The Concubine (16 page)

The days dragged on, each one warmer and stuffier than its predecessor; the air grew steadily more polluted, past the help of the little posies, fresh each day, to redeem.

Campeggio, giving no sign at all, must have seen, as Wolsey had, the way the Court was tending. On July 23rd he acted, abruptly, in obedience to the secret orders which Wolsey had always suspected him of having received. Wolsey could imagine the very words Clement had spoken—If it looks as though the English will themselves declare the marriage good and valid, by all means let them do so: if they veer the other way, advoke the case to Rome; that will gain us time.

At exactly the right moment Campeggio rose and said that the legal issue was far from being decided, but procedure had gone as far as it could in England. This was a great matter, one upon which all the eyes of the world were fixed and nothing must be done in haste. This was a case for the Courts of Rome, and thither it must be advoked.

There was a second’s stunned silence and then the sound of heavy footsteps moving fast. From his place in the gallery where he had come, on this last day of the trial to hear a decision in his favor, the King of England went stamping out.

The butcher’s son from Ipswich, grown so tall, a man on two stilts, one his King’s favorite, the other the power of his Church, faced, without a second’s preparation, the most agonizing, the most desperate decision of his whole life.

His treacherous heart betrayed him; it began to gallop and thunder, shaking his chest, deafening his ears. Sweat broke out on his forehead and neck. All the astonished, angry faces moved together in a pale blue which began to go round and round, dizzyingly before his eyes.

Yet within this physical collapse his mind was steady; it stood, as the chimney stack of a burned or ruined house will often stand when all else is gone. He could still think, coolly and clearly. He knew he had a choice of actions.

He could stand up, now, and declare firmly that this was an English Court, called to consider a matter which concerned England, and that he, as an Englishman, intended to proceed. He could ask Cardinal Campeggio to retire, and go on alone, ask for a decision and have it, within five minutes.

That was what the King wanted, expected of him. And he could always justify himself to himself by remembering that had the Pope remained a prisoner in San Angelo, he would have conducted this Court alone and accepted its verdict.

But not now.

Not now.

He was a Prince of the Church, and the Head of that church was the Pope, who was still performing his functions—the presence of Campeggio proved that. The Pope had given Campeggio his orders, and by implication, they were orders to Wolsey, too. And he must obey. For he, too, was a good churchman and throughout his long career had never yet done anything to undermine the authority of the Church, the one, holy, indivisible Catholic Christian Church. Within it he might scheme and spar, jostle for position, debate and demur, but always inside it. He could never overrule or ignore a direct order from St. Peter’s successor, the supreme authority, the Pope.

It might, almost certainly would, mean personal ruin; but greater issues were involved.

He had thought so rapidly that there seemed to those watching and listening no more than a breathing space between Campeggio’s last words and Wolsey’s smooth utterance,

“Then this Court is adjourned.”

The decision once taken, his heart steadied, he had his hearing, his sight. The blur of faces broke up into their individual identities and here was one, coming forward, insolent and angry. Its owner banged his hand on the table behind which the Cardinals sat.

Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk.

He’d gone, years ago, to bring back to England, Henry’s sister, the young widowed Queen of France. They’d fallen in love and married and Henry had been furiously displeased; but he had yielded in the end to family feeling, accepted and advanced Suffolk, who now saw a chance to repay, to prove his loyalty. But he was a stupid, witless fellow and all he could do in this moment of crisis was to bang on the table and shout,

“Things have never gone well in England since we had Cardinals amongst us.”

Campeggio slightly turned his head and looked at Wolsey as though to say—I defined my position quite clearly; you deal with
this
.

Wolsey said, “My lord, we are but commissioners, and our commission does not allow us to proceed further without the knowledge and consent of our chief authority, which is the Pope.”

Campeggio in his speech had spoken of his conscience, his soul, of his age and his sickness. Wolsey, the butcher’s son, scorned such irrelevancies.

Campeggio looked at Wolsey with grave approval. (In his final talk with the Pope he had asked, “And if I am compelled to make this announcement, how will the English Cardinal take it?” Clement had said, “Correctly. He has that respect for my office only possible to one who has entertained hopes of occupying it.” Campeggio had thought then that Clement was a little overoptimistic, but he had been right. Under all that fumbling, bumbling manner Clement was shrewd, and it was a great pity, Campeggio thought, that he had never met Henry of England. That fanatical intelligent eye, that bull neck, that curious blend of manner, familiar, formidable. Now that the case was to be advoked to Rome, perhaps the two might meet and Clement would see that behind the petulant boy who wanted his own way, there was a rock of a man who intended to have it. Face-to-face with Henry, Clement would give way. It was only a matter of a little more delay. The Roman Courts reopened in October.)

The two Cardinals rose, bowed to each other, and then to the assembly, and in a rustle of silk, retired.

Wolsey expected to be met at the door with a peremptory summons to wait upon his King. But there was no messenger and he passed along and went to his great house, York Place, tasting, for the first time, the loneliness of those who fall, suddenly, from high places.

S
HE KNEW BY THE LOOK
on Henry’s face that it was over and the verdict bad, so when at last he became coherent enough to make a straightforward statement it came as a relief. At least no judgment was yet given.

“I was so angered by the trick the damned Italian played,” Henry said, “that I came out. Then I stopped. I thought to myself, Wolsey knows what I want and here is his chance to give it to me. So I waited, and next thing I knew, they were telling me that he had agreed to adjourn the case and we’re back as we were. Except that now I know the truth about
him
! I’ve treated him better than most men treat their brothers; gifts, favors, preferments! There’s not a King in Europe, there never was a King anywhere who let a subject swell so large. But he’ll learn, the jumped-up jackanapes. I made him, and I can unmake him. I can’t take away his bishopric, or his rank as Cardinal, but everything else I’ll strip him of. Ungrateful dog!”

He raved on in that manner for several minutes, repeating himself often.

She thought of an angry, impotent child burying a laurel leaf.

She said, “He was always my enemy.”

“He called himself my
friend
, I called him my True Thomas! But Christ Himself said it, no man can serve two masters, and Wolsey is the Pope’s man. I see now how I have been fooled. But that’s over. I’ve been ill-served by Cardinal Facing-both-ways. I’ll replace him by somebody who can bring Clement to heel. And I’ll go ahead with Dr. Cranmer’s suggestion for canvassing the opinions of the Universities. I haven’t shot my last bolt yet. Far from it.”

“You’ll let them take the case to Rome?”

“Oh, most certainly; if only to show that I am serious. That’s half the trouble. Nobody yet has taken this thing seriously. They thought it was an idle fancy I’d taken and if they made me wait long enough, I’d give up. The original brief of the damned dispensation is still locked up in the archives at Rome or Madrid. We’ll have that out and know why it wasn’t produced before. Cheer up, sweetheart. We shall win.”

Between threats and plans he had talked away the worst of his hurt and disappointment, and when two pages hurried in bringing the dishes of cherries and sugar-strewn raspberries which Anne had ordered to be served on his arrival, and the Rhenish wine that he loved, nicely chilled from being hung down the well, he was ready for refreshment. It was some moments before he realized that she had been very silent and that her look of seeing something invisible to others—and not much liking it—was more than ever in evidence.

Wiping his sugary lips on the back of his hand he said,

“You’re downcast. So was I until I put my thoughts in order. And Wolsey did
betray
me.”

The fury in her wanted to cry—And if you let the case go to Rome,
you’ll
betray
me
! The night you brought the little dog you promised that if things went wrong you’d break with the Pope.

Angry words which it would be bad policy to utter burned in her brain. More waiting! And she was twenty-two, already; no longer young by any standard, and worn sharp and thin by waiting, by constant vigilance, by the dreadful insecurity of her position. In a man, of course, it mattered less, but the years were not improving Henry either. Denied one fleshly pleasure he indulged too freely in those he could command, he both ate and drank too much. Look at him now! He was growing thick and heavy. And he was thirty-eight.

She thought, with a sudden burst of spite, of Catherine, stubborn, impervious, and arrogant. Catherine, who, having failed to give Henry an heir was doing her best to make sure that no one else should. Catherine had behaved throughout as though she were the whole garrison of a beleaguered city: she would not even discuss terms of surrender; she was sure that eventually her allies would come to her aid. And so far no pressure had been brought to bear upon Catherine at all; a few feeble arguments which she ignored.

Anne had mastered the art of suggesting things to Henry. So now, concealing her true feelings, she said in a musing, almost dreamy way,

“Yes, Wolsey betrayed you; but Catherine also served you ill, I think. She took her stand upon something impossible to prove or disprove, instead of upon law. All things considered I think your magnanimity toward her does you great credit.”

“Sometimes I wonder at myself,” Henry said, smoothed and flattered. “The truth is, sweetheart, that I find it difficult to be harsh to a woman. And much as I deplore her attitude, I understand it. She for twenty years regarded herself as my wife and Queen of England. She finds it hard to let go.”

It might seem crazy, but it flashed upon Anne that the truth was that deep down he took Catherine’s behavior as a compliment to himself. It was as though she had tired of Urian’s surliness and incontinence and had tried to give him away and he refused to settle in any other place, kept coming back, shoving his head into her hand and saying wordlessly, “But I belong to you!” Henry honestly wished to be free of Catherine, but her refusal to let him go made an appeal to his vanity.

She said, “There are people who find it hard to cross a stream by way of stepping stones. If it is a stream that
must
be crossed, it is sometimes necessary to give them a little push to start them going.”

“And what little push, sweetheart, could I give Catherine? I’ve argued, pleaded. All to no purpose.”

“You could begin by separating her from the Princess Mary. They are of like mind, they hearten one another. And if that failed of its purpose you could…” But why should she suggest every detail? “You know how to show displeasure. If the Queen could be brought to see reason, the Emperor would no longer feel he must support her, nor Clement feel fear of the Emperor.”

“Why do you insist upon calling her the Queen? I’ve remarked it before.”

She said, sweetly reasonable, “Most people do still so call her. And surely it would ill become
me
to be the first to deny her the title.”

Henry laughed. “You have an answer for everything. And you are right about her. I’ve been too indulgent. But things will be different from here on, I promise you. With Wolsey out of the way, and Catherine brought to her senses—separation from Mary, even for a month, will do
that
, and I wonder I never thought of it before—and with Cranmer at work, it shouldn’t be long…”

He looked at her, and the lust which he had learned to control in his speech, his hands and lips, shone in his eyes. He was so blindly in love that he saw no difference between this woman and the girl who had caught his fancy six years ago, the girl he had thought too good for young Percy. For him she represented the not easily attainable and he meant to have her at all costs. The long waiting, the forced celibacy, the scandal, and today the loss of his oldest and best friend, what did they matter?

As on all but the one occasion, he left her strengthened and heartened and in a better mood than that in which he had arrived.

Anne had no support; nothing but her own pride and ambition, both in such thwarted moments prickly props indeed. And today, to disappointment and the appalling prospect of another period of waiting, there was added a curious little fear. Not superstitious exactly, but tending that way. She had cursed Wolsey; today he was ruined and no one could deny that she had been instrumental in bringing about his ruin. Suppose that were all? The end of the story. Suppose that life was like a masquerade where some people had major parts and others minor, contributory ones, of no importance in themselves, only as they affected those who mattered. She could imagine the summing-up of the chroniclers—
The King, falling in love with one, Anne Boleyn, desired the annulment of his marriage, which the Cardinal failing to obtain for him, he fell from favor.

That was a thought truly unbearable; it made her nothing. It denied the very existence of the girl who had been young, capable of happiness, whom the Cardinal had smashed, as one might smash a glass beaker, and whom circumstance had put together again, not quite in the same shape, but alive and sentient. No longer young, or gay, or capable of loving any man as she had loved Harry Percy, but a creature with a boundless ambition, a future Queen of England, mother of the next King. Wasn’t she important? Wasn’t hers the central story?

She knew that if she remained alone, thinking these roundabout thoughts, she could drive herself distracted. She could go and fling herself on her bed and be fussed over and ministered to by Emma Arnett, who secretly despised her. Or she could call in Mark Smeaton.

Smeaton was a country boy who had joined her household in a menial capacity but had proved himself to be a most skillful musician. Fond of music, and able performers themselves, she and Henry had gathered about them some gifted singers and players; but Smeaton, out of the kitchen, surpassed them all. The lark, the nightingale, as opposed to the thrush and the blackbird.

Often, when he played for her, Anne thought of the story of King Saul and the shepherd boy, David, in the book of stories known as the Old Testament, which had now been translated and smuggled into England, following upon the New Testament. Emma Arnett had introduced a copy into Anne’s apartments, saying, in an offhand way, “My lady, I found it entertaining, and I wish someone with more learning could tell me why it is forbidden reading.” Anne had found it entertaining, too, though some of the stories were horrible. The King Saul whom she remembered every time Mark Smeaton played for her, had suffered from possession by an evil, melancholy spirit and David, by playing the harp, had been able to exorcise it.

Now, with her own evil, melancholy spirit set ravening by the outcome of the Blackfriars trial and the prospect of further waiting, she sent for Mark.

He was a shy, awkward young man, with a peasant’s blunt features, slow speech, big hands and feet. Nobody who had not heard him perform could have believed that those hands could be so delicate, so nimble, so expert. In other ways, too, his bucolic appearance was deceptive; he was excitable, easily moved to tears or laughter, and very vulnerable to pain. He would cry like a child if a tooth ached.

What she said to him that morning was said partly from kindness, but in far greater measure from a need to assert herself.

She said, “Mark, I should like you to play for me. And before you begin, I want you to know that in future you are to be my own, personal musician. What other tasks you have hitherto performed are ended. You may get yourself fitted for a black velvet suit and rank as one of the gentlemen of my household.”

It was his wildest, most impossible-seeming ambition come true. He broke down and cried, protesting his undying gratitude, his loyalty and service forever. He used the words, “When you are Queen…” which none of those who knew her mind ever did; and he said it would give him joy to die for her. She made allowance for his delight and surprise, and for the over-enthusiasm that so often went with great talent, but even so it was tedious. She said, coolly,

“I trust that will not be necessary, Mark. And now, please play.”

He then looked at her with the baffled, hurt expression of a dog that has been chided and wonders why.