Below the window upon a plain oak coffer there is a counting frame such as my husband uses and other strange instruments of brass and wood of divers shapes. One of these she brings to the trestle.
‘You may examine it, goodwife.’
I count ten faces, each with a little sun dial, engraved with circles, lines and numerals. Then she brings a globe unlike any other I have seen. Strange dragon creatures, a winged horse and a huge, startled bird in terrified flight swim in a dark blue sea: and then I realise that it is not the sea but the night sky, for yellow stars are sprinkled everywhere.
‘I see now that you are an astrologer. Is that not so madam?’
‘This day is for answers, goodwife,’ she says. ‘Questions are unnecessary.’
That deep masculine voice again, making me involuntarily glance around for its owner. She turns the globe around and around, examines the dial on each face of the sun clock. Inside me the child stirs, quickens, kicks. Hungry for life. Impatient for birth. A warm happiness floods within me as if I am returning home after a long journey. She dips a feather in the inkhorn and writes a date: 17th November 1558.
She writes again and I want to tell her that I do not need to read what she has written for the child has already made it known to me but I keep quiet and read respectfully:
A day of promises, beginnings, new life.
And I think:
Spring blossoming into summer.
Mayflowers for November.
She writes steadily; a long missive that requires much scratching of the quill and dipping of the sharpened tip into the inkhorn. She runs her finger beneath one line of script.
Thou didst gleam, and glow, and dispel my blindness.
‘Someone in your household will find comfort in these words from St Augustine’s prayer, I believe,’ she says and I dare not try to bargain with her for a scrap of St Augustine’s habit although I had promised White Boy that I would.
I place my silver coin upon the trestle. ‘For your trouble, madam and for charitable works for folks who live hereabouts.’
She is holding the rodent when I take my leave. It is a squirrel, rufous-red and goggle-eyed, nibbling a nut in its busy jaws as it nestles within the crook of her arm.
‘A woman of contradictions,’ my husband says. ‘Male against female, poverty against wealth, St Augustine’s prayer against mathematics and astrology which he eschewed. What riddles she has wrought to keep you from your sleep at nights.’
I spread my hands across my belly. Little bumpy things poke and prod; a heel, a fist, an elbow. Three months is a long time to wait to see my child. The afternoon is warm. Not the waning warmth of summer maturing into autumn.
Spring blossoming into summer.
Mayflowers for November.
Chapter 18
Autumn and Winter 1534-5
The Queen was miserable. Everyone could see that. There was no laughter when she walked her little dog in the King’s parkland with her ladies. In her chambers she made the poet write sad words and the musicians sing sad songs.
‘It is supposed to be lively at court, not boring,’ Mistress Madge said while I pinned her into a new taffeta bodice. ‘Anne is not The Most Happy these days and the rest of us must suffer with her. She cannot see Henry with his secretary or his ambassadors without pushing her way into the conversation and Henry is getting sick of it. It makes him appear so foolish to have such an interfering wife who disagrees with him in front of everybody. And he dares not rebuke her for fear she will have one of her tempers and disgrace him further. And in the evenings she will not leave him to his dalliance amongst the ladies which he has been used to doing since he married Katherine. She watches him for hours while he dances with his beautiful mistress. Her chest heaves and her golden goblet shakes in her hand and still she watches and will not retire and grows melancholy.
‘Oh, there is no fun to be had at court these days.’
The French King sent his ambassador to the English court. He wanted to arrange a marriage between the Dauphin and the Lady Mary. He believed what the new pope believed: that Queen Katherine’s marriage to Henry was true. He did not want Elizabeth, not even for his third son. To him she was a bastard. What did that make Queen Anne? She slowly stroked each pearl on the curve of her French hood as if she were counting that they were all there, then she sent Mistress Madge to Lady Wiltshire to borrow an English gable hood.
‘If Princess Mary has France on her side, there is hope still,’ Mother said, when we were alone in the confectionery.
‘Hope for what?’
‘For England to return to the true religion and the Pope.’’
Lady Shelton’s fear of a French invasion, which Mistress Madge had so carelessly dismissed, began to seem possible.
‘Take care what you say, Mother, I pray you.’ I could say no more for Mistress Pudding returned.
‘What a mighty lot of trouble King Henry has given himself,’ Father said. ‘Here in the outer courtyard we don’t know much about politics. What’s going on between King Francis and King Henry is a mystery to us. But this I know. Our king’s new laws make treason easier for the gentry and common folk alike.’
‘You will have to stop Mother from speaking her mind about the Queen.’ I told Father.
‘I’d better tell our priest how to behave whilst I’m about it,’ Father said. ‘The clerk of the kitchen was talking yesterday of the Act of Submission of Clergy.’
‘I worry for you and Mother. You are too used to speaking your minds about Anne Boleyn and the new religion. The new laws make it high treason to insult or harm King Henry or Queen Anne. There will be punishment by death for anyone who refuses to accept the King as head of the church.’
‘New religion?’ Father raised his voice. ‘What new religion? There is but one religion, the Catholic faith.’
‘Hush, Father. Heed your own advice. You warned me to take care when first I went to court.’
‘I warned you against corruption at court. I never asked you to deny the Pope and the Catholic Church. The brave Observant Friars have had their order suppressed and there’s talk that their church will became a mill for the royal armoury. Shall we say our prayers kneeling upon a bag of flour?’
‘Father, you must not talk like this, it is dangerous.’
‘Who will bother what the baker and the confectioner say?’ Father said.
*
On the day that Queen Anne confided to her cousin that she might be pregnant again, her widowed sister Mary visited unexpectedly and with her stomacher so well raised no one would doubt that she was with child.
‘To so brazenly come to court and announce that she has married a soldier. Now she wants money because she is poor. Uncle Wiltshire refused to help her,’ Mistress Madge said haughtily. ‘She has been sent away in disgrace without her Christmas dinner. She says she will have to beg Cromwell to intervene on her behalf. My cousin, the Queen, is furious. In law, Mary is the King’s sister and should have made a fine match with a wealthy earl or duke.’
‘To run off and marry for love is a very brave thing to do,’ I said.
‘Oh, I had not thought of it like that.’ Mistress Madge said. ‘Is this how the common people think?’
‘Many years ago the King’s sister married the Duke of Suffolk secretly, for love, when her husband, the old French king died,’ I reminded her.
‘Oh, I remember mother telling me what a terrible scandal that was, but she brought her dowry and that great diamond, the Mirror of Naples, from the French court so Henry readily forgave them. What kind of marriage settlement can be made without wealth?’
‘What of love?’ I asked her.
‘A gentlewoman must not look to find love within marriage,’ she answered in a voice so low I barely heard.
Queen Anne’s sister was not the only lady to be banished from court. Lady Rochford kept the promise she had made to her father-in-law on the night of the Queen’s stillbirth. She picked an argument with the beautiful lady w
hom the King served. She was trying to make the lady insult the Queen and so be sent away. Instead, the King banished Lady Rochford.
‘That lady is forever poking her nose into other people’s business,’ Mistress Madge said. ‘She should look to her own affairs. She won’t get a child for her husband when she is at home and he at court. As for the King’s mistress, he is already tiring of that lady, so Lady Rochford need not have bothered to put herself out to please her father-in-law and the Queen.’
‘Now the King will spend all of his time with the Queen,’ I said blithely.
‘Oh, Avis, what an innocent you are.’
I did not question my mistress any more about the King only wondered why she smiled and blushed so coyly.
*
Christmastide at Greenwich Palace meant twelve days of festivities with holly and ivy decorations hanging in every chamber. The whole palace was fragrant with spices. Bay leaves were everywhere, on the food and in the decorations. The court ate hog’s head garnished with rosemary, seethed brawn, roast swans and a wonderful cake made by the pudding wife with mother’s help, of course, filled with honey, spices and dried fruit. And inside the cake was hidden a pea that everyone hoped they would find for it brings good luck and means that they would be king or queen of the pea for the evening.
I can’t remember who got the pea that year, December, 1534. We sipped spiced ale from the wassail cup and when the King and Queen and their courtiers paraded through the outer courtyard to the chapel for Mass, I was allowed to follow with the other maids. When I saw Mother, Father, Bess and Anthony at the front of the crowds of serving people who bowed and curtseyed as we passed by, I felt so strange and proud. The choristers of the Chapel Royal sang Gloria in Excelsis so beautifully that their voices seemed to float up into the glistening, golden vaulting and beyond into the bright blue painted ceiling with its golden stars, so that I thought their music would find its way to heaven. Mistress Blanche was so moved by the singing that she had to pat her eyes with her kerchief. Everything shone in the candle glow, not just the altar and the choir stalls or the King’s cloth of gold or the Queen’s jewels. Even the green and yellow floor tiles were gleaming. The new stained glass windows were decorated with the coats of alms of King Henry and Queen Anne. My mistress had taught me to recognise the H and A intertwined upon the Queen’s alms. I stared at the large crown above King Henry’s arms and Mistress Blanche had to nudge my elbow and bid me close my eyes to pray, so busy was I looking all around so that I would remember everything to tell Mother. I did not see the Queen close, only the shimmer of her jewelled hood and veil in the candlelight. I was glad. I was afraid to know the fate of this latest pregnancy.
Then came a cold, still afternoon; one of the twelve days of Christmas. Not a day for the Queen or her ladies, sluggish after their feasting, to be inclined to take her frisky lapdog for a ramble in the park. The little dog had taken quite a liking to me of late, always jumping up when he saw me and wanting to be fussed around his ears. I was so excited when Mistress Madge asked me to take him for his exercise. My duties for the wet -nurse and latterly, Mistress Madge, had confined me indoors. I had missed being out in the fresh air and often wondered how the kitchen gardens fared without my care. I changed Purkoy’s velvet jewelled collar for a more serviceable leather.
Muffling myself in a heavy mantle I took my leave of my mistress; the pale sky threatened snow.
‘Keep him on the lead,’ Mistress Madge shouted from an upper window as I ran across the inner court. ‘The King’s parkland is vast. He is not so used to you and may not return when you call him.’
‘This is Queen Anne’s dog,’ I announced to the sergeant at the gate.
‘I know little Purkoy. Queen Anne’s been bringing him this way for his walks since he was given to her, as I remember, a year ago come January. He’s fully grow’d now o’course.’
The excited little dog jumped up. The sergeant ruffled his floppy, fawn ears and his white belly. His chubby front paws hardly reached the sergeant’s knees. ‘Off to chase the King’s deer, little rascal?’
‘He has to stay on the lead today,’ I told him.
Sometimes, you don’t realise quite how much you have missed something until you have it again. Purkoy and I jumped about like puppies. He pulled at the lead and I ran with him enjoying the crunchy, frosty grass beneath my winter shoes. It was wonderful to be outdoors; wonderful to be alone and free of the constraints of the palace chambers where I must speak only when asked. I raced with Purkoy, the lead taut. After a few minutes of frolicking, Purkoy settled down to some serious sniffing. His nose never left the ground while he followed a trail to a particular tree or clump of grass where he rolled on his back as if to disguise himself with a new whiff. I did my own sniffing, sensing snow in the windless air that cut my cheeks like shards of ice. In my haste to get outside I had not thought of wearing gloves so I kept one hand inside my mantle and kept swapping the lead when my fingers got cold.
‘Come along Purkoy, let’s get warmed up,’ I said and I danced around singing the first verse of one of the songs I had heard the Queen singing in her chamber with Mark Smeaton at the virginals, and another gentleman who played the lute.
First love is the only true love,
Precious in its tender newness. Dawn’s first light on Earth’s first day,
Softly promising to stay.
*
I had lost track of how long I had been outside, the afternoon threatened to fade into dusk. Fearful of reprisals I steered Purkoy back towards the gravel path and ran in the direction of the distant palace gate, tugging the lead. It happened very quickly. Purkoy lay down and refused to budge. Halted suddenly mid-run, I turned to chide him, slipped, fell on my face and in putting out my hands to break my fall, dropped the lead. I heard footsteps approaching on the gravel. As I put out my hand to raise myself something soft brushed my ankle. I thought it was Purkoy and laughed but stopped short when I felt fingers, warm and soft as kidskin pulling at my ankle and forcing me to fall again on my face.
‘How, now, pretty sweetheart, what do you do singing ditties in the King’s park on a cold afternoon?’ A gentleman’s accent; clipped, confident. He laughed and began to sing another verse of the Queen’s song.
To meet and love but not to touch This is a torment much too much.
To see and speak and needs refrain
From loving, brings me too much pain.
‘A torment much too much, pretty maid,’ he said, pausing between each word and stroking my ankle.
‘Let me go, I cried, kicking out with my free leg.
‘That’s no way to treat a gentleman.’ The grip on my ankle tightened.
‘Pray, sir, do not tease me so. Let me be.’
I would be in sore trouble if this gentleman’s stupid prank made me lose Purkoy. Where was the little dog? I raised my head and tried to look around. I could neither see nor hear him. The gripping hand travelled to my knee.
‘We shall have some sport, methinks,’ he said.
‘I don’t want your doltish games.’ I heard the panic in my voice. ‘I need to find the dog. It will be dusk soon and it is going to snow.’
He didn’t answer. I felt a hand on my neck and the weight of his body on my back and I knew that what was happening was more than just a bit of teasing.
My forehead stung where it had hit the gravel and the sharp stones cut into my freezing palms when I tried to raise myself. A gentlemen’s kid glove, its gauntlet embroidered and bejewelled fell on to the ground near my face. The invading hand pulled down my stocking, travelled naked to my thigh, warm against my cold flesh and I felt something rough scrape my skin; like fingernails or stubble from his chin. I closed my eyes and tried to pretend it wasn’t happening. Behind my eyes I could see fear, white and sharp, until a crimson rage filled my vision; rage against him but also against myself and not just because I lacked the strength to help myself. A feeling I didn’t want flooded inside me: a hateful, shaming tenderness in
the caress of his hand and in the thickness in his voice when he murmured at my ear, ‘You’re a pretty little thing and yet untouched, methinks.’
I let my head go down on the gravel and cradled my head in my arms. I was shaking but it wasn’t the cold. When it was all over I would drink a dose of Aunt Bess’s drowsy-poppy mixture and drown my shame in sleep.
Another man’s voice seemed to come from far away. ‘Let her be, Sir Francis.’
A working man’s voice slow and steady. A Londoner’s voice with a hint of something else. Something familiar.
The weight left my back and relief flooded through me. I felt my skirts being tugged to cover my ankles. The two men were standing over me now. I saw the mud splattered boots of my rescuer, smelled wet soil and foul dankness although it hadn’t rained for days.
‘Who are you to know my name?’
‘Everyone knows the young hell-rake, Sir Francis Weston, who neglects his young wife to dally with the Queen’s cousin,’ The Londoner said, panting for breath.
‘You are misinformed. The Queen’s cousin has greater fish to fry. I say again, knave, who are you to know my name?’
‘No matter who I am. You think me a mean person and that you be better than I for your fancy clothes and title. Yet I know that the King pays for your shirts as he once provided mine.’
‘I won’t tolerate your insolence.’
Sir Francis stooped to pick up the glove that lay beside my face.
‘It is your behaviour that is not to be tolerated. You have forced yourself on an innocent girl.’
‘She is not important. Take heed who you slander. Tell me your name, knave, I’ll see you punished for your impertinence.’
‘Had I not come along in haste you would have spoiled her.’
Would have? I felt I was spoiled already.
‘I flatter her. A knight in my position in the King’s Privy Chamber, taking notice of a common wench. It is a courtly game of love, no more.’
‘Look at her, see her there on the ground. Does she look flattered?’
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