The Winchester Goose: At the Court of Henry VIII

by Arnopp, Judith

  A quiver of excitement runs through me that, for once, is quite unrelated to my cock. Pulling out a chair, I sit down and draw her back onto my knee. With our heads together, we begin to closely study the parchment.

  The chamber is almost dark when I straighten up and look at my wife properly for the first time in several hours. She has long since removed her cap and her hair is dishevelled, her fingers inky, a streak of indigo marring her parchment brow. For several minutes we stare at each other unsmiling, both of us aware that the document we have almost unravelled is important indeed. The hand is Cranmer’s I suspect, or his secretary’s, and the contents detrimental to the Queen.

  “I must hand this to Cromwell, he will ensure it gets back to Cranmer.”

  “Cromwell is in the Tower!”

  “I’d forgotten ....”

  The silence stretches, a cock crowing far off, a bell chiming, a dog barking ….

  “So Katherine Howard was a decoy, dangled before the King by her uncle to lure him back to the old religion. Are you for Reform, Francis?”

  Her question astounds me. I’ve never given it much thought, never looked past my next meal or my next woman. I have little care for the church. I shrug and bluster, and begin to roll the parchment up and tie it with ribbon. I wish to God I could reseal the wax and pretend I’d never looked on it. If it falls into the wrong hands … My wife interrupts the train of my thought.

  “You must have an opinion. Katherine, it seems, is essential to her uncle’s plan to keep the King on the side of conservatism. This – this letter and the information that it holds, is vital to the future of reform. Our duty is clear, but just think Francis, what will it mean to the Queen? She is just a girl.”

  “And a pretty one, at that.” An image of the Queen’s laughing face flashes before me, her kindling eye, her bouncing breasts. I had never thought of her as ‘just a girl’, and neither it seems had others before me. “This paper says she is no maid nor has been for some time. The King, it seems, was not the first to plough her furrow. Norfolk must be a fool to think he can get away with this. It could bring them all down, and the reformers will be glad to see them fall. The manner in which the pious choose to say their prayers makes little difference to me. I have no preference and worship as the King demands. I just keep my head down and try to stay out of trouble.”

  Eve snorts inelegantly. “The day you picked up this parcel of papers hasn’t exactly kept you from trouble, has it?” She stares through the black window for a while. “Katherine’s downfall could help Cromwell. If you hand this to the right person, you may even keep him from the scaffold and aid the reformation at the same time. You have to decide, Francis, whether to pass these papers on and endanger the life of the Queen, or burn them and let your allies burn also.”

  Something stirs in my belly; I smell riches. Cranmer will pay a tidy sum to lay his hands on this, but on the other hand, so would Gardiner. Opposite sides, vying for information that is in my own keeping. A fleeting image of a fat purse, perhaps enough to buy some property and a new suit of clothes, passes through my mind’s eye but I do not speak the thought out loud. I know Eve wants me to destroy the evidence and forget what I have read, but a rosy future beckons. I forage for another lie to appease her.

  “I will take it to Nicholas on the morrow.” I watch her yawn and stretch and hope she never discovers my deceit.

  It seems there may be more to my wife than I’d thought. Before today I’d never imagined there was anything in her head beyond the latest dance steps. I find this newly discovered side to her not just intriguing but attractive too.

  Her bodice is still loose, her breasts peeking through the stuff of her chemise. I realise I have spent the last six hours in her company and not once thought of humping her. That thought is as surprising as her newly discovered intelligence. “Ring for supper, wife,” I say, “I will deliver the papers in the morning. Nicholas must be the one to decide what should be done.”

  She scowls at me but does as she is bid. Clutching her gown to her body she summons a servant and orders food to be brought up. I watch as the maidservant scurries about the room, closing the shutters against the night, drawing the curtains and bending over the hearth, stoking the fires. I decide I have just about time to take Eve to our bed before the food arrives.

  The next morning Eve wakes up in a tetchy mood so, after enduring our first marital discord, I take myself off to contact Nicholas again. Ever alert for Gardiner’s spies, I take a circular route to his home but when I go to bang upon the door, it creaks open a little way at my touch. I step over the threshold. “Hello?” I call, but there is no reply.

  It is unlike Master Brennan to be so careless as to leave his door ajar, so I tread cautiously along the corridor and pause outside his chamber before lifting my hand to make my presence known. There is no reply even when I knock quite ferociously, and I draw out the papers, pondering what I should do. Deciding it might not be wise to shove them beneath his door, I tuck them into my doublet again. I turn to go but something stops me, and I reach out and lift the latch.

  The high-up window provides insufficient light to leaven the gloom within, and it takes some while for my eyes to become accustomed to the dark. As I look about the familiar room it doesn’t take me long to realise that the chaos that meets my eye is unusual even by Nicholas’ standards.

  The table is overturned, a stool is upended on the flag-stoned floor, a pot leaks ink as dark as blood onto a scattering of parchments and rolls. The beat of my heart increases, making me nauseous. Nicholas is in trouble and I know that if I am not to follow him, I must make myself scarce, as quickly and as completely as possible.

  I slide along the passageway and pause momentarily at the door. Everything appears normal. I scan the usual crowds of traders and shoppers. There are urchins rolling in the dirt and a fellow across the street is eyeing up a doxy. I furl my cloak about me and melt, as inconspicuously as possible, into the crowd. For a while, my heart performs a clog dance in my chest, and I hurry along the bridge, unsure of which direction I should take. Then I dart between a gap in the tenements and pause for a moment at the edge of the bridge. Above me, the heads of traitors stare bleakly across the sullen river, but I have no care to dwell on their fate today. Instead, my eyes are drawn to the dark brown waters that ferment into a cauldron before rushing furiously between the starlings. I watch a boat caught in the current, struggling to pull free, the passengers on board white-faced with fear that they may have to shoot the bridge after all. Such pass-times are only for the brave or the foolhardy, and their relief is evident when the boatman steers them successfully to the safely of the southern wharf. While I determine my best course of action, I watch them clamber from the boat and hope that anyone watching me will be fooled by the casual manner I assume.

  Master Brennan is nowhere to be found and our master in the Tower, in as deep a trouble as a man can find himself. I curse beneath my breath, hoping Nicholas has not been taken too. There is no way of telling what danger I may be in, but if anyone knows of my connection with either Nicholas or Cromwell, I may soon find myself following in their wake. I can brazen it out, return to court and pretend that nothing is amiss, or I can run, scurry to Joanie until such time as I can get myself away from London Town.

  But then I remember that I have a wife to think of now. I look at the sky, pondering what to do. I tell myself that the best way to protect her is to first save myself. But then an unbidden memory stirs, and the thought of her tight little body and the tentative touch of her fingers changes my mind and draws me home.

  Evelyn Wareham - 1540

  It is late, the sun already high when I finally wake and slide up the pillow, my limbs aching from the night before, to blink about the empty chamber. Francis’ pillow is cold, his side of the coverlet thrown back, his clothes gone. While I wait for my maid to help me dress, I rise from the bed to wander to the window and look out across the gardens.

  The household is already up and
about. If my father were here he’d call me a slattern and a lazy bones, but my husband kept me from a good night’s rest and I needed the extra hour. I yawn and stretch, sighing impatiently as I wonder why Maud is so tardy in replying to my summons. Fed up with waiting, I cross the chamber in my nightrail and open the door to the outer chamber.

  For a moment my mind does not acknowledge what is before me and I blink, trying to clear my vision, trying to convince myself that what I am seeing is false, a mistake … a mirage.

  Francis is beside the fire, his head turned from me, his face burrowed in Maud’s bosom. Her head is thrown back, her fingers tangled in his hair, their bodies squirming.

  Sickness overwhelms me and knowing I am about to disgrace myself, I gasp and turn, floundering blindly back into my chamber to heave into the chamber pot. My body is consumed with shivering, my mind a horrible whirl as my stomach twists and churns. I gag and cough, bringing up nothing but bile.

  “Eve.” Francis is at the door, too afraid to come hither. I ignore him, I cannot bear to look on him and know I will never be able to bear him near me again. Sweat soaks my shift as I heave once more, retching, my eyes streaming, the tears mingling with the moisture on my face. I hear him step closer. “Eve? Are you all right?”

  When I stagger upright and turn toward him it is as if someone has removed a blindfold and I am seeing him clearly for the first time. He is no more my gallant Francis, he is like a child, a frightened little boy, as ignoble and as spineless as a man can be.

  “Of course I’m not all right!” I screech, brushing away furious tears. “How the hell can I ever be all right?”

  Another step forward and he is close to me. Too close. He needs a shave, his eye is shifty, avoiding mine. Shame sits sadly upon him. He cannot look me in the face but he shrugs as if to turn this gargantuan thing into nothing.

  “It doesn’t mean anything, Sweeting. All men dally with the maids.”

  I am astounded at his words. We have not yet been married a month and already he is ‘dallying with my maid’. After a heady, glorious night with me, he has found it necessary to ‘dally with my maid’.

  “Really?” I snarl, scaring myself as fury unfurls like a demon in my heart. “I don’t believe my father would dream of dallying with servants, nor would any man of refinement.”

  “It’s good enough for the King,” he mutters as I turn sharply away from him. I wish that I were dressed. It is not easy to be dignified in a night gown. I feel like a little girl; a stupid, gullible child. Like a burning brand, the memory of the last few nights flickers in my mind. I have given him every piece of me, let him do things to me that I’m sure no decent wife is ever asked to do. It strikes me that it all meant nothing to him, that I have been used. He has treated me like his … like his … like a whore!

  He reaches out and touches my arm but I wrench myself away.

  “Don’t you dare touch me!”

  He gives a half laugh, the dimple that I once found so intriguing appearing momentarily on his cheek. Had I a knife I would use it, my body is trembling with hatred. Hatred and bitter, bitter sorrow that he could use me so shabbily.

  I could have wed anyone I wanted but I chose him, a nobody, because I loved him and had thought he returned that love in full measure. Oh, there is no truth in men, none at all!

  Love is nothing but a word a man uses to get beneath a virgin’s petticoats. As I stand there looking upon the wreck of my marriage, the wreck of my life, I remember a thousand small things that I have pretended not to see.

  His eye sliding about the hall, fixated upon the trim of Katherine Howard’s bodice, upon Mary Norris’ swelling bosom. Francis, laughing in a corner with Jane Guilford until he sees me coming and moves away. All the time I have known him I have intercepted secret smiles, sly winks, unexplained absences, and I have loved him too well to question them. “How many women, Francis?”

  The words are out before I’ve thought them and he gapes like a fish, flaps his arms like a pinioned bird and turns an unattractive shade of red. There is no need of an answer. I can see it in his face and know already that there have been too many, there are too many still.

  He disgusts me. I turn my back, looking blindly from the window.

  “Evie,” he pleads, using his bedtime name for me, but I do not turn around.

  “Don’t ever use that name again. Go away, Francis, just go about your day and leave me alone. I care not if you never return.”

  There follows a short silence, then I hear his feet shuffling.

  “I’ll come back later, when you are calmer.” When I am calmer, I scoff silently, humourlessly, my mind screaming. I will never be calm again.

  He is at the door, his voice quavering like a miscreant boy. I want to claw out his eyes but I turn my face away and try to quell my temper. I say nothing.

  “Bye then …” He is still waiting for me to turn and bid him good day as if everything were well between us, as if there is a chance I will ever forgive him.

  My heart is pounding with a rage I can no longer contain. I want to hurt him, draw my nails across his face, make him bleed as I am bleeding inside, spoil his pretty looks for ever, make him so ugly he is disgusting to all women. Instead, I reach out for a green baluster jug that stands before me on the table and, spinning suddenly upon my heel, I hurl it at him. As it flies through the air, he sees it coming and makes good his escape. The jug collides with the heavy oak door, shattering into pieces, along with my heart.

  I am back in my bed, a bed that still reeks of our lovemaking. I claw at my pillow, tear at the sheets, trying to staunch the pain. Since I was a small child I have been loved and nurtured, always safe, always knowing what tomorrow will bring. But now, I know nothing. I am nothing but a commonplace wife with no future but to be further ill-used by her husband.

  I hear a soft footfall, followed by a voice. “Eve? Whatever is the matter? Your servant said you are ill?”

  It is Bella, come to gloat no doubt. I sit up and wipe my nose on my night gown, preparing for her lecture, waiting for her to say, “I told you so.”

  “What is it, my dear?” Her face, so full of concern, undoes me and I fall into her arms, blubbing like an infant all over again. Her jewelled bodice scratches my cheek as, little by little, between sobs and further attacks of despair, the story comes out. I see how Bella’s lips tighten, how her eyes darken. “He was kissing Maud?” Bella’s chin knobbles in righteous anger. “You’ve sent her off, I take it?”

  I shrug. I have no idea where Maud is but I imagine she has fled. Maybe she has even gone off with Francis. At the thought my mouth begins to square again but Bella forestalls the tears.

  “No. No more of that. Come along, sit up and drink this.”

  She offers me a cup of something strong, something that makes me cough and splutter as she begins to fasten back the bed curtains. “You must get up, wash and dress. When he comes back you must be contained and calm, dignified. You are better than this; you are a Bourne. Come along. Think how Mother would behave.”

  “Our Father would never treat her like this!”

  She ignores me, rings the bell to summon a servant and ask for warm water. Then as we wait, she busies herself at my clothes press until a kitchen boy knocks and enters with a slopping bowl. He begs my pardon for bringing me the water and says that Maud is nowhere to be found. I wonder again if she is with Francis. The servants must all know what has happened, I will never be able to hold my head high again. Bella dips a finger into the bowl, testing the temperature.

  “Things aren’t as bad as they seem. It would have happened sooner or later, you know that.”

  Tight lipped, Bella is sorting my linen, holding out a shift. I step from my nightgown and allow her to help me dress. She pretends not to notice the marks Francis’ passion has left on my body.

  “We’ve been married for such a little while and … I thought … I really believed he loved me. How could he do it?”

  Bella snorts. “Don’t as
k me the workings of a man’s mind.”

  There is a short silence while we both let our minds travel different paths. Then she pulls me back to the painful present. “I did come this morning with some news of my own but … you may not receive it so gladly … now.”

  She looks almost guilty and I find my curiosity piqued. “What is it?” I ask. “What news?”

  With her hands clasped in her lap as if she is seeking to contain her feelings, Bella looks at me, her white face unreadable.

  “Oh, I am to be wed at last, that’s all. I wager you thought it would never happen.”

  I had never imagined Bella marrying. She is so composed, so tightly laced I cannot imagine a man unleashing her passions. For a long moment I am silent, contemplating all the emotions that she has in store. The courtship; the heady torment of a desire that cannot be sated; the blissful relinquishment of virtue on her wedding night. I am filled with both a tearing envy and a wrenching fear that her marriage will be as miserable as mine. But I must try to be glad, for her sake. I must not taint her experience with my own knowledge.

  I try to smile. “Married, Bella? How lovely. To whom?”

  Her face is pink and for once she looks pretty. She bites her lip, waggles her head on her shoulders and will not look at me.

  “Sir Anthony.” Her voice is but a whisper.

  “Sir Anthony Greywater?” I am dumbfounded. Bella is marrying my cast-off suitor. The gentleman I found too old and dull beside the exciting temptations of Francis. She will be mistress of a fine house, wife of a good, honest man while I am tied to a louse: a lecher and a rogue involved in the shady dealings of the King’s chief minister. While she gets a gentleman, I get a monster that consorts with whores and slatterns.