Shadow of Persephone

by G Lawrence

  When I left Jane, I was stupefied by emotion. I went to bed quickly that night, not staying up to chatter with other girls in the darkness. Could it be as she said? Could I be kept safe, my past a secret? Could I be happy? It was true I did not desire or love the King, but that might have been true of any husband I would be sold to. And if I could not have the man I loved, why not the King? Why not accept riches and status in place of love?

  And if it was temporary, if the King was as sick as Jane said, I might become free, a woman of means and independence, like my grandmother. She had become a widow as an old woman, but I might become one in my youth, my whole life ahead of me. No more would Norfolk be able to order me about, sell my body or talk with disrespect. I would outrank him.

  And I could choose my next husband, if I wanted one at all. I would be in control of my life.

  I was suddenly the centre of attention. My family were all about me, flattering, laughing at all I said, escorting me about the palace. My sister Isabella discarded her cloak of patronising superiority and donned one of deference. I was never alone, always I was with a member of my family, so if the King called I had someone to protect me from his lust.

  I did not think he would force himself on me, not until the night I was finally pushed into his bed, but they wanted me kept pure, so he would offer marriage.

  And oh, how swiftly did it work! The King could be easy to manipulate if one had watched the tapestry of his love stitched time after time, as many at court had. As Cromwell had spun lies about the Queen, enhancing all her virtues and concealing flaws, so the same was done with me. The King was told I was a childlike maiden of the country, fresh and free as a spring flower. Although of a noble house, I had been brought up without airs, innocent as a lamb and with few thoughts of my own. I was a virgin whose passage would be moulded by him, an empty vessel into which he could pour himself. I had learning suitable for a noble woman, but was without knowledge of politics and intrigue.

  I was all he wanted. A beautiful shell.

  The angel Cromwell had promised and had failed to produce would be set before the King by Norfolk.

  The only thing my uncle was not pleased about was my friendship with Jane. When I suggested her as a chaperone, he frowned. “That creature is Cromwell’s agent, some say his whore. What does she know of this matter?”

  “Little more than that the King likes me, Your Grace,” I said. “But, Your Grace, she has no love for Cromwell. When her family fell, she was forced to go to him for help, but she blames him for the death of her beloved husband. She has been under his thumb a long time, but yearns to be free. She hates him.”

  Norfolk’s eyes narrowed. “Is that so?” he mused. “It is true she adored her husband with a blinding passion, even though he despised her. You think she resents what Cromwell did to him?”

  “Your Grace, she has whispered it to me many times,” I lied, knowing this would win him over. If he thought Jane had switched sides, he would use her. “And long before any of this began. She despises him, my lord. She wishes he were dead.”

  “Very well,” he said. “But confide nothing in her. This is a delicate time. I know you do not comprehend all that goes on at court, as a mere woman you could not, but if Cromwell catches a sniff of what we are doing, there will be danger. He will try to destroy not only me, but you.”

  “I do understand, Your Grace,” I said. “And my loyalty is yours. I will say nothing that would put you in danger.”

  He smiled. “Your grandmother was right. You are a good girl. It is refreshing to see a woman who knows her place. Too many are striking out, becoming unnatural. This is why the King adores you, little one. You are all he ever wanted in a wife.”

  Jane was permitted to be my chaperone, which attracted a little less attention than when I was surrounded by Howards. It was easy for her, as a lady of the bedchamber, to pull me out on some errand and take me to the King.

  When I was with him, he held my hand and talked of his sorrows. I listened, a sympathetic expression on my face. When he was kind, as he always was to me, I could not see the monster I feared was within him. In truth, were it not for the smouldering lust in his eyes and the heat of his hands on my thigh, it might have been like having a kindly grandfather.

  He was certainly old enough. I was sixteen, he almost forty-nine.

  The smell of his ulcerous leg was horrible, and his fat form, grey hair and wasted looks held nothing but revulsion for me, but he was kind, generous, and seemed to care for me. I had always been susceptible to kindness, and began to think perhaps it would not be so bad to be married to him.

  There were other things to distract me from the horrors I might face. For all I had endured and all I had battled, I was still a girl. When I was brought to my uncle’s rooms, presented with bolts of cloth and told to choose whatever and as much as I wanted for gowns, headdresses, kirtles and sleeves, I was overcome. I ran my hands over cloth of crimson, silver, pale blue, soft pink and rich green, thinking of the days when I had but one gown to my name. As my grandmother’s jewels were brought to court, and recast into pretty necklaces, brooches, pins, and set upon hoods for me, I thought of my father groaning with despair and drink over his accounts late at night.

  If ever you have known what it is to be poor, to be desperate, to know the shame of having to throw yourself on the charity of another, then you might appreciate the intoxicating wonder of being presented with more riches than you can imagine. Poverty was unsafe, riches secure. It was more than just pretty cloth and sparkling jewels that tempted me. It was the feeling that came with them; safety.

  And yet, I was about to set myself into the most insecure, dangerous, position in all the world.

  Chapter Fifty-Nine

  Norfolk House and Winchester House

  Spring 1540

  I made up my mind to make the best of the situation. To survive, I would become all the King wanted. I would take pleasure in the elements of this relationship I liked. I would ignore the ill, the possible futures. I would concentrate on the good, keeping in mind the idea I might escape free and rich from this nightmare.

  I was talented at ignoring ghosts and shadows.

  Everyone was remarking on how young the King suddenly seemed. He had a lightness in his booming step, and was always ready with a merry jest. Although he was almost fifty, people said he looked thirty again. His temper, which I had not seen, but many spoke of with terror, seemed to have vanished. The Queen, thinking he was warming to her, was pleased, believing success was hers, and she had lit this spark in him. But it was not her. It was the woman in her chambers, pretending to be her friend whilst taking her place.

  Had it been a profession permitted to women, I might have made a good player. When with the King I was sweet and docile, but teased him gently, making him laugh. I pretended not to notice he was fat and old, or the smell from his leg was hideous. I opened my eyes wide, as though all he said was fascinating, and tried to imagine he was Thomas when I stared into his eyes. That made it easier to pretend. And pretend was all I did. Using all I had learnt in how to charm men, I fluttered my eyelashes and cast my eyes to the floor. I blushed and denied compliments and sang for him. Music was, fortunately, a passion we shared, so when I talked to him of my love for the art I did not have to pretend. He found me charming, liked the way I spoke, and particularly the way I smelt. After the Queen, he found my washed skin and perfume enticing. I would find him sniffing my throat when he drew near. I had always been cleaner than many. Since Dereham and Manox, I had washed more than others, trying to rid my skin of the stains they left. I never did.

  And every day, the King fell more in love with me.

  In truth, sometimes I did not have to pretend affection. The King could be charming. The way he flattered me was intoxicating, and although I had no more desire for him than before, I warmed to him. He was so eager to please. There was a sense of antiquated chivalry about him. He thought he was the good knight and I the maiden in need of rescue.
There is something enthralling in that tale, no matter how false. It was said many a woman had fallen for his charm in the past, and he had much charm left in him.

  In a way, I pitied him. He told me briefly of his troubles in marriage, and he was so convincing it was easy to think him the innocent party. He did not speak of my cousin, but talked much, and all grimly, of Katherine of Aragon who had pretended to be so meek, yet had sinned against God by not telling him she had bedded his brother. Of his present Queen, he admitted he thought her innocent, but said he had been badly handled. Of Queen Jane, he spoke as though she were a saint.

  “I loved her from the first moment,” he said, tears in his eyes. “And she me. She was like you, Catherine, gentle and kind. I know she would be happy I love you.”

  And she is the one I must be, I thought. That clever woman who had known the dangers she faced and what mask to don to shelter her. Fortunately, I was prettier than Jane Seymour, which might hand me an advantage.

  It was as though I was in competition with all of them. All these dead women. All these ghosts of the King’s making.

  When we spoke of Queen Anne, the present one, since my cousin did not exist apparently, and never had, I tried to make him feel sorry for her. I had no wish for harm to come to my mistress, and I was not sure what plans my uncle was harbouring. “I know she is not what you wished for, Your Majesty,” I said, setting my tiny hand against his chest. “But the lady herself is innocent. She was not the one who made up lies about herself.”

  “I think you are right,” he said. “And it pains me that I must leave her, but there is no other way. She was pre-contracted to the heir to Lorraine. Our marriage is no true marriage.”

  I looked sad and he became worried. Perhaps somewhere, buried deep, he feared I did not want him. “It is just…” I said. “Your Majesty, I hear the Queen blamed for this, but how can she be? If her brother told her that union was no more, why would she not believe him? As a woman, what would she know of such matters?”

  “Catherine, my delicate flower,” he murmured. “Even to the woman who stands in your way, you are kind.”

  There had been no formal proposal as yet, but it was clear when he said things like that, there would be.

  “Although she is between me and the man I adore,” I said. “It is not her fault. I wish…”

  “What do you wish?”

  “There was a way to make you both happy, Your Majesty. That you could separate, but she would not be disgraced. She is a good lady. I would sorrow to see her hurt.”

  “She has done nothing wrong,” he said, lifting my hand to his lips. “She is just not the woman I love.”

  My uncle soon decided it was safer to bring the King to Norfolk House rather than us meeting at court. He did not want the bull riding his cow until a sale was agreed. It was put about my grandmother was unwell, and that was why I was needed so frequently at home.

  “Of course you must go,” said the Queen, “your grandmother must be old now, and needs your tender care.” She smiled, making me feel wretched. “But I will miss my little songbird.”

  I felt like the Devil Himself. Deceiving a lady I had nothing but respect for was not a pleasant undertaking, but what was I to do? Tell her she was to fall, and I was to take her place? I would have been strangled by my uncle. He was more than capable of doing such a thing.

  The King’s barge, the Lyon, was easy to recognise, so when he came to Norfolk House it was said he was visiting Cranmer at Lambeth Palace, or paying his respects to my poor, sick grandmother, who had been his friend and supporter a long time. Whether anyone believed this I had no idea, but the more the King’s barge alighted on the water steps of Lambeth, the more tongues wagged.

  Knowing our affair was becoming more obvious, and Cromwell or the Queen were bound to hear of it soon if they had not already, Gardiner came up with an alternative solution. The King would not go more than a few days without me, so addicted was he, so Gardiner offered his house as another meeting place. I was shipped frequently by night to Winchester House, the Bishop’s London seat.

  There, we feasted together as though man and wife already. With only my family and their allies present, we were safe. I was courted and flattered so well that I came to believe some were in earnest. I was the hope of our family, and of all Catholics in England, I was told.

  “What does my uncle expect me to do in terms of faith?” I whispered to my grandmother one night as we stood about a banquet of sweets in Gardiner’s hall.

  “He hopes you will speak for Catholicism,” said my grandmother, “but heed me and keep that pretty little nose out of matters of religion and your tongue free of politics until a son is born. Others interfered, and died for it.”

  I took her warnings seriously, but it seemed I was already having an effect on politics. I was told the King was barely paying attention to his duties or foreign affairs because there was but one thing in his head; me. Perhaps this should have been reassuring, but he had mooned over my mistress too, once.

  That night, the King asked me to dance. It was a slow pavanne, one he could perform without limping too much, and I was careful. I moved in time with him, seeking to hide the defects in his movements made by his leg. In truth, I could see that once he had been a fine dancer. It was there, an echo in his limbs, something calling from a glorious past. When we finished, there was great applause, but I saw his red face, how out of breath he was. When I was able, I led him to a window seat and we sat together.

  “You must want to dance again,” he said, a sullen child appearing in his eyes.

  “I want nothing more than to be with you, Your Majesty,” I said. In that moment, feeling sorry for him, I meant it.

  “Catherine,” he said, sounding pained. “Please call me Henry when we are alone.”

  I smiled. “I want nothing more than to be with you, Henry.”

  He beamed, his eyes becoming soft. “You are the blossom of the freshest spring, Catherine,” he said, “bringing hope to the dull death of winter.”

  “Then you must be the summer, my lord,” I said. “For when you are present all men are merry, knowing there will be times of plenty and celebration.”

  I knew, of course, he had been referring to himself as winter, but my words pleased him. If I thought he was summer, I did not see him as old.

  He thought we had reached a new place, where he had become a man to me. For all his fantasy and illusion, there was great insecurity inside the King, and he was not immune to the reality that I was very young and he old. Perhaps you have more in common than you think, I thought. We both pushed aside that which we did not want to see, what hurt us.

  But he could not be a man to me. He would never be Henry, or husband. He was always and ever the King, for I never knew him as a man, nor he me as a woman. He thought we were friends, soon to be lovers, matched souls, but he knew me not. We were always subject and sovereign. I was being commanded to wed, not consenting.

  *

  “He is trying to get me sent from court,” said my uncle.

  “He fears our silken pouch,” my grandmother said, casting an appraising eye over me.

  I barely heard them. I was in my grandmother’s chamber, the words of the King ringing in my ears from the night before. “I have been so lonely, all my life,” he had said. “And at last I have found someone who drives that away. You are the light in my darkness, Catherine, the path in my forest of trouble. I want you to become my wife.”

  Norfolk and my grandmother knew, of course, which was why they were gloating about Cromwell’s latest attempt to unseat my uncle.

  It was clear the man knew something by now, and the wounded boar of Putney was thrusting back with sharp tusks. One of my uncle’s men had died, and Cromwell had spoken to the King, telling him the man had had plague and Norfolk along with his entire household should be sent into the country to avoid infection. Considering how paranoid the King was about sickness, it was a true mark of his feelings for me that my uncle had not be
en banished. My uncle had gone to the King and told him that his groom had been living with fourteen other men, in the same room, when he fell sick. None of them had died, and he, the Duke, had been far from him at the time of this sickness in any case.

  But Cromwell had not stopped. Rumours that my uncle was plotting to murder Prince Edward had arisen, and although there was, as far as I knew, no truth in them, Norfolk was sure this perilous talk had originated in Cromwell’s mouth. Turning on Gardiner, Cromwell had arrested one of his allies, the Bishop of Chichester, accusing him of being loyal to Rome. There were hints more arrests would follow. Norfolk was concerned Gardiner would be one of them.

  “But with our little lass using Gardiner’s house to meet the King,” Norfolk had said. “I think it unlikely.”

  I left with instructions to praise Gardiner. I was to tell the King Gardiner was a good friend to me. I did as I was told. “I think he has always had your comfort in mind, Your Majesty,” I said later that night.

  “He has,” said the King, his eyes soft. “You need not worry, dear Catherine. I know you must have heard of the arrest of Chichester, and this is why you speak for Gardiner, but have no fear. The man is safe in my affections, like you.”