The Concubine

by Norah Lofts

  The steward said, “Master Smeaton, my lord,” and went away, closing the door behind him.

  Cromwell came forward a little; he did not smile, or offer his hand. He stood there looking at his visitor with that most disconcerting of all stares, the one that travels from head to foot and back again, seeming to assess the quality of one’s clothing, to measure one’s height, judge one’s status.

  The stare unnerved Smeaton, especially when across the hard face that looked as though it had been carved from mutton fat there drifted a look of pity. I’ve made a muddle, come on the wrong day, at the wrong time, Smeaton thought. He said, with the little stammer that came upon him when he was nervous,

  “Y-you were expecting m-me, my lord?”

  “Oh yes, I was expecting you,” Cromwell said in a heavy voice which did nothing to put Smeaton at ease.

  And then suddenly he had what he thought was the explanation, of the deserted house, of the strange reception. Of course! May Day, when all servants expected to have leave to go and gather garlands, if female to wash their faces in dew, to attend the many May Day Fairs. And perhaps a gentleman accustomed to dining out would know that on May Day one should not be too punctual. By arriving before the board was set he had betrayed a lack of worldliness—and that accounted for the pitying look. Poor fellow, he doesn’t know the rules.

  “I h-hope that I am not t-too early.”

  “Oh no. Not by a moment. We are ready for you. Be seated.”

  He had been asked to dine, and one chair stood near the table, so diffidently, he began to move toward it.

  “No, not there,” Cromwell said. “Here!”

  It was like one of those sleeping dreams when everything seems a little wrong, out of shape. The chair Cromwell indicated was the best in the room, a big chair with carved arms and legs. Taking it, Smeaton carefully spread out the skirts of his new tunic. Cromwell seated himself in another chair, almost opposite, and as soon as he had done so the door opened and the steward came in, followed by two men of inferior sort, coarse looking fellows in buff breeches and jerkins. They brought no dishes. The steward carried writing equipment which he placed on the table before sitting down on the chair nearby.

  Cromwell said, “I asked you to dinner, Smeaton, and that was no empty invitation. A good dinner is preparing and you will be very welcome to it when you have answered a few questions which I am compelled to ask you. I hope you will be frank because this is a distasteful business to me and I shall be glad to have it over as soon as may be.”

  It was at this point that Smeaton remembered that Cromwell had been very ill. He had taken to his bed, seeing no one, and for one period of four days had refused all food and drink. Maybe his brain had been affected.

  “I shall be pleased to answer anything you ask—that is if I have the ability,” Smeaton said.

  “Good. Now, your name is Mark Smeaton. Are you known, or have you ever been known, by any other name?”

  A crazy question; but he answered it with truth, reluctantly. “A few people call me Marks. They are ill-natured or jealous and it pleases them to pretend that I am a Jew. But my true name is Mark Smeaton.”

  “And you are the Queen’s musician?”

  “I am. But that you know, my lord.”

  From behind him there came the unmistakable sound of a quill at work. He twisted his head and saw the man he had thought a steward writing quickly, finish a word and pause, quill poised.

  Cromwell said, “As you shall presently see, this conversation is of more importance than may at first appear. The gist of it is being taken down.”

  Smeaton was becoming more and more confused. He was accustomed to finding the outer world—the world outside his music and his dreams—a strange and alien place and other people’s behavior unaccountable, but now he felt that he was the one sane person in a world gone crazy. He’d been asked here to dine; he had expected to discuss music.

  “Now a moment ago,” Cromwell began again, “you used the word ‘jealous.’ Who is jealous of you? And why?”

  Smeaton had watched, always from a distance, a number of petty Court intrigues and jostlings for place. It occurred to him that before Cromwell asked his advice he was, like a cautious man, making certain that he was not involved in anything, such as a quarrel, which might bring difficulties later on. It seemed a roundabout, ponderous way of getting at the truth, but then Cromwell was a lawyer and they had their peculiar ways.

  “Maybe I exaggerated in using that word, my lord. The fact is that I am a professional musician; many gentlemen about the Court are musicians, too, gifted, but amateurs. There is a difference which they are sometimes reluctant to recognize.”

  “Naturally. And who are these gentlemen?”

  He saw no reason not to give their names. Everyone knew. The grubbiest little page after six months at Court could have answered that question.

  “Chiefly of the King’s household. Sir Harry Norris. Sir Francis Weston, Master William Brereton—and perhaps most of all Her Grace’s brother, Lord Rochfort, Sir Thomas Wyatt, too. I often set his words to music and there is the usual dispute as to what makes a good song.”

  “There is then, some jealousy; and a certain element of competition?”

  “Yes. But it does no harm. It…it improves the standard of all our work.”

  “And the aim of it all is to please Her Grace?”

  “It is indeed!”

  “Should I be correct in saying that of them all you please her best?”

  “That, my lord, is what gives rise to the dispute. We are all most anxious to please her. And often, yes, often my performance does give her most pleasure. Which is not to be wondered at. I am able to devote my whole time and attention to my music; the others have other duties.”

  “And you all desire to please her because you love her?”

  “That is so.”

  “You love Her Grace?”

  “With all my heart. She has no more devoted servant than I…”

  Suddenly he had another idea as to where all this might be leading. There was no ignoring the fact that since her miscarriage the Queen had been out of favor, and some people had begun to drift away; there’d been fewer visitors, almost no gifts lately. Did Cromwell think that he, Mark Smeaton, was likely to desert Anne and run after the rising star of Seymour? He, who if she were left with only one friend in all the world, would be that one!

  “Does anyone question my loyalty?” he asked, dropping his diffident manner. “Tell me his name, my lord, and I’ll throw the lie in his teeth, whoever he is.” Cromwell noticed for the first time the size and power of the hands which had guided a plow, the powerful peasant shoulders under the silk tunic.

  “Gently,” he said, rather as a man might speak to a restive horse. “Your devotion was never in doubt. How does the Queen feel toward you?”

  “She approves of my music. She appointed me to be her personal musician.”

  “Does she love you?” The little question was slipped in with such a casual air that it seemed of no importance at all.

  “As much as a Queen can ever love a mere musician.”

  Cromwell shifted a little in his chair. For a second Smeaton thought that he was preparing to rise, that this odd little inquisition was over. And he had, he felt, established his exact status. Now for dinner and the real business of the day.

  But the Chief Secretary had settled again.

  “So far, good,” he said. And even into Smeaton’s unrealistic mind was borne the impression that up to now they had been merely skirmishing. Now what? The whole room seemed to close in, to grow darker, to wait.

  “Now tell me, Smeaton. How much can a Queen love a mere musician?”

  This question verged upon that secret, private life; he must be careful.

  “She is always gracious and kind.”

  “Never more than kind?”

  “I don’t know what you mean by that, my lord?”

  “I think you do. You are reputed to be reasonably
intelligent. I hasten to assure you that everyone in this room has been chosen for his discretion, so you may speak freely and without embarrassment. I asked—Never more than kind?”

  “Never. As you mean it.”

  “Ah! So you do know what I mean? So that there may be no doubt, I will put the question in another way. Have you and the Queen ever had guilty intercourse?”

  “Never! It is unthinkable! Whoever imagined it possible is my enemy—or, or hers!” And what a vile, what a deadly enemy.

  “I can understand that you have been about the Court long enough to have acquired some notions of chivalry. One does not betray a lady. I advise you to abandon that notion—it is little more than a myth, anyway. I realize, too, that a man’s memory can be faulty. So will you look back and try to remember and bear in mind that to tell the truth cannot harm, and may benefit you. Has the Queen ever committed adultery with you, Smeaton?”

  “Never. As I hope for Heaven hereafter. Never.”

  “Then your memory is at fault.” As he spoke Cromwell nodded and the buff-clad men moved forward. Smeaton struggled with them, with the desperate ferocity of a wildcat, but they were two to one, and in a few seconds they had him helpless in the big chair, his arms tied to its arms, his legs to its legs. Then one of them placed a ring of thick knotted cord about his head; an exact fit until a stick was pushed between it and his skull; then it was tight.

  And now the whole wicked scheme was plain before his eyes. Well, they had chosen badly. He would never blacken her name, whatever they did to him. He’d die first.

  He would have died. Had they taken a sword and threatened to run him through, or held a club ready to dash out his brains he would have died, saying, “No. Never.”

  “I will repeat the question. Has the Queen ever committed adultery with you?”

  “No.”

  Another nod; the stick was twisted and the cord tightened. The knots bit home, and pain ran, in little pointed spears, down into his eyes, his nose, his ears, and the back of his neck.

  “Has she?”

  “No.”

  A nod; a twist. He heard the skin split with little explosive sounds under each knot, and the blood began to flow, slow and sticky.

  He was big and strong but he had never been able to bear pain, either his own or other people’s. And this was more than pain, it was agony.

  “Think again; think well,” Cromwell said. “You seem to be a stubborn man, but we have other means, should this fail. And all your endurance is wasted. There will be a confession, signed by you, before we have done. And if you confess, fully and freely, you may escape, as being young and not in a position to resist advances. Can you hear me?”

  “I can hear,” Smeaton groaned out.

  “Then confess.”

  “It never happened.”

  The pressure increased, became intolerable. He screamed. And then the peak of pain was passed and he began to spin down into darkness. Cromwell’s voice followed him, just a senseless noise now, and even that dying away. He was dying, for her.

  Then pain again and consciousness rushing back and Cromwell’s voice speaking words again.

  “There is no escape for you, Smeaton. Except by confession. Would the rack loosen your tongue? I tell you again, there will be a confession, signed by you. If you die it will make no difference.”

  He could not save her. He might die of torment, after hours and hours of torment, suffering every pain that the inhumanity of man had devised, and at the end it would make no difference. There would be a confession, with his signature, forged.

  He said, sobbing, “What do you want me to say?”

  “I want the truth. Are you ready?”

  “I’ll say what you want.”

  “Then you are not ready.”

  The cord tightened again; this time judged to a nicety, so that the pain stayed at the screaming peak and his brain tilted.

  “I’ll say it. I’ll say anything.”

  “That’s better,” Cromwell said, and he must have made the sign for the cord to be loosened. “Now begin.”

  Once he had started it came easily enough, because it was really all part of his dream and therefore had a truth of its own. For almost four years, ever since she had submitted to Henry, he had dreamed of possessing her. He was able to bring out a dozen small corroborative details, the gleanings of watchfulness and of a vivid imagination. She had a mole on her neck, always hidden by a necklace or a collar; her breasts were so small that the hand could cup them; at the moment of climax she…

  On and on it went until even Cromwell, who had lain on his sickbed and devised this approach to the final solution of the problem, was slightly shaken. Was it possible that fumbling round in the dark he had hit on a hidden truth? The most he had expected had been the admission, extracted under torture, “Yes, I bedded with her.” He’d got that, and more. Much more. This did not sound like a grudging admission of guilt, but the real direct from the heart, almost boastful reliving of a love affair, it was all there, even his envy of Norris, Brereton and Weston, and George Boleyn who had been, he said, favored more than he had been.

  Finally he had told all, everything that he had wished were true, everything that he had almost convinced himself was true, because otherwise how could he have lived, loving her as he did and seeing her every day?

  “And that is all?”

  “Is it not…enough?”

  “The paper, Edward.”

  Cromwell ran his eye over it almost perfunctorily. This was not the first interrogation which this particular secretary had reported; he knew exactly what to omit.

  “Now, if you will sign.”

  Smeaton signed. Cromwell regarded the signature with satisfaction. If anyone said “rack,” which was what everyone thought of as a means of persuasion, this signature would be a refutal.

  “Keep him here,” Cromwell said. Give him anything he wants to eat or drink and wash off the blood. As soon as it is dark enough take him to the Tower. Sir William Kingston has been warned of his coming.”

  XXXVII

  Ah! Norris, Norris, my tears begin to run

  To think what hap did thee so lead or guide,

  By which thou hast both thee and thine undone,

  That is bewailed in Court on every side.

  Sir Thomas Wyatt

  WHITEHALL. MAY 1ST, 1536

  HENRY LOOKED AT CROMWELL AND said, “If only Norris had not been involved! He’s slept in my chamber, been closer than a son. It cuts me to the heart that he, whom I trusted…”

  “Smeaton’s statement was taken down just as he made it, Your Grace.”

  And why, in God’s name, shouldn’t the King suffer? Smeaton had suffered this morning, and would suffer more. The others would suffer. And Cromwell in the last three months had suffered more mental distress than most people bore in a lifetime.

  First of all he had had the task of breaking to the King the news that one way to free him had been thought out, a way that would free him swiftly and completely, since in a Queen adultery was treason and punishable by death. Henry had instantly dug in his heels and demanded, “Am I to clap the horns on my own head?”

  Cromwell had pointed out that it was the only alternative to legal action on the plea of consanguinity which would revive the old scandal of Mary Boleyn, or on the plea of precontract. which would rouse echoes of the case against Catherine. No, Henry said, he had abandoned both those ideas last summer, after his talk with the Duke of Norfolk. He’d have no consanguinity, no precontract, and no cuckolding.

  Cromwell, ambitious, self-seeking, and cynical, could, if pushed too far, turn like a cornered rat. He had done so then.

  “Your Grace, all that you leave open to me is to have her poisoned, or pushed downstairs.”

  Henry had quite seriously considered that suggestion, and then, rather regretfully, said, “Difficult to achieve and open to suspicion. God’s Head! Is that the best you can do? I tell you I want some means of ridding her that will leave me
with the goodwill of my people.”

  “Her adultery, could we prove it, would do that.”

  “And bring their mockery, too.”

  “Not necessarily. The ordinary man whose wife betrays him is mocked because he has been a blind fool. He’s been home to supper every evening, he’s slept in the same bed with her. He must be a blind and unobservant ass. But Kings have matters to attend to that demand the removal of their minds and eyes from domestic matters. I am positive, Your Grace, that if you proceed with this, there will not be a man in the country who will not sympathize with you, nor a woman who will not think that the Queen has taken advantage of her opportunities.”

  Arguments like that had gone on and on, and Henry, wasting time, had fretted against its wasting. And the sore on his leg had grown worse, and his temper with it. He had demanded the impossible, and finding it unobtainable had thrown hard names, a cushion, a stick, and the three-legged stool at his advisers. At one point Cromwell’s health had broken down under the strain and he had taken to his bed.

  Then, suddenly, Henry had veered around and agreed to proceed against Smeaton. So if, now, he had a little more than he had bargained for, and was cut to the heart, Cromwell was glad.

  “I rode with Norris in from Greenwich this afternoon,” Henry said in a self-pitying voice. “I begged, I pleaded with him to confess. I’d have forgiven him if he would but have confessed. I know her ways. And there’s enough here to condemn her without mentioning his name. You could have blotted it over. But he was stubborn as wood. He had a guilty look though, and I’ve been thinking. He was long ago betrothed to a Mistress Shelton; he’s made no move to get himself married. Now we know why!” He narrowed his eyes and looked hard at his chief minister. “Give me an honest answer. You knew of all this. You suggested a charge of adultery because you knew you were on safe ground. And if you knew, so did others. In God’s Name, why didn’t you tell me?”