by Deryn Lake
Even at the thought, Catherine Howard shivered where she stood, the effects of the wine suddenly draining away and leaving her terrifyingly sober. This very afternoon she had been brought in great secrecy to the Palace to be put through her paces, as it were. The King was too old now, too afraid of failure, to risk not fancying another bride. This time he was going to sample the goods and see if they came up to standard. Cat’s blood ran cold. How hard she must act to be both virgin and slut, to feign shyness yet make sure the old man was capable. God’s sweet blood, but were all the clothes and jewels in the world worth such a prospect?
A sound in the doorway had her spinning round, forgetting that she was naked, and there stood Henry Tudor, a moon-faced colossus, his eyes so puffed out with fat that they had difficulty in opening and closing, permanently remaining at half mast, while over them arched ridiculous eyebrows, thin as a girl’s.
He was staring at her with an expression on his face that was frightening. Cat saw lechery and desire, and with fascination watched his tongue flick out to moisten lips suddenly dry.
‘Beauty,’ croaked Henry, ‘I have never seen such beauty.’
For a moment Mistress Howard stood frozen with horror and then the actress in her took over and she found herself entering into a scene she had often thought about and practised at home.
‘Oh Your Grace,’ she said humbly, eyes downcast. ‘I would never have dared reveal myself thus. I was on the point of changing my gown.’
He did not answer, waddling towards her with arms outstretched. Cat closed her eyes as he swept her into the suffocating bulk of him and lips, wet as sponges, covered her own.
Oh Sweet Mary, she prayed silently, don’t let me scream.
Now his monstrous hands were everywhere, feeling and pulling and plucking till she could stand no more and pushed him fiercely away.
‘Remember, Sir,’ she said rapidly, covering the error, ‘I am yet young and a virgin. You must not overwhelm me.’
He laughed boomingly. ‘My dear heart, of course. Shall we kiss a while?’
The thought of that was so terrible that for a moment or two Cat felt trapped and would have run. Then sense prevailed once more.
‘No, no. I am eager. Take me, Your Grace, and let your poor servant learn at last what it is to be loved by a man.’
It was enough. In a trice they were on the canopied bed and something soft and silly was pushing at her privy parts. Then the next second it was over. The great mountain lay gasping and sweating with its eyes closed. Cat looked at the King in pure astonishment. Was that all she had to endure? For, if so, everything was worth it.
‘Oh,’ she said loudly, watching his reaction, ‘oh, oh, such searing pain. Why, I am no longer maiden!’ Then very prettily Catherine started to cry.
With a great effort Henry Tudor opened his eyes. ‘My dove,’ he gasped. ‘Have I been too rough?’
‘Yes, yes,’ said Cat, rolling round the bed. ‘You are so mighty, Sir. I never thought the loss of my maidenhead would be so fierce. You are all man indeed, Your Grace.’
She shot him a sly glance and saw the merry grin that spread like a knife in lard. ‘My own sweetheart,’ he said ecstatically, ‘I shall not rest till I am shot of that great Flanders Mare and you are my own dear little bride.’
‘Oh my sweet lover,’ answered Cat softly and dropped a swift kiss on his brow, ‘’Tis honour enough to be your mistress, Sir. Your humble servant expects nothing more.’
‘Heaven like this, passion like this, is all too rare,’ stated Henry heavily. ‘Now that I have found it, my dear good girl, do you think I will let it go? Besides,’ he added waggishly, ‘what would your uncle of Norfolk say that I have robbed his niece of her virginity and she but an infant still?’
Catherine looked at him huge-eyed, trembling her lower lip and contriving to lisp slightly. ‘We must never tell him, Your Grace, or he might beat me out of doors. All I had in the world was my honour and now it has gone.’
She wept again, beating her wet lashes against his cheek.
‘Innocent child,’ said Henry thickly, ‘you shall be honourable wife, mother and Queen. The next thing that your uncle will hear is that I am divorced from that Cleves woman and asking for your hand in marriage. If, dearest Catherine, you will have an old man like me?’
‘Old?’ said Cat, very round of eye and mouth. ‘If thou art old, Sire, then I rejoice. I think of you as strong and noble, all the callow boy in you cast out.’
The ever-open eyes looked at her approvingly and then as the moist mouth closed on hers once more, she felt the huge hands sweep her from breast to buttock. It was her saving grace, perhaps, that Catherine Howard had from the age of twelve been filled with insatiable lust. For now the very awfulness of her love excited her, as though ecstasy lay in degradation. As he touched her, Cat squealed with delight and Henry Tudor felt as much a man as he had done long ago with poor, lost Jane Seymour.
*
As is the way with all well kept secrets it was whispered round the Court in no time that the King was totally in love with Norfolk’s niece, still not eighteen, and had consequently determined on a divorce from Anne of Cleves. But for once Cromwell, who had cleared the way for Henry to break with Rome and had later hatched the plot to bring down Anne Boleyn, seemed unequal to the task. It had been he who had engineered the Cleves marriage and now he suspected rightly that the King had never forgiven him for the Lady Anne’s lack of good looks. So when Wriothesely, a joint Secretary of State, determined to climb higher, asked Cromwell to organise a royal divorce, he asked desperately how. A week later, faithful servant that he had been, he was arrested and taken to the Tower.
A few days after Cromwell’s arrest, the King’s plain wife, terrified for her future, was sent to Richmond. Puzzled, still speaking English hardly at all, tears had run down her housewifely cheeks when it had been explained to her that the change of air would benefit her health.
‘But I am not ill,’ she had said carefully.
‘Your Grace must go,’ had been the implacable reply.
Now, with her Flemish maids departed and only her English retinue about her, Anne felt trapped and it was only by struggling through a conversation with Mr Locke, who made the plain black dresses she liked so much as a background for her jewellery, that Anne of Cleves glimpsed the smallest ray of hope.
As he knelt pinning up a hem, his bony wrists and hands sticking out from his shirt sleeves in a way that would have amused her had she been feeling normal, Anne muttered, ‘Ach, Mister Locke, I worry.’
He glanced up furtively, not wanting to get drawn into anything.
‘The future,’ Anne persisted bravely. ‘I need a seeker.’
‘A what, Your Grace?’ Mr Locke asked in a startled voice.
‘One who seeks. You know, cards.’
The dressmaker scratched his head.
‘You want to play cards, Your Grace?’
‘Ach no,’ answered Anne impatiently, stamping her foot. ‘I want one who can see stars.’
Mr Locke said nothing, turning his attention back to the hem and muttering to himself. Then light must have dawned for he whispered, ‘Do you mean an astrologer, Madam? One who can tell the future?’
‘Yes,’ hissed Anne, ‘that is it. Have you such a one?’
‘Possibly, yes,’ answered Mr Locke carefully. ‘There is a man at Greenwich said to be very good. But I would not wish to get into trouble, Your Grace. I do hope you can understand that?’
His voice which had a tendency to squeak when he was perfectly calm now went out of control and ran up an entire octave. Despite the awfulness of everything Anne of Cleves let out the hoot that was her laugh.
‘Mister Lock, I will be silent. Just say his name.’
‘It is Zachary, Your Grace. Dr Zachary. He lives beyond Greenwich in a house on the riverbank.’
‘Good,’ answered Anne, satisfied.
And with that she finished speaking English for the day and relapsed into High
Dutch, of which Mr Locke, thankfully, understood not a single word.
*
When they met, they recognised each other. Zachary, for sure, had stood amongst the crowds lining the quayside as the Lady of Cleves had embarked for England, and had sailed in the flotilla that followed the royal fleet. She, on the other hand, had had her eye momentarily caught by the rumpleheaded figure standing on the quay amongst a band of pretty children, waving their hands as she set sail.
‘But I know you,’ she said now, and then had been utterly charmed by him, her stolid warm heart fluttering with pleasure.
‘Madam,’ said Zachary, bowing till his hair brushed her feet, his old and favourite trick, ‘I was stormbound at Calais with your gracious self. I saw you the day you sailed for England and it was difficult to assess the beauty of that occasion. Yourself so fine and all the ships grandly decked.’
Anne’s cheeky face grimaced. ‘Sir, are you saying that I was like a ship in full sail?’
‘How could I?’ said Zachary, meaning it.
‘Because His Grace thinks so of me.’
‘His Grace only understands English-born beauty,’ answered the astrologer treasonably. ‘Foreign princesses are not his meat.’
There was a certain truth in this and Anne, who had never met anyone like him since she had landed on English shores, began to smile.
‘Then I am not plain?’
‘On the contrary, Your Grace, now that you show your dark hair au naturel I think you are splendid.’
He flattered and she loved it, and over the private supper served for the two of them, Zachary found himself warming to this Flemish girl who had had the misfortune not to appeal to Henry Tudor and whose days as Queen were now so very obviously numbered.
Eventually, when the wine had flowed freely enough and Anne had assured herself that no spies lingered behind the door, she lowered her voice and said urgently, ‘I am so frightened, Doctor. Will he kill me as he did his other wives?’
Out of apparent thin air, Dr Zachary’s dark crystal appeared in his fingers, another old and favourite trick.
‘Come, Your Grace,’ he said, ‘put your hands on this.’
But even before she could do so the sphere pulsed blood red as it had done once before when Jane Seymour had been alone with the astrologer. Anne of Cleves let out a shrill scream and Zachary snatched the crystal away. But there was no need for him to look deeply. Half a glance showed him the face of his sleek little cousin Catherine Howard. Covering the orb with his hand, he spoke rapidly but carefully.
‘Calm yourself, Madam. There is no need for alarm. You spoke of His Grace’s other wives and it was to those unfortunate ladies that the crystal reacted just now. You, yourself, Majesty, are in no danger, in fact you are born fortunate indeed.’
Anne’s uncompromising face stared at him in stolid disbelief.
‘I see you do not believe me. Your Grace, I must take my leave.’
Zachary rose with dignity and headed for the door, a wary eye still on the Queen’s reaction. He was almost half way out before she said, ‘Dr Zachary, come back. I was frightened. But I still need help.’
‘I know,’ he said, relenting. ‘I know you do. But, Madam, please listen to me …’
She nodded breathlessly, motioning him to sit down again.
‘If you are clever, if you admit to the world that you and the King never consummated your marriage; if you call him brother dear and dote on the little girl he has chosen for his next wife …’
‘So, there is already somebody else!’ said Anne, her eyes growing huge.
‘Indeed there is. Then you will be given estates and pensions and riches more than you dream of now. If you return to Cleves you will merely be a divorced woman, here you will have love and affection showered on you as the King’s own sister.’
‘You see this in the crystal?’
‘I see it everywhere, Madam.’
‘So I am not to resist divorce?’
‘You are to thoroughly agree.’
Anne of Cleves became predictably feminine. ‘Who is this other? Do I know her?’ she asked, vinegar mouthed.
‘She is one of your maids of honour, Madam. The Duke of Norfolk’s niece, Catherine Howard.’
Anne looked shocked. ‘But she is so young. And the King is so …’ She clapped her hand over her mouth as she realised what she was saying.
‘That is for them to sort out,’ answered Zachary primly.
‘Yes, yes.’ The Flemish princess looked at him earnestly. ‘But will this really come to pass? Will I really have a happy life?’
Zachary forgot all about her being Queen of England and all about dignity and protocol. He leaned forward and patted her plump hands warmly. ‘I assure you, Madam, on my solemn word, that you will have a far happier life than ever will poor Catherine Howard.’
‘Fancy that!’ said Anne, throwing dignity aside, and hugging Dr Zachary hard to her over-voluptuous bosom.
*
The royal marriage was, in the circumstances, very quiet and private. On the 28th July, almost at the same moment that Thomas Cromwell, who had done so much for his royal master, lost his head, Catherine Howard and Henry Tudor were married at Oatlands, a manor house near Weybridge in Surrey. There were only four witnesses, the Duke of Norfolk and Edward Seymour, Earl of Hertford, being two of them. And that particular couple of men were an ill-matched pair; the Duke triumphant that once again a Howard occupied a place on the throne of England, determined that this niece should make a better showing than his last; Edward, a little sick at heart that the days of Seymour ascendancy would now appear to be at an end.
But for all their thoughts and fears, the two men might not as well have been there. The King, like some old and doting fool, had eyes for no one but the tiny creature who accepted his wedding ring. Nor could he keep his hands off her, kissing and cuddling every second. No sooner had Cranmer pronounced them lawfully wed than great sighs and moans broke out as Henry embraced his ‘rose without a thorn’, while she caressed her ‘pig-wig’. Edward found it nauseating and excused himself from the wedding feast early. Thomas, on the other hand, who had ridden from London in the bride’s escort, stayed on and for some reason, perhaps a wry personal comment that it had only been seven months since he escorted another royal bride, got very drunk.
‘Do not be indiscreet,’ Edward had whispered to him as he had withdrawn.
‘Me?’ said Thomas, rolling up his magnificent eyes. ‘Brother, would I?’
‘Would pigs fly?’ Edward answered tersely. ‘Ever since Cloverella left my protection to live with that rogue Zachary, nothing amazes me.’
‘But she writes me that she merely studies with him. He has not dishonoured the name of Wentworth, Ned.’
Edward snorted. ‘I would like to believe that.’
‘Then do so,’ said Thomas, the wine in him flowing. ‘Leave the dishonouring to me. Let Zachary talk potions and notions.’
‘What do you mean?’ asked Edward, shocked.
‘I don’t speak of dishonouring Cloverella. Though I did try once. I meant that I can be the libertine of the family.’
‘You’ll go too far,’ said Edward seriously. ‘Watch your step Tom.’
‘Poof!’ answered his brother, and waved his hand dismissively.
It was a small feast, just as it was a quiet wedding, and with fewer people to share the drink amongst, it did not take long for every man in the room to become slurred of speech and blurred of feature. Drunk though he was, Thomas observed Henry’s face appear to melt beneath the silly gold hat, with its enormous bobbing feather. First the high eyebrows drooped, then the eyes in the surrounding circles of fat closed to mere slits. The bulbous nose and the tiny obscene mouth became one and ran down the monarch’s face into all his bearded chins.
‘God’s body,’ said Tom to himself, ‘but I don’t envy the chance of that child.’
But the little Cat continued to laugh and giggle and strop round the King, all eyes and pinc
hing fingers and long succulent kisses. It was almost a relief when the end of the evening came and Thomas once again found himself standing by a royal marriage bed. But this time no ugly giggling Flemish girl came in, for this latest was a demure thing, with straight brushed hair and lashes decorously lowered, her lips compressing a smile.
For no reason Tom shivered then, and he, the least intuitive person in the world, had the sudden feeling that such a combination of nubile youth and aged obesity could never come to anything but ill.
God’s mercy on the Queen, he found himself praying as he left the room, and this was so very unlike him that he fell to drinking more, until at last he slumped asleep amongst the wine cups. Upstairs meanwhile, Catherine Howard, lying wide-eyed in the royal bedchamber, listened to the sonorous snores of her enormous husband and also founds words of prayer forming on her own frightened lips.
Chapter Twenty
It was an odd sunset, angry looking. Over the horizon lay a band of pale green, then above that strips of burnished gold rising to a furious crimson, over which scudded a battalion of dark clouds. The evening air was cool, a sharp wind tearing at the trees, a spray of threatening rain in every gust. It was not like summer at all in fact, even though it was August a certain autumnal look had already come to the trees.
The valley, in which the castle of Snape stood in acres of parkland, seemed to trap the light thrown by the dying sun. So much so that Katherine Parr, walking for once on her own, found that the blissful interlude when she had time for herself was coming to rather an unnerving end, as the place turned the colour of hell. Without meaning to she quickened her steps, heading for home before it grew suddenly dark or started to rain. Then, just as abruptly stood still, listening.
In the eerie glow nothing stirred and the birds that usually sang at sundown were silent. It seemed as if all living creatures were waiting for something, herself included. Katherine felt an unreasonable panic stir within and fought it down with great strength of mind.