by V L Perry
So she was Tom’s sister. They really looked nothing alike. “So now I know your family, and you seem to know mine. But you are…?”
“I’m Jane,” she said simply, and picked up her cup.
“Well, Jane,” I said, more warmly than I felt, “perhaps you’ll tell me why you don’t sound like you’re from Wiltshire.”
“You don’t sound so much like you’re from Kent, either. But I suppose time at court polishes one’s speech and manners.”
I took a deep breath. “Indeed. One can make a game of guessing where each courtier is from, and how long they’ve been in London, simply from the way they talk. Those northmen I can hardly understand at all. “
She laughed a little, showing small, even teeth. I joined her, looking closely at her eyes; they were unfocused, gleaming like the eyes of a mystic in rapture. No, she was straining to look at something just beyond me. But that wasn’t it, either; one hazel-green eye looked fixedly at me. The other stared off, disconnected, following its own course. It was common enough. Only Gypsies and ignorant folk crossed themselves at such things.
“Why do you stare at me?” she asked. “I asked how long you’ve been at court, since I’m not as adept at your guessing game.”
“Forgive me,” I said. “I arrived only a few weeks ago. Though I served in Archduke Ferdinand’s court in Austria before that.” Let her know that I was no bumpkin, no new arrival from the woods.
“I arrived this morning,” she said. “My busy brothers could not escort me from Wulfhall, so it took three days; the roads are not easily passable this time of year.”
“The feast tonight will be your first here, then,” I said. “If you stay by me, I can point out who is who, so you get know the court more quickly.” It would save the trouble I’d had with matching the names to faces from scattered bits of conversation.
A smile played on her lips. A strange girl, perhaps a bit touched in the mind. I might have to keep an eye out for her against the sharp claws of Nan Cobham and her like. “I’d enjoy hearing it,” was all she said.
It wasn’t until later that evening, while the rest of us were dressing in the upper chamber, that I learned that sly Seymour bitch had spent years at court already.
“She has been buried at Wulfhall all these months since she left the Princess Dowager’s service,” Nan said. “No doubt she’s glad to escape from there. Bad enough to have the Seymours at court in the first place; at least she can’t bring them any lower.”
I’d already learned Nan’s habit of pausing just on the brink of some crucial point; she liked to be prompted. I stayed quiet, and it was Madge who asked, “What do you mean?”
“Have you not heard of how Edward Seymour cast off his wife?”
It seemed almost everyone had: how he’d put Katherine Fillol in a nunnery for adultery, though he would not divorce her, how he refused to recognize the children as his own. “They’re the spit of him, too,” said Madge. “Weak chins and milky complexions, like all the Seymours.” She had evidently forgotten Tom. Not many men escaped her notice. But then, her tastes ran more to broad-shouldered athletic types, like Henry Norris.
“Aye,” agreed Nan. “And no wonder, since they got their looks from the same place Sir Edward got his.”
There was a silence. “Honestly, Nan,” said Mary Howard. “With her own husband’s father?”
“Why do you not say, `With his own son’s wife?’ It’s not likely the girl was willing,” Meg said. At Nan’s words, Bess Holland had turned away and was looking as if she’d bit into a rotten apple. Bess had one of the best hearts of any of us, for all she was a whore.
“For shame,” said Grace. “They be of his blood even if he did not sire them himself. Sir Edward wasn’t so disgusted as to give up her dower lands too, even when he married again. And even if poor Katherine Fillol is no Tamar, she’s the one to pay the price of a man’s sin. ‘Tis always so with women.”
“Not much worse than wedding a man who fathered a child on your sister,” said Ann Saville, stabbing a glance at Mary Boleyn. She looked like a cat preening, and simply went on arranging her hair, giving no sign she’d heard. “They say Sir John’s quite a rutting stag; no woman is safe in his household. Small wonder Mistress Jane is desperate for a place at court, though she can hardly expect to find a husband willing to take spoiled goods.”
“All this is years ago,” said Mistress Gainsford. “Idle talk never dies, though it rots apace.”
I fastened a ribbon around my neck and said lightly, “Mistress Seymour’s virtue seemed intact at dinner. I doubt she’ll have lost it by suppertime, though I wouldn’t be surprised, with some of the examples about her.”
I sat through countless banquets in the years I spent at court, so that they have blurred together in my mind. But that night has stayed clear to me, though I have often wished it would fade:
The presence chamber was hung with tapestries taken from the presses that afternoon, glittering with precious thread. Candlelight glinted on the polished floor and the dozens of golden dishes and silver goblets—royal plate, I noted. Even the people gave off their own illumination, their chains, caps, hoods edged with gold and pearl throwing off the light in every direction.
A few had gasped when the Lady first appeared: her gown was of silver tissue, and her black velvet hood and veil made her face seem as though it floated in a ring of pearls. But most remarkable was her hair: it spilled down over her shoulders, the color of mahogany in sunlight.
Only the queen wore her hair loose, and only on state occasions. The message could not have been clearer.
“Let us rejoice in the season of the birth of Our Lord,” she said in that beautiful voice, though it seemed an odd way to signal the festivities to begin.
She knew enough not to cram her chambers full of guests, but carefully selected a dozen or so; the Lady delighted in mixing high officials and courtiers with the lower ranks. Despite the iron coldness outside, only a small fire was lit, for the closeness of so many candles and heavily-clothed bodies kept the chamber almost too warm. The dishes had been cleared away, the game boards brought out, and spiced wine flowed freely from silver ewers that were endlessly kept filled, as if by magic. The musicians in the outer chamber, however, nearly ruined the effect, twittering and banging away like woodpeckers. Was this English court music? Hopefully the king’s musicians would be superior. Maria would not have been able to keep from laughing.
I had spotted Jane Seymour when I entered, sitting between her brothers, though it was not until after the second course of roast pigeons and roe deer had been cleared away that she came to sit beside me. I’d been thinking of whether to maneuver next to her or ignore her altogether, so she startled me.
“A fine feast,” she began.
“As well you might know,” I replied.
She sighed. “I did want to thank you for your kindness this morning.”
I wanted to say nothing, but my tongue would not obey: “Why did you tell me you’ve never been at court before?”
“I never said that,” she answered quickly. “I did arrive this morning, from my father’s house. I was in Queen Katharine’s service until two years ago. When she…left, I returned home. Now there are more places at court, they’ve brought me back. But you must not blame me for having a care who I speak to about it. I didn’t mean to upset you.”
Something about her still sat ill with me; she’d not quite lied, but she’d chosen her answers in such a way as to mislead. In that I could hardly blame her. Why should I care about the silly baggage, anyway? Out of the corner of my eye I saw Tom Seymour look around for her.
“Well do I understand,” I said. “Court’s not the place for ready openness.”
“But if you’re willing, I can return the favor you offered, tell you a bit about what surrounds you.”
“Ceremony is a thing I’m used to,” I said, as the servers brought in the wafers and jelly.
“I’m not talking about ceremony,” she replie
d. “I’m talking about people. Especially our mistress: I knew her in France, I knew her in Queen Katharine’s household, and I doubt she’s changed very much.”
I already knew the advantages of keeping my head up and my mouth shut; Jane did not teach me that. What she did teach me was how to look like we were having a perfectly mundane conversation, speaking in low voices underneath the din.
From her expression it would have been impossible to tell, for example, that she was pointing out the Duke of Norfolk, the Lady’s uncle, who promoted her cause in public but behind her back called her “The Great Whore” and complained she was allowed to treat him like a dog. He had elevated Bess Holland from the laundry to her current place, and exiled his Duchess to Kenninghall so he could enjoy his mistress openly. Lady Rochford watched her husband from another table, and went rigid with jealousy whenever he spoke with any other woman…and not without cause. That was how she had come to ruin her complexion, Jane said; in trying to take years away, hoping to capture the love of a husband who’d never wanted her in the first place, she had favored a facepaint compounded of white lead, vinegar, and tin ash. No amount of curative salves had been able to reverse the effects.
The king’s secretary, Thomas Cromwell, had small eyes set closely on either side of his broad nose, which gave him the look of a boar. “He roots out everything, reads every letter coming to and from court,” said Jane. Some said he used magic, but it needed no magic to break seals and make copies.
Edward Seymour was beside Cromwell, nodding as he spoke, but Tom did not sit among Lord Rochford and the king’s men; instead he kept company with the artists and craftsmen. The one with the stolid German jaw and gruff chuckle was Master Hans Holbein, the artist, always in rivalry with the Flemish Lucas Horenboute for the title of King’s Painter. Next to him was another man of their age whose hair was cut in the old-fashioned way, a little longer than the flaps of his velvet cap.
“Nicholas Kratzer,” Jane said. “The king’s astronomer, and Holbein’s closest friend. The foreigners prefer to stick together,”
“Is he German also, then?” I asked. In truth I did not care whether the astronomer were from the moon, but Tom Seymour was looking in our direction. I kept my eyes on Jane as she shrugged.
“From Bavaria, or somewhere else in the Low Countries where they grunt and spit at each other instead of talking, and eat every part of the pig. Even now, after all these years, none of them can speak English properly.”
Mistress Gainsford shared a wine cup with George Zouche, Grace Parker with her husband Sir Henry, Ann Saville with Will Brereton; I’d almost not recognized her, she seemed so demure and almost beautiful. Perhaps it was the candlelight. Madge sat between Henry Norris (he of the royal stool) and young Francis Weston, both of them offering her sweetmeats from the trays as the servitors passed: sugared walnuts, dried cherries, yellow cheese, small cakes with hard white icing, marzipan fruits.
Jane and I moved to Tom’s table, where the lively conversation turned out to be an account of Zwingli’s death after the battle at Kappel am Albis. Just as I was about to ask sort of party talk this was, Tom spoke:
“I suppose you don’t find this kind of talk to your liking, my lady.”
I am fortunate in that I do not blush. “Actually, I was wondering when the Scripture reading will begin,” I said. “Or perhaps we could get a map and plan the strategy of His Majesty’s next French campaign.”
“Would you rather we find other pastime?” Tom replied. “They say idle hands do the devil’s work, but like most moral lessons, I’ve never found much truth in it. The devil is a driving taskmaster, and keeps a fellow busy!” He brayed laughter.
“Let’s have some poetry, Tom!” Lord Rochford said.
“If it’s time for poetry, I’ll take my leave,” said Norfolk. “I’d rather spend time with my own hangover than listen to that drivel.”
“It’s one quality that makes you such a fine soldier, uncle,” said Lord Rochford. “You have no imagination.”
At the word “poetry,” Thomas Wyatt and John Poyntz had brightened. Both fancied themselves quite the bards; during my years at the English court, I was to listen endlessly to their drivel. Poyntz’s “witty” satires of court life were particularly hard to bear.
“A soldier needs as much imagination as an artist,” said Holbein in his heavy accent, the s like a z. “Else it is not just he who suffers, but all under his command.”
“I suffer more from poetry than from warfare,” groaned Norfolk. “One is a man’s art, the other fit only for perfumed dandies and women.”
“In that case, we must have some,” said the Lady smoothly. “Shall it be an original composition, or shall we translate?”
“It is hardly fair to those like myself, who excel at neither,” Kratzer said. “If we drink a penalty at each missed line, I will be too soon drunk before the rest of the company.”
“I think that means you win,” Tom said.
“To victory, then!” said Kratzer, and drained his cup.
“Poetry is not solely the pastime of frivolous youth, uncle,” the Lady said. “Why, even men of science, like Kratzer here, have written some.” He bowed. “And since he is neither frivolous nor young, he can judge our contest.”
“The one on your sundial, Nick!” Lord Rochford was beginning to slur his words a little. She frowned at him, set his cap straight upon his head.
“Which one? He has seven at Hampton alone.”
“I have made many sundials, but only one poem,” Kratzer answered, filling his cup again. “That should tell you where my strengths lie. I can at least sell my poor sundials to Poyntz; he uses them as building-stones. But my poor poem can never be buried, unfortunately.”
“By God, they say the German vice is drink, and I believe it now,” exclaimed Francis Bryan. “These fellows could drain a hogshead and still walk outside to piss without so much as swaying.”
“What then is the English vice?” asked Holbein.
“The pleasures of the belly, they say,” Tom sniggered. “The French, a little below that, and the Italians, vanity and baubles; a farmer’s daughter touts herself up like a courtesan.”
“And I’ve seen him drink with His Majesty,” Norris added. “Our astronomer friend was the last one left sitting up in his chair.”
Tom Seymour smiled and held out a winecup to me. His hand touched mine as I took it. I raised it to my face but did not drink.
The Lady declared that each one who could translate one line of the poem from Latin into English would win a penny. Her famed love of gambling was true, then; I wanted to ask Jane about it, but she had disappeared from my side. I spotted her at a bench, trapped into exchanging politenesses with one of Cromwell’s servants. I should go over and liberate her, but the contest grew merrier as each round progressed and more successes celebrated, and penalties drunk.
In one thousand five hundred twenty and three,
Assumed I the rank of the post I now see.
The rector of Oxford, Thomas Mosgrave, physician,
Had made me his craftsman, a household position.
And now helped secure me my place in this court
Appointing me here with my finest cohort.
From Nikolas Kratzer, of Bavarian nation,
I offer my handiwork and dedication.
Though helped to my post by a notable master,
My female pupils wept at this disaster.
And Henry the Eighth, nominator, would bring
His astronomer here to serve his belov’d king.
Now Germans teach English how to be craftsmen,
Completing the true Age of Glory, these brethren
With venomous mulberry drink raise a toast…
“`A thirst for all that exists, each can boast!’” cried Carew. He was declared the winner, and the Lady gave him a ring. Wyatt looked sullen, and downed more wine than necessary for a penalty.
“Is it true, Krazter?” Tom asked after we had all calmed do
wn. “Did your women weep to see you go? You must have been teaching them well.”
“In science one may never invent, but in poetry there is more freedom,” he replied, and moved off with Holbein in the direction of the newly refilled winebowls.
Just then Edward Seymour’s voice exploded through the chamber: “The Pope has no authority in England! The Council has pronounced the king Supreme Head of the Church in his own kingdom!”
Oh no, I thought. So much for lighthearted discussion and poetry. We would sit here until morning. Across the room Jane and I exchanged a look, and I knew she was thinking the same thing.
“Ah, but only as far as the law of God allows, Edward,” said Cromwell with a smile. “And those little words le clause provides enough room for every Papist in the kingdom to be satisfied of its emptiness. Before you count England Protestant, remember that His Majesty himself still holds to the Pope’s authority.”
“Not tonight, gentlemen,” the Lady declared, rising. “It’s a night for dancing, not debate!” She swept forward with Wyatt, their raised fingertips barely touching.
I made my way over to Jane as the musicians struck up a stately bransles, my chest feeling as it if were bound by a cloth. “It’s too close in here,” I said.
But she did not move. “There’s a door in the privy chamber that opens directly onto the garden,” she said. “You can take the air there.” The lad next to her looked at me, balky as a calf. His plainly-woven coat marked him as a servant. She had no instinct for ambition, I remember thinking.
I hadn’t realized I was sweating until I felt the chill air on my skin. The warm indoor smells of fur and sweat were swept away by the faint rotting odor from the water. I shivered, almost wishing I’d had some wine to warm me.
To my dismay I was not alone; two bulky, cloaked shapes already stood under a pear tree nearby: the astronomer and Holbein, of all people. Upon seeing me they nodded. “A good night to look at stars,” Kratzer said.