‘She is a gentle pure young woman and –’
‘Pure? What was she doing in your lap? Saying her prayers?’
‘That’s enough!’ he said with a rumble of anger. ‘She stays among your ladies. Her family stays at court. You overreach yourself, madam.’
‘I do not!’ Anne swore. ‘I have the say of who attends me. I am queen and these are my rooms. I won’t have a woman here I don’t like.’
‘You will have the attendants I choose for you,’ he insisted. ‘I am the king.’
‘You will not order me,’ she said breathlessly, her hand to her heart.
‘Anne,’ I said. ‘Be calm.’ She did not even hear me.
‘I order everyone,’ he said. ‘You will do as I bid you for I am your husband and your king.’
‘I’ll be damned if I do!’ she screamed, and turned on her heel and fled to her privy chamber. She opened the door and shouted at him from the threshold. ‘You don’t master me, Henry!’
But he could not run after her. That was her fatal mistake. If he had been able to run after her then he could have caught her and they could have tumbled into bed together as they had done so many times before. But his leg hurt him and she was young and taunting and instead of being aroused he was baited. He resented her youth and her beauty, he no longer revelled in it.
‘It is you who are the whore, not her!’ he shouted. ‘Don’t think I have forgotten what you will do to get into a king’s lap. Jane Seymour will never know half the tricks you used on me, madam! French tricks! Whore’s tricks! They no longer enchant me; but I don’t forget them.’
There was a shocked gasp from the court and George and I exchanged one look of total horror. Anne’s door slammed shut and the king turned to his court and George and I met his fulminating glare with the blankness of absolute terror.
He pulled himself to his feet. He said: ‘Arm.’ Sir John Seymour thrust George aside, and the king leaned on him and went slowly to his own rooms, his gentlemen following him. I watched him go and found that I was swallowing painfully with a dry throat.
George’s wife Jane Parker was at my side. ‘What tricks did she used to do?’
I had a sudden vivid recollection of coaching her to use her hair, her mouth, her hands on him. George and I had taught her everything that we knew, drawn from George’s time in the bath houses of Europe with French whores, Spanish madams, and English sluts, and everything that I knew from wedding and bedding one man and seducing another. We had taken Anne and trained her to do the things that Henry liked, the things all men like, things expressly forbidden by the church. We had taught her to strip naked before him, to raise her shift an inch at a time to show him her privates, we had taught her to lick his cock from the base to the tip with long languorous touches. We had taught her the words he liked and the pictures he wanted in his head. We had given her the skills of a whore and now she was reproached for it. I met George’s eyes and I knew he had the same memory.
‘Oh Lord save us, Jane,’ he said wearily. ‘Don’t you know that when the king is angry he’ll say anything? Nothing, is what she did. Nothing more than a kiss and a caress. The sort of thing that any husband and wife do in their balmy days.’ He paused, and corrected himself. ‘We didn’t, of course; not you and me. But then you’re not really a very kissable woman, are you?’
She turned away for a moment as if he had pinched her. ‘But of course,’ she said, as quiet as a snake going through bracken, ‘you don’t really like to kiss women at all unless they are your sisters.’
I left Anne alone for half an hour and then I tapped on her door and slipped into the room. I closed the door on the curious faces of the ladies in waiting and looked around for her. The room was in the darkness of an early winter afternoon, she had not lit the candles and only the firelight flickered on the walls and the ceiling. She was lying face down on her bed and for a moment I thought she was asleep. Then she reared up and I saw her pale face and her dark eyes.
‘My God, he was angry.’ Her voice was husky from crying.
‘You angered him. You ran towards it, Anne.’
‘What was I to do? When he insults me before the whole of the court?’
‘Be blind,’ I counselled her. ‘Look the other way. Queen Katherine did.’
‘Queen Katherine lost. She looked the other way and I took him. What am I to do to hold him?’
We both said nothing. There was only one answer. There was always only one answer and it was always the same answer.
‘I was sick with anger,’ she remarked. ‘I felt as if I might vomit up my very guts.’
‘You must be calm.’
‘How can I be calm when Jane Seymour is everywhere I turn?’
I went to the bed and took her hood from her head. ‘Let’s get you ready for dinner,’ I said. ‘Go down to dinner looking beautiful and it will all blow over and be forgotten.’
‘Not by me,’ she said bitterly. ‘I won’t forget.’
‘Then act as if you do,’ I advised her. ‘Or everyone will remember that he abused you. You had better act as if it was never said and never heard.’
‘He called me a whore,’ she said resentfully. ‘No-one will forget that.’
‘We’re all whores compared with Jane,’ I said cheerfully. ‘So what of it? You’re his wife now, aren’t you? With a legitimate baby in your belly? He can call you what he likes in temper, you can win him back when he is calm. Win him back tonight, Anne.’
I called for her maid and Anne picked out her gown. She chose a gown of silver and white, as if she would assert her purity even when the court had heard her accused of whoreish tricks. Her stomacher was embroidered with pearls and diamonds, the hem of the silvery cloth of the skirt was stitched with silver thread. When she put her hood on her black hair she looked every inch a queen, a snow queen, a queen of speckless beauty.
‘Very good,’ I said.
Anne gave me a weary smile. ‘I have to do it and go on doing it forever,’ she said. ‘This dance to keep Henry interested. What will happen when I am old and I can dance no more? The girls in my chambers will still be young and beautiful. What happens then?’
I had no comfort to offer her. ‘Let’s get through this evening. Never mind about years to come. And when you have a son and then more sons you won’t mind about getting old.’
She rested her hand on the encrusted stomacher. ‘My son,’ she said softly.
‘Are you ready?’
She nodded and went to the closed door. In the new gesture her shoulders went back and her chin went up, she smiled, her dazzling assured smile, and nodded to the maid to open the door and she went out to face the gossip mill of her own rooms, shining like an angel.
I saw that the family had turned out in support, and knew that my uncle must have heard enough to be fearful. My mother was there, and my father. My uncle was at the rear of the room in amicable conversation with Jane Seymour which gave me pause for a moment. George was on the threshold, I caught his smile and then he went forward to Anne and took her hand. There was a little murmur of interest at her fine gown, at her defiant smile, and then the room eddied as the groups of talkers moved away and re-formed. Sir William Brereton came up and kissed her hand and whispered something about an angel fallen to earth, and Anne laughed and said that she had not fallen but merely arrived on a visit, so the suggestive imagery was neatly turned. Then there was a rustle at the door and Henry stamped into the room with the rest of the court, his lame leg giving him an awkward gait, his round face scored with new lines of pain. He gave Anne a sulky nod.
‘Good day, madam,’ he said. ‘Are you ready to go to dinner?’
‘Of course, husband,’ she said, as sweet as honey. ‘I am glad to see Your Majesty looking so well.’
Her ability to flick from one mood to another was always baffling to him. He checked at her good humour and looked around at the avid faces of the court. ‘Have you greeted Sir John Seymour?’ he asked her, picking on the one man she would n
ot want to honour.
Anne’s smile never wavered. ‘Good evening, Sir John,’ she said, as mild as his own daughter. ‘I hope that you will accept a little gift from me.’
He bowed a little awkwardly. ‘I should be honoured, Your Majesty.’
‘I want to give you a little carved stool from my privy chambers. A pretty little piece from France. I hope you will like it.’
He bowed again. ‘I should be grateful.’
Anne slid a sidelong smile at her husband. ‘It is for your daughter,’ she said. ‘For Jane. To sit on. She seems not to have a seat of her own but she must borrow mine.’
There was a moment’s stunned silence and then Henry’s great bellow of a laugh. At once the court learned that they could laugh too and the queen’s rooms rocked at her jest against Jane. Henry, still laughing, offered his arm to Anne, and she peeped up at him roguishly. He started to lead her from the room and the court took their usual places behind them, and then I heard a gasp, and someone say quietly: ‘My God! The queen!’
George cut through the crowd of them like a scythe through grass and grabbed Anne by the hand, pulling her away from Henry. ‘Your pardon, Your Majesty, the queen is unwell,’ I heard him say swiftly. And then he bent his mouth to Anne’s ear and whispered urgently to her. Through the avidly turning faces I saw her profile, I saw the colour drain from her face, and then she pushed her way through them all, George hurrying before her to fling open the door to her privy chamber and pull her in. The people at the back were craning forward, I caught sight of the back of her dress. There was a scarlet stain, blood-red against the silver-white of her gown. She was bleeding. She was losing the baby.
I dived through the press of people to follow her into her room. My mother came behind me and slammed the door on the avid faces staring inwards, on the king who was still looking, bewildered, at the sudden rush of Anne and her family into hiding.
Anne stood alone, facing George, plucking at the back of her gown to see the stain. ‘I didn’t feel a thing.’
‘I’ll get a physician,’ he said, turning for the door.
‘Don’t say anything,’ my mother cautioned him.
‘Say!’ I exclaimed. ‘They all saw! The king himself saw!’
‘It might still be all right. Lie down, Anne.’
Anne went slowly to the bed, her face as white as her hood. ‘I don’t feel anything,’ she repeated.
‘Then perhaps nothing is happening,’ my mother said. ‘Just a little speck.’
She nodded to the maids to take Anne’s shoes off, and her stockings. They rolled her on her side and unlaced her stomacher. They peeled off the beautiful white gown with its great stain of scarlet. Her petticoats were drenched in blood. I looked at my mother.
‘It might be all right,’ she said uncertainly.
I went to Anne and took her hand since it was clear that she would be on her deathbed before our mother would lay a finger on her.
‘Don’t be afraid,’ I whispered.
‘This time we can’t hide it,’ she whispered back. ‘They all saw.’
We did everything. We put a warming pan to her feet and the physicians brought a cordial, two cordials, a poultice and a special blanket blessed by a saint. We leeched her and put a hotter pan at her feet. But it was all no good. At midnight she went into labour, in the real struggle and pain of a proper labour, hauling at the sheet knotted from one bedpost to another, groaning at the pain of the baby tearing itself from her body, and then around two in the morning, she gave a sudden scream and the baby came away and there was nothing anyone could do to hold it in.
The midwife receiving it into her hands gave a sudden exclamation.
‘What is it?’ Anne gasped, her face red from straining, the sweat pouring down her neck.
‘It’s a monster!’ the woman said. ‘A monster.’
Anne hissed with fear, and I found myself shrinking from the bed with superstitious terror. In the midwife’s bloody hands was a baby horridly malformed, with a spine flayed open and a huge head, twice as large as the spindly little body.
Anne gave a hoarse scream and clambered away from it, scrambling like a frightened cat to the top of the bed, leaving a trail of blood over the sheets and pillows. She shrank back against the bedposts, her hands outstretched as if she would push the very air away.
‘Wrap it up!’ I exclaimed. ‘Take it away!’
The midwife looked at Anne, her face very grave. ‘What did you do to get this on you?’
‘I did nothing! Nothing!’
‘This is not a child from a man, this is a child from a devil.’
‘I did nothing!’
I wanted to say ‘Nonsense,’ but my throat was too tight with my own fear. ‘Wrap it up!’ I heard the panic in my voice.
My mother turned away from the bed and headed rapidly for the door, with her face as stern as if she was walking away from the executioner’s block on Tower Green.
‘Mother!’ Anne cried out in a little croak.
My mother neither looked back at her nor checked her step. She walked from the room without a word. When the door clicked behind her I thought, this is the end. The end for Anne.
‘I have done nothing,’ Anne repeated. She turned to me and I thought of the potion from the witch and the night that she lay in the secret room with a gold mask over her face, like a bird’s beak. I thought of her journey to the gates of hell and back to get this child for England.
The midwife turned away. ‘I shall have to tell the king.’
At once I was between her and the door, barring her way. ‘You are not to distress His Majesty,’ I said. ‘He would not want to know this. These are women’s secrets, they should be kept among women. Let us keep this between ourselves and deal with it privately and you shall have the queen’s favour, and mine. I shall see that you are well paid for tonight’s work and for your discretion. I shall see that you are well paid, Mistress. I promise you.’
She did not even glance up at me. She was holding the bundle wrapped in her arms, the horror of it hidden by the swaddling bands. For one dreadful moment I thought I saw it move, I imagined the little flayed hand putting the cloth aside. She lifted it up towards my face, and I shrank back from it. She took her chance and opened the door.
‘You shan’t go to the king!’ I swore, clinging to her arm.
‘Don’t you know?’ she asked me, her voice almost pitying. ‘Don’t you know that I am his servant already? That he sent me here to watch and listen for him? I was appointed for this from the moment that the queen first missed her courses.’
‘Why?’ I gasped.
‘Because he doubts her.’
I put my hand to the wall to support me, my head was whirling. ‘Doubts her?’
She shrugged. ‘He did not know what was wrong with her that she could not carry a child.’ She nodded to the limp huddle of cloth. ‘Now he will know.’
I licked my dry lips. ‘I will pay you anything you ask, to put that down and go to the king and tell him that she has lost a baby but she is able to conceive another,’ I said. ‘Whatever he is paying you, I will double it. I am a Boleyn, we are not without influence and wealth. You can be one of the Howard servants for the rest of your life.’
‘This is my duty,’ she said. ‘I have been doing it since I was a young girl. I have made a solemn vow to the Virgin Mary never to fail in my task.’
‘What task?’ I demanded wildly. ‘What duty? What are you talking about now?’
‘Witch-taking,’ she said simply. And then she slipped out of the door with the devil’s baby in her arms and was gone.
I shut the door on her and slid the bolt. I wanted no-one to come into the room until the mess was cleaned up, and Anne fit to fight for her life.
‘What did she say?’ she asked.
Her skin was white and waxy. Her dark eyes were like chips of glass. She was far away from this hot little room and the sense of danger.
‘Nothing of importance.’
&n
bsp; ‘What did she say?’
‘Nothing. Why don’t you sleep now?’
Anne glared at me. ‘I will never believe it,’ she said flatly, as if she were talking not to me, but to some inquisition. ‘You can never make me believe it. I am not some ignorant peasant crying over a relict which is chipwood and pig’s blood. I will not be turned from my way by silly fears. I will think and I will do, and I will make the world to my own desire.’
‘Anne?’
‘I won’t be frightened by nothing,’ she said staunchly.
‘Anne?’
She turned her face away from me, to the wall.
As soon as she was asleep I opened the door and called a Howard – Madge Shelton – into the room to sit with her. The maids swept away the bloodstained sheets and brought clean rushes for the floor. Outside in the presence chamber, the court was waiting for news, the ladies half-dozing, their heads in their hands, some people playing cards to while away the time. George was leaning against a wall in low-voiced conversation with Sir Francis, heads as close as lovers.
William came towards me and took my hand, and I paused for a moment and drew strength from his touch.
‘It’s bad,’ I said shortly. ‘I can’t tell you now. I have to tell Uncle something. Come with me.’
George was at my side at once. ‘How is she?’
‘The baby’s dead,’ I said shortly.
I saw him blanch as white as a maid and he crossed himself. ‘Where’s Uncle?’ I asked, looking round.
‘Waiting for news in his rooms like the rest of them.’
‘How’s the queen?’ someone asked me.
‘Has she lost the baby?’ someone else said.
George stepped forward. ‘The queen is sleeping,’ he said. ‘Resting. She bids you all to go to your beds and in the morning there will be news of her condition.’
‘Did she lose the baby?’ someone pressed George, looking at me.
‘How should I know?’ George said blandly, and there was an irritated buzz of disbelief.
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