The Concubine (15 page)

Emma thought—but without emotion—that it was a rare lady who was aware of the demands made upon her body-servant.

“You should get to bed now; it’s quick working,” she said, and set about the business of unrobing Anne, grumbling all the while in her mind. The idle lady attendants had gone off to play cards or make music as soon as supper was over. They’d came rustling back when all the work was done and pretend that they had not heard the King depart, or had been waiting for the bell to ring. In Emma’s opinion all waiting ladies were lazy and frivolous and those attached to Anne at the moment were worse than most because they recognized the insecurity of her position; nobody wished to become too closely associated with one whose future was uncertain.

By the time that she was in her bed-gown and Emma was brushing her hair, Anne was feeling the effects of the dose. A great peacefulness; not truly sleepy yet, but so relaxed, uncaring, almost happy that she knew that when she did lie down she would sleep. The taunt about Catherine had lost its sting, it might have been said to someone else, long, long ago.

When, from the outer room, there came the sound of tramping feet and men’s voices, she felt neither surprise, nor alarm, nor interest.

“See who it is, Emma, and send them away.”

Emma went briskly out, and came briskly back.

“My lady, it is the King and Sir Harry Norris. His Grace has brought you a gift.”

Emma Arnett, the reformer, was delighted that the King had come back with a peace offering. Emma Arnett, the servant, was less pleased. The Lady already had two dogs, Urian, growing old and incontinent, and Beau, presented by the French Ambassador, young and incontinent.

Anne tried to think what Henry’s returning with a gift must mean. Reconciliation. But rocked on the soft opium tide she could neither think nor care.

“I’m sleepy,” she said. “I can’t talk.”

The real, the dominating, managing woman in Emma came uppermost.

“You can say ‘Thank you,’ surely,” she said, and snatched up Anne’s furred velvet robe, wrapped her in it, and spread her hair, a shimmering cape of black silk, over it. “Just thank him. You’ll like what he’s brought.”

She led Anne to the door and hovered for a second until she was safely down the steps into the outer room.

Henry tried to cover the fact that he was ill-at-ease and unsure of his reception, by adopting a boisterous, blustering manner.

“I had to come. I couldn’t wait to show you. Show her, Norris, show her!”

Norris spread wide the piece of velvet he carried and revealed a tiny puppy which might have been made out of the same material. Its domed head was wrinkled like a bloodhound’s, its amber eyes were at once utterly innocent and full of ageless wisdom; everywhere its soft coat was a little too large for it.

“I spoke for it long ago and it arrived not an hour since. The Spanish Ambassador once mentioned the breed to me. Brave as lions, yet small enough for a lady’s lap. All the way from Augsburg. The only one in England. I hope you like it.”

“How could I not?” She took the puppy and held it against her. It put out a pink ribbon of tongue and licked her chin softly. “I love it.”

“All right, Norris. You may go,” Henry said. Norris said his good nights and withdrew. He was one of those who knew that the relationship between the King and the lady was, so far, blameless, and as he blundered down the stairs his admiration for his master increased. In that soft robe, with her hair all loose! What iron control the man must have.

Left alone neither Henry nor Anne spoke for a moment. She because the effort seemed not worth making; he because he knew he must apologize, and apologies never came easily to him. He brought it out at last.

“Sweetheart, I am sorry. I ask your forgiveness for speaking as I did. I’d had a trying day and my head ached, and then you pained me by calling my promises eggshells. Then, as soon as I was back I found this little creature. I’d ordered it to please you; and I could have wept, Anne, I could have wept; it is so suited to you and to nobody else. So I brought it. Say I’m forgiven.”

“There was nothing to forgive. I daresay what you said was true.”

He stared at her. That was about the last thing in the world that he had expected her to say, and her manner of speaking, so remote and detached, alarmed him. It sounded as though there was nothing to resent because she no longer cared.

“It was an unforgivable thing to say. But I implore you to forgive me.”

She stood holding the little dog, her head bowed over it.

“Promises,” he said, a little wildly. “You said I broke promises. Anne, tell me, what promises did I ever make to you and not keep?”

She should have said, would have said, that no specific promise had ever been broken and that she had spoken in anger and disappointment. But the poppy syrup moved like Lethe water in her veins and the little dog lay warm and soft against her breast. All she could think of was sleep.

“It doesn’t matter,” she said.

And again it sounded as though she had done with him. He felt that had his present been anything but a dog, had it been a rope of pearls or some similar thing, she’d have let it fall to the floor.

“Of course it matters,” he said violently. “You and I are troth-plighted;. I am your servant. If ever I break a promise made to you I am unworthy of the name of knight, let alone King. Tell me, what promise? To make you Queen! Is that it? Sweetheart, haven’t I tried? God’s teeth! Do you think I like this delay? You said I chose the Pope. That isn’t true. I use him. I must. Ours must be a proper marriage.”

The little dog licked her again and she looked down at it with doting, dreamy eyes.

Paying
me
no attention at all, Henry thought; she’s cast me off, she’s no longer interested in what I am saying.

“Look at me! Listen to me! I’m going to make you a promise that I’ll keep if it costs me my crown. If Clement won’t free me, I’ll defy him. You are my one true love and I mean to have you, Pope or no Pope. Well? What do you say to that?”

She lifted her drowsy eyes and looked at him, and tried to find some words. She should have felt jubilant at this forthright statement of intention; and glad that he had taken their quarrel so much to heart. But she could feel nothing, except, far off, a faint obligation to make some response. So she smiled.

“Do you disbelieve me?” he demanded. “For God’s sake, Anne, don’t punish me this way. I’ve said I was sorry. I spoke in anger. Now I’m speaking in sober earnest and you
smile
. I tell you that for your sake I would break with the Pope if he forced me.”

She made a great effort.

“I hope not. You’re a Papist. If it came to that you’d hate me.”

“Hate you? How could I? I could as soon hate myself. Here…” He snatched the puppy from her so roughly that it squealed a little, and set it on the floor. “I love you, I love you,” he said, and took her in his arms and kissed her face, her throat, her breast, greedily and with mounting passion, in a way against which she was usually on guard. Tonight even her vigilance was lulled and for one wild moment he thought that she was on the point of surrender.

He saw, in that moment, all his brave thoughts about serving and waiting for what they were, trimmings hung out to hide the stark truth. This was the woman he wanted to bed with.

Only just in time she began to push him away with limp, helpless-feeling hands.

“You promised,” she said.

“But, sweetheart, I want you. And you want me.”

She wanted nothing but sleep, to give herself up to the cloudy, peaceful nothingness that drew closer and closer. To speak, to think was almost a pain. But she must.

“What I want has nothing to do with it. What I
don’t
want is a child out of wedlock.
My
child must sit upon the throne.”

She had hit upon the only argument that would, at that moment, have restrained him.

Right, of course, he thought, half-peevishly. And in a year, or less, he’d have her for his own. He must, should,
could
wait just that little more. He loosened his hold, kissed her once more in the manner that she approved and said,

“He shall!”

He bent and picked up the puppy.

“Let him lie against your heart and keep the place warm for me. Late as it is, I’m going to see Wolsey and warn him against that damned tricky Italian. So, sweetheart, good night. Sleep well and dream of me.”

E
VERYONE WAS IN HIS PREARRANGED
place and all was ready. George Cavendish, Wolsey’s gentleman-usher, turned his eyes without shifting his head and looked about and thought that in this one measureless, static moment before the procedure began, the great hall at Blackfriars looked like a scene set out for a masque. Only the music was lacking. From some hidden place the musicians should be plucking their strings, louder and louder in a crescendo which would end in a silence into which the first player would speak the words he had conned. But there was no music, merely the hushed sound of a number of people gathered together and waiting, the shoe scraping the floor; the small quickly smothered cough, the rustle of silk.

This was no masque; this was reality; the culmination of all the talk that had been going on for years, all the speculation, all the negotiations, the appeals, the waiting, and the worry. This was the Cardinal’s Court which was to investigate the reasons for the King’s doubts as to the validity of his marriage to Catherine, and to decide whether the marriage was legal and must stand, or illegal and could be treated as though it had never been. It was in order to sit here, in judgment upon that issue, that Campeggio had made the painful journey from Rome; it was in preparation for what was to take place here today that Wolsey had sat up at night, studying, praying and fretting.

Cavendish loved his master; into this moment of waiting he breathed a little prayer, to Almighty God, to the Blessed Virgin, to holy St. Thomas of Canterbury for whom Wolsey had been named, and to St. George, his own patron saint—
Let things so order themselves that my master shall suffer no damage
. Then he amended it.
No further damage
. For he, so close to Wolsey, knew how much damage was already done by broken sleep, by sleepless nights, by loss of appetite, by anxiety.

No one would guess, Cavendish thought with pride; Wolsey looked well this morning, calm, stately and impregnable. His appearance benefited from comparison with that of his fellow Cardinal. Campeggio was seven years the older, and his face was marked by ill-health and pain. And even at his best, he had never had Wolsey’s presence. Cavendish, himself a Suffolk man, derived immense satisfaction from the fact, the indisputable fact, that the son of a Suffolk butcher could outshine in appearance, in intelligence, in style, any other man in the world. Cavendish did not even except his King. Henry was handsome—but he was younger than Wolsey; he was very able—but Wolsey had schooled him; and on this vitally important morning he had a fidgety, uneasy manner which contrasted ill with his chief minister’s calm. A scolding woman, Cavendish reflected, could work more havoc with a man than anything else in the world, which was why every decently run village had its ducking stool or its scolds’ bridle for the punishment of women who let their tongues run wild.

Wolsey, settling into his place, felt far from calm and impregnable. That halt, flutter, and jerk on of the heart which he had first experienced almost six years ago was now a permanent affliction. He could only thank God that it was not plain for all to see, like Campeggio’s gout. Only he knew about it, and so far he had hidden it well; but it was there, and occasionally it made him so short of breath that he was hard put to it not to open his mouth and gasp like a landed fish. And sometimes it seemed to shake the cage of his chest so that he longed to press his hands there and steady it. And there was, too, his other wretched, squalid little affliction which he had mastered in the only way he could; one small cup of water in each twenty-four hours all the time the Court had been sitting—and it had begun its preliminaries on the last day of May. Once the verdict was given, he’d drink a gallon, straight off, cold water, straight from the well.

In this suspended moment, he, like Cavendish, turned his eyes without moving his head and looked at his fellow Cardinal. Typical Italian, slippery as an eel. Civil, smooth, revealing nothing. The moment he had arrived in England he’d gone, without a word to Wolsey, and infuriated the King by telling him of the Pope’s offer to make good anything lacking in Julius’s dispensation. The King had then sent for Wolsey and stamped and raged. “I want no more tricks like that. I want freedom, and you must get it for me, by hook or by crook. Or by God’s Wounds, I’ll find somebody who will! I heard the other day of some humble cleric with a good head on him. He thought of something none of my favored advisers had hit on. Canvas the Universities of Europe, he said, and ask their opinion of this marriage. His name’s Cramer, Cranmer, Canner, something like that; and by God he has the right sow by the ear.”

It was disturbing to learn that some unknown little man had thought of a move which he himself had overlooked; but there was nothing irrevocable and ruinous about that. What bothered Wolsey far more than anything else at the moment was Catherine’s attitude.

Either she had been very shrewdly advised or she had been inspired by the quintessence of feminine guile; she refused absolutely to approach the problem from the legal point of view, refused to admit that the solution lay in the validity or otherwise of Pope Julius’s dispensation. She had taken her stand upon the contention that she and Arthur had never been man and wife, that their marriage had never been consummated. This meant that the Cardinals’ Court would be forced to abandon the strictly legal ground and venture on to the quaking morass of a personal, very intimate relationship; most distasteful. And potentially dangerous; for though a legal document could be studied and argued over, clause by clause, and some rational conclusion drawn, nobody in this world could truly decide whether a marriage had been consummated or not—especially after a lapse of almost thirty years.

Wolsey was worried about Catherine. He was also troubled by a suspicion that Campeggio carried secret orders from the Pope; perhaps even a relevant document. Campeggio, since his arrival in England, had discussed the case with Wolsey, with a seething frankness and cooperation, saying “We must see that…” saying “It would be well if we…” saying “Our contention is…” But always Wolsey felt that Campeggio held something in reserve, knew something, or planned something which he did not propose to divulge. And to ask a point-blank question would be undiplomatic, and useless since it would merely provoke a lie. His sense of something being hidden from him had slipped from his waking thoughts into his dreams, and his short snatches of sleep were often troubled by dreams in which he was searching for something immensely precious and important, hidden in some filthy place which he dreaded to explore and yet must.

All in all, these last few months had imposed strain enough to kill a cart-horse. Thank God the end was near.

For now the static scene sprang into life.

First the solemn proclamation of the Court’s commission from His Holiness Pope Clement VII; then the crier calling, “Henry, King of England, come into the Court.” The King from under his royal canopy, replied in a firm, loud voice, “Here, my lords.” His fidgety, uneasy manner was the result of impatience rather than of lack of confidence. He was certain that his cause was good; he had attained his wish in having the case brought to open trial in his own country; and he had refused what he was sure must be Clement’s last pathetic attempt to compromise. Now he wanted the whole thing over, finished, done with, as soon as possible.

The crier raised his voice again, “Catherine, Queen of England, come into the Court.”

This was the last time—or one of the last times—that she would be addressed thus, Henry reflected. The Court would move slowly, high-ranking clerics were adept at making everything seem solemn by acting with great deliberation; but within a few days his claim to be a free man would be acknowledged, and he would be able to keep his promise to Anne. Queen Anne. It sounded well. He thought of all the work the stonemasons and the woodcarvers and the embroideresses would have to do, removing all the C’s from the places where they now stood, entwined with the H’s, and substituting the A’s.

Catherine, instead of replying, played a typically female trick. She stood up, gravely crossed herself and began to move toward where the King sat. She had aged and altered lately and could now well have been in her fifties instead of forty-four; her shoulders had bowed and her neck shortened, which gave her a dogged, stubborn look; but she had dignity, too. Her dress was in the Spanish style, somber in color, rich in fabric and she wore a good many jewels. She moved with assurance.

As she neared him, Henry gripped the arms of his great chair and looked to left and to right, as though meditating flight and seeking a way of escape. If that had been his intention he thought better of it and settled down to face her with a set, hard look. She knelt down before him and made a long speech, pitiable or irritating according to the inclination of the listener. The pretty broken-English which had been one of her attractions long ago had almost vanished, leaving only an oddly accented word here and there. Her voice was deep, at times almost gruff.

True to her plan, she made no mention of Pope Julius, or of the dispensation. She addressed herself to Henry as a supplicant, trying by words to stir a sentiment long since dead.

“Sir, I beseech you for all the love that hath been between us, and for the love of God, let me have justice and right, take of me some pity and compassion, for I am a poor woman, and a stranger, born out of your dominion. I have here no assured friends, and much less impartial counsel. I flee to you as to the head of justice within this realm…”

Ill-timed, Wolsey thought, coolly assessing; and out of place. This was a Court of law. What could she hope for by publicly putting the King in such an embarrassing situation? Surely there was no man in the place, not even Fisher, Bishop of Rochester, her most confirmed supporter, who did not at this moment share the King’s discomfiture.

It went on, grew worse.

“This twenty years or more I have been your true wife and by me ye have had divers children, although it hath pleased God to call them out of this world, which hath been no default in me. And when ye had me at the first, I take God to be my judge, I was a true maid without touch of man.”

That was open to question; there were witnesses who would presently swear to the contrary.

She mentioned the King’s father and her own, “They were both excellent kings in wisdom and princely behavior.” They and other men of good judgment had thought the marriage good and lawful.

She ended by what was tantamount to an insult to the Court, saying that it could not be impartial since it was composed of Henry’s subjects, “and dare not for fear of your displeasure, disobey your will and intent, once made aware thereof.” She begged that this Court should be dismissed and she be given time to consult her friends in Spain. “And if ye will not extend to me so much impartial favor, your pleasure then be fulfilled, and to God I commit my cause.”

By the time she had reached the end she knew that she had failed. The healthy color in Henry’s face had deepened and spread into a flush of embarrassment, but there were white patches over his jaw muscles where the clenching of his teeth made them bulge against the skin. His eyes were as cold and hard as pebbles at the tide’s edge. No hope.

She rose, made a deep curtsy and then turned and moved away, not toward her former place, but to the door.

Henry stirred and spoke, “Call her back!”

The crier repeated his call. Griffiths, Catherine’s gentleman-usher, offering his arm, said, “Madam you are called again.” In a loud rough tone which carried back into the farthest corner of the Court she said, “I hear. But that is no court of justice for
me
! Let us go on.”

Let us go on, also, Wolsey said to himself.

Everybody in the Court shifted a little in his place.

There was no such moment of drama on any of the ensuing days. They were largely spent in the hearing of evidence whose nature proved that Wolsey’s misgivings, and his dreams of having to deal with filth, had been prophetic.

Catherine did not come to Court again, yet she dominated it, for it was her attitude which had shaped procedure. A woman, in her personal life modest to the point of prudishness, she had by refusing to base her case on the validity of the Papal dispensation and choosing to fight instead upon the ground that she had gone virgin to Henry’s bed, stirred up the very elements which any ordinary woman would have striven to suppress. The clear stream of justice was forced into many muddy little side channels.

What had Arthur meant exactly in 1501 when he said, “Tonight I have been in Spain”? How could one overlook his calling for wine and saying, “Marriage is thirsty work, my masters”? At what age was a boy capable of consummating a marriage? There was no lack of witnesses ready to declare that they themselves had been no mean performers at an earlier age than fifteen. And even if old waiting women came forward to swear that in all Catherine and Arthur had only bedded together for twelve nights, what did that prove? A virgin could be deflowered in an hour.

To Wolsey the whole business was unutterably distasteful. He’d urged from the first that the Court should concern itself with law, and law only, not with old men’s lecherous memories and old dames’ gossip. But, though disgusted he was not unhopeful. Catherine had said a true thing when she said that this Court dare not do other than declare for the King. Fisher would certainly declare for Catherine, Ridley almost certainly; there were a few dubious ones, but the majority would be ruled by the King known wish, and confirmed in their decision to do so by the case Wolsey had prepared, with its careful repudiation of Catherine’s absurd claim.