed in black; he was lucky, the Duke thought angrily; he always dressed for a funeral, and if the King appeared in mourning for his dead wife, Cromwell would be correct. If he didn’t, he wouldn’t be noticed anyway. Norfolk had worried over what to wear; God knew what Henry’s reaction might suddenly be to what had happened at Kimbolton. He was capable of turning his coat so violently that he caught everyone off guard; the man or woman who showed gaiety that day might find those terrible little eyes fixed on them in anger, and God, how that anger was dreaded!...Or if they chose mourning colors and put on long faces, they might find they’d been expected to rejoice. The Duke cursed and chose doublet and hose of a very dark red, with a black feather in his cap, and hoped for the best.

“She did indeed die just in time,” he answered Cromwell. “His Grace was losing patience fast...”

The Secretary nodded. “He was indeed, my Lord, and who could blame him? Now your niece can feel that she is truly Queen at last.”

The Duke stared at him, his good eye searching the flat face for some expression, and found nothing. Cromwell might have been wearing a mask. Yet he knew about Jane Seymour, knew that she had been aiming at the crown, that a large and powerful section of the court supported her in secret, himself among them —Norfolk didn’t underestimate the Secretary’s spy system—he knew even that the King himself had been considering it. He decided to clarify his own position, without committing himself too far.

“Anne will never feel truly Queen until she bears a son,” he answered. “Nor will she be accepted by the adherents of the Princess Mary.”

“The Lady Mary,” Cromwell corrected gently. “I’ve caught myself using that title to His Grace and had to bite it off my tongue..., But I’ll admit, my Lord, I still think of her as Princess, and the King’s eldest born. As you say, the son is a most urgent matter. His Grace’s heart is set on a boy to follow him, though he likes the Princess Elizabeth well enough. I pray that Queen Anne gives birth to a Prince this time, for her own sake as well as the sake of the kingdom.”

The Duke of Norfolk leaned against the wall and slowly rocked backward and forward. There was no need to reveal himself to Cromwell; Cromwell already knew the direction he’d chosen; now it was Cromwell’s turn to signpost his intentions.

“And if Her Grace doesn’t bear a Prince, what then?” he asked.

“The King may replace her with someone who will. Now that Catherine of Aragon is dead, the Emperor has no excuse for war, and the Papal sympathizers would gladly see another woman take the place of someone they hate so bitterly. Someone who wouldn’t press for the death of Princess Mary. It could mean many things, if she fails the King a second time.”

There was no time to answer, for a blast of trumpets announced the arrival of the King. For a moment, Cromwell and Norfolk exchanged glances, and then slowly the Duke smiled. The Secretary bowed as they turned to face the doorway, and saw the King towering over his gentlemen, shaking the floor under his tread, Norfolk forgot the precautionary black feather in his cap, and thanked God that he had chosen red. The King was dressed from head to foot in brilliant yellow.

That Sunday was the gayest the court had spent for months. After the Mass the King visited Anne and her women; they too were dressed in the bright spring color, a color which didn’t enhance the pallid looks of Mistress Seymour. The Queen’s musicians played for them, and Anne sat beside the King and held on to his arm, while her lute player Mark Smeaton performed for them at her command. He played well, she said happily; no one at court could match him—except the King, of course, she added; and he grunted and moved his hand in time to the gay melody, and called out a coarse joke to her ladies, who shrieked with laughter.

She had to ask him, though she knew the answer; the answer was in that outrageous dress, in the music and dancing and stewards passing up and down with pitchers of wine. But she still asked, holding on to his sleeve because he had made a movement to get up and go to the group where Jane Seymour was sitting.

“Are you glad, Harry? Really glad?”

“Glad of what. Nan?”

He turned to her with the remains of a smile on his mouth, but it had left his eyes and they were cold and wary.

“Glad that she is out of our way at last.”

His head turned away from her, and the hand which had been beating time to the music stayed still on his knee.

“I’ve thanked God on my knees this morning. So long as she lived, my son’s legitimacy would have been disputed, and without her, Mary will submit and take the Oath.”

He left her then, and she heard him laughing in the middle of the group of women; a shadow fell beside her and she glanced up. It was Smeaton the lute player, who had finished his playing.

“Madame, may I sit by you?”

He was always asking that, looking up at her with those large soft eyes that reminded her of the spaniels she kept which never seemed to live for long. He was very handsome and young; she’s heard gossip about his gallantry with the serving women, and once laughingly teased him, asking how many hearts he’d broken. He’d blushed, to the delight of her ladies, who missed the hurt expression on his face and the suspicion of tears. They also missed the mumbled answer:

“How could I break hearts, Madame, when I’ve lost my own to the Queen of all men’s hearts...”

She had nearly dismissed him then and there; she knew’ she should have done it, that it was impertinent and perhaps even dangerous for a servant to entertain such thoughts, much less dare to hint at them. But he was young and foolish and meant no harm; and it was a long time since any man had said a tender word to her.

“What do you want?” she asked sharply.

“Only to sit by you, Madame, and play to you if you like. I thought you looked disconsolate...”

“It’s not for you to notice how I look or don’t look,” she said angrily under her breath. The reckless fool, to come and moon round her in the King’s presence...he really ought to be sent away. But perhaps if she warned him severely enough this time, he might keep his place.

“You play the lute. Master Smeaton, and God knows you play it well. But don’t mistake your betters when they make much of you; one more liberty with your Queen, and you’ll be treated as the inferior person that you are. Go back to your place with the other players immediately.”

She could have struck him for the way he walked, with his curly black head hanging like a whipped child, and sat dangling his lute between his knees, and staring at the ground.

Henry had noticed it, and was frowning, puzzled. Some of her ladies were giggling openly at the young man’s discomfiture; most of them spoiled him like a puppy, and some of them flirted...

Then she forgot Smeaton and his foolish conduct, and the color drained out of her cheeks, and her heart began jumping as it did since she became pregnant, if anything upset or excited her. The musicians had begun a lively jig, and some of the courtiers had received Henry’s permission to make sets to it. But the King did not dance; he sat with his back to her, leaning forward, talking to Jane Seymour.