by Deryn Lake
Now it was Carew’s turn to look astonished. ‘You caused it! How?’
Jane dropped her eyes. ‘The Queen found us — together — and flew into a violent rage.’
Nicholas scowled. ‘Together? You weren’t …?’
‘No, no,’ Jane answered hastily. ‘We kissed, that is all. But she was angry — and now this has happened.’
‘Norfolk blames himself, you blame yourself,’ said Nicholas impatiently. ‘The fact is the woman isn’t built for breeding and that’s all there is to it. There is nobody to blame but her. Thin hips never produce good sons.’
In spite of the wretched circumstances, Jane smiled. ‘Then if that is the case I suppose one should pity her.’
Carew snorted. ‘Don’t waste a morsel. The vicious hack deserves everything she gets — and more.’
‘And His Grace does not hate me?’
‘On the contrary. He has laid the blame where it belongs, at the feet of the Lady. It is you, my dear, whom he wishes to see to give him comfort. In fact he has asked you to accompany me to my apartments that he may speak with you privately.’
‘Oh!’ Jane’s hands fluttered in the air and Nicholas grinned secretly.
‘I think you are in love, Mistress.’
‘Perhaps, Sir Nicholas.’
‘Then, if so, this would be a good time to express your feelings.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Box clever, little Jane, and the throne will be yours. The King is sick with grief that the Night Crow has lost his son and has told her she will have no more boys by him. Yet he longs for a Prince more than all the world. He is intent on a new wife, mark my words.’
Jane’s eyes shone. ‘Do you really think so?’
‘I do, Mistress, I do. Now come with me and comfort him sweetly, but remember my words. Do not give him your body until you lie safe in the marriage bed.’
Sir Nicholas wondered why such an unemotional little thing as Jane should look away, and then decided it was embarrassment when she mumbled, ‘I will heed what you say.’
But how could she, she asked herself half an hour later when the King, smelling of wine and blurred in his speech, swept her into his arms and allowed her to see a tear roll down the vast expanse of his enormous face and fall away into his beard.
‘My Jane, my own sweet Jane,’ he said thickly. ‘You are all I have left. That evil woman has killed my son. She has taken everything from me.’
Just as she had once before in the gardens of Wolff Hall, Jane again saw the King as a misled boy and, standing on tip-toe, kissed him tenderly.
‘I will make recompense.’
He looked at her eagerly. ‘But how? How will you do so?’
‘It has been foretold that I will have a son,’ she answered, scarcely above a whisper, wondering if she had gone too far.
‘Then pray God that I am his sire,’ said Henry, so passionately that Jane thought she might cry aloud with triumph. He bent close to her ear. ‘Sweetheart, I believe that I was seduced by witchcraft into my marriage and that it is null and void. It is obvious that God intends to punish me for it by denying me a boy. So clearly I must rid myself of the evil before I can ever find favour again in His eyes.’
Jane stared at him, wondering if what she had just heard was an extraordinary proposal of marriage.
‘You believe that Anne is a mistress of Satan?’ she said, wide-eyed.
‘It is obvious. How else could the sidling bitch have so blinded me?’
‘God a’mercy,’ breathed Jane. ‘I think you must be right, Your Grace. Think of all the good men who lost their heads because of her.’
Henry’s face went to granite and the blue eyes lost their gentleness. ‘Quite so,’ he said abruptly and a finger of fear laid itself along Jane’s spine as she realised that she had said the wrong thing, that the King did not like to be reminded of all the men he had sacrificed in order that he might achieve his wishes.
Timidly she said, ‘What do you intend to do, Sir?’
‘I shall see Secretary Cromwell and ask him to find grounds for a divorce. I cannot go on like this. Why, Jane’ — his voice changed again and sitting down, Henry lifted her onto his lap and held her against him — ‘she kept me waiting years before she finally allowed me to her bed. I would not have suffered such treatment long if I had not been bewitched. You would not do such a thing, I know.’
Wretchedly, Jane said, ‘But I am a virtuous woman, Your Grace. I must protect myself until I marry.’
‘Would it not be easier by far,’ replied Henry Tudor soothingly, ‘to let me protect you?’
‘I suppose,’ answered Jane slowly, all the advice she had been given still ringing in her ears, ‘it probably would, Your Grace.’
‘Then that shall be my task for this new year,’ said the King. ‘To cherish little Jane Seymour until finally she can be mine.’
Chapter Eight
The clustering hedgerows that garlanded the rambling fields of the Wolff Hall estate were, in summer, suffused with scarlet where the wild fuchsias grew in sweet abundance, attracting lazy bees and filling the air with a delicate scent of petals. But though now, in icy February, nothing flowered beneath their close shade but the heroic snowdrop, it seemed as if the sky remembered the glories of June and took on fuchsia shades at both morning and night. Brave as a battle, the dawn had come up in vivid shades of pink, red and purple, and Cloverella, watching from her window, had dressed hurriedly and gone out into the freezing air to be at one with it all.
The girl was in a curious mood, convinced that far-reaching changes were about to come to the Seymours, and already viewing her own move to Court with a strange mixture of fear and elation. Naturally, Edward’s wife had not wanted her as part of the entourage, bound for London to take up residence, following Edward’s new appointment as a gentleman of the King’s Privy Chamber.
‘Her father was a gypsy,’ Anne had said acidly, when the subject had first arisen. ‘Cloverella is not suitable for court life. Edward, where is your common sense?’
‘Here,’ he had shouted, striking his heart with his fist, ‘here is where I keep my sense; my sense of what is right and just. My cousin is a Wentworth, Anne, and as fit to go to Court as you or I. I’d advise you to watch your tongue.’
Anne had glared at him furiously, the fact that she was feeling slightly sick and wondering whether she was pregnant again not helping her disposition.
‘I believe you are in love with her, Ned. I think there is something between yourself and the little wretch. You always take her side against mine and that is indicative in itself.’
Edward’s saturnine features had grown dark. ‘Take such evil thoughts from your head, wife. It is true I love Cloverella but not as you infer. She was brought to my mother as a defenceless child and all of us have cherished her since. I’ll not have her left behind in the country to rot. Let her find a good husband at Court and be settled for life. If that happens she will be out of your way for ever,’ he had added pointedly.
Anne had taken the remark at its face value. ‘That is very true. I’ll make no further objection.’
Edward had rolled his eyes to heaven. ‘There are times, my dear, when you try my patience to the limit. Good evening to you.’ And he had strode out of the room.
He thought now, as he walked the gardens of Wolff Hall where he had brought his family to stay on their way to Court, that his wife was a beautiful shrew, a haughty cat who deserved spanking. Then he suddenly grinned, the dark eyes lighting with secret memories. He had been known, from time to time, to lay his hand to those superbly rounded buttocks, and what shrieking and lovemaking had ensued. With a wicked grin, Edward stopped in his tracks and whistling a merry air made his way back into the house.
But even while he and Anne engaged in horseplay, Cloverella was staring at a flight of magpies and remembering a rhyme taught by her Romany grandam. ‘One for anger, two for mirth, three for a wedding, four for a birth, five for silver, six for gold,
seven for a secret never to be told.’
She shaded her eyes, the colour of brook iris in the morning light, and counted the magnificent swoop of jet and snow as the birds wheeled above her head before settling in a tree to argue. Three of them! So there was to be a wedding. But whose?
Cloverella smiled to herself, quite sure that the old fable of a serving maid who married a prince was about to be re-enacted in her cousin’s case. But even as she thought it, her face grew dark. It seemed to the girl that she had a cruel vision of Anne Boleyn, her face white but proud, seated in a high chair facing a multitude of unsmiling men, the peers of the realm come to try her for her life.
Cloverella’s hand flew to her mouth. She suddenly knew for sure that there was to be brutality and death before Jane could achieve her heart’s desire. Looking up, she saw that the magpies had added four more to their company and Cloverella shivered. The day had grown cold and the sky the sharp clear blue of a winter’s day.
Pulling her shawl round her, Cloverella turned back in the direction of Wolff Hall and the warmth and comfort of Dame Margery’s kitchen.
*
Beyond the mighty walls of Greenwich Palace lay green meadows, and at this time of year, with February running into March, wild crocuses and snowdrops had thrust their way upwards and carpeted the place with splashes of vivid colour. But though these delighted the eye of most who walked there, today a solitary figure, leaning against a tree almost as if for support, seemed not to see them, instead blindly staring out over the Thames and ignoring the flowers that grew so prettily around her feet.
‘If only,’ sighed Jane Seymour into the wind, ‘I knew what I ought to do.’
And yet in her heart, though she went through the pantomime of indecision because her conscience demanded it of her, she was perfectly aware of what course of action she would take next. The faction that surrounded Princess Mary could advise her till their beards turned blue, Jane had defiantly determined to yield up her virginity to Henry and face the consequences. For now she felt reasonably certain that she would not be discarded as had all those others who had surrendered to him in the past. Jane may well be an innocent girl but yet she had shrewdness, and to her it seemed clear; the last thing to happen must be that she was in any way compared with Anne Boleyn.
Mistress Seymour closed her eyes and just for a moment did something that not many people dared — she looked at herself without deception and examined her motives. The fact was that she wanted Henry desperately, would have got into his bed long since had it not been for all the unsolicited advice that now poured into her ear almost daily. She was wildly passionate, that was the truth of it; a female version of her brother Thomas who seduced all and sundry without caring a fig.
And I don’t either, she thought defiantly. Why should it be men who pleasure themselves all the time? Why should what is right for them be wrong for women?
The little mouth curved into a smile. ‘I’ll tell him today, this very day. I’ll keep Henry’ — she still had difficulty in actually daring to say the King’s name — ‘waiting no longer. Why, I am certain it will only make him love me more.’
But really she was still afraid, thinking that men like Carew and Elyot — men of the world who had each known a great many women — must be right. Yet how could one deny that wonderful feeling, that sense of yearning that was almost a physical pain, when the King held her in his arms, holding her tightly against his powerful body.
‘Fiddle, faddle,’ said Jane aloud, suddenly showing the steel that was the inheritance of all the Seymour children. ‘I can endure this indecision no longer. My maiden state has become a burden to be discarded.’ A naughty sparkle came into the deep blue eyes. ‘But I must make haste about it. My brother will be here within the week and have me under lock and key, I shouldn’t wonder.’
She straightened and turned, her mind made up — or almost! —and headed back towards the Palace with a certain determination in her tread.
*
‘You do not think, do you,’ said Anne Seymour, riding uncomfortably in a litter beside Edward’s horse, ‘that Jane has …’ Despite the fact she was so free with her husband when their bedroom door was closed, she had the extraordinary inhibition of one who had been trained at Court, finding difficulty in discussing intimate matters.
‘What?’ answered Ned, his mind running over the beauty of the countryside and vaguely dredging up a memory of his wish on Merlin’s Mound that he might one day own it all.
‘You don’t think that Jane is intimate’ — Anne whispered the word — ‘with His Grace?’
Her husband turned on her an amused glance. ‘I presume you are not referring to friendship, my dear. And the answer is no. How could a meek little rabbit like my sister even consider such sinfulness?’
‘Rabbits consider it frequently,’ Anne answered scathingly.
Edward smiled. ‘You know perfectly well what I mean. Jane is quite the primmest girl I have ever encountered. Why, one look at her mouth reveals her attitude to such things.’
Anne moved her lips into a frosty smile, a chill running through her at the swiftness of her friend the Queen’s downfall. ‘Have you not heard the old adage of the depth of still waters?’
Edward shrugged. ‘Even if that were true, Nicholas Carew watches her virtually non-stop and if he is not there, Elyot is on hand.’
Anne lowered her voice again. ‘One could almost pity such a prisoner.’
‘Well, she’ll have you and Cloverella for company soon.’
With a bitter irony, Anne said, ‘I am still not convinced that we are the company Jane truly desires.’
‘What Jane desires and what is good for Jane at this particular time may be different matters.’
‘Don’t talk so loudly,’ said Anne angrily, ‘the servants might hear.’
‘No doubt they’ll hear that and worse before this affair is over,’ answered Edward, and kicking his heels into his horse’s sides, rode off to be with Cloverella.
*
Despite March’s bitter weather, the King announced his intention of hunting and almost at once set off for Windsor with certain members of his Court, leaving Anne Boleyn to pass her hollow days with her ladies, her lap dogs and pet birds, her apartments as empty as once had been Katharine of Aragon’s. Only the sound of the Queen’s joyless laughter and Mark Smeaton’s lute broke the stillness.
When Henry and Anne had stayed at Windsor while the King had still been married to Katharine, all three of them had lodged in their own separate apartments, Henry sending dainty dishes down to where Anne supped alone. And it had been from Windsor that the King and his love had finally stolen away before daybreak without so much as a farewell, leaving the Queen solitary, neither of them destined ever to set eyes on her again. But now, in the way of a sublime revenge meted out by fate itself, Anne’s old rooms were cleaned and dusted for a new favourite; for Mistress Jane Seymour was one of the few ladies who had been asked to accompany the gentlemen courtiers on this particular sortie.
For the occasion Henry had bought his companion an expensive pair of hunting gloves, and as Jane first drew them on she exclaimed in surprise at the pretty ring that lay concealed in one of the fingers.
‘But, Your Grace, I cannot accept anything so valuable,’ she had said modestly.
‘If you do not I will be displeased,’ had come the answer, and one look at Henry’s face had warned Jane to let argument cease and to keep the gem with good grace. But afterwards in the luxurious bedroom set in one of the castle’s towers she could not resist laughing to herself with pleasure. Her hand had never looked so elegant or shapely as it did now, bearing the King’s sparkling ruby.
‘Why, my Lady,’ said Emma, coming in quietly and catching her mistress in the very act of waving the ring in the air to see it sparkle, ‘What a lovely thing. Was it a gift from His Grace?’
Jane compressed her lips. ‘That is none of your business.’
Emma refused to be chastened. ‘I’ve
been talking to the Castle servants, Ma’am, and do you know what?’
‘No.’
‘You know that these rooms once belonged to Anne Boleyn, as she was then, and are directly below the King’s.’
‘Yes, what of it?’
‘There’s a secret staircase in the turret, Ma’am, so that he could send her down dainties. Dainties!’ Emma clasped her hands over her mouth and rolled her eyes wildly, hysterical about the double meaning.
Despite the fact that she was interested, Jane looked reproving. ‘You should not gossip, Emma. You work in a position of trust and if you continue in this manner you will leave me no alternative but to send you back to Dame Margery at Wolff Hall.’
Somewhat chastened, Emma bobbed a curtsey, muttering, ‘Sorry, my Lady.’
‘So I should think. Now where is this staircase?’
Emma was at once restored to her usual spirits. ‘The servants said it was built behind the main spiral and that you get to it through a wooden door that’s almost concealed.’
‘Well I forbid you to go searching,’ said Jane sternly. ‘Wherever it is, it is privy to His Grace’s apartments and it is not for us to go meddling in things that do not concern us. Now run along to your duties.’
As the girl left the room, Mistress Seymour turned to the window and looked almost blindly at the breathtaking view, wondering if Anne Boleyn had stood in the same spot and gazed on such warm and natural splendour, and how she had felt when the King had come at nights down the secret stairs and into her apartments, his eyes full of love and his arms open, begging her to relent and give him his heart’s desire.
How could, thought Jane, how could she have spurned him? I would not have been able to do so in such circumstances.
She realised then, with a sudden .jolt, that at any time the circumstances could be repeated and even as she thought it, with one of those incredible coincidences that are supposed never actually to take place, the door leading from the main spiral staircase slowly opened and there stood the King.