The King's Curse Read online

  The queen’s ladies, delighted to return to England away from the hotly competitive French court, flaunt their French fashions and practice their French dances. Some of them have even assumed French accents that I find ridiculous, but are generally regarded as very sophisticated—or as they would say themselves: très chic. The most exotic and certainly the vainest of them all is Anne Boleyn, sister to Mary and George, who, thanks to her father’s charm, has spent her childhood at the French royal courts and quite forgotten any English modesty that she might have had. With her return from France we now have Sir Thomas’s full family at court: George Boleyn, his son who has served the king for almost all of his life; Elizabeth, his wife; and his newly married daughter Mary, who both serve with me in the queen’s rooms.

  My cousin the Duke of Buckingham is increasingly excluded from this French-mad, fashion-mad court, and he is more protective of his family dignity, for my daughter Ursula has given him a grandson, and there is a new little Henry Stafford whose cradle linen is all embroidered with ducal strawberry leaves, and the duke is proud of another generation bearing royal blood.

  There is one truly terrible moment when the king, washing his hands in a golden bowl before his dinner, steps to his throne under his cloth of estate and sits as the cardinal summons the server to his side, and dips his own fingers into the same gold bowl, into the king’s water. My cousin the duke bellows and knocks the bowl down, splashing water over the long red robes, raging like a madman. Henry turns at the noise, looks over his shoulder, and laughs as if it does not matter.

  My cousin says something furious about how the dignity of the throne should not be usurped by upstarts, and Henry’s laugh stops short as he looks at my cousin. He looks at him with a long, level look as if he is thinking about something other than the spinning golden bowl which throws flashes of reflected light on the king’s riding boots, the cardinal’s splashed robe, my cousin’s stamping feet. For a moment, we all see it: at the word upstart Henry has the guarded, suspicious expression of his father.

  I take leave from court for many of the days of this spring. I divide my time between supervising work on my London house, L’Erber, and staying with the Princess Mary. My duties as her Lady Governess should not really start until she enters the schoolroom, but she is such a clever little girl that I want her to begin lessons early and I love to read her bedtime story, to listen to her sing, to teach her prayers, and to dance with her in her rooms as my musicians play.

  I am excused from court as the queen does not need me. She is happy in her rooms with her music and her reading, dining every night with the king and watching her ladies dance. She likes to know I am with her daughter, and often visits. The king is absorbed in a new flirtation but it is such a discreet affair that we only guess at it because he is writing love poetry, and every afternoon finds him bending over a blank page, nibbling at the end of his quill. Nobody knows who has caught his fancy this time. Neither the queen nor I can be troubled over the whimsical shifting of Henry’s attachments; there are so many girls, and they all smile and blush when the king looks at them, and he makes such a performance of his courtship, almost as if he wanted them to be reluctant. Perhaps one goes to his rooms for a private supper; perhaps she does not come back to the queen’s apartment till the early hours. Perhaps the king writes a poem or a new love song. The queen may not like it; but it hardly matters. It makes no real difference to the balance of power at court that is a deathly unstated struggle between the cardinal and the lords, between the cardinal and the queen, for the attention of the king. The girls are a diversion; they make no difference to this.

  Besides, the king speaks strongly in favor of the sanctity of the holy sacrament of marriage. His sister Margaret, the Dowager Queen of Scotland, now sees the husband that she chose for love has turned into her enemy, and she wants to replace him in the country, and some say in her bed, with the Duke of Albany, her rival regent. Then we hear even worse. One of the northern lords writes to Thomas Wolsey to warn him bluntly that the king’s sister is asking her lover Albany to help her to get a divorce. The old commander predicts that there will be a murder, not an annulment.

  Henry is greatly offended at the suggestion of loose behavior from his sister, and writes to her and her unwanted husband to remind them very grandly that the marriage bond is an indissoluble tie and marriage is a sacrament that no man can put asunder.

  “However many laundry maids there may be,” I observe to Montague.

  “Marriage is sacred,” Montague agrees with a little smile. “It cannot be set aside. And someone has to do the washing.”

  I have much to do with my London house. The great vine that sprawls across the front is pulling down the masonry and threatening the roof. I have to put up a forest of wooden scaffolding to allow the workmen to get as high as the chimneys to trim the monster, and they take up saws and hatchets to hack through the thick boughs. Of course my neighbors complain that the road is blocked, and next thing I have a letter from the Lord Mayor bidding me keep the roadways clear. I ignore it completely. I am a countess, I can block all the roads in London if I want to.

  The gardeners swear to me that this hard pruning will make the vine flower and fruit and I will be bathing in my own wine come the autumn. I laugh and shake my head. We have had such cold, wet weather in the last few years that I fear we will never make wine again in England. I don’t think we’ve had a good summer since my childhood. I seem to remember day after day of riding in glorious weather behind a great king, people coming out to wave and cheer for King Richard. We never seem to have summers like that anymore. Henry never makes a long progress through sunshine and acclaim. The golden summers of my childhood have gone; no one ever sees three suns in the sky anymore.

  When we take the scaffolding down, I pave the road before my house so that the foul water the scullions throw into the street can run away. I make a great central ditch in the road and tell the lads in the stables that the dung is to be swept out of our courtyard and into the stream and from thence to the river. The stink of the town house is eased, and I am certain that we have fewer rats in the kitchen and the stores. It is obvious to anyone who walks down Dowgate Street that this is one of the greatest houses in London, as grand as a royal palace.

  My steward comes to me as I am admiring my new paving stones and says quietly: “I would have a word with you, your ladyship.”

  “Sir Thomas?” I turn to see Boleyn looking anxious at my elbow. “Is something the matter?”

  “I’m afraid so,” he says shortly. He glances round. “I can’t speak here.”

  I am reminded, with a sudden pang of fear, of the years where no one could speak in the street, where they checked the doors of their own houses before they would say a word. “Nonsense!” I say roundly. “But we may as well go inside, away from this noise.”

  I lead the way into the shadowy hall and turn to the little door on the right. It is the downstairs records room for the steward of the household, so he can observe guests coming and going, receive messengers, and pay bills. There are two chairs, a table, and a double door so that no one can eavesdrop when he is giving instructions or reprimands. “There,” I say. “It’s quiet enough here. What’s the matter?”

  “It’s the duke,” he says baldly. “Edward Stafford, Duke of Buckingham.”

  I seat myself in the chair behind the table, gesturing that he can sit opposite. “You want to speak to me about my cousin?” I ask.

  He nods.

  I have a sort of dread of what will come next. This is Ursula’s father-in-law; my grandson is in the Stafford cradle. “Go on.”

  “He’s been arrested. In the Tower.”

  Everything is suddenly very still, and quiet. I hear a rapid thudding noise and realize it is the sound of my heart beating, echoing in my ears. “For what?”

  “Treason.”

  The one word is like the whistle of an axe in the quiet room. Boleyn looks at me, his pale face filled with dread. I know that I a