The Taming of the Queen Read online

  I dare not speak of Anne by name. But I can defend her beliefs. ‘Since Our Lord spoke in simple language to simple people, in stories that they could understand, why should we not do so?’ I ask. ‘Why should they not read the stories in the simple words of the Son of God?’

  ‘Because they go on and on!’ Thomas Howard suddenly bursts out. ‘Because it’s not as if they read and think in silence! Every time I ride by Saint Paul’s cross there are half a dozen of them, cawing away like crows! How many shall we endure? How much noise shall they be allowed to make?’

  Laughing, I turn to the king. ‘Your Majesty does not think like this, I know,’ I say with more confidence than I feel. ‘Your Majesty loves scholarship and respectful discussion of the Bible.’

  But his face is sour. ‘Sweetmeats,’ he says again to the page. ‘You can leave us, ladies. Stephen, you stay by me.’

  It is a snub, but I am not going to let Stephen Gardiner or that fool Norfolk think I am offended. I rise to my feet and curtsey to the king and kiss him goodnight on his damp cheek. He does not squeeze my haunches as I bend over him, and I am relieved that all the court does not watch him pet me like his hound. I give a cool nod to the bishop and the duke, who seem to be clinging to their places. ‘Goodnight, my lord husband, and God bless you,’ I say gently. ‘I shall pray that your pain is eased by the morning.’

  He grunts a farewell, and I lead my ladies out of the room. Nan glances back as we go and sees that Stephen Gardiner has been given a seat and he is head to head with the king.

  ‘I’d like to know what that false priest is saying,’ Nan says irritably.

  I kneel at the foot of my gorgeously carved wooden bed and I pray for Anne Askew, who will be lying on a stinking pallet of straw at Newgate tonight. I pray for all the other prisoners of faith, those that I know, since they have been in my rooms talking with me, and those that have been in my service and are now being forced to betray me, and those that I will never know: in England, in Germany and far, far away.

  I know that Anne will endure this for her faith but I cannot bear to think of her lying in the dark, listening to the rats rustle in the corners, and the groans of other prisoners. The punishment for heresy is death by burning. Although I am certain that neither Gardiner nor the king will send a young woman, a young gentlewoman, to such a brutal end, the thought of her facing public trial is enough to make me shudder and bury my face in my hands. All she has said is that the bread of the Mass is bread, the wine of the Mass is wine. Surely they won’t keep her in prison for saying no more than everyone knows?

  Our Lord said: ‘This is my body, this is my blood,’ but he was no trickster like the false priests who dribble red ink from the wounds of statues. He meant: ‘Think of me when you eat bread, think of me when you drink wine. Consume me in your heart.’ Thomas Cranmer’s liturgy makes this clear, and the king himself supports this reading. We have published this; it can be read in English. Why then should Anne be sleeping tonight in Newgate with a trial before her and the Bishop of London demanding that she recant, when she has said no more than the King of England has ruled?

  It is late when I finally go to bed and Nan is already asleep on her side. The sheets are cold but I don’t send for the maid to warm them. I am ashamed of the luxury of the smooth sheets and the white on white embroidery under my fingertips. I think of Anne on her bed of straw, and Thomas in a cramped bunk at sea, his cabin swaying around him, and I think that I suffer nothing; and yet I am unhappy, like a spoilt child.

  I fall asleep almost at once, and almost at once I dream that I am climbing a circular stair in an old castle, not one of our palaces – it is too cold and damp for any of the king’s houses. My hand rests on the outer wall and there is icy water beneath the arrow-slit windows. The stair is dark, barred with moonlight, the steps worn and uneven. I can hardly see my way from one window to another. I hear someone whispering from the foot of the stair, his voice echoing up the tower: ‘Tryphine! Tryphine!’ and I give a little gasp of fear for now I know who I am, and what I am going to find.

  The stair arrives on a stone landing at the top of the tower facing three small wooden doors. I don’t want to open the doors, and I don’t want to enter the rooms behind them; but the whisper of my name ‘Tryphine!’, hissing up the stair behind me, forces me on. The first door opens with a ring handle that moves under my grip, lifting the latch on the inside of the door. I don’t like to think who might hear this, who might be in there, turning their heads, seeing the latch lifting, but I feel the door yield against my hand and I push it open. I can see the little room by the light of the moon coming in through the narrow window. I can see just enough to make out a piece of machinery taking up the whole length of the room.

  I think at first that it is some kind of loom for weaving tapestry. It is a long raised bed with two great rollers at either end, and a lever in the middle. Then I step a little closer and I see that a woman is strapped to it, arms above her head, horribly wrenched out of shape, her feet, strapped to the bottom end, turned out as if her legs are broken. Someone has lashed her hands and feet and hauled on the lever so the rollers turn over and the gulf between them widens. This has dragged her arms out of their sockets and her elbows have popped out of joint, her hips and knees and even her ankle bones are torn apart. The agony makes a white mask of her face, but even so, I recognise Anne Askew. I stumble back from the torture room and fall against the next door. That room is empty and silent. I draw a breath in momentary relief at being spared any further horror but then I smell smoke. There is smoke coming from the floorboards, and the boards themselves are getting hotter. And now, in the strange life of the dream, I am myself tied, hands behind my back. I am standing, strapped to a stake, and I am lashed with chains so that I cannot move, and my feet are no longer on floorboards but are shifting anxiously on cords of wood. It is getting hotter and hotter and there is smoke in my eyes and mouth, and I am beginning to cough. I gasp and I feel my throat scorched by the hot smoke. Then I see a little flicker of the first flame from the wood under my feet, and I cough again, flinching away from it. ‘No,’ I say, but I cannot speak for smoke, and as I breathe in the heat of the smoke burns my throat and I cough and cough . . .

  ‘Wake!’ Nan says. ‘Wake up! Here.’ She presses a cup of ale into my hand. ‘Wake up!’

  I cling to the cold cup, my hands covering hers. ‘Nan! Nan!’

  ‘Hush. You’re awake now. You’re safe now.’

  ‘I dreamed of Anne.’ I am still choking as if the smoke were still burning my lungs.

  ‘God bless her and keep her,’ Nan says instantly. ‘What did you dream?’

  Already the horrific clarity of the dream is fading from me. ‘I thought I saw her . . . I thought I saw the rack . . .’

  ‘There’s no rack in Newgate,’ Nan says, firmly practical. ‘And she’s not a common traitor to be racked. They don’t torture women, and she is a gentleman’s daughter. Her father served the king, no-one can lay a hand on her. You just had a bad dream. It means nothing.’

  ‘They wouldn’t rack her?’ I clear my throat.

  ‘Of course not,’ Nan says. ‘Many of them knew her father, and her husband is a wealthy yeoman. They’ll hold her for a couple of days, hoping to give her a fright, and then send her home to that poor husband of hers, like they did before.’

  ‘She won’t stand trial?’

  ‘Of course they’ll say that she must face a jury and threaten her with a guilty verdict. But they’ll send her home to her husband and tell him to beat her. Nobody is going to torture a lady with a noble father and a wealthy husband. Nobody is going to send a woman as argumentative as that into a public courtroom.’

  Despite Nan’s words I can’t sleep, and next morning I have my maids pinch my cheeks and powder me with rouge to try to make me look less haggard. I must not resemble a woman sleepless with fear, and I know that the court is watching. Everyone knows that my woman preacher is in Newgate Prison today; I have to appear comple