by Deryn Lake
‘Delicious,’ said the Lady of Cleves.
They smiled together but then were distracted as noise at the door heralded the entrance of Henry Tudor, accompanied by two of his Gentlemen. Katherine Latymer could hardly believe her eyes as Sir Thomas Seymour and Sir Nicholas Carew bowed to the royal ladies, and then to herself and Jane Rochford.
But if Tom had had any idea of standing ogling, these were to be dashed. Henry, advancing on Anne and giving her a sprightly kiss on the cheek, announced, ‘Tonight we will be private. Ladies and gentlemen, we give you permission to leave us.’
And with that he kissed his wife fondly on the lips before she could argue and took his seat at the table. Rather disconsolately the others took their leave, though Thomas was the least put out.
‘In this case,’ he said smiling, ‘will you all do me the honour of supping in my apartments?’
Katherine was on the point of refusing when both Sir Nicholas and Lady Rochford accepted in one voice, considering the diversion welcome. To refuse in view of the others’ enthusiasm was out of the question. Katherine inclined her head gracefully and said ‘Thank you,’ in a tone that she hoped was not over-enthusiastic.
Afterwards she suspected that Thomas had known all along that the King was going to dismiss them, for when they entered his dining room it was to hear four musicians and a singer already at work, and to see a host of servants swarming about with tableware.
‘What a delightful scene,’ said Carew, the man whom Lady Latymer remembered as the former champion of Jane Seymour.
‘I aim to please,’ said Thomas, his smile sincere, and Katherine felt her opinion of him mellow as he personally seated the ladies near the fire and made sure that the servants attended to their every whim.
Not since the death of Lord Borough, when she had lived with her stepson and his wife, both older than she, had Katherine spent such a happy evening with people who were more or less her contemporaries. And never in her entire life could she remember having such a carefree time. As the wine flowed, so did the conversation, easy, witty and amusing, and more than once she caught Thomas’s eye and laughed at something that just the two of them thought funny.
It did not occur to her, innocent that she was, that the tremendous surge of happiness she was feeling was due to any other cause than enjoyment. But slowly, as the musicians played love songs and the singer sang of heart’s desire, it came to her that this warmth, this unbelievable glow of pleasure, was the dawning of some unknown emotion.
She looked up and found Thomas’s eyes, as deep a blue as the sea and just as unfathomable, fixed upon her. But as Katherine tried to look away those eyes smiled, and she saw in their depths a wonderful expression, so warm and kind and caring, that her heart seemed to catch light. Now she could not drop her gaze, however hard she tried. Katherine Latymer sat staring at Thomas Seymour as if she had never seen a man before in her life.
Which I don’t suppose, he thought inside his clever head, she ever has.
With a clap of Thomas’s hands the music changed and the musicians beat out the galliard, the dance that meant contact, the man lifting his partner up on his knee. Rather drunkenly, Nicholas Carew and Jane Rochford hopped and laughed; but Thomas was serious, raising Katherine high into his arms as if she weighed nothing. And all the time he never took his eyes away from hers; one would have thought that they were the only two people in the room.
In the end it was time to go and Katherine was subject, and never more strongly, to the great divergence that formed her character. The butterfly beating its way tremulously back to life, would have spent the night with Thomas Seymour, soaring to an ecstasy she had never known. But her twin soul, the good Katherine who suffered old husbands and cherished children that were not hers, was only too grateful to make an exit with Jane Rochford, curtseying in the doorway, murmuring thanks, and then hastening away.
As they went out of earshot, Lady Rochford looked at her knowingly. ‘Now there’s a man! Was it my imagination or did he seem to be regarding you fondly?’
Katherine turned astonished eyes on her. ‘I think you must have thought it, for I noticed nothing.’
Jane Rochford smiled. ‘I see.’
Katherine thought it best to change the subject. ‘I wonder if His Grace’s supper party continues.’
Jane laughed. ‘If it does it will only be the two ladies left to dance together. His Grace retires early these days.’
The words, ‘He is not as young as he was,’ were out of Katherine’s mouth before she could stop them.
Lady Rochford turned to look at her, an odd smile playing about her mouth. ‘Indeed. And now he takes the youngest bride of all.’
Katherine stared back at her, saying nothing, as Jane’s voice lowered to a whisper. ‘Poor little thing, how will she spend the rest of her life in need of a proper man.’
‘Don’t say it,’ answered Lady Latymer uneasily. ‘Such words are best left unspoken.’
‘But still …’ said Lady Rochford, as she turned to go into her own apartments, ‘… it must be hard.’
Katherine did not reply, instead dropping a swift curtsey and hurrying back to the meagre room which was the best that she, as the wife of a rather unimportant northern peer, could muster.
But down in the Queen’s apartments, where both Catherine and Anne had drunk far more wine than was good for them, the supper party went on. As predicted, Henry had long since retired to bed, leaving the Queen and the Princess to dance together. This they did, with much laughing, as the musicians played on. And it was then that the young girl, having become indiscreet, whispered to Anne, ‘You are lucky.’
‘What?’ the Lady of Cleves replied, puzzled.
Cat dropped her voice to nothing, leading Anne to stand by the fire where the players could not hear. ‘I said you are lucky.’
‘Me? Lucky? Why, dear Cat?’
‘Because he never touched you.’
Anne frowned, her English still not good enough to give her command of every nuance.
‘Who never touched me?’
‘His Grace,’ said Cat, then clapped her hands over her mouth and rolled her eyes just as if she were a naughty child.
‘What are you saying?’ asked Anne, hoping that she was misunderstanding.
‘I’m saying that …’ Cat’s voice was barely audible under the music, and Anne found herself straining her ears, ‘… he can’t do it.’
‘Do what?’
‘It.’
‘What is it?’ asked Anne, totally mystified.
‘Tumbling a woman. Oh, dearest, don’t look like that. I mean His Grace doesn’t satisfy me.’
Whether the Lady of Cleves’s grasp of the language actually deserted her at this stage or whether that clever woman feigned complete lack of understanding, Cat never knew. But nonetheless it was fun to burble away, telling all her heart’s secrets to someone who seemed to have no idea what she was talking about.
‘I know what it’s like to do it with someone young, you see. It was very naughty but when I was twelve I hid behind the altar in the Duchess of Norfolk’s chapel and did it there with my lute teacher.’
Again Catherine clapped her hand over her mouth but Anne’s face remained totally blank.
‘And he wasn’t the only one either. My cousin Francis Dereham — he’s the handsome one you asked about, who has come to court to be my private secretary — did it with me hundreds of times. He used to come to the dormitory where I slept with those four girls you saw. They all know about it.’
Anne’s face remained impassive. ‘What are you saying, Cat?’
‘I’m saying that it was wonderful and now I miss it. That’s the only bit I don’t like, having to go to bed with the King.’
Anne stood up, her plain face calm and undisturbed. ‘Dearest Cat, I am so tired. Your Grace, do I have your permission to withdraw?’
Catherine became suddenly regal. ‘Of course you may, Lady Anne.’ She held out her hand and the Princess kissed
it.
‘Goodnight, Your Grace.’
‘Goodnight, dear Anne. And not a word, you understand.’
The no-nonsense face looked at her blankly. ‘What word?’
‘Oh, it doesn’t matter. Goodnight.’
After she had gone Catherine Howard stood for a moment as if undecided. Then she waved her hand at the musicians.
‘Gentlemen, play country tunes. When I was a young girl in Sussex we used to dance to those in the Dowager Duchess’s house.’
Their leader, a handsome young man in his twenties, answered, ‘But surely Your Grace is not going to dance all on her own?’
Cat frowned. ‘No, of course not.’ She ran a seasoned eye over him. ‘You’ll do, whatever your name is. Let’s dance the night away.’
‘But Your Grace …’
‘No buts. Come on, fellow. Don’t keep me waiting.’
And with that the Queen walked over and dragged him from where he sat. The other three sat nonplussed but at the order, ‘Play on’, said in a somewhat strangulated voice by their leader, they blew and fiddled with a will.
And that was how the new Queen of England spent the first night of 1541, dancing and drinking with her own musicians, while in his apartments not far away, her royal husband gasped and snored in his sleep, his enormous stomach rising and falling with each breath.
Chapter Twenty-Two
It was a glorious spring, very swift and sudden. One day the earth had been covered with cold-smelling snow, its diamond points glittering in the sun, the next it had vanished in a sudden thaw. Green was everywhere, buds thick and plentiful, the woods carpeted with wild flowers. In the mornings there was mist and at noon the rushing rivers gleamed crystal, while at eventide the unusual warmth of the February days brought a haze to the fields.
The early spring decided Zachary Howard to take from his stables the raw-boned pewter-coloured beast purchased at Deal and journey on it to Norfolk. And though Cloverella thought it foolish, the creature having such a wild and unpredictable air about it, the astrologer insisted. He had bought the horse on the day Anne of Cleves landed in England, and though it still would, if it could, nip his flesh if he turned away his eyes, Zachary had an understanding with it. He called it Fairy, mostly to annoy it, for nothing resembled less such an ethereal and delicate creature.
But though he departed with laughs and kisses from his gypsy wife — they had indulged in a blood wedding but not yet had benefit of a priest — Zachary was secretly worried about the purpose of his journey. Since the time of their great argument over the Duke’s niece Catherine, not a word had been exchanged between Zachary and Norfolk. Even at the recently passed Christmas, his natural father had not communicated, and the gifts prepared for him by Zachary and his children had remained uncalled for. Now they were packed carefully into saddle bags for the astrologer to take with him.
‘But if he does not see me I shall leave them behind,’ he whispered to Cloverella. ‘It would make the children so wretched if I return with them.’
‘Oh, surely he must come round,’ she said in reply. ‘He has always loved you.’
‘He thought that I doubted his word and it angered him far more than I would have imagined.’
‘Then, in some way, he is guilty,’ answered Cloverella certainly.
‘You may be right about that.’
But as he rode away from Greenwich, taking the ferry across the river to the Essex side, Zachary was aware that he had not told Cloverella all the truth. The fact was that he had held off from marrying her in church, despite the terrible pressure from the Earl of Hertford, because Zachary wanted his father’s blessing before he did so. And yet the rivalry between Howard and Seymour grew and the astrologer felt certain his father would not approve his choice of second wife. Nonetheless, Zachary was determined to have Cloverella, finding her his ideal woman, as clever and witty out of bed as she was in it.
The journey through East Anglia at this time of year had a strange, almost unreal quality, the lowlands swathed in mist and moisture, so that sometimes as he rode, the broad beast clattering at speed beneath him, Zachary felt cut off from the world and time. He almost could believe that the vapour might part to show him Hereward, the Fenland leader of the revolt against William the Conqueror, wading through the shallow waterways, hiding in the reeds, ready to strike at the enemy, still alive in his own century.
The astrologer was glad to leave the deserted places behind and enter the medieval market town of Bury St Edmunds, still an important centre of the wool trade; though to see the once great monastery where the martyr king was buried, now standing sacked and empty, he found distressing and pitiful. And that mood of sorrow, of wondering the future of the kingdom, still lay heavy on Dr Zachary when he arrived in Kenninghall as the shadows of evening darkened.
As with all communities built round a great dwelling place, the village snuggled at the castle’s foot, and the inn where wayfarers might find accommodation seemed almost to nestle within its walls. Thus it was with an overwhelming sense of his father’s presence that Zachary scratched a note, sealed it, and paid a boy to see that it was delivered into the hands of the Duke’s steward, though this, of course, did not totally guarantee that Norfolk would ever get to read it himself.
Yet Zachary had other plans. It would not be the first time he would have made his way within the castle precinct. Once as a boy he had been taken there and, when he was grown, he had forced his way in to nurse his father through an attack of the Sweating Sickness. Now, if it was necessary, he would chance his luck again. But this course of action was not destined to take place.
As night came over the village and the quietness descended which meant that the only two places where life would continue after dark would be the alehouse and the castle, Zachary decided to take a stroll. Making his way through the one main thoroughfare he stood aside as the beat of hooves told him that a party of horsemen was coming, yet as they drew level with him his attention was riveted. In the midst of his escort the Duke of Norfolk was riding out in the gloaming.
With stunning alacrity, Zachary stepped forward and swept his hat from his head, giving one of his more florid bows. As he straightened up he was rewarded by the sight of the Duke looking back over his shoulder. Zachary bowed again, his teeth white in his dark face, positive that he had been recognised.
‘Your move, my Father,’ he said, and singing cheerfully and loudly made his way back to the tavern.
Within two hours he was amused to see a cloaked figure, obviously one of Norfolk’s servants, enter and look round.
‘Have you any strangers staying here?’ Zachary heard the man murmur to the alehouse keeper.
‘I believe you are looking for me,’ said the astrologer and stepped forward before another word could be spoken.
Slightly astonished, the man asked, ‘Dr Zachary of London?’
‘I am he,’ said Zachary, and contorted his face oddly, giving the impression he was not altogether of sound mind.
‘Umm,’ said the servant, very slightly alarmed. ‘His Grace the Duke of Norfolk has asked that you accompany me to the castle.’
‘Then I must,’ answered Zachary, ‘for who am I, who is anyone, to disobey an order from a Duke?’
The expression on the servant’s face was abundantly clear, his master obviously wanted this idiot for entertainment and as long as the creature behaved itself, why not?
‘Then come along. But no tricks, mind.’
‘Tricks?’ answered Zachary, a dark crystal appearing in his hand as if by magic. ‘What tricks?’
‘Oh never mind! Just hurry!’
They walked in silence, Zachary peering into the crystal and saying, ‘Yes. Yes,’ from time to time, until eventually the servant ran out of patience.
‘What is it you see?’
‘I see you as a married man, lad. With a goodly wife, well made. Very well made.’ The servant stared but said nothing. ‘And I see you with a lady friend, Sir, quite small, like a fairy
.’
The man, who was single, looked ghastly and Zachary, who was not reading the crystal but making the whole thing up, felt suddenly guilty. ‘The two shall never find out about each other, though, and you will father many children by each. You will be the envy of all your peers. You are a lucky man.’
He looked into the crystal in earnest and saw that he was not far from the truth. ‘Well, well!’ he said wonderingly, and with that hid the globe away as mysteriously as it had been produced.
It seemed to Zachary as he entered the castle stronghold that the women of his father’s household were present in abundance this night for, from a room leading out of the great hall, a medley of female voices could distinctly be heard. Listening carefully, Zachary caught the sound of Elizabeth, his father’s second wife and mother of his two children, her boring, monotonous tone quite drowning the soft voice of her daughter Mary, the widowed Duchess of Richmond. It had been Mary at whom Thomas Seymour had set his cap, only to have Henry Howard ruin everything. And Henry’s wife Frances, Countess of Surrey, was present as well. She and Surrey had both been sixteen when they married eight years ago and now they were thoroughly bored with one another. In fact it was common knowledge that these days Henry Howard was obsessed with a girl of fourteen, Lady Elizabeth Fitzgerald, recently come to Court to serve Catherine Howard, much to his delight.
Wondering what the ladies’ reaction would be if they knew he was present, Zachary quietly followed the servant up the stairs to the Duke’s private room. As he was ushered in he was vividly reminded of that time, all those years ago, when he had been taken as a child to Kenninghall to see the father he had never then met.
Now it all seemed to be happening again as the Duke turned to stare, running his gaze over him and absorbing every detail of Zachary’s appearance. ‘So,’ said Thomas Howard after a small silence, ‘you have come to see me at last.’