Philippa Gregory 3-Book Tudor Collection 1 Read online

  In the middle days of March she swallowed her pride and sent me to summon our uncle.

  ‘I cannot come now, I have some business to attend to. You may tell the queen I will come to her this afternoon.’

  ‘I did not think that one could tell a queen to wait,’ I observed.

  In the afternoon when he came, Anne greeted him without any sign of displeasure and drew him into the bay of a window so that they might talk alone. I was close enough to hear them speak, though neither of them ever raised their voices above a polite hiss.

  ‘I need your help against the Seymours,’ she said. ‘We have to get rid of Jane.’

  He shrugged regretfully. ‘My niece, you have not always been as helpful to me as I might have wished. There was a moment only a little while ago when you accused me to the king himself. If you were no longer queen I do not think you could become a Howard again.’

  ‘I am a Boleyn girl, a Howard girl,’ she whispered, her hand on the golden ‘B’ at her throat.

  ‘There are many Howard girls,’ he said easily. ‘My wife the duchess keeps house with half a dozen of them at Lambeth, cousins of yours, all as pretty as you, as Mary, as Madge. All as high-spirited, as hot-blooded. When he is weary of a milksop there will be a Howard girl to warm his bed, there always will be another one.’

  ‘But I am the queen! Not another girl in waiting.’

  He nodded. ‘I will make you an offer. If George gets the Order of the Garter in April then I will stand by you. See if you can achieve that for the family and we will see what the family can do for you.’

  She hesitated. ‘I can ask it for him.’

  ‘Do that,’ my uncle counselled. ‘If you can bring some good to the family then we can make a new contract with you, defend you against your enemies. But this time you must remember, Anne, who your master is.’

  She bit the inside of her lip against defiance, she curtsied to him, and she kept her head down.

  On 23 April the king gave the Order of the Garter to Sir Nicholas Carew, a friend of the Seymours, nominated by them. My brother George was overlooked. That night at the feast given to celebrate the new awards, my uncle and Sir John Seymour were seated side by side to share a trencher of good meats, and got on together wonderfully well.

  Next day Jane Seymour was sitting with us in the queen’s apartments for once, and so the queen’s rooms were abuzz with the full complement of the court. The musicians had been called, there was to be dancing. The king was not expected, Anne had challenged him to a game of cards and he had replied coolly that he was much engaged with business.

  ‘What’s he doing?’ she asked George when he came to her with the king’s refusal.

  ‘I don’t know. He’s seeing the bishops. And he’s seeing most of the lords one by one.’

  ‘About me?’

  Carefully, neither of them looked towards Jane who was the centre of attention in the queen’s own rooms.

  ‘I don’t know,’ George said miserably. ‘I suppose I’d be the last to know. But he did ask what men visit you daily.’

  Anne looked quite blank. ‘Well, they all do,’ she said. ‘I am the queen.’

  ‘Certain names have been mentioned,’ George said. ‘Henry and Francis among them.’

  Anne laughed. ‘Henry Norris haunts the court for the benefit of Madge.’ She turned around and saw him leaning over Madge’s shoulder ready to turn the page for her as she sang. ‘Sir Henry! Come here, if you please!’

  With a word to Madge he came across to the queen and dropped with mock gallantry to one knee. ‘I obey!’ he said.

  ‘It is time you were married, Sir Henry,’ Anne said with pretended severity. ‘I cannot have you hanging about my rooms bringing me into disrepute. You must make Madge an offer, I won’t have my ladies other than perfectly behaved.’

  He laughed outright, as well he might at the thought of Madge being perfectly behaved.

  ‘She is my shield. My heart yearns elsewhere.’

  Anne shook her head. ‘I don’t want pretty speeches,’ she said. ‘You must make a proposal of marriage to Madge and have done.’

  ‘She is the moon but you are the sun,’ Henry replied.

  I rolled my eyes at George.

  ‘Don’t you sometimes want to kick him?’ he whispered loudly.

  ‘The man’s an idiot,’ I said. ‘And this will get us nowhere.’

  ‘I cannot offer Mistress Shelton a whole heart and so I will offer her none,’ Henry said, rescuing himself from a whole tangle of politesse. ‘My heart belongs to the queen of all the hearts of England.’

  ‘Thank you,’ Anne said shortly. ‘You can go back to turning pages for the moon.’

  Norris laughed, got to his feet and kissed her hand. ‘But I cannot afford gossip in my rooms,’ Anne warned. ‘The king has turned severe since his fall.’

  Norris kissed her hand again. ‘You shall never have grounds for complaint of me,’ he promised her. ‘I would lay down my life for you.’

  He minced back to Madge who looked up and met my eye. I made a grimace at her and she grinned back. Nothing would ever make that girl behave like a lady.

  George leaned over Anne’s shoulder. ‘You can’t scotch rumours one by one. You have to live as though none of them matter at all.’

  ‘I will scotch every single one,’ she swore. ‘And you find who the king is meeting, and what they are saying about me.’

  George could not discover what was happening. He sent me to my father who only looked away and told me to ask my uncle for news. I found my uncle in the stable yard, looking over a new mare he was thinking of buying. The April sunshine was hot in the sheltered yard. I waited in the shade of the gateway until he was done, then I drew close to him.

  ‘Uncle, the king seems much engaged with Master Cromwell, and with the Master Treasurer, and with you. The queen is wondering what business is taking so much time.’

  For once he did not turn from me with his bitter smile. He looked me straight in the face and his dark eyes were filled with something I had never seen in him before: pity.

  ‘I should get your son home from his tutors,’ he advised quietly. ‘He is taught with Henry Norris’s boy at the Cistercians, is he not?’

  ‘Yes,’ I said, confused at the change of tack.

  ‘I should have nothing to do with Norris, or Brereton, or Weston, or Wyatt, if I were you. And if they sent any letters to you, or love poems or nonsense or tokens, I should burn them.’

  ‘I am a married woman, and I love my husband,’ I said, bewildered.

  ‘That is your safeguard,’ he agreed. ‘Now go. What I know could not help you, and it burdens me alone. Go, Mary. But if I were you I would get both my children into my keeping. And I would leave court.’

  I did not go to George and Anne who were anxiously waiting for me, I went straight to the king’s rooms to find my husband. He was waiting in the presence chamber, the king was in his private rooms with the inner core of advisors that had kept him busy indoors for all these spring days. As soon as William saw me enter he came across the room and led me into the corridor.

  ‘Bad news?’

  ‘No news at all, it is like a riddle.’

  ‘Whose riddle is it?’

  ‘My uncle’s. He tells me to have nothing to do with Henry Norris, William Brereton, Francis Weston or Thomas Wyatt. When I said I did not, he told me to take Henry away from his tutors and keep my children by me and leave court.’

  William thought for a moment. ‘Where’s the riddle?’

  ‘In what he means.’

  He shook his head. ‘Your uncle would always be a riddle to me,’ he said. ‘I shan’t think what he means, I shall act on his advice. I shall go at once and fetch Henry home to us.’

  In two strides he was back in the king’s room, he touched a man on his arm and asked him to excuse him if the king called for him, he would be back within four days. Then he was out in the corridor with me, striding towards the stairs so fast that I had to run