Secrets of the Tudor Court Boxed Set (82 page)

Nan sighed. Another reminder of the past.

Wat stepped out into the daylight. His dark, wavy hair fell over his eyes and he impatiently shoved it aside with the back of his hand. “Good day to you, Mistress Bassett.”

“Master Hungerford. Have you come to ask the king to restore your estates?”

He scowled. “I came in the hope of spending time with you, Nan.”

Her eyebrows lifted when he addressed her with such familiarity, but she did not reproach him. His open admiration was a balm to her wounded pride. Discovering that Ned was married had come as a shock. Even though she’d rejected him, she’d somehow imagined he would be true to her forever, refusing to marry anyone if he could not have her. How foolish! Ned had always been on the hunt for a wealthy bride. She should be happy for him that he’d found one.

She regarded Wat Hungerford’s young, eager expression with skeptical eyes. “We will never make a match of it, Master Hungerford. You need a wife with a fortune and I want a husband with money and a title.”

Nan felt a pang of regret when she saw that her blunt words had hurt him, but he had the resilience and self-confidence of youth. He would recover.

“I will be Lord Hungerford one day,” he said as she turned away. “My estates and title will be restored. You could wait for me.”

Nan stopped just inside the silken pavilion, one hand pressed to her
heart. Unwanted tears filled her eyes. If only he were a few years older. If only she were not so jaded.

When Nan had herself under control again, she joined Dorothy and Lucy where they sat sewing in a corner of the pavilion. She saw at once that they both looked worried. “What is wrong?” she asked in a whisper.

Dorothy’s gaze shot to Queen Catherine, who stood looking out a window. “Her Grace is watching Tom Culpepper cross the open expanse between the king’s pavilion and this one.”

In itself, this was not disturbing, but Nan had too often seen the expression of naked longing on the young queen’s face when she looked at her distant cousin. The other maids of honor had noticed the same thing.

“Someone should warn the queen that it is not wise to make the king jealous,” Lucy murmured.

Dorothy snorted. “And who would be so foolish as to try to tell Her Grace anything she does not want to hear? She is too headstrong, too spoiled, and too stupid to listen. Besides, the king has no idea what his wife is doing.”

“Hush, Dorothy. Someone will overhear.” Nan looked over her shoulder, but no one appeared to be close enough to eavesdrop on their conversation.

“If matters continue as they are,” Lucy predicted, “His Grace is bound to notice her infatuation.”

“It is more than infatuation,” Nan said, “but Dorothy is right. Her Grace does not care for unsolicited advice.” Her hand went to her cheek, remembering the sting of the slap Queen Catherine had given her.

“I do not see how it could be more,” Lucy said. “Her Grace is never alone. Dalliance requires privacy.”

Dorothy snickered.

“She could not have—”

“Could and has, I’ll wager. Have you not noticed how Her Grace sends most of her ladies away when she retires to her bedchamber?”

“The king—”

“Does not stay long. In and out!” Dorothy gave a nervous giggle. “And sometimes His Grace does not visit her at all. Then the queen is left to her own devices, free to … entertain whatever … person she chooses.”

Two things Nan had observed suddenly took on an unsettling significance she’d heretofore missed. Wherever they’d gone on this progress, there had always been an inner stair or an outer door that gave private access to the queen’s bedchamber. And Lady Rochford was always on duty at night.

“Whatever we suspect,” she said aloud, “it is no more than speculation.”

The pretense of ignorance seemed the safest course for all of them. Nan turned a blind eye to the queen’s flirtation with her husband’s gentleman of the privy chamber. She told herself it was not her place to interfere, or to offer advice. Nor could she betray her mistress by telling tales to the king. No one ever thought well of one who brought unwelcome news. Besides, she did not think he would believe her.

T
HE PROGRESS MADE
several more stops before arriving at Pontefract at the end of August. It was there that Queen Catherine acquired a new member of her household. A fellow named Francis Dereham took the post of private secretary. Within a week of his arrival, he was at odds with one of the queen’s gentlemen ushers, going so far as to brawl with him and shove him to the ground.

“Lucky for him the king did not hear of it,” Anne Herbert said to Nan as they strolled in the gardens to enjoy a rare glimpse of the sun.

Nan shuddered, remembering what had almost happened to Sir Edmund Knyvett. “I have noticed that Master Dereham is careful to efface himself when the king is nearby.”

“How odd. Most men thrust themselves forward. They want His Grace’s attention.”

“He has the queen’s.” Nan had observed that Dereham had a most familiar manner toward Queen Catherine. “Where did he come from?”

“He was recommended by the old Duchess of Norfolk.”

“The same one who raised the queen?”

Anne nodded. “Someone told me that this Dereham was a member of the duchess’s household when Queen Catherine was a girl in her keeping.”

A remark Catherine Howard had once made, back when she was a maid of honor, niggled at Nan’s memory. She did not wish to examine it closely. It was not safe to know too much, she reminded herself again. Nor was it wise to speculate.

T
HE PROGRESS MOVED
on to York, arriving there in mid-September. Two weeks later they were in Hull and traveling slowly south once more. On the twenty-sixth day of October, they reached Windsor Castle, and then it was back to Hampton Court.

Home, Nan thought. As much as any one place could be to an itinerant entity like the royal court. The king was in high spirits. The queen smiled a great deal. Francis Dereham appeared to have taken himself off somewhere, to the great relief of everyone in the queen’s household.

And then, on Friday the fourth of November, the king’s guards appeared in the queen’s apartments. She was informed that neither she nor her ladies were to leave her rooms for any reason.

“How dare you!” Queen Catherine shouted. “I will go to the king. He will tell you that you have no right to confine me.”

But they would not let her pass and, in the morning, one of the yeomen of the guard let slip to Nan that the king had left Hampton Court for Whitehall.

The next two days were filled with wild speculation. Nerves frayed and tempers snapped. It was almost a relief when Archbishop Cranmer
arrived, together with the Duke of Norfolk and several clerks with quills and paper. They closeted themselves with the queen.

Dorothy Bray was pale as death. “They are interrogating Her Grace,” she whispered.

“They will ask us questions, too.” Nan exchanged a look of panic with Dorothy. All the queen’s secrets seemed likely to come out.

Should she lie and pretend ignorance? Or tell the truth? Either course might result in being charged with treason.

T
HE NEWS THAT
Catherine Howard was being questioned at Hampton Court spread like wildfire. It did not take long to reach the household of her predecessor at Richmond Palace, and it filled Anna of Cleves’s ladies with such elation that they had difficulty restraining themselves.

Cat Bassett had been fond of Lady Rutland, but she’d come to love Anna of Cleves. In Cat’s eyes, her mistress could do no wrong. She had felt frustrated and angry on the Lady Anna’s behalf when, to Anna’s detriment, she’d heard people singing Queen Catherine’s praises. Word of the king’s domestic troubles therefore pleased Cat mightily. It seemed only right that King Henry should suffer in retribution for all the sorrow he had caused others.

“His Grace should never have put Queen Anna aside,” Cat’s friend Jane Ratsey said. “Pray God he will see sense when he’s rid himself of Catherine Howard.”

“What! Is God working to make the Lady Anna of Cleves queen again?” Cat rather liked the idea, although she pitied any woman married to King Henry.

Jane was convinced of it. She rattled on while they sat and wrought, praising Queen Anna’s virtues and making rude remarks about her successor. “It is impossible that so sweet a queen as the Lady Anna could be utterly put aside,” she declared, just as they were joined by Dorothy Wingfield, one of Anna’s bedchamber women.

“I would think the king has had wives enough already,” Dorothy said, stitching industriously at the hem of a handkerchief.

“That is why he should take the Lady Anna back,” Jane insisted. “It would be as if Catherine Howard never existed.”

“What a man the king is!” Cat said with a laugh. “How many wives will he have?”

“Four and there’s an end to it,” Jane said firmly. “Catherine of Aragon, Anne Boleyn, Jane Seymour, and our own Lady Anna.”

“That’s only two,” Dorothy pointed out, “as the law says neither of the first two marriages ever existed.”

“Why, the poor man,” Cat said. “He has scarcely any acquaintance with matrimony at all!”

T
HE
D
UKE OF
Norfolk waited in a tiny, dusty, windowless room. Nan was not the first person to be interrogated there. The place smelled of sweat and terror.

On trembling legs, she stood in front of the table where the duke sat. A clerk was hunched over a sheaf of papers at its far end, ready to take down whatever damning evidence Nan might have to give.

Norfolk was frightening enough in normal situations, with that hawk nose and long, deeply lined face. His eyes were devoid of emotion, dark and flat and utterly without mercy. Under his stare, Nan remembered hearing that his own wife had accused him of physically abusing her and putting his mistress in her place. Norfolk had also turned against his own niece, Queen Anne Boleyn, and presided over her trial at the king’s bidding, even pronouncing sentence of death upon her. It appeared he was prepared to do the same thing again to a second niece. Nan did not expect him to show any mercy to her.

Confined to their dormitory, the maids of honor had heard no details of the charges against Queen Catherine, nor had they dared speculate to each other. It was too easy to be overheard. They had pretended, to themselves as well as to others, that they had never noticed anything amiss. Nan prayed she had sufficient talent at deception to convince the duke of her innocence. She could not bear to think about the alternative.

“You are Mistress Anne Bassett, maid of honor to the queen?”

Nan had to swallow before she could answer. “I am, Your Grace.”

“Your mother is currently a prisoner in Calais and your stepfather is confined to the Tower of London.”

At his accusatory tone, Nan felt her spine stiffen. Her lips compressed into a hard, thin line. She answered with a curt nod.

“And Mistress Catherine Bassett, a maid of honor to the Lady Anna of Cleves, is your sister?”

That question caught her off guard. There was a quality in the duke’s voice warning her that he was not just verifying Cat’s identity. “She is.”

“Has Mistress Catherine Bassett ever spoken to you of the King’s Grace?”

Nan hesitated. It would be peculiar if she had not. “I do not understand the question, my lord.”

A flash of impatience darkened his features. “Has your sister ever said to you that Anna of Cleves should be queen again?”

“No, my lord.” That question, at least, she could answer honestly.

When he continued to ask questions about Lady Anna of Cleves, Nan wondered what the king’s former wife had done. There had been a rumor, following the king’s visit to Richmond a few weeks after his wedding to Catherine Howard, that he had gotten Anna with child, but like so many of the stories told of King Henry, there had been no truth to that one.

Nan gave careful answers, then offered an unsolicited remark. “My sister and I are not on the best of terms. She has been envious of me ever since I was chosen to be a maid of honor to Queen Jane and she was not.”

“You have made a profession of courtiership, I perceive.”

“As many have before me, Your Grace.” Until that moment, Nan had never thought of her position in quite that way, but it was an excellent description.

“You are an observant woman.”

“I like to think so, Your Grace.” Dangerous waters here!

“What have you noticed about Master Francis Dereham’s behavior in the queen’s presence?”

Nan had been prepared for questions about Tom Culpepper. She had not expected to hear Francis Dereham’s name. At her evident astonishment, the duke frowned.

“Well?” he prompted her.

“Master Dereham is somewhat forward.” Once again, Nan chose her words with care.

Norfolk made an impatient gesture with one hand. “Is he intimate with the queen?”

“I know of no improper familiarity between them, my lord. Why, Master Dereham only joined the queen’s household during this summer’s progress. And he came recommended by the old duchess—I mean, by your stepmother, Your Grace.”

Only by a slight tightening of the lips did the duke betray his annoyance. Then the questions continued. He kept at Nan for the better part of another hour, badgering her to supply the kind of details that would damn the queen.

Nan gave him little satisfaction. Anything she had suspected, she kept to herself for her own protection. The longer the interrogation continued, the more she realized that, in truth, she had observed very little of what must have taken place.

At last the duke seemed satisfied that he had wrung every drop of information out of her. He turned his cold, implacable gaze on her one last time. “You will not be returning to the maids’ dormitory, Mistress Bassett. The queen’s household has been dissolved. Your belongings have been searched and secured. They will be released to you when you leave Hampton Court.”

Nan started to protest that she had no place to go, but stopped herself in time. The Duke of Norfolk had no interest in her fate. Nor did she want him to. She’d prefer it if he’d forget he’d ever heard of her.

Drained of energy, as dazed as if she’d taken a blow to the head, Nan turned out of habit toward the queen’s apartments. Guards blocked the door to the presence chamber, effectively preventing her from reaching the privy chamber, bedchamber, and the other smaller rooms beyond.