by Deryn Lake
‘I would so like to marry …’ she went on with a nervous smile, but her voice trailed away as she realised that the astrologer was no longer listening to her, his head sinking forward over the scrying glass as he stared into its twinkling heart.
‘I will do my best, Mistress Seymour,’ he answered softly and Jane felt herself grow faint. She had used her mother’s name, Wentworth, in order to try and hide from him her true identity.
‘How did you know?’ she asked unevenly.
Dr Zachary’s shoulders shook and he spun round to look at her, his curls flying about his head as he burst out laughing. ‘Because I used to observe you around the Court, Madam.’
Jane drew in a breath, struggling between irritation and amusement, but the astrologer merely grinned at her disarmingly before he once more bent his attention to the gleaming orb on the table before him, his eyes half closing as he stared into it.
Jane sighed somewhat petulantly, wishing that she had not come, thinking that the astrologer was probably a charlatan yet terrified lest he might tell her something she had no wish to hear.
Again as if he had read her thoughts, Zachary said soothingly, ‘Do not be afraid, Mistress Seymour, for what you desire most in all the world will be yours.’
The girl gave a muffled gasp. ‘What do you mean?’
‘What I say, Madam. The man you love will become your husband, there is nothing that can prevent it.’
He looked up at her, his large amber eyes suddenly gentle. ‘Mistress Jane,’ he said quietly, ‘many great people have sat where you are now and I have told them their destiny, be it for good or ill. There is only one thing I ask of them in return.’
‘And what is that?’
‘That they trust me with their secrets. For if you and I are to continue to play shill and shall together there is little point in this meeting.’
‘Dr Zachary,’ said Jane forthrightly, ‘you are of the house of Howard, or so it is said. That means you are kin to the Queen.’
‘Mistress Seymour,’ came the answer, ‘you knew that before you came. So why did you choose to consult me?’
She looked young suddenly, the plain face crumpling like a child’s and the great eyes swimming with tears. ‘Because I need help,’ she whispered. ‘A destiny too great is being thrust upon me.’
Zachary rose and silently poured a golden liquid from a stone bottle, giving Jane the phial to drink.
‘What is it?’
‘A herbal remedy that will restore you to calm.’
The girl smiled faintly, then drank. ‘It was wrong of me not to trust you. I’m sorry.’
‘Forget that and listen to me. Mistress Seymour, you have come to see me on the very day when all events must change. By tomorrow morning the King will at last know which path he is free to take.’
‘What are you saying? How can this be?’
‘Some hours ago the Princess Dowager Katharine of Aragon died in Kimbolton Castle. The news will reach London at daybreak.’
Jane stared at the astrologer, her lips trembling. ‘She is dead? That good woman whom I once served?’
‘Yes, I fear so, may God have mercy on her unhappy soul. And now a chain of reaction will start which will culminate in your ascending the throne of England as consort to His Grace.’
‘But Anne,’ said the girl frantically, ‘what of her?’
At that moment the crystal suffused the colour of blood, they both saw it together and there could be no doubt.
‘Mistress Seymour,’ answered Zachary, gravely, ‘it is not meant that this part of the consultation should continue. A dark crystal is a powerful thing and today it is best that we leave it alone.’ He covered it with its velvet cloth but Jane saw the orb glowing through the material for a second or two before it once more turned black.
‘Now let me read the ancient cards.’ The astrologer laid them out, then hunched over them, seeing as he did so all the great destiny of Jane and all the great tragedy of her as well. With enormous care and a kind of love, for he had warmed to this mouse with its sad little face and sweet, generous heart, he told her some of what lay before her. Yet never once did he mention the brutality of Anne Boleyn’s end nor the suffering of Jane’s own. Instead Zachary Howard told the girl a story of love triumphant; of the great gift of a Prince which she would give not only the King but the entire nation; of all the sweet things that were there just for her to reach out and grasp.
Yet when she rose at the end, flushed and beautiful, transformed by her happiness, still she asked, ‘But what of Her Grace? How will she go?’
Zachary looked grave. ‘With any parting there is pain, Mistress. Anne will go savagely.’
She took it to mean that the Queen would fight like a cat when Henry demanded divorce, and nodded her head. ‘I can imagine that well.’
Zachary stood up also. ‘The session is at an end, Mistress Seymour. I can tell you no more.’
She pressed a bag of money into his hand. ‘I thank you. And I apologise that I did not deal straightly with you at first.’
But he was not looking at her, instead staring out of the window, his dark head cocked slightly as if he were listening to something.
‘Is anything the matter?’ Jane wondered at once if she had been followed.
‘There’s an oarsman coming this way and yet it has started to snow. Who could be calling here on such a bleak evening?’
Jane went to stand by the astrologer, peering out on a charcoal landscape in which river and sky blended into one beneath a thick fall of flakes. In the gloom it seemed as if Zachary’s house were the last dwelling place on earth but sure enough a small craft containing two figures, a forlorn boatman and his cloaked passenger, was making its way towards the landing stage.
Though the huddled shape of the traveller was hardly visible, concealed by a huge fur hat and mass of rugs, nonetheless something about it struck Jane as familiar.
‘Who is it?’ she asked anxiously.
‘I believe an intimate of yours,’ answered Zachary, smiling.
Jane stared at him astonished. ‘Who?’
‘Why, Sir Edward Seymour I imagine.’
She shook her head, totally bewildered. ‘But what could my brother be doing here? It is impossible.’
‘On the contrary,’ answered Zachary. ‘We met in France a great many years ago when I was little more than a boy and he a young soldier.’
Jane’s eyes grew wider. ‘The rumple-haired youth who showed him by magic means Katherine Filliol in bed with another man. It was you!’
Zachary bowed. ‘The same, Madam.’
Jane stared at him astounded in the lengthening shadows, until Edward Seymour’s feet were heard mounting the stairs.
*
The news of the death of Katharine of Aragon swept England like wildfire. Many said that she had been helped out of the world by the administration of some slow and cleverly composed drug; others were more circumspect in their thoughts, believing Henry’s insults, neglect and cruelty to be the cause. But whatever their view many genuinely grieved, mourning the loss of a good and harmless woman who in the opinion of most had been much sinned against.
The King, wild with joy because of the freedom Katharine’s death had given him, wore yellow for the mourning, and stuck a white feather in his hat, while Queen Anne adopted the same colour and dressed her small daughter likewise so that the family could appear to be at one.
Those few days when Henry fussed over little Elizabeth, and Anne, proudly displaying her four-month pregnancy, never left his side, were the most difficult that Jane had had to endure since those first agonising times at Wolff Hall when she had believed the King to be making a fool of her. Despite everything that Zachary had said to her — and despite her brother’s assurances that the astrologer was the most gifted man in England — she believed that the Princess Dowager’s death had in some extraordinary way brought the Lady and Henry close once more, that Anne’s exultant cry of, ‘So I am indeed Queen’ on hea
ring of Katharine’s death, had been justified. Because of this Jane avoided her sovereign at the celebrations, not only sick at heart for her own sake but also that Henry Tudor could bring himself to order a Mass, a banquet, dancing and jousting, all to celebrate poor Katharine’s end. In fact, to a very small degree, Mistress Seymour’s passion for her master cooled.
In the extraordinary way that lovers have between them, he knew: knew that his little mouse, as he now so tenderly thought of her, was keeping out of his way; knew that in some manner she had grown cold towards him. At first he was mystified, then, being a man of Henry’s temperament, felt a violent sweep of anger. But inevitably, just as it had so many years ago with Anne Boleyn, her indifference intrigued him and the King’s mind, once the celebrations were done, constantly turned over the way in which he could catch Jane alone and tax her with behaving coldly.
Yet there never seemed an opportunity. Almost as if she was doing it on purpose, which Henry strongly suspected, Jane was constantly in the company of her fellow courtiers and other than a polite letter thanking him for the costly presents he had sent her for Christmas, made no communication. With the elusiveness of his quarry thoroughly engrossing him, the King took to entering rooms alone and unexpectedly, hoping that he would chance on Jane, preferably by herself. And as fate would have it, with only ten days left until the end of January, 1536, he succeeded.
She stood by the window, turning the leaves of a book, and Henry thought he had never seen his love look sweeter, the winter sun lightening her hair to snow and her skin delicate as mistletoe.
He had planned all along that when he finally confronted her he would be stern, rebuke Jane for her cruel treatment of him, but now the King found himself hurrying across the room, his arms outstretched, a rather foolish expression on his full-moon face.
Mistress Seymour spun round, her cheeks flushing, and Henry saw that she was frowning and pursing her lips, ready to reply formally. Then she did something which he never afterwards forgot and which was to endear her to him for ever more. The bottom lip of the tight little mouth trembled and just like a child, Jane Seymour’s face crumpled as she burst into tears.
‘Darling,’ he said, reaching her side. ‘What is it? What has upset you?’
She did not answer, burying her head in the waist of his doublet, which was as high on him as she could reach.
‘Come, come,’ he said, sitting on a chair and pulling her on to his lap. ‘What is the matter? Please tell me.’
Jane wept quietly while Henry, rather inexpertly, made dabs at her face with a linen handkerchief. ‘Won’t you confide in me?’ he said.
‘I thought you had lost interest,’ she answered between sobs.
‘I lose interest in you?’ he replied. ‘Never.’
The answering kiss was inevitable, fierce and intense, speaking as it did of all the sensual pleasure that awaited these two, and it was with a thrill of carnal excitement that Jane felt the King’s great hand slip within the bodice of her gown and close round one full high breast. She knew at that moment that she should fight him off, behave primly as befitted her virgin status, but instead Jane fell to kissing Henry Tudor as if they had been lovers for an age, all her longing for him at last flowing freely.
They were too lost in one another to hear the door open and it wasn’t until a scream like the crack of ice filled the room with its fury that Jane and Henry finally and almost reluctantly drew apart.
The Queen stood in the doorway, wild-eyed, her face contorting in a combination of expressions, for on it despair, anguish and violent anger fought for supremacy. Just for a fleeting second, Jane felt guilt and pity chase one another through her heart, but then fear overcame both as Anne Boleyn flew at her in a frenzy. Henry with amazing speed for someone of his size, rose to his feet and thrust Jane behind him for protection. Nothing daunted, Anne rushed at him, raining a flurry of blows onto his impervious chest.
‘You monstrous bladder,’ she shrieked. ‘You cheating, lying son of a whore.’
Jane could not believe her ears. That anyone, even the Queen of England, should dare to use such words to the King’s Majesty was beyond credulity. It flashed through Jane’s mind that Anne was putting herself in mortal danger by this exhibition and would have felt guilt again had it not been for the thought that the Lady had openly celebrated the death of one who had died friendless and alone, not even allowed the comfort of her daughter’s presence at the end.
‘Quiet,’ Henry was saying calmly. ‘Anne, be quiet.’
‘I will not,’ she screamed, striking him afresh. ‘And as for you, you whey-faced trollop, you may hide behind your lover’s skirts but you’ll never escape my revenge. Never, do you hear me?’
‘Jane,’ ordered the King evenly, ‘Leave the room now. We do not wish you to hear more. Now go.’
Avoiding Anne’s flying fists, Jane fled past him and out, her face the palest it had been for years. Henry, watching her scuttling away, almost smiled. Even her hasty exit held an engaging mouselike quality that delighted him.
With a sigh he turned to his wife.
‘Will you be calm, sweetheart? I merely kissed the girl for amusement. It meant nothing,’ he said soothingly.
‘What! With your hand stuffed in her bodice and she lapping it up, the great suet pudding. God’s blood, how I hate her,’ came Anne’s stinging retort.
‘My dear, don’t excite yourself so. Remember the child. I tell you Jane Seymour is a woman upon whom I merely smiled. That is all. Just as you smile on Mark Smeaton. It means nothing.’
Anne’s eyes flickered and looked away from him, a meaningless enough movement but one on which, in times yet to come, Henry was frequently to dwell. But now he thought nothing of it and went on. ‘That’s better. Be at peace, sweetheart, and all shall go well for thee.’
Anne gave him a look that years ago would have left him gasping with desire. ‘Aye, all will go well when that Seymour wench is sent packing.’
The massive Tudor face seemed to set like stone. ‘What is that you say?’
Foolishly, poor Anne blundered on. ‘When that girl is sent from court then indeed shall I be well again.’
Henry’s preposterous eyebrows rose. ‘In that case, my dear, I shall consider your wishes of course. The welfare of the child must override all else.’
She ran to him, flinging her arms around him and hiding her dark head in his chest. It was as well for her, then, that she could not see the expression on Henry Tudor’s face nor read his cruel thoughts.
‘Then she will go?’ Anne asked in a muffled voice.
He put her from him gently. ‘I said I would consider it.’
The clever face that he had once thought so captivating grew mutinous. ‘There’ll be no peace for my child until Jane Seymour is shown the door.’
‘And there’ll be no peace for you if you continue to give me orders. Know your place, woman, as others have done before you,’ the King answered coldly.
‘Aye, I know my place,’ hissed Anne furiously. ‘I am Queen of all England.’
‘And I am he who put you there. So have a care lest I put you out,’ Henry threw back, and strode from the room without another word, leaving Anne, her hands clutching her swollen belly, to stare disconsolately after him.
*
Many thought that Katharine of Aragon had, even in death, been finally revenged upon the black-haired lady of Hever who had stolen away her husband and thereby ruined her life. For it was by the strangest coincidence that on 29th January just as Katharine, ‘relict of our natural brother Prince Arthur of famous memory’, was laid to rest in Peterborough Cathedral, the Queen who had usurped her place went into premature labour and delivered a dead son of about fifteen weeks gestation who lay upon a towel like a changeling and in his death also condemned his mother.
The King, who had fallen in the lists some days earlier and hurt his leg, limped into the Queen’s apartments and upbraided her for losing his child, snarling that she would have no mor
e boys by him.
Anne had bravely fought back, saying that it was Norfolk’s fault, that he had told her the King had fallen and died; that this, coupled with the shock of seeing him kiss Jane Seymour, had made her miscarry. The growled reply had been that Anne should have emulated her predecessor, Katharine, and not looked for trouble. And, at that, the Queen had turned her long dark eyes to the wall and said no more.
After this scene a terrible silence had fallen over the Palace and while from the King’s apartments had come the distant sound of a whole host of his gentlemen trying desperately to restore him to calm, from the Queen’s there had been none.
Sir Nicholas Carew, his grizzled head close to the King’s own, had whispered, his voice drowned by the musicians, ‘Forgive me, your Grace, if I speak out of turn, but I did wonder if a little feminine company might ease your suffering. I hope I am not too bold.’
A bleak Tudor eye had regarded him with suspicion. ‘You mean Mistress Seymour?’
Nicholas had bowed. ‘Indeed, Sir.’
Henry had shaken his head slowly. ‘It would not be fitting tonight — and yet …’
‘Shall I ask her to come to my apartments, your Grace, that you might speak with her privately?’
The blue eyes had grown warmer. ‘Do what you can, Nicholas. If her finer feelings will not allow …’
‘She will thrust those aside in order to comfort you, Sire,’ Carew had answered firmly, and bowed his way out.
He had found Jane in the chapel, weeping quietly where she knelt, and one look had Carew instantly guessing, incorrectly, what was wrong.
‘His Grace will recover his humour soon,’ he whispered urgently, dropping on his knees beside her.
She opened surprised eyes. ‘Oh, Sir Nicholas, it is you!’
‘Yes, and come on the King’s business, so dry your tears.’
Jane stared at him perplexed. ‘But does he not hate me for causing Anne’s miscarriage?’