The Taming of the Queen Read online

  He snaps his fingers for his page who is waiting in the doorway. The youth comes forward and takes the king’s weight on his shoulder. ‘I will leave you to your amusements. You did not have sunny mornings and little birds when you were married to old Latimer.’

  ‘Indeed, I did not.’ I am thinking desperately how to ask him about Thomas. ‘Are we in danger, lord husband?’

  ‘Of course we are, and it’s all his fault. I shall command the Privy Council to try Tom Seymour for treason for the reckless loss of my fleet.’

  The cock bird flutters to the top of one of the cages, alarmed by the king’s rough tone, so I am able to turn my face away and say lightly: ‘Surely he cannot be guilty of treason? He has been such a good and loyal servant to you, and you have always loved him.’

  ‘I’ll have that handsome head on a spike,’ he says with sudden cold violence. ‘Would you take a wager on it?’ and he goes out of the door.

  Silently, like a ghost, I make my way to the king’s side of the old palace. Nobody is with me. I told my ladies that I had a headache and would lie down and sleep, then I slipped from my bedroom to make my way to the king’s rooms, through the small winding galleries to the secret door into his bedroom, then through his deserted privy chambers to his inner presence chamber where the Privy Council meet. It is like my dream, creeping about on my own, seen by no-one. I could be climbing a dark stair, in a silent tower. It is like my dream in the quiet rooms with no-one here. There is no guard on the door between the inner presence chamber and the empty rooms. I can stand outside the door and listen to what they say. I swear to myself that if I hear them say that they will arrest Thomas I will send a message to warn him, whatever the risk. I cannot stand by, struck dumb with fear, when the king takes bets about putting his head on a spike on London Bridge.

  His brother, Edward, speaks up for him. I can hear him reading aloud from a letter Thomas has sent defending himself. Edward’s voice is clear and I can make out every word through the thick door.

  ‘And look here,’ Edward says. ‘Let me read you this, Your Majesty. Thomas writes:

  Call all the masters and captains that were in this journey and if any of them are able to say that we might lay longer in Dover Road, the Downes, or Bollen Rode as the wind did change, without putting ourselves and the king’s ships in greater danger then let me bear the blame, and if we have done but as the weather would serve I should desire your lordships to blame the weather and let me, with the rest in my company be excused to encourage us to serve on the sea another time . . .’

  ‘Oh, he writes a good letter,’ Henry grumbles. ‘Nobody ever said he was lacking in charm. But how many ships are missing?’

  ‘It is the mischance of war,’ Edward replies. I hear the crackle of the paper as he slides the letter across the table for the king to read. ‘Nobody knows better than Your Majesty the dangers a man may run when he goes to war. You, who have sailed to France in the most hazardous weather! Thomas is lucky to report to a king who knows better than any other in Christendom what dangers a brave man has to face. You have been in terrible danger, Your Majesty. You know how a man of courage has to throw the dice and hope that it falls his way. It is the very essence of chivalry – the chivalry that you love so well – that a man takes his life in his hands to serve you.’

  ‘He was reckless,’ the king says flatly.

  ‘In a season of storms,’ I hear the old Duke of Norfolk Thomas Howard’s rumbling complaint. ‘Madness to go out! Why could he not wait for spring, as we always do? Typical of a Seymour that he thought he could outrun an autumn wind.’

  ‘The coast has to be defended against the French,’ John Dudley intervenes. ‘And the French are not waiting for fair weather. He couldn’t risk leaving our fleet in port. What if they had attacked? He writes that their barges can bombard from a distance, they can go among moored ships with or without wind. They carry weapons, they are rowed by their crew and they can make war in any season in any water. He had to destroy them before they invaded us.’

  I hear the king’s thick hacking cough and his juicy hawk and spit. ‘You all seem satisfied with his conduct,’ he says grudgingly.

  I hear a protesting bark from Henry Howard.

  ‘All except the Howards and their party,’ the king says grimly. ‘As usual.’

  ‘Certainly there was no deliberate attempt to risk the fleet,’ someone points out.

  ‘Well, I am not satisfied,’ says Stephen Gardiner. ‘Clearly he has been reckless. Clearly, he should be punished.’

  ‘Easy to say from a warm fireside,’ Edward mutters.

  I hold my breath. Thomas’ popularity with the court is playing in his favour, and besides, everybody knows that he is risking his life at sea while they are dry-shod.

  ‘He can keep his commission,’ Henry decides. ‘Make sure you tell him I am most displeased. He must come and report to me himself.’

  I hear the scrape of his chair and the rustle of the strewing herbs as he struggles to rise and the Privy Council jump to their feet and two of them go to help him. At once I tiptoe, silently in my leather slippers, away from the door, through the inner privy chamber, and I am about to run through the king’s bedroom when I freeze in sudden terror.

  There is someone in the room. I see a silent figure, seated in the window seat, knees folded up to his chin, in sunshine now where he was hidden in shadow before. A spy, a silent spy, who has been frozen like a statue, watching me. It is Will Somers, the king’s Fool. He must have seen me creep in, he must have watched me listening at the door, and now he sees me hurrying back to my own rooms, a guilty wife tiptoeing through her husband’s bedroom.

  He raises his dark eyes to me and sees the naked guilt on my face.

  ‘Will . . .’

  He makes an exaggerated comical start as if he has seen me for the first time, a great Fool’s leap of surprise that sends him bounding from his seat to tumble to the floor. If I were not so afraid, I would have laughed out loud.

  ‘Will . . .’ I whisper urgently. ‘Don’t fool now.’

  ‘Is that you? I thought you were a ghost,’ he exclaims quietly. ‘A ghost of a queen.’

  ‘I was listening for plans. I am afraid for the Princess Mary,’ I say quickly. ‘I fear that she will be married against her will . . .’

  He shakes his head, choosing to ignore the lie. ‘I have seen too many queens,’ he says. ‘And too many of them are ghosts now. I don’t want to see a queen in danger; I don’t want to see another ghost. Indeed, I swear that I won’t see one. Not even one.’

  ‘You did not see me?’ I ask, catching his meaning.

  ‘I did not see you, nor Kitty Howard creeping down the stairs in her nightgown, nor Anne of Cleves, pretty as her portrait, crying at her bedroom door. I am a Fool, not a guard. I don’t have to see things, and I am forbidden to understand them. There’s no point in me reporting them. Who would listen to a Fool? And so God bless.’

  ‘God bless you, Will,’ I say fervently, and melt through the doorway into the king’s bedroom and through the private corridor to the safety of my own rooms.

  WHITEHALL PALACE, LONDON, SPRING 1545

  The cold wet days of this early spring seem to last for ever, as if there never will be warm days of summer. The light gets brighter in the mornings and the daffodils flower coldly on the banks of the river, but the gardens are wet, and the city outside the great walls of the palace is awash: the ill-drained streets flooded with cold, dirty water. When we ride there is no pleasure in it, for the horses labour in the mud, and the frozen rain comes in scuds into our faces. We come home early, hunched in the saddle, chilled and bedraggled.

  Trapped indoors by days of rain, my ladies and I continue our studies, reading texts from the Bible and translating them, both as practice for our Latin and as a stimulus to thoughtful discussions on the meanings of the words. I notice that I have become more and more aware of the sonorous beauty of the Bible, the music of the language, the rhythm of the punctuation