The Concubine (32 page)

He could justifiably have pleaded his lameness as an excuse for not visiting her, but something impelled him to go. Supported by Norris and leaning on a stout staff he hobbled along to her room. Her drained face looked very sallow against the whiteness of the pillows, and her hair was limp and damp, like the coat of a drowned animal. He felt nothing but disgust and hatred, and his first words were brutal,

“So you lost my boy!”

“It was the shock my uncle of Norfolk gave me. He told me that you were dead.”

“And if I had been, wasn’t that all the more reason for holding on to the child?”

“If willing could have done it, I would. You should know that.”

“Well, you’ll get no more boys from me!” That was what he had come to say. He wanted to hurt her, wanted to see her wince and begin to weep. She merely looked at him and with out any perceptible movement of lip or eye, contrived to convey an expression of mockery. He turned away abruptly and limped from the room.

In the anteroom of his own apartments he found the Duke of Norfolk, Cromwell, and Sir Thomas Audley, his new Chancellor, awaiting him; he’d summoned them earlier in the day. He greeted them gruffly and passed on into his audience chamber where he sat down heavily in his chair and stuck his injured leg straight out, waiting until Norris had arranged the stool.

“You’d better all sit down,” he said. “I have something of some importance to communicate to you.”

The Duke of Norfolk, ever since the day of the King’s fall, had lived in a state of acute apprehension. Sooner or later, he was certain, he was going to bear the brunt of the blame for the catastrophe. Emma’s words still rang in his ears; if nobody else had seen the connection, she had, and she’d talk; rung by rung that talk would mount. It would come to the King’s ear, and then…

It might be now. In the presence of his Chief Secretary and his Chancellor, the King might point the finger and say, “
You
killed my son!”

And what the punishment would be was past the mind of man to imagine. The King enraged could devise fearful punishments. Norfolk had never, in these few days, ceased to think about what had happened to a few Carthusian monks in the previous year. They had merely asked Cromwell for advice on what attitude they should take to the Oath of Allegiance; and for that, by no standards a crime, they had been taken to New-gate, put into iron collars, and fettered, and so stood, without food or water until they died. Norfolk carried, in his pouch, ready to hand, three pills, each one guaranteed to kill a man. There had been four, but he’d tried one out on an old servant who was always complaining of the stiffness of his joints. Take this, he’d said, and see what it will do for you. He’d been dead before his master had counted to two hundred and twenty. When the finger pointed, Norfolk would swallow the pills.

“This latest disaster,” Henry said, “has shown me where I stand. This marriage is as cursed as my former one.”

There was a silence. To Audley and Cromwell the announcement came as a surprise, to Norfolk as a relief. Vengeance was to be wreaked, not upon him, but upon his niece.

Cromwell, the lawyer, said in a tentative way, “Your Grace, it was regarded as a legal marriage.”

“By some!”

He remembered, unwillingly, a few of those who had refused to acknowledge its legality. Fisher, More whose heads had rotted on Tower Bridge, and Catherine…But the memory, instead of softening his temper hardened it. They were all fellow victims.

“A man is the best judge of his own marriage, and this I
know!
I was seduced by witchcraft into making it, and it has brought me, and this country, nothing but woe.”

Cromwell thought—Last time it was his conscience, and my master, Wolsey, fell, tripped on his conscience. I shall not trip over this superstitious rubbish. Put into plain English, he wants to marry Jane Seymour and that suits me well. We’re related by marriage, and if I help with this the whole family will have reason to be grateful to me.

Audley thought—Wolsey held the Seal and opposed him, and was disgraced; More held the Seal and opposed him and was beheaded. They were both brilliant men, while I can claim no more than my share of good common sense; whatever he proposes, I shall go with him.

Norfolk thought—I’ve had a lucky escape; he’s blaming circumstance, not me. But this talk of witchcraft, no, I don’t like that. Open to ridicule.

Henry looked at their faces, all at that moment bearing a strong resemblance to one another, well-fed, molded by self-interest, calculating, shrewd, and wearing expressions of consternation.

He said, “Well?”

A ghost with a very similar face moved in the shadows.

Nobody wished to be the first to speak; nobody knew what, exactly, to suggest. Only Norfolk, with his plain man’s ability to focus attention on one thing at a time, ventured to decry the King’s suggestion without offering an alternative.

“I must beg Your Grace to abandon the thought of witchcraft. Nobody believes in witches nowadays, and to mention the word in such a connection would make us all the laughingstock of Christendom.”

“No new experience for me,” Henry said sourly. “And why
nowadays
when everybody has a smuggled Bible. Witches are mentioned
there
. It says distinctly enough—‘Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.’”

So that was it! He wanted her dead.

For a little while nobody spoke and no man looked at another.

Then at last Norfolk said, “I am sorry, sire, but as a reason that will not do. It would be such bad policy. I beg you to consider. There are so many things these days, things people have believed in for hundreds of years, contemptuously dismissed as superstition. Our Lady’s blood at Walsingham—that is superstition; how can we turn about and ask people to believe that a girl, by witchcraft, cast a spell over the King of England?”

Henry glared at him.

“Not so long since when I talked with you on the matter, I suggested two other reasons, and you scoffed at both. I’m beginning to suspect that, despite all your protests to the contrary, you are interested in keeping your niece where she is.”

“As God is my judge, that is not so. Rid yourself of her, but let it be for some reason which any man of good sense can accept. And,” he added, remembering their former conversation, “one that does Your Grace’s reputation no damage.”

“Name one,” Henry said challengingly. He looked from one face to another. “Name me one.”

Cromwell said, “I beg Your Grace’s indulgence, but it seems that I—I do not know about Sir Thomas Audley—am not fully informed. Your Grace and His Grace of Norfolk have formerly discussed this matter?”

“I know nothing of it,” Audley muttered.

“I spoke of it, last summer. To
you
,” Henry said, swinging his stare to Norfolk. “And you opposed me and gave me a lot of advice which I followed to the letter. And with what result? Another stillborn boy! Is that, or is it not, plain proof of God’s displeasure?”

A great dark wave of depression swamped him and he looked at the three men with hatred. His premier Duke, his Chancellor, his Chief Secretary, and not a glimmer of understanding among the three of them. How would they feel in his place? A king without an heir, with a wife he hated, a sweetheart he longed to marry. And a bad leg!

He said, suddenly malicious,

“I shall retire now, and have some attention from Dr. Butts. This plaster is worse than the wound. I’ve told you what I want. You sit here and thresh it out. When you hit upon something that my lord of Norfolk can bring himself to approve, come and lay it before me.”

Cromwell, the lawyer took charge.

“My lord, this conversation which took place last summer, the remedies for his case which His Grace suggested and you scoffed at, could you enlighten us thereupon?”

Norfolk gave as detailed an account of the conversation as he could. His feeling of guilt over the miscarriage, and the King’s accusation about his wishing to keep Anne as Queen, had shattered even his monumental self-confidence and he was pitiably grateful when, at the end of his account, Cromwell said,

“And you were right. As you were right about the witchcraft. And right, too, about any damage to His Grace’s reputation. These are tricky times. The country is in a state of ferment, one false move now…? He made a movement of his hand.

Audley said, “But the Queen was never popular, not as the Princess Dowager was. I think, given adequate reason, the people would accept her disposal. I agree with my Lord of Norfolk that witchcraft is ridiculous, and that nobody wishes to hear any more about precontract, or consanguinity. So what have we left?”

The answer formed itself, out of thin air.

Adultery!

Not one of them had actually moved, yet they seemed to have drawn together, and Norfolk when next he spoke did so almost in a whisper.

“Against a woman one charge is always feasible, and as often as not, justified.”

“It means naming a man,” Audley said. “What man?”

“There,” Norfolk said, “is the irony. My sister is dead, so I will only say that she was notoriously flighty; Mary we all know about; but Anne, though they call her witch and poisoner, has never, so far as I know, been accused of laxity.”

“That need be no stumbling block,” Audley said. “A simple matter of accusing some man and then extracting a confession. Someone of small importance for preference. Less fuss.”

At the back of Cromwell’s mind a memory scratched, like a dog seeking admission at a closed door. Shy though, and elusive, sidling away as he sought to call it in. It would come back, as such things often did, just before he fell asleep.

He said, “Such a scheme involves the King admitting to being cuckolded. I doubt if that will be to his liking.”

“Rats caught in traps have been known to gnaw off a leg to get free,” Norfolk said brutally. “What other way is open that involves no long-drawn-out litigation, or, and this matters more, loss of popularity for him. The Princess Dowager’s death has stirred many memories, the stillborn boy has started tongues clacking. Now this! Next time he draws attention to his matrimonial affairs it would be strongly advisable that he should appear as the injured party,
deeply
injured and compelled to take action.”

Audley said, “With that I agree.”

Cromwell said, “It is indisputable.”

Audley was also trying to remember something; a bit of kitchen gossip, little minded at the time. It came back to him; he exclaimed, “I have it!” and then, as the other two men looked at him as though in expectation of a solution of the whole problem, what he had heard seemed so small and frail that he hesitated to expose it. It was a reported speech, and so out of character with the speaker that it seemed very little to go upon. On the other hand, plainly they were here to make a case out of nothing, and this, frail as it was, was better than nothing. Still, he framed what he had to say as a question rather than a statement.

“Did you ever hear something that the Lady Mary is reported to have said when informed of the birth of Princess Elizabeth?”

Instantly the thing which had been scratching at the door of Cromwell’s mind came trotting in and settled. But in accordance with his usual policy of caution he said,

“It has momentarily escaped me. What was it?”

Norfolk answered. “I remember it. She said, ‘And whom does she resemble? Her father, Mark Smeaton?’ Is that what you have in mind, Audley?”

Smeaton. Cromwell could see the name and the few words before and after it, standing out from thousands of words that he had read on that same day. “Lord Rochfort said that Smeaton was a poor oaf and was in love with the Lady.”

He said, “Ah, yes. I remember that, too. But a querulous question, asked in a moment of chagrin, is not evidence, you know.” And nor were a few words exchanged by uncommitted persons and overheard by a spy.

“It’s something to start with,” Audley said. “I think we must bear in mind that within a short time His Grace has suffered a severe disappointment over this stillborn boy, and a physical injury. He told us, just now, what he wished, and left it to us to find a means of attaining his wish. I think that we should give some proof that we are endeavoring to do so.”

“I agree,” Norfolk said. “But even you must see that it would be worse than useless to go to him now and say that we have decided that the best thing for him to do is to play the cuckold. He’s like me, a blunt man, no good at dissembling. We must play for time. Say that we are on the track of something that will set him free and lose him no jot of popularity. That should content him for a little. Then the day will come and he will ask, “What?” and then we tell him that it may be possible to prove the Queen an adulteress. What he says then must determine our course.” He added cynically, “My niece may in the meantime have recovered her health, dressed her hair in some new fashion, and renewed the spell he spoke of. We mustn’t be hasty.”

No, they were agreed there; a show of activity, of willingness, but no haste.

Yet something had been decided, without debate, without a moment’s consideration. Mark Smeaton was the man.

M
ARK SMEATON, DRESSED IN HIS
best, arrived at Cromwell’s house in Stepney, exactly on the stroke of noon. He had been invited to dine with the King’s chief minister, an honor which fell to few men and which was a tribute paid to his genius.

Delighted as he was by the invitation he did not imagine that Cromwell had asked him solely for his company. He was probably planning some grand entertainment for the coming summer and needed expert advice about the music. But—and this was the delightful part—any ordinary musician of lowly birth would have been told to wait upon the Chief Secretary at nine in the morning, and if he were lucky, be given leave to refresh himself at the buttery on his way out. Mark Smeaton was asked to dine. That was the first token of recognition that had ever come to him from the outside world; it would not, he felt, be the last.

It was the Queen who had first seen in him something out of the ordinary, and for that, as well as other reasons, he loved her. He could not, of course, still worship her as goddess of purity; her first pregnancy had destroyed that bit of fantasy, but he had quickly—to save his reason—built himself another. She was Henry’s unwilling wife; her changing moods, her silences, her wistful looks all stemmed from unhappiness. She was actually in love with him herself, as he was in love with her. But it was a secret, never to be acknowledged even when they were alone together. Once, and once only, he had attempted to speak to her about it and she had rebuffed him; he’d wept over the rebuff until he had thought about it enough to convince himself that she was right. She was wise, she knew the value of silence and secrecy in a love affair which must always remain a thing of the heart and mind.

To walk along ordinary streets made him feel strange. For years now his life had consisted of his music, and his dreams; he was out of touch with reality. Around the Court he was known and nobody wondered if sometimes he stood stock-still, staring into space; if necessary they’d say, “Wake up, Smeaton,” or joke, “Thinking of a fine tune!” Here in the noisy streets he was jostled; and once a woman with a basket of fish said, “Look where you walk, can’t yer?” in a railing tone.

The great house, when he reached it, seemed oddly deserted. He had heard that Cromwell, warned by Wolsey’s fall from high estate, lived comparatively modestly; still everyone had servants, and a man of such importance, in a house of this size, must have many. The tall doors, as was customary, stood open, and beyond them the entrance hall was unattended. Surely an invitation to thieves. But while he stood, hesitant, for a moment, a man appeared, from nowhere it seemed; a steward to judge from his black clothes and gold chain. He asked, “Master Smeaton?” and then led the way upstairs, through several well-furnished rooms, none of them occupied, down a few stairs and into a passage, and finally into a room of very moderate size, bare-walled, stone-floored and meagerly furnished with a table against the wall and a few chairs. It had one small window, so high, ill-placed, and thickly barred that on this bright May morning the room seemed full of chill twilight; it was a second before Mark realized that Cromwell was in the room, on the side away from the window, and in his dark clothes, almost lost in the shadow.

The steward said, “Master Smeaton, my lord,” and went away, closing the door behind him.

Cromwell came forward a little; he did not smile, or offer his hand. He stood there looking at his visitor with that most disconcerting of all stares, the one that travels from head to foot and back again, seeming to assess the quality of one’s clothing, to measure one’s height, judge one’s status.

The stare unnerved Smeaton, especially when across the hard face that looked as though it had been carved from mutton fat there drifted a look of pity. I’ve made a muddle, come on the wrong day, at the wrong time, Smeaton thought. He said, with the little stammer that came upon him when he was nervous,

“Y-you were expecting m-me, my lord?”

“Oh yes, I was expecting you,” Cromwell said in a heavy voice which did nothing to put Smeaton at ease.

And then suddenly he had what he thought was the explanation, of the deserted house, of the strange reception. Of course! May Day, when all servants expected to have leave to go and gather garlands, if female to wash their faces in dew, to attend the many May Day Fairs. And perhaps a gentleman accustomed to dining out would know that on May Day one should not be too punctual. By arriving before the board was set he had betrayed a lack of worldliness—and that accounted for the pitying look. Poor fellow, he doesn’t know the rules.

“I h-hope that I am not t-too early.”

“Oh no. Not by a moment. We are ready for you. Be seated.”

He had been asked to dine, and one chair stood near the table, so diffidently, he began to move toward it.

“No, not there,” Cromwell said. “Here!”

It was like one of those sleeping dreams when everything seems a little wrong, out of shape. The chair Cromwell indicated was the best in the room, a big chair with carved arms and legs. Taking it, Smeaton carefully spread out the skirts of his new tunic. Cromwell seated himself in another chair, almost opposite, and as soon as he had done so the door opened and the steward came in, followed by two men of inferior sort, coarse looking fellows in buff breeches and jerkins. They brought no dishes. The steward carried writing equipment which he placed on the table before sitting down on the chair nearby.

Cromwell said, “I asked you to dinner, Smeaton, and that was no empty invitation. A good dinner is preparing and you will be very welcome to it when you have answered a few questions which I am compelled to ask you. I hope you will be frank because this is a distasteful business to me and I shall be glad to have it over as soon as may be.”

It was at this point that Smeaton remembered that Cromwell had been very ill. He had taken to his bed, seeing no one, and for one period of four days had refused all food and drink. Maybe his brain had been affected.

“I shall be pleased to answer anything you ask—that is if I have the ability,” Smeaton said.

“Good. Now, your name is Mark Smeaton. Are you known, or have you ever been known, by any other name?”

A crazy question; but he answered it with truth, reluctantly. “A few people call me Marks. They are ill-natured or jealous and it pleases them to pretend that I am a Jew. But my true name is Mark Smeaton.”

“And you are the Queen’s musician?”

“I am. But that you know, my lord.”

From behind him there came the unmistakable sound of a quill at work. He twisted his head and saw the man he had thought a steward writing quickly, finish a word and pause, quill poised.

Cromwell said, “As you shall presently see, this conversation is of more importance than may at first appear. The gist of it is being taken down.”

Smeaton was becoming more and more confused. He was accustomed to finding the outer world—the world outside his music and his dreams—a strange and alien place and other people’s behavior unaccountable, but now he felt that he was the one sane person in a world gone crazy. He’d been asked here to dine; he had expected to discuss music.

“Now a moment ago,” Cromwell began again, “you used the word ‘jealous.’ Who is jealous of you? And why?”

Smeaton had watched, always from a distance, a number of petty Court intrigues and jostlings for place. It occurred to him that before Cromwell asked his advice he was, like a cautious man, making certain that he was not involved in anything, such as a quarrel, which might bring difficulties later on. It seemed a roundabout, ponderous way of getting at the truth, but then Cromwell was a lawyer and they had their peculiar ways.

“Maybe I exaggerated in using that word, my lord. The fact is that I am a professional musician; many gentlemen about the Court are musicians, too, gifted, but amateurs. There is a difference which they are sometimes reluctant to recognize.”

“Naturally. And who are these gentlemen?”

He saw no reason not to give their names. Everyone knew. The grubbiest little page after six months at Court could have answered that question.

“Chiefly of the King’s household. Sir Harry Norris. Sir Francis Weston, Master William Brereton—and perhaps most of all Her Grace’s brother, Lord Rochfort, Sir Thomas Wyatt, too. I often set his words to music and there is the usual dispute as to what makes a good song.”

“There is then, some jealousy; and a certain element of competition?”

“Yes. But it does no harm. It…it improves the standard of all our work.”

“And the aim of it all is to please Her Grace?”

“It is indeed!”

“Should I be correct in saying that of them all you please her best?”

“That, my lord, is what gives rise to the dispute. We are all most anxious to please her. And often, yes, often my performance does give her most pleasure. Which is not to be wondered at. I am able to devote my whole time and attention to my music; the others have other duties.”

“And you all desire to please her because you love her?”

“That is so.”

“You love Her Grace?”

“With all my heart. She has no more devoted servant than I…”

Suddenly he had another idea as to where all this might be leading. There was no ignoring the fact that since her miscarriage the Queen had been out of favor, and some people had begun to drift away; there’d been fewer visitors, almost no gifts lately. Did Cromwell think that he, Mark Smeaton, was likely to desert Anne and run after the rising star of Seymour? He, who if she were left with only one friend in all the world, would be that one!

“Does anyone question my loyalty?” he asked, dropping his diffident manner. “Tell me his name, my lord, and I’ll throw the lie in his teeth, whoever he is.” Cromwell noticed for the first time the size and power of the hands which had guided a plow, the powerful peasant shoulders under the silk tunic.

“Gently,” he said, rather as a man might speak to a restive horse. “Your devotion was never in doubt. How does the Queen feel toward you?”

“She approves of my music. She appointed me to be her personal musician.”

“Does she love you?” The little question was slipped in with such a casual air that it seemed of no importance at all.

“As much as a Queen can ever love a mere musician.”

Cromwell shifted a little in his chair. For a second Smeaton thought that he was preparing to rise, that this odd little inquisition was over. And he had, he felt, established his exact status. Now for dinner and the real business of the day.

But the Chief Secretary had settled again.

“So far, good,” he said. And even into Smeaton’s unrealistic mind was borne the impression that up to now they had been merely skirmishing. Now what? The whole room seemed to close in, to grow darker, to wait.

“Now tell me, Smeaton. How much can a Queen love a mere musician?”

This question verged upon that secret, private life; he must be careful.

“She is always gracious and kind.”

“Never more than kind?”

“I don’t know what you mean by that, my lord?”

“I think you do. You are reputed to be reasonably intelligent. I hasten to assure you that everyone in this room has been chosen for his discretion, so you may speak freely and without embarrassment. I asked—Never more than kind?”

“Never. As you mean it.”

“Ah! So you do know what I mean? So that there may be no doubt, I will put the question in another way. Have you and the Queen ever had guilty intercourse?”

“Never! It is unthinkable! Whoever imagined it possible is my enemy—or, or hers!” And what a vile, what a deadly enemy.

“I can understand that you have been about the Court long enough to have acquired some notions of chivalry. One does not betray a lady. I advise you to abandon that notion—it is little more than a myth, anyway. I realize, too, that a man’s memory can be faulty. So will you look back and try to remember and bear in mind that to tell the truth cannot harm, and may benefit you. Has the Queen ever committed adultery with you, Smeaton?”

“Never. As I hope for Heaven hereafter. Never.”

“Then your memory is at fault.” As he spoke Cromwell nodded and the buff-clad men moved forward. Smeaton struggled with them, with the desperate ferocity of a wildcat, but they were two to one, and in a few seconds they had him helpless in the big chair, his arms tied to its arms, his legs to its legs. Then one of them placed a ring of thick knotted cord about his head; an exact fit until a stick was pushed between it and his skull; then it was tight.

And now the whole wicked scheme was plain before his eyes. Well, they had chosen badly. He would never blacken her name, whatever they did to him. He’d die first.

He would have died. Had they taken a sword and threatened to run him through, or held a club ready to dash out his brains he would have died, saying, “No. Never.”

“I will repeat the question. Has the Queen ever committed adultery with you?”

“No.”

Another nod; the stick was twisted and the cord tightened. The knots bit home, and pain ran, in little pointed spears, down into his eyes, his nose, his ears, and the back of his neck.

“Has she?”

“No.”

A nod; a twist. He heard the skin split with little explosive sounds under each knot, and the blood began to flow, slow and sticky.