“Mark Smeaton has been arrested.”
Before I realise it isn’t a joke I give a half laugh, but stop suddenly, my head feeling light, as the gravity of the news strikes me.
“Smeaton? Why, what can he have done?”
She shakes her head. “We don’t know. They say he has been with Cromwell all night, and is now in the Tower.”
“It must be some mistake … Where is the king?”
“Gone to Westminster.”
Stillness settles upon me, a sharp conviction that something is definitely wrong.
“Without me?”
It isn’t possible. The unspoken words scream suddenly in my head.
And then I remember Cromwell’s scarcely concealed triumph of the day before, Henry’s coldness toward me at the joust, the splash of crimson silk on Norris’ chest. And last evening Norris and Weston were also missing from my apartments …
The floor beneath my feet dips and sways. A voice is screaming, “Where is George? Where is my brother? Where is George?”
The ornate ceiling comes crashing down, the floor is torn from under me and I lie prostrate. Nan kneels beside me and my ladies are in disarray, squawking and shrieking in alarm.
“Oh, Your Grace, Your Grace. Come let me help you up.”
Then I hear the door burst open, running footsteps, a voice breathless and full of fear.
“Cromwell is coming …”
He treads, soft-footed, toward me. “Get out.” He tosses the words over his shoulder and some of my ladies scatter, but Nan and Margery falter, clinging to my side until he dismisses them again. “I said, leave us.”
Nan looks for my confirmation, her eyes full of fear. With a jerk of my head, I dismiss her.
“Wait in the ante chamber,” I say, an unspoken command that she should listen at the door. She nods anxiously. She understands. And then she leaves me alone with Cromwell.
We face each other, all pretence stripped away. For the first time, I glimpse my enemy. He lets me see his detachment, his determination to get a job done, no matter the cost.
I may be the queen but I am in his way.
I stand in the centre of the room while Cromwell circumnavigates, his hands behind his back, his head lowered, like a bull deciding when to charge, where best to sink in his horns. He pauses at the table to run a finger across the strings of my lute, and discordance floods the silence. He picks up a paperweight and puts it down again, raises his eyes to mine. His smile is slow and cold.
My instinct is to tell him to go, scream at him that I am his queen, and he is supposed to do my bidding. But Cromwell is unpredictable, dangerous, and he has always primarily been the king’s servant. It is clear that today he works to the king’s benefit.
I do not speak. I force myself to keep silent, bite my tongue to stifle my acrimony. I also refuse to weep. I am queen of England and common-born or not, I am determined to behave like one.
Cromwell calmly pries into my private possessions, both of us silent, the only noises are from the gardens, indistinguishable voices from the river traffic that passes close beneath my windows.
“I am in possession of some information.”
When it comes his voice is so unexpected that I jump, let out a gasp. I do not answer but I swallow audibly, grapple to keep control of my nerve.
“Information that concerns you …”
A chess game, abandoned on his arrival, sits half-played. He picks up a knight, moves it across the board, and throws the queen toward a pile of dispensed pieces. She rolls away, falls from the edge of the table.
“… and members of the king’s household. Some of them the king’s very good friends.”
“Indeed.” With my fingertip I trace the outline of a flower on a cushion, pretending disinterest, pretending I am not screaming inside with curiosity. He cannot know that fear is already nibbling at the edges of my sanity, corroding my composure. My heart throbs against the constraints of my corset, but I must remain calm … at all costs. I must remain calm.
“The council are on their way now. There are questions we must ask you. It is important that you answer truthfully.”
He levels his dark eye upon me. Even the suggestion that I might lie is an insult. I am nothing to him, just a hindrance to his plans, a blight upon the pretty world he is building for himself. How could I ever have believed this man was my friend? He is no one’s friend. He is not working for reform, nor for the king. He is working for one person alone, and that person is Cromwell.
I deign to speak at last, curiosity impossible to ignore. “Of what, exactly, is my musician, Smeaton, accused?”
He props himself on the edge of my table, his ankles crossed, his fingers forming a cathedral, the manicured tips pressed together. It is the most menacing stance I have ever seen and he knows it, relishes the power he has over me. His soft voice is silken with spite.
“Your musician confessed last night to having known you carnally, on at least three occasions.”
This is the last thing I expected. The foul words hang in the air like a bad smell.
“What?” I lean forward, thrusting my head toward him. “Are you quite, quite mad?”
***
They rise to their feet when I enter the room, their long faces inscrutable. I glide across the floor and remain standing in the centre of the room while they take their seats again; Sir William Fitzwilliam; Sir William Paulet; and my uncle, the Duke of Norfolk. These men are expected to do Cromwell’s bidding, expected to find the allegations worth pursuing.
My uncle peruses the papers before him, tut-tutting at the outlandish accusations, and refuses to meet my eye. In unison they wag their grey beards, and I know then that I am already condemned. They have no need of a trial. What comes next will be a formality.
Norfolk’s chair scrapes across the floor as he stands. He clears his throat, his words smearing like muck across my mind’s eye as he accuses me of evil behaviour, charging me with having committed adultery with not just Mark, but Norris too, and another whom they have not yet named.
“This is untrue.” My French accent is gratingly loud, bordering on shouting, my panic plain to all. “I am, and have always been, a true wife to the king, and I am untouched, totally untouched, by any other man.”
They shuffle papers. Norfolk clears his throat, ignores my outcry and begins to speak, his eye fastened on the opposite wall, above my head, as if I am beneath notice. A surge of anger rises in my breast.
“Will you not even look at me, Uncle, while you make these false accusations?”
Paulet, his face flushing red, leans forward across the table. “You will be able to have your say at the trial, Your Grace …”
My old enemy, Fitzwilliam, interrupts, leers his hatred. “And we have Norris’ confession, given in good faith …”
Norris’ confession? He has lied? Perjured himself? For what reason? I remember tales of instruments kept at the Tower, instruments guaranteed to make any man, even the most stalwart, confess to any crime.
“Under duress, I have no doubt.”
“Not at all.”
He picks up his pen, makes his mark upon a paper, dismissing me as if I am of no consequence.
Paulet intervenes again, clears his throat and informs me that the papers are drawn up and that there is enough evidence for charges to be made against me. Less than five minutes later, flanked by the council guards, I am marched back to my apartments.
The doors are thrust open and my ladies rush to meet me. I am in a daze as they take my arms, usher me toward a chair, their questions falling like rain, like tears.
I do not have the wherewithal to answer. They sit me down, thrust a cup into my hand, but I do not drink. I do not speak. I do not move. I let them do with me as they wish.
Henry will come soon, I tell myself. He will poke his head around the door and declare it has all been a horrible joke. He will take my hands, cover them with kisses, draw me tight into his soft, fragrant chest and I will be saf
e again.
But he does not come.
I sit unspeaking in the darkening room while fear gnaws at my sanity. I want to run but there is no escape, for a guard has been placed upon my door preventing me from stirring. When they come to take me to bed, I refuse to go. Despite my women’s protests I sit there all night long, watching and waiting until morning peeps, clean-washed and pink, over the horizon.
***
It is two in the afternoon and I have begun to think that perhaps nothing will come of it. The king will order them all to leave me alone, remind them that I am their queen and the beloved wife of their king. But just as I am picking up the stump work I have been concentrating on, Norfolk is announced.
He stands just inside the door, a parchment scroll rolled in his fist. He has the grace to avoid my eye.
“Why are you come?” I ask, although I already know what his answer will be. He clears his throat, as he always does before speaking.
“I am here at the king’s command, to conduct you to the Tower, where you are to bide during his Highness’ pleasure.”
His Highness’ pleasure? I know well how to pleasure Henry. A fleeting memory surfaces of him succumbing to my bedtime games, his faces flushed at the delicious indecencies I subjected him to. He can’t be tired of me, surely.
My mind returns unwillingly to the present, swiftly summing up my options. The Royal apartments at the Tower are sumptuous and warm, only recently renovated and updated for my coronation. There is nothing to fear in a short stay while the matter is cleared up. Even now, George will be pleading my case with Henry. I raise my head, regard my uncle coldly, and reply as if I have a choice. “If it is indeed the king’s pleasure then I am ready to obey.”
Behind me, one of my ladies succumbs to a fit of weeping, but I silence her with a snap of my fingers, a verbose frown. I call for my cloak.
I am not given time to say goodbye, or to order my possessions packed. Poor Urien is left behind, my needlework is abandoned on the table, my lute placed lovingly against a chair … until I return. With my chin as high as I can raise it I follow Norfolk from the room, watching his lumpy feet creep along the torchlit corridors until we emerge into a rain-washed morning where a long, low barge is waiting at the wharf.
The river craft bobs and dips in the water. As the men pick up their oars, I crane my neck to look up at the walls of Greenwich and wonder which window conceals the king.
But then I recall that Henry has left already, fled to Westminster, leaving me to the mercy of my enemies. He has discarded me like a soiled kerchief, or a broken lute string, but such flaws can be repaired, washed clean, and taken up again. Soon Henry will realise that and summon me back. My stay at the Tower will not be prolonged.
As the boat glides toward mid-stream I spy a pale face watching from behind the thick green window glass. Not knowing if it is friend or foe, I lift my hand, see a flicker of movement and am comforted, although I cannot tell who it is that dares to bid me farewell.
Erect on the barge cushions, I remember a happier May day when, dressed in splendour, I was taken to my coronation and all the world was wild with celebration.
I remember the warmth of the sunshine, the cheering of the crowd, the pushing onlookers, the exuberant excitement of my sister, Mary.
I remember a child on one of the barges, dressed as an angel. She waved at me and I recall making her day by raising my hand to return her greeting and sending her one of my best smiles. I wonder where that little girl is now, and if she will weep for me when she learns how low I am fallen.
As the river glides along beneath me I have time to think back, try to see what I have done wrong, how I may have offended the king. Every so often a shaft of panic rises, takes up residence in my breast, and it is all I can do to stifle it, thrust it back down again and maintain, at least outwardly, some semblance of serenity. I do not want them to see my fear. I must not give way to panic. Oh, where is George? Why does he not come?
As the outline of the Tower grows clearer, I draw my cloak about me, trying not to shiver in the shadow of the soaring walls. A blast of canon fire sends a dark host of screaming ravens into the sky. I cringe, fingers in ears, my heart hammering, tears springing disobediently to my eyes. The canon signals to London that a person of note has been taken prisoner. Soon everyone will know that the prisoner is their queen. Surely the king will stop this foolishness.
Help me, Henry, I whisper. Help me, George. God send me a reprieve from this nightmare.
The oarsman put up their oars, the barge collides with the wharf wall, and I take my fingers from my ears and look fearfully about me. Upon the slick green steps that will take me to my fate, Mr Kingston is waiting, his hands folded quietly in his sleeves. He is calm, a look of gentle concern creased across his brow. At his kindness the queen in me takes flight, leaving just a terrified girl. I scramble to my feet, grab desperately at his proffered hand and stumble from the boat. “Mr Kingston.”
“Your Grace.” There is something about his calm manner that vanquishes the last of my dwindling courage. A sob breaks from my throat and his grip tightens encouragingly on my forearm.
“Mr Kingston.” I try to smile but my mouth refuses to conform and all I manage is a grimace. “Are you going to put me in a cell?”
He pats my hand. “No, no, Your Grace, you will be lodged in the royal apartments, where you stayed before your coronation. All has been made ready for you, and my wife is waiting to attend you there.”
His wife. Mary Scrope is a long-time lover of the old queen and an open enemy to me. Cromwell has chosen well. I wonder what other adversaries await me here. I shake my head, smile my wobbly smile as I take his arm. He leads me on quaking limbs across the inner ward and past the Lanthorn Tower to my apartments.
As my eyes become accustomed to the dim interior I see the chambers are just as I remember, although in my new unstable status they seem somewhat tarnished and chilly, the hangings a little faded, like Henry’s love for me. But the familiarity of the apartment reassures me a little. I force myself erect. I am still the queen, still as yet unvanquished.
Cromwell hasn’t beaten me yet.
As the door is opened six women turn to greet me, bobbing to their knees, their faces detached and formal. Lady Kingston; Mary Cosyn; and my aunts, Elizabeth, Lady Boleyn, and Lady Shelton, mother of my cousin Madge. But I do not rush into their arms, for they are not my friends and I have no doubt they’ve been sent here to spy and report any misdoing to Cromwell.
Aunt Elizabeth has made no secret of her allegiance to the bastard Mary, and Lady Shelton resents how, to help save my marriage, George and I manipulated her maiden daughter, Madge, into Henry’s bed.
The other two women, the chamberers, are a far more welcome sight. Mary Orchard is my old nurse, and Mrs Stoner an honest woman who loves me well. They come forward to greet me and I am soon divested of my cloak and gloves and offered refreshment.
Barely acknowledging the other women, I toss my prayer book on to the bed and move toward the window to peer through thick green glass. Beyond the Tower walls the river is alive with bobbing craft, as traders and passengers alike cross and re-cross the wide grey stretch of water, all going about their daily lives as if nothing has happened.
I suppose nothing has happened, not to them.
And below my window, on the castle green, the inhabitants act as if there is nothing remarkable in the arrest and imprisonment of an anointed queen. For the first time I realise I mean very little to the ordinary people. If I am locked away here forever, there are very few who will care, and soon I will be forgotten, as if I have never been. All I will leave behind is Elizabeth, and a few unthinking letters, scribbled in haste.
***
Although I have no appetite, I accept when Sir William Kingston invites me to supper. I brush my hair, change my cap and sit at table with him while he serves my wine, carves my meat and selects all the daintiest cuts for my plate. My women wait at a discreet distance, and apart f
rom the two guards who stand like silent sentinels at the door, I can almost believe I am not his guiltless prisoner, awaiting trial for treason against the man I love.
We eat in silence for a while; the food is good but not excellent, and the same might be said of the company. Poor Mr Kingston, I am dull of spirit and cannot pretend to be otherwise, even though I know that each word and gesture will be reported back to Cromwell. I would prefer the spies to bear tales of my confidence, innocence and strength, but it is beyond my capability to live up to such a pretence.
But, at last, I break the silence.
“Mr Kingston, would you speak to the king on my behalf and ask if I might receive the sacrament that I may pray for mercy?”
He dabs his lips with a napkin, chewing his food rapidly to clear his mouth that he might answer respectfully. He nods, swallows, licks his lips, dabs his mouth again. “Of course, of course, Your Grace. I shall make the necessary arrangements right away.”
“Thank you. There is no reason why I may not take the Sacrament. I am as clear of the company of men as I am of sin. There is no truth in these charges, you know.”
A long silence follows, a silence I want to fill with questions, but I fear the answers too much. “Mr Kingston,” I say at last. “Tell me about Mark Smeaton. Have they hurt him?”
He rinses his mouth with wine, presses his napkin to his lips. “I know not, Your Grace.”
“Is – is he here? At the Tower?”
He nods, wets his lips, nods again. “And Norris also.”
My throat closes up with grief, my voice reduced to a croak.
“Thank you, Mr Kingston.”
I try not to react to the news that poor innocent Mark and brave Norris are locked up like felons because of Cromwell’s need to be rid of me. Mr Kingston pours more wine, the rich ruby fluid flowing thick into our glasses. I reach out and lift it to my lips, inhaling the deep fruity aroma before letting it loose upon my tongue. I swallow and replace the glass carefully on the table beside my plate.
The Kiss of the Concubine: A story of Anne Boleyn Page 27