“Mary knows nothing of love, Kate. She is a maid and thinks passions can be governed, but a love like ours cannot be contained. It cannot be ruled.”
She looks up, tries to smile through her tears, and I drag out my kerchief and dab her cheeks dry. Kate sniffs a little and looks at the letter again.
“I am sorry to have wounded her. She has been my friend since … Lord, I don’t know, forever. It hurts that she thinks ill of me, and we were less than truthful. If Mary discovers we are wed already, I am not sure she will ever forgive me.”
“Then we must ensure she does not discover it.”
Kate looks at me, her eyes wide with disapproval. “That isn’t the answer Thomas. Deception is wrong, especially if it is for self-preservation. I am not sure I can forgive myself, let alone expect others to.”
She may be overflowing with guilt, but such pious philosophy confounds me. A fellow must do what a fellow can to keep himself from harm’s way. A few lapses of truth never hurt anyone. Kate looks like a smacked puppy, she dabs her eyes again.
“Don’t worry.” I draw her close, kiss the top of her head, and inhale the lavender and juniper of her laundered cap. My fingers are on her neck, she lifts a shoulder and I trace the line of her collarbone, feel her skin thrill at my touch. She turns, without prompting, into my arms, lifts her face so I can kiss away her sorrows, her uncertainties and doubts.
Afterwards I help Kate dress, lacing the back of her gown crookedly, her stockings wrinkled about her ankles. She laughs up at me through her dishevelled hair. “I will do it, Thomas. Your skills as a lady’s maid are sadly lacking.”
I am glad to be freed from the task, since my pleasure lies in the disrobing rather than the redressing. Pulling on my doublet I move to the open window, look out across the garden. “Perhaps I should see the king after all and put my trust in him.”
She straightens up, pushes her skirts down to cover her limbs. “Perhaps you should. I can see no path but an honest one.”
“It is a little late for that,” I quip as I blow her a kiss and slip from her chamber.
The court is crowded. People from far and wide have come to seek an audience with the new king. Those who had Henry’s good will come to ensure it continues with his son, and those who had fallen from the old king’s favour come to redeem themselves with the new.
The outer chamber is crowded. I hold a pomander to my nose and push through the throng, looking for friends. Allies are few and far between since my brother, Dudley and their ilk closed ranks against me. The new religion binds them and, although Kate is hot for Protestantism, all religion leaves me cold. I pray if and when I have to, but God rarely intrudes into my personal life. Neither for the new church nor the old, I am in solitary limbo, alone in a world of heaving piety.
A hand falls lightly on my arm and I turn to greet Lucy Somerset and Katheryn’s stepson, John, now Baron Latimer, back from the wars. I bow stiffly, reflecting that, although he does not yet know it, he is now my kin in the eyes of the law. John is a rogue and a villain but I greet him cordially before spending a pleasurable moment tasting the sweetness of his wife’s lips. She murmurs something and as I lean closer to hear her words, I notice how faded she has become. “I have been so long from court, Sir Thomas; it is good to see a familiar face.”
“It is ever a joy to see yours,” I reply, kissing her again, although I am itching to leave her company.
“I miss court so much and I miss the queen too. I was loath not to go with her to Chelsea and have no ambition to join the household of the Lady Protector, even if I was asked. Tell me, have you seen the queen, Sir Thomas? Do you know how she is finding widowhood?”
While I pretend to scan the room I watch her from the corner of my eye, searching her words for an ulterior motive.
“No, not recently,” I lie. “Please excuse me; I have an audience with the king. I must not keep him waiting.”
I kiss her wrist, bow frostily to Latimer and melt into the crowd. The first person I bump into is John Fowler, a friend of mine from the privy chamber.
“John!” Genuinely pleased, I slap him familiarly on the shoulder. “It is good to see you.”
His beam is as wide as my own. “Where have you been hiding?” he asks. “Breaking the heart of some wench, I’ll warrant.”
I pretend to be offended for a moment but I cannot maintain it and we break into laughter. When we’ve both sobered, I look about the hall, hear the clambering noise, high pitched laughter, and inhale the overpowering odour of too many close pressed bodies. “Have you seen the king today? How is the boy enjoying being lord over all of us?”
“His majesty is well. Still studying hard, doing his best to outwit his uncle, Somerset.”
“Ha! A monkey could outwit my brother.” We both laugh again. John raises his cup and we fall silent while he drinks. “I wonder if the king ever wonders why I have never married.”
Fowler lowers his cup again. “Married, Seymour? Why should he wonder such a thing?”
I shrug and try to look innocent. “They will be urging the boy to think of a match for himself soon, I daresay. The council will lose no time trying to marry him off, poor fellow. They’ll expect him to produce an heir before his balls have dropped. I pray you, the next time you see him, ask his grace whom he would choose to be my wife.”
John Fowler bows, his mouth twitching in amusement. “What is up your sleeve, Tom? Have you been hooked? I never thought I’d live to see the day.”
“Not hooked, John. Just curious, shall we say.”
“That’s what killed the cat you know, Tom. I’d tread warily if you don’t want to be caught.”
We part on laughing terms after agreeing to meet in a few days.
But my scheme does not go to plan. Instead of Katheryn, as I had hoped, Edward suggests I marry Anna of Cleves, or Princess Mary. My hopes sink as I cast about for a way of making my marriage to Kate seem like it was the king’s idea all along.
“Damn me, Fowler. Anna of Cleves? I don’t think so, and as for the princess, she would have none of me, I know that. What about the queen? Katheryn and I have always rubbed along nicely. Ask his majesty if he would vouch for me if I pressed my suit with her.”
Fowler rubs his eyebrow with an ink-stained forefinger and looks at me quizzically.
“Am I missing something, Tom? There were rumours she was sweet on you years ago but I dismissed all that as back stairs gossip. You’ve not been dallying with the queen all along have you?”
This time there is no need to pretend shock. “Do you take me for an idiot? I value my head and would never trifle with a queen.” As he grunts approval I add wickedly, “not so long as the king was still breathing.”
As luck would have it I am granted an audience with the king before Fowler has time to press my suit further. I enter the royal apartments well-armed with gifts and bribes for my nephew.
“Uncle.” The boy looks up from his book, dismisses his companions with a jerk of his chin, and climbs from the window seat. “It is good to see you, sir. I am kept very busy by the Protector and have little time for good company.”
I can sense no resentment in his words so say nothing in disparagement of my brother.
“I have brought you presents,” I announce as I delve into my bag. First I toss him a bag of coin. “This should keep you from the embarrassment of an empty purse for a while.” When he feels the weight of coin his coolness melts away. He gets up and comes closer, leaning over my shoulder as I bring forth some books, suggested by Katheryn; dry, dusty stuff about religion and philosophy. He turns the pages carefully, looks up with a wide smile that reminds me fleetingly of his mother. With a surge of guilt I realise I seldom think of Jane except in terms of the son she has left behind. The quietly pious girl that grew up in the midst of our noisy family at Wulfhall is almost forgotten.
With a surge of irritation I realise I should look after Edward better. The boy is too pale, too bruised beneath the eye. He should read less
and be outside more. My brother is too careful of him. A boy needs fresh air and hunting; his life shouldn’t be all study and inactivity. If we are not careful we will create a milksop king. “We should go hunting, Your Majesty, just you and I and a few of your retainers.”
“Uncle Somerset would never allow it. He keeps me closeted, safe from assassins, but I’d like to, if we could arrange it.”
“You are the king.” Without waiting or asking for permission I sit beside him and crane over his shoulder at the picture he is studying. It is an image of the flayed man; a grisly thing for a boy to ponder. “You should instruct your council, not the other way round.”
He says nothing but his sigh is lofty. I sit up straighter, hand him a packet of sweetmeats. “I have something else for you. Shall I call my man to bring it in?”
In an instant he forgets he is king and becomes a boy again. “Oh yes; what is it, Uncle?”
His cheek bulges with a sugared comfit, his eyes alight with speculation. I clap my hands and the doors open to admit my man, who has a monkey clinging to his head. Edward’s face opens in surprise, his high pitched laughter carefree, as it should be. “Is that it? Is the beast for me?”
“It is, Your Majesty, but be wary; his teeth are sharp, as my man will no doubt attest.”
Edward jumps from his seat and approaches the monkey with his hand outstretched, but the creature takes one look at the king and leaps from the fellow’s shoulder to swing along the priceless wall hangings.
“Ha, ha, look at him! He is like a little devil. Can you get him down, Uncle Tom?”
It is good to be called ‘Uncle Tom’ again but even I cannot tempt a monkey to sit upon a king if he does not have the mind for it. We spend an hour in pursuit until I am weary, and Edward is growing disillusioned.
“Your Majesty, if we ignore the beast and pretend we do not care for him, he may grow curious and come to us, especially if we eat from your royal fruit bowl. I am told monkeys have a special love of fruit.”
With one eye straying constantly toward his errant pet, Edward chatters on about his lessons, the injustices of being a king who is yet denied command. He pops half a pear in his mouth and when he falls silent, I put my fate in his hands.
“Your Majesty, I have a mind to marry.”
The king swallows, coughs and wipes his fingers on his velvet sleeve.
“Do you? Who, Tom? Is it one of my sisters?”
“Nay. Mary will have none of me and Elizabeth is too young as yet.”
“I can order one of them to wed you. Do you want me to do so? Which one do you want?”
“Your Majesty, I’d prefer a willing bride and there is such a lady who would, I think, be pleased to have me if she had your blessing.”
He stops eating, licks pear juice from his fingers. “Who is the lady?”
Behind him I notice his new pet inching down the curtains but having no wish to distract him from the conversation, I say nothing.
“Katheryn, your stepmother. It would bring you and I even closer, Your Majesty. Instead of merely uncle, I would become a sort of father. You’d like that, wouldn’t you?”
Edward’s eyes narrow. It is not a sign of displeasure but rather an indication of his thought process. “You want to wed my mother? And she welcomes this?”
“Oh, I have not been so indelicate as to approach the lady, but I do have hopes that, with your blessing, she would find the idea agreeable.”
He sits up, wipes fruit juice on his velvet doublet and claps his hands. “Then my blessing you shall have, Uncle Tom. I can think of no lady I love and respect more, and there is no fellow I prefer either, unless it is Barnaby Fitzpatrick, but my whipping boy can never be the bed mate of my mother. I shall inform her of my wishes immediately.”
An hour or so later when I bow from his presence, he is feeding the monkey, whom he has named Diablo, on pieces of fig. As the door closes softly I cannot but hope that the gift of the beast will stand me in good stead with the king, and find no favour with my brother and his termagant of a wife.
By July, the news of our marriage is out. The protector and his wife are furious. Princess Mary declares her relationship with Kate is ruined, but Elizabeth, although wary at first, accepts it quite readily.
At last, six months after the death of the old king, Kate and I can relax and live openly as man and wife. But the respect my wife once took for granted as former queen is now retracted. Anne Stanhope, my brother’s wife, refuses to pay the deference due to her. “She is not the queen. Why should I carry the train of the wife of my husband’s younger brother? And if Master Admiral can teach his wife no better manners, I am she that will.”
Anne, as wife of the protector, now demands to be the first lady in the land and although there are those who yield to her wishes, she wins herself few friends. I for one lay awake at night and dream of beating her with sticks.
I take it all in my stride until the day she physically pushes Kate aside and enters the room before her. My lovely Kate is humiliated and reduced to tears. She quits the court at once and scurries home to Chelsea, declaring she will not leave again. She declares she will remain at Chelsea where she is loved and respected by her own household.
Elizabeth and Jane Grey, who has come to live with us, try to comfort her. Jane fetches her shawl and calls for a warming drink while Elizabeth strokes her stepmother’s hand with long white fingers.
Kate turns a reddened face to me and demands that I do something. This is the sort of thing I have dreaded. I have avoided marriage for just these reasons; bickering women and obsolete traditions. I think longingly of a heaving deck, the empty horizon stretching endless before me. In the end, to stem her weeping, I send the girls about their business and take Kate to bed.
Although it is not much past noon it is the only way I can think of to staunch her tears, but for the first time she is limp and unresponsive. She lies beneath me like a corpse until I am forced to acknowledge that if I want my wanton wife back I will have to stand up for her rights. I climb from her bed and prepare to journey to the palace and confront my brother.
“And I want my jewels back too,” Katheryn insists as I ride away. “My wedding ring and my gold cross, and pearl pendants; they are mine, willed to me by my mother. They are not the property of the crown.”
I promise to do what I can and with a heavy heart head toward court and the unfriendly company of the Somersets.
Brother Edward does not smile when he looks up from the parchment, but he puts down his pen and presses the tips of his fingers together as if he is containing his patience. “Thomas,” he says by way of chilly greeting.
I am always uneasy with him. Not afraid, but wary of my contempt over-spilling. With an assumed bravado I saunter to the desk and slump in the proffered seat, take off my hat and ruffle my hair which is sweaty from the ride. “You are well?” he asks, in just the sort of voice to convince me he has no care for the answer.
“Well in health if not in spirit.”
In the maddening way that is peculiarly his own, he closes his eyes slowly. I feel my jaw tighten in response. All my life he has shown me this barely concealed resentment; intolerant of the fact that I am not cast in the same mould as he. Where he is all books and cunning, I am for hunting and action. “And you?”
“I am very well,” he says brightly, signalling his man to bring refreshment. “As is my wife. Thank you for asking.”
Sarcasm now, as well as contempt. I balance my ankle on my knee, lean back in my chair and drain the cup. The wine is good but not the finest. For all his ostentation, he still keeps to his miserly ways. “I did not notice an enquiry after the health of my wife, either.”
“Ah, yes, your wife.” He makes the word an insult, slurring the word until it sounds like ‘whore.’ “How is she?”
“Not well at all, since you ask. She has been treated ill by those close to you, as well you know.”
He raises his eyebrows, tries to look surprised. Once I would have p
unched him for such a smirk. I remember the boyhood joy of besting him in a scuffle. Recall him running to our nurse with his nose dripping scarlet juice down the front of his best doublet. I’ll bet he still isn’t man enough to beat his little brother in a fair fight – although the trick ofgetting him to play fair has ever been the greatest challenge.
“She wants her jewels, Edward, as is her right.”
Cold grey eyes rake down my body, taking in the cut of my doublet, the fine knit of my hose and, I hope, the negligent elegance with which I carry them. I may not always behave like a gentleman, but at all times I contrive to look like one. Edward shifts in his seat a little.
“The jewels are the property of the crown, as you both know.”
I lean forward, narrow my eye, unable to disguise my contempt, and growl at him. “Not all the jewels my wife held in safekeeping at the Tower belong to the crown. There are pendants and a jewelled cross that was bequeathed to Kate by her mother. It is her property and I demand that it is returned.”
“Demand, Thomas? Of whom do you demand it? The king? One does not demand things from a king; one begs and waits for favours.”
I leap to my feet, my chair skidding backward, the legs pointing skyward. “Unless, of course, one has usurped the ruling of the king, and stolen the position as royal advisor. I will go to Edward myself. He will not see her goods taken by the likes of you. What do you mean to do with them? Drape them round the fat neck of your own ugly wife?”
“I have had enough of this.”
He is on his feet, his weight on his knuckles pressed hard on the desk. We stand eye to eye, our noses point to point, snarling like dogs ready to pounce, to fight again. I can almost smell the victory. Every inch of my body longs for it. My knuckles twitch as I glare into his bloodshot eyes daring him to make the first move.
When he backs down and looks away, my heart sinks. My dagger will not be finding a resting place in his ribs today. “Get out!” he snarls. “Get out before I have you thrown out.”
The sound of our raised voices alerts the guard, and the door is thrust open. Edward raises a hand. “It is all right. My brother is just leaving.”
Intractable Heart: A story of Katheryn Parr Page 17