The King's Curse Read online

  “Then you shall come to me when you are very useful and hardworking,” she says.

  She draws me into her privy chamber, where we are alone and I can look at her pale face and wipe the tears from her cheeks and smile at her.

  “My dearest child.”

  “Oh, Lady Margaret!”

  At once I can see that she has not been eating properly, there are shadows under her eyes and she is too pale. “Are you not well?”

  She shrugs. “Nothing out of the ordinary. I was so grieved for the queen. I was so shocked . . . I could not believe that she would die like that . . . for a little while I even doubted my faith. I couldn’t see how God could take her . . .”

  She breaks off and leans her forehead against my shoulder, and I gently pat her back, thinking, Poor child, to lose such a mother and then to love and lose a stepmother! This girl will spend the rest of her life longing for someone she can trust and love.

  “We have to believe that she is with God,” I say gently. “And we sing Masses for her soul in my own chapel at Bisham.”

  She smiles at this. “Yes, the king told me. I am so glad. But Lady Margaret! The other abbeys!”

  I put a finger gently over her lips. “I know. There is much to mourn.”

  “Do you hear from your son?” she whispers, her voice so soft that I have to bend to hear her. “From Reginald?”

  “He was raising support for the pilgrims when they made peace and forged their agreement with your father,” I say. “When he got news of their defeat, he was recalled to Rome. He’s there now, safe.”

  She nods. There is a tap at her door and one of the new maids puts her head into the room. “We can’t talk now,” the princess decides. “But when you write to him, you can tell him, that I am well treated, I think I am safe. And now that I have a little brother my father is at peace with me, and with my half sister, Elizabeth. He has a son, at last. Perhaps he can be happy.”

  I take her hand and we go out to where her ladies, some of them friends and some of them spies, all rise and curtsey to us. I smile equably at all of them.

  WARBLINGTON CASTLE, HAMPSHIRE, SUMMER 1538

  I spend the summer at my house at Warblington. The court on progress passes nearby, but this year there are no Knights Harbinger, riding down the road to make sure that I can house the great party. The king does not want to stay, though the fields are as green and as wide and the forests as richly stocked with game as they were when he said it was his favorite house in England.

  I look at the great wing that I built for the comfort of Queen Katherine and her young husband and think that it was money wasted, and love wasted. I think that money or love offered to the Tudors is always wasted, for the Tudor boy who was so well loved by his mother has been spoiled by us all.

  I hear from my house at Bisham that Thomas Cromwell has taken the priory away from us, for the second time. The monks who were to pray for Jane Seymour have been told to leave, the chantry that was to stand forever, the only chantry in England, is quiet. The bishop’s cope is taken away, our priory is closed again. It was reopened on a Tudor whim; it closes on Cromwell’s command. I do not even write to protest.

  At least I am confident that the princess is safe at Hampton Court, visiting her half brother at Richmond Palace. Without doubt she will have a new stepmother before the year is out, and I pray every night that the king chooses a woman who will be kind to our princess. They will be looking for a husband for her too, the Portuguese royal family has been suggested, and Montague and I agree that whatever my age and wherever she is sent, I must go with her to see her settled in her new home.

  I am busy this summer in Warblington, preparing for the harvest and bringing the records up to date, but one day my steward comes to tell me that a new patient at our little hospital, a man called Gervase Tyndale, has been asking the surgeon Richard Eyre why there are no books of the new learning in the church or at the hospital. Someone tells him that it is common knowledge that I, and all my family, believe in the old ways, in the priest telling the word of God to the faithful, in the holy Mass, in faith not deeds.

  “He asked after that horse groom that you dismissed, my lady. The Lutheran that would have converted half the stable yard? And he asked after your chaplain, John Helyar, and if he ever visits your son Reginald in Rome or wherever he is. And he asks what your son Reginald is doing, staying away from England for so long.”

  There is always gossip in a small village. There is always gossip about the big house. But I feel a sense of unease that this is gossip about the castle, about the hospital, about our faith, just as we have come unscathed through the pilgrimage, and just as our princess has found some safety where she belongs.

  “I think you had better tell this man to mind his manners towards his hosts,” I say to the steward. “And tell Mr. Eyre the surgeon that I don’t need my opinions shared with half the country.”

  The steward grins. “No harm done,” he says. “There’s nothing to know. But I’ll have a quiet word.”

  I think little more of this until I am in my presence chamber, dealing with the business of the estate, Montague at my side, when Geoffrey comes in with Richard Eyre the surgeon, and Hugh Holland, his friend the grain merchant. At the sight of him I find myself sharply alert, like a deer freezing at the snap of a twig. I wonder why Geoffrey has brought these men to me.

  “Lady Mother, I would speak with you,” Geoffrey says, kneeling for my blessing.

  I know my smile is strained. “Is there trouble?” I ask him.

  “I don’t think so. But the surgeon here says that a patient at the hospital—”

  “Gervase Tyndale,” the surgeon interrupts with a bow.

  “A patient at the hospital wanted to set up a school here for the new learning, and someone told him that there was no call for that here, and that you would not allow it. Now he’s gone off full of ill will, telling everyone that we don’t allow the books that the king has licensed, and that Hugh Holland here, my friend, comes and goes between us and Reginald.”

  “There’s nothing wrong with this,” I say cautiously, glancing at Montague. “It’s gossip that we could do without, but there’s no evidence.”

  “No, but it can be made to sound wrong,” Geoffrey points out.

  “And this is the merchant that went to Reginald with my warning,” Montague says quietly in my ear. “And he shipped your chaplain overseas for us. So there is a little fire under this smoke.” Aloud he turns to the surgeon. “And where is this Mr. Tyndale now?”

  “I sent him away as soon as he was well,” the surgeon says promptly. “My lady’s steward told me that she didn’t like gossip.”

  “You can be sure that I don’t,” I say sharply to him. “I pay you to heal the poor, not to chatter about me.”

  “Nobody knows where he is,” Geoffrey says nervously. “Or if he has been watching us for a while. Do you think he might have gone to Thomas Cromwell?”

  Montague smiles without amusement. “It’s a certainty.”

  “How are you so sure?”

  “Because anyone with any information always goes to Cromwell.”

  “What should we do?” Geoffrey looks from me to his older brother.

  “You’d better go to Cromwell yourself. Tell him about this little disagreement, and that this bunch of old women are gossiping about nothing.” I glare at the surgeon. “Assure him of our loyalty. Remind him that the king himself restored our priory at Bisham and say that we have a Bible in English at the church that anyone may read. Tell him that we teach the new learning in the little school from books that His Majesty licenses. Tell him that the schoolmaster is teaching the children to read so that they may study their prayers in English. And let these good men explain what is said against them, and that we are all loyal servants to the king.”

  Geoffrey looks anxious. “Will you come with me?” he asks Montague very quietly.

  “No,” Montague says firmly. “This is nothing. There is nothing to fear. Be