The Boleyn Inheritance Read online

  “I deny it.” As soon as the words are out of my mouth I realize this is a mistake, for they will know that we have horses waiting.

  Sir Thomas smiles at me; he knows he has caught me. “You deny it?” he asks again.

  “They are waiting for me,” Dr. Harst says, his voice trembling. “I have debts, as you know; I am ashamed to say that I have many debts. I thought if my debtors became too pressing that I should go quickly to Cleves and speak to my master for more money. I have had the horses waiting in case my debtors came for me.”

  I look at him in absolute incredulity. I am amazed at the quickness of his lie, but they cannot know that. He bows. “I beg your pardon, Lady Anne. I should have told you. But I was ashamed.”

  Sir Thomas glances at the two other councillors; they nod to him. It is an explanation, if not the one they would have preferred.

  “So,” he says briskly. “Your two servants who made up this story against you have been arrested for slander and will be taken to the Tower. The king is determined that your reputation shall be unsullied.”

  The shift is almost too much for me. It sounds as if I am to be released from suspicion, and at once I think it is a trick. “I am grateful to His Majesty for his fraternal care,” I say carefully. “I count myself his most loyal subject.”

  He nods. “Good. We will go now. The council will want to know that your name has been cleared.”

  “You are leaving?” I ask. I know that they hope to catch me in a moment of relief. They do not know how deeply afraid I am. I don’t think I will ever celebrate my escape, for I will never trust it.

  In a dream I rise from my chair and walk with him from the room; we go down the great stairs to the front door, where his escort is waiting, mounted with the royal standard before them. “I trust the king is well,” I say.

  “His heart is broken,” Sir Thomas says frankly. “It is a bad business, a bad business indeed. His leg is giving him much pain, and Katherine Howard’s behavior has caused him great unhappiness. The whole court has been in mourning this Christmastide, almost as if she were dead.”

  “Will she be released?” I ask.

  He shoots me a quick, guarded look. “What do you think?”

  I shake my head; I am not such a fool to speak my thoughts, especially not when I have just been on trial myself.

  If I ever did tell the truth, I would say that I have thought for some months that the king is out of his wits and that no one has the courage to challenge him. He could release her and take her back as his wife, he could call her his sister, or he could behead her, as the mood takes him. He could summon me for marriage, or he could behead me for treason. He is a monstrous madman, and nobody but me seems to know it.

  “The king will be judge,” he says, confirming my silent thoughts. “He alone is guided by God.”

  Jane Boleyn, the Tower of London,

  February 1542

  I laugh, I skip about, sometimes I look out of the window and talk to the seagulls. There is to be no trial, no questioning, no chance to clear my name, so there is no advantage to having my wits about me. They do not dare put that idiot Katherine before a court, or she has refused to go; I don’t know which, and I don’t care. All I know is what they tell me. They speak very loudly to me, as if I were deaf or old, rather than mad. They say that parliament has passed an act of attainder against Katherine and against me for treason and conspiracy. We have been judged and found guilty without trial, without judge or jury or defense. This is Henry’s justice. I look blank and giggle, I sing a little song and ask when we shall go hunting. It can’t be long now. In a few days I expect them to fetch Katherine from Syon and then they will behead her.

  They send the king’s own doctor, Dr. Butt, to see me. He comes every day and sits in a chair in the center of my room and watches me from under thick eyebrows as if I were one of the beasts. He is to judge if I am mad. This makes me laugh out loud without pretense. If this doctor knew when someone was mad, he would have locked up the king six years ago, before he murdered my husband. I curtsy to the good doctor, and dance around him, and laugh at his questioning when he asks me for my name and for my family. I am absolutely convincing; I can see it in his pitying gaze. Undoubtedly he will report to the king that I am out of my wits, and they will have to release me.

  Listen! Listen! I hear it! The noise of saws and hammers. I peep out of the window and I clap my hands as if delighted to see the workmen building the scaffold: Katherine’s scaffold. They will behead her under my window. If I dare, I can watch it all happen. I shall have the best view of everyone. When she is dead, they will send me away, probably to my family at Blickling, and then I can quietly and secretly grow sane again. I shall take my time; I want no one inquiring after me. I shall dance about for a year or two, singing songs and talking to clouds, and at the end of it, when the new king, King Edward, is on the throne and the old scores forgotten I shall return to court and serve the new queen as well as I can.

  Oh! There’s a plank gone down with a clatter and a young man cuffed for carelessness. I shall set up a cushion on the window ledge and watch them all day; it is as good as a masque at court to see them measuring and sawing and building. What a fuss to make about building such a stage when the show will last for only a few minutes! When they bring me my dinner, I clap my hands and point, and the warders shake their heads and put down the dishes and go quietly away.

  Katherine, Syon Abbey,

  February 1542

  It is a morning like every other morning, quiet, nothing to do, no entertainment, no amusement, no company. I am so bored with everything and with myself that when I hear the tramp of feet on the path outside my window, I am absolutely delighted at the thought of something happening – I am beyond caring what. I run like a child to the tall window, and I look out, and there is a royal escort marching up the path through the garden from the river. They have come by barge, and there is my uncle the duke’s standard, and there are the men in his livery, and there he is himself, looking powerful and bad-tempered as always, at the head of them, and half a dozen Privy Councillors with him.

  At last! At last! I am so relieved that I could weep to see them. It is my uncle returned to me! My uncle come back to tell me what to do. At last I am to be freed. At last he has come for me, and I am to be released. I should think I shall be taken by my uncle to one of his houses in the country, which will not be very amusing, but better than here. Or perhaps I shall have to go far away, perhaps France. France would be wonderful, except I cannot speak French, or at any rate only “voilà!” but surely they must mostly all speak English? And if not, then they can learn?

  The door opens and the warden of my household comes in. His eyes are filled with tears. “Madam,” he says,“they have come for you.”

  “I know!” I say jubilantly. “And you needn’t pack my gowns either, for I don’t care if I ever see them again. I shall order new. Where am I going?”

  The door opens a little wider, and there is my uncle himself, looking stern as he must, for this is obviously to be a very solemn scene.

  “Your Grace!” I say. I can hardly stop myself giving him a wink. So we have got through, have we? Here we are again. Him, looking stern; and me, waiting for my orders. He will have some plan to have me back on the throne and forgiven within a month. I thought I was in grave trouble and that he had deserted me; but here he is, and wherever he goes, prosperity always follows. I take a good look at his face as I come up smiling out of my curtsy, and I see he is looking terribly solemn, so I look serious, too. I cast my eyes down, and I look wonderfully penitent. I am quite pale from being indoors all the time, and I really think that with my eyes down and my lips slightly pouting I must look utterly saintly.

  “Your Grace,” I say in a soft, mournful tone.

  “I bring you news of your sentence,” he says.

  I wait.

  “The king’s parliament has consulted and has passed a Bill of Attainder against you.”

  I