Queen's Gambit: A Novel of Katherine Parr (4 page)

‘Catherine Howard?’ she
mouths.

Katherine nods in reply.

‘Kit, she was so young, younger than
Meg even.’

They both look over to Meg, seeming barely
out of girlhood herself.

‘She hadn’t been raised to hold
high position. Norfolk dredged her out of the further reaches of the Howard tribe to
serve his own needs. Her manners, Kit, you can’t imagine how crude she was or how
shallow. But she was a pretty little thing and the King was utterly unmanned in the face
of her …’ She pauses, searching for the right word, ‘… her
attractions. It was her appetite that was her undoing.’

‘For men?’ asks Katherine,
further dropping her whisper.

The sisters’ heads are close together
now and their faces
are half turned towards the window so as not to be
overheard.

‘A compulsion almost.’

‘Did you like her, Anne?’

‘No … I suppose not. She was
insufferably vain. But I wouldn’t have wished
that
fate on anyone. To go
to the block like that and so young. Kit, it was dreadful. Her ladies were questioned
one by one. I had no idea what was happening. Some must have known what she’d been
up to, carrying on like that with Culpepper, under the King’s nose.’

‘She was just a girl. She should never
have been put in the bed of such an old man, King or not.’

They sit in silence for a while. Through the
diamond panes Katherine watches a skein of geese fly over the lake in the distance.
‘Who questioned you?’ she asks eventually.

‘It was Bishop Gardiner.’

‘Were you frightened?’

‘Petrified, Kit. He’s a nasty
piece of work. Not a man to cross. I once saw him dislocate a choirboy’s finger
for missing a note. I knew nothing, so there was little he could do with me. But we all
had the Boleyn business in our minds.’

‘Of course, Anne Boleyn. It turned out
the same.’

‘Just the same. The King withdrew,
refused to see Catherine, as he had with Anne. The poor girl was mad with fear. Ran
howling down the long gallery in just her kirtle. Her screams stay with me still. The
gallery was teeming with people but no one so much as looked at her, not even her uncle
Norfolk. Can you imagine?’ She worries at her gown, pulling a loose thread.
‘Thank heavens I wasn’t chosen to serve her in the Tower. I couldn’t
have borne it, Kit. Standing by to watch her step up to the scaffold. Untie her hood for
her. Bare her neck.’ She shudders visibly.

‘Poor child,’ murmurs
Katherine.

‘And rumour has it the King seeks a
sixth wife.’

‘Who do they talk of?’

‘The rumours fly as usual. Every
unmarried woman has had her name bandied, even you, Kit.’

‘Absurd,’ mutters Katherine.

‘It is Anne Bassett who people are
putting their money on,’ continues Anne. ‘But she is nothing but a girl,
younger even than the last one. I can’t imagine him taking another young maid like
that. Catherine Howard shook him to the core. But little Anne’s family are pushing
her forward nevertheless. She has a whole new wardrobe to flaunt.’

‘This place,’ says Katherine
with a sigh. ‘Did you know Will suggested a match between Meg and that Seymour
fellow?’

‘That doesn’t surprise me in the
least.’ Anne rolls her eyes. ‘They are thick as thieves, those
two.’

‘It won’t happen,’
Katherine snaps.

‘So you weren’t taken with the
palace charmer then?’

‘Not one bit. Found him …’
She can’t find the words, is too distracted by the fact that Seymour has been
tapping at the edge of her mind this last hour. ‘Oh, you know.’

‘This lot wouldn’t agree with
you,’ Anne says, nodding towards the group of younger maids strewn about the
hearth chatting and pretending to sew. ‘You should see how they flutter as he
passes, like butterflies in a net.’

Katherine shrugs, telling herself that she
is not one of those butterflies. ‘Has he never been married; he must be, what,
twenty-nine?’

‘Thirty-four!’

‘He carries his age well,’ she
says, surprised. But the thought that is foremost in her mind is that Thomas Seymour is
older than she is.

‘He does indeed …’ Anne
pauses, then adds, ‘I seem to remember talk of him and the Duchess of Richmond
once.’

‘What, Mary Howard?’ asks
Katherine. ‘I thought the Howards and the Seymours were …’

‘Not friendly … yes,
that’s likely why it never happened. Personally I think he’s holding out for
an even more illustrious match.’

‘Well then, Meg wouldn’t be
suitable.’

‘She
is
full of Plantagenet
blood,’ says Anne.

‘That may be, but I’d call her a
good match, not illustrious.’

‘True,’ says Anne.

Meg breaks away from the tapestries, coming
to sit beside them. The group of maids looks her up and down as she passes, a few
whispers hissing around them.

‘Did you see your father, Meg?’
asks Sister Anne.

‘I did. I’m sure it was him, on
the battlefield beside the King.’

There is a commotion as Susan Clarencieux
slides out from Mary’s bedchamber announcing in that bossy yet quiet way
particular to her, ‘She will be dressed now.’ And turning to Katherine she
says, ‘She has asked that
you
choose her outfit.’

Katherine, noticing her nose is put out of
joint, replies, ‘What would you suggest, Susan? Something sober?’

Susan’s face softens. ‘Oh no, I
think something to cheer her.’

‘You are quite right, of course.
Something bright it is then.’

Susan’s face stretches itself into an
uncomfortable smile. Katherine knows how to deal with these slippery courtiers and their
insecurities. She learned it from her mother.

‘And,’ adds Susan as Katherine
is smoothing down her
dress and straightening her hood, ‘she
wants the girl presented.’

Katherine nods. ‘Come, Meg. We
can’t keep her waiting.’

‘Must I come?’ whispers Meg.

‘You must, yes.’ She takes
Meg’s arm rather more brusquely than she means to, wishing the girl would be less
gauche, then berates herself inwardly for her unkindness and adds, ‘She may be the
King’s daughter but she is nothing to be scared of. You shall see.’ Stroking
Meg’s back she notices how thin she has become, the bones of her shoulders
protruding like the nubs of wings.

Lady Mary sits in her bedchamber engulfed in
a silk robe. She looks frail and puffy about the face; her youth seems to have deserted
her entirely. Katherine does the mental calculation, trying to remember how much younger
Mary is than her. It is only about four years, she thinks, but Mary looks wizened and
has a feverish glaze to her eyes – the legacy of the treatment she has received at her
father’s hands, no doubt. Now at least she lives at court where she belongs and is
no longer stuck in some dank distant place, hidden away. Her position remains tenuous,
though, and since her father tore the country apart to prove he wasn’t ever truly
wed to her mother, poor Mary still has the blot of illegitimacy hanging over her. No
wonder she clings to the old faith; it is her only hope of legitimacy and a good
marriage.

Her thin mouth twists into a smile of
greeting. ‘Katherine Parr,’ she says. ‘Oh how glad I am to have you
back.’

‘It is a privilege to be here indeed,
my lady,’ Katherine replies. ‘But I am only here for the baptism today. I am
told you are to stand godmother to the new Wriothesley infant.’

‘Only today? That is a
disappointment.’

‘I must respect a period of mourning
for my late husband.’

‘Yes,’ Mary says quietly, bringing
a hand up, closing her eyes and pressing the place between her brows for a moment.

‘Are you in pain? I can mix you
something,’ says Katherine, bending to stroke a hand over Mary’s brow.

‘No no, I have tinctures – more than
enough,’ she replies, sitting upright and taking a deep breath.

‘If I rub your temples that might ease
it.’

Mary nods her assent, so Katherine stands
behind her and gently presses the pads of her fingers to the sides of Mary’s
forehead, moving them in a circular motion. The skin there is parchment thin, revealing
an isthmus of blue veins. Mary closes her eyes and leans her head back against
Katherine’s stomacher.

‘I was sorry to hear about Lord
Latymer,’ Mary says. ‘Truly sorry.’

‘That is kind, my lady.’

‘But Katherine, you will come back
soon to serve in my chambers … I am in need of friends. There is only your
sister and Susan whom I fully trust. I want to be surrounded by women I know. There are
so many ladies in my rooms – I don’t even know who they are. You and I shared a
tutor as children, Katherine, your mother served my mother. I feel we are almost
kin.’

‘I am honoured that you think of me in
that way,’ Katherine replies, realizing only now how lonely life must be for a
woman like Mary. By rights she should have been married long ago to some magnificent
foreign prince, borne him a flock of princelings and allied England to some great land,
but she has been pushed from pillar to post, in favour, out of favour, legitimate,
illegitimate. No one knows what to do with her, least of all her father.

‘Are you still of the true faith,
Katherine?’ Mary asks,
dropping her voice to a whisper though
there is no one else in the room save for Meg, hovering awkwardly behind her stepmother.
‘I know your brother is committed to reform, your sister and her husband too. But
you, Katherine, you have been long wed to a northern lord and the old faith holds sway
up there still.’

‘I follow the King’s
faith,’ Katherine replies, hoping nothing is assumed from her vagueness. She knows
only too well how things go in the North when it comes to faith. She cannot think of it
without feeling Murgatroyd’s rough hands on her, the unwashed stink of him. She
tries to push the thought away but it persists.

‘My father’s faith,’ Mary
is saying. ‘He is still a Catholic at heart, though he broke with Rome. Is that
not right, Katherine?’

Katherine has barely heard her, can’t
help herself from remembering her dead baby, his black eyes popping open, his
disquieting gaze reminding her from whence he came. But she collects herself, replying,
‘It is, my lady. Matters of faith are no longer straightforward as they used to
be.’

She hates her own ambiguity, feels no better
than all the other perfidious courtiers, but she cannot bring herself to say to what
extent she has taken up the new faith. She couldn’t face Mary’s
disappointment. This is a woman whose life has been a series of great disappointments
and Katherine cannot bear to add to that, even in a small way, by telling the truth.

‘Mmmm,’ Mary murmurs.
‘Would that they were. Would that they were.’ She fiddles absently with a
rosary, its beads clicking as she moves them along the silk string. ‘And this is
your stepdaughter?’

‘Yes, my lady. Allow me to present
Margaret Neville.’

Meg makes a tentative step forward and drops
into a deep curtsy as she has been taught.

‘Come closer, Margaret,’ Mary
beckons, ‘and sit, sit.’ She waves towards a stool beside her. ‘Now,
tell me your age.’

‘I am seventeen, my lady.’

‘Seventeen. And you are promised to
someone, I suppose?’

‘I was, my lady, but he passed
away.’

Katherine has told her to say this. It
wouldn’t do to publicize the fact that her betrothed was one of those hanged for
treason after the Pilgrimage of Grace.

‘Well, we shall have to find you a
replacement, won’t we?’

Only Katherine seems to notice the colour
drop from Meg’s face.

‘You can help your stepmother dress
me.’

The mass is endless. Meg fidgets and
Katherine’s mind wanders to Seymour and his disconcerting gaze, those periwinkle
eyes. Just the thought of him disturbs her, makes her clench up inside. She forces
herself to remember the ridiculous bouncing feather and the ostentation of him,
everything overdone, and focuses her attention back on the service.

Lady Mary seems so fragile it’s a
wonder she can hold the infant, which is round and robust with a pair of lungs that
would scare the Devil himself. Bishop Gardiner, who has a fleshy look about the face, as
if he is made of melting wax, presides. He drags things out, his voice, slow and
interminable, rendering the Latin ugly. Katherine can’t help but think of him
questioning her sister, terrifying her – that and the poor choirboy’s finger. They
say Gardiner has manoeuvred himself closer and closer to the King in recent years, that
the King seeks his counsel as much as the Archbishop’s.
The child
wails red-faced, without ceasing, until the holy water is poured on her head. From that
instant she is completely silent, as if Satan has been chased from her, and Gardiner
carries a smug look, as if it is his doing rather than God’s.

The King does not attend. And Wriothesley,
the infant’s father, seems perturbed. He is a ferrety man with a permanent look of
apology and a tendency to sniff; he is Lord Privy Seal and some say he holds the reins
of all England along with Gardiner, but you wouldn’t think it to look at him.
Katherine notices his mud-coloured eyes making frequent anxious glances towards the door
as he absently cracks his knuckles, so that an occasional soft gristly clack punctuates
Gardiner’s drone. A slight such as this could mean anything with a King whose
fancies change on a whim; the Lord Privy Seal may hold the reins of England but that
means nothing without the King’s favour. Wriothesley should know all about the
King’s whims; after all, he was Cromwell’s man once, but managed to slip and
slide out of that association as soon as the tide turned – another one not to be
trusted.

Once it is all done everyone files out
behind Lady Mary, who holds tight on to Susan Clarencieux’s yellow arm as if she
might collapse. Her ladies follow her down the long gallery through a scrum of courtiers
who part as she approaches. Seymour is among them, and two of the younger girls giggle
stupidly when he smiles and doffs that ludicrous feather their way. Katherine looks
away, pretending to be fascinated by old Lady Buttes’s commentary on the way the
young dress, the loose interpretation of the sumptuary laws and what has happened to
courtesy. In her day things were different, she goes on, doesn’t anyone these days
know how to show respect for their elders? Katherine vaguely hears Seymour
say her name along with some flattery about her jewels, doubtless
insincere. She looks his way briefly with a tight nod before turning back to Lady
Buttes’s string of dull complaints.