The Taming of the Queen Read online

  He looks across at Stephen Gardiner – who uses his name and his title without question – and they nod at each other as if I have revealed something that they long suspected.

  ‘What can be wrong with this?’ I demand.

  He does not even answer me, he waves me away.

  When I wake in the morning the privy chamber outside my bedroom is oddly quiet. Usually there is the low reassuring buzz of my ladies arriving for the day and then the tap on the door by the maid-in-waiting for that day bringing in the hot water. As I get up and wash my face and hands in a golden bowl of warm water, the ladies bring my gowns drawn from the queen’s wardrobe for me to choose what I will wear, and the sleeves and the bodice and the hood and the jewels. They will offer something to eat; but I will not taste anything or drink until we have been to Mass, for I am uncertain, as everyone is now uncertain, as to whether we are to fast before Mass or not. It may be well known as a meaningless ritual, or Gardiner may have restored it to the court as a holy tradition. I am not sure. It is a sign of how ridiculous the times have become that I – a queen in my own rooms – do not know if I may eat a bread roll or not. It is ludicrous.

  Ludicrous, and yet this morning I cannot hear the noise of the baker’s boy bringing bread from the kitchen. It is so eerily quiet outside my private chamber that I don’t wait for the arrival of my maids-in-waiting; I get up, pull my robe over my nakedness and open the door to look out. There are half a dozen women outside, three of them holding gowns from the royal wardrobe. They are oddly silent, and when I open my door and stand wordlessly, looking at them, they don’t exclaim good morning and smile. They drop into silent curtseys and when they rise up they keep their eyes on the floor. They will not look at me.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ I demand. I scan the half-dozen of them, and then I ask, more impatiently, ‘Where is Nan? Where is my sister?’

  Nobody answers, but Anne Seymour steps reluctantly forward. ‘Please allow me to speak with you alone, Your Majesty,’ she says.

  ‘What is it?’ I say, stepping back into my bedroom and beckoning her in. ‘What’s the matter?’

  She closes the door behind her. In the silence I can hear the ticking of my new clock.

  ‘Where is Nan?’

  ‘I have some bad news.’

  ‘Is it Anne Askew?’

  At once I think that they are going to execute her. That they have done the thing that we were sure they would not do. That they have taken her to trial, and rushed through a guilty verdict, and they are going to burn her. ‘Tell me it’s not Anne? Has Nan gone to the Tower to pray with her?’

  Anne shakes her head. ‘No, it’s your ladies,’ she says quietly. ‘It’s your own sister. In the night, after you had left the king, the Privy Council sat in judgement, and they have arrested your sister Nan Herbert, your kinswoman Lady Elizabeth Tyrwhit, and your cousin Lady Maud Lane.’

  I cannot even hear her. ‘What did you say? Who is arrested?’

  ‘The ladies-in-waiting who are your kinswomen. Your sister, and your cousins.’

  ‘For what?’ I ask stupidly. ‘On what charge?’

  ‘They have not been charged yet. They were questioned all through the night; they are still being interrogated now. And the yeomen of the guard have entered their rooms, their private family rooms that they share with their husbands, and into their chambers here, in your quarters, and taken their papers away: all their boxes, all their books.’

  ‘They are looking at papers?’

  ‘They are looking for papers and books,’ Anne confirms. ‘It is an inquiry about heresy.’

  ‘The Privy Council is accusing my ladies, my cousins, my own sister, Nan, of heresy?’

  Anne nods, her face impassive.

  There is a long silence. I feel my knees are weak beneath me and I sink down to a stool by the grate where a little fire flickers.

  ‘What can I do?’

  She is as frightened as I am. ‘Your Majesty, I don’t know. All your papers are gone from your rooms?’ She glances at the desk where I used to write notes with such pleasure, where I used to study with such excitement.

  ‘All gone. Yours?’

  ‘Edward took them to Wulf Hall when he left for France. He warned me – but I did not think it would be this bad. He never thought it would get this bad. If he were here . . . I have written to him to come home. I have told him that Bishop Gardiner is dominating the Privy Council and that nobody is safe. I have told him that I fear for you, that I fear for myself.’

  ‘Nobody is safe,’ I repeat.

  ‘Your Majesty, if they can arrest your own sister then they can arrest any one of us.’

  I suddenly rouse myself, my temper flares. ‘The bishop dares to advise the Privy Council to arrest my sister, Nan? My chief lady-in-waiting? Sir William Herbert’s wife? Get my gown. I shall dress and see the king.’

  She puts out a hand to detain me. ‘Your Majesty . . . think . . . It’s not the bishop who has done this alone. It is the king. He must have signed the warrant for your sister’s arrest. This must all be with his knowledge. It may even be at his request.’

  I lead my ladies to chapel. We put a brave face on it but two maids-in-waiting are missing and three ladies are absent and the court knows, like a pack of anxious hounds, that something is wrong.

  Devoutly, we bow our heads to pray. Fervently we take the bread. Quietly we whisper: ‘Amen! Amen!’ as if to declare there is not a thought in our silly heads as to what this really is: wafer or meat, bread or God. We finger our rosaries; I am wearing a crucifix at my neck. Princess Mary kneels beside me but her gown does not touch the hem of mine. Princess Elizabeth kneels on the other side and her cold hand creeps into my shaking grasp. She does not know what is happening but she knows that something is very badly wrong.

  After chapel we take our breakfast in the great hall, and the court is subdued, men talking quietly among themselves and everyone glancing towards me to see how I am taking the absence of my sister, of my two other missing ladies. I smile as if I am completely untroubled. I bow my head for the grace as the king’s chaplain reads it in Latin. I eat a little meat, bread, I sip ale; I mime appetite, as if I am not sick with fear. I smile at my ladies and I glance at the Seymour table. I long to see Thomas as if he were a ship with reefed sails waiting at a quayside, ready to sail away to safety. I long to see him as if the sight of him would make me safe. But he is not here, I don’t expect him, and I can’t send for him.

  I turn to Catherine Brandon, the most senior of my ladies at breakfast. ‘Your Grace, would you inquire if His Majesty the king is well enough to see me this morning?’

  She rises from the table without a word. We all watch her walk down the length of the great hall, everyone praying that she will return with an invitation to visit the king’s rooms and that we will find ourselves suddenly high in his volatile favour. But she is not gone long.

  ‘His Majesty is in pain with the injury from his leg.’ She speaks calmly but her face is white. ‘His doctor is with him, he is resting. He says that he will send for you later and that he wishes you a very good day.’

  Everyone hears it. It is like a blast from the horns of the hunt. It is open season on heretics at court and everyone knows that the greatest prey, the one who carries the greatest bounty on her head, is me.

  I smile. ‘Then we’ll go to my rooms for an hour or two and ride out later.’ I turn to my master of horse. ‘We’ll all ride,’ I say.

  He bows and gives me his hand as I step down from the dais and walk through the silently bowing court. I smile and nod from left to right. Nobody shall say that I looked afraid.

  When we get to my rooms Nan, Maud Lane and Elizabeth Tyrwhit are there, waiting for us to come back from breakfast. Nan is seated in her favourite spot in the window seat, her hands folded in her lap, the picture of womanly patience. Something about her powerful rigidity warns me that she has not returned to safety. I walk into the room and I stop myself running to her. I don’t fling m