Mayflowers for November

by Malyn Bromfield

  ‘Other ladies have not complained.’

  ‘Thus speaks the King’s bawd,’ Mistress Madge said in a low voice, and Norris heard, and blushed crimson.

  ‘It is my duty to serve the King. ‘Undress your mistress promptly,’ he charged me and departed.

  ‘Night attire for your mistress is laid upon the bed,’ Constantine told me. ‘There is everything she might need in the little closet yonder, and a servant’s bed for yourself.’

  ‘Is this the King’s bedroom?’ I asked, looking at the silken tapestries and rose plastered ceiling. Every inch of the bed was intricately carved, with all kinds of creatures, painted and gilded. I wanted to touch it and to feel the silky, golden brocade bed-curtains. Two ornate golden goblets of wine and a dish of sweetmeats lay ready upon a cupboard displaying golden plate.

  ‘These are my master’s chambers which the King will make use of tonight. Goodnight, Avis. Make haste. Be sure to be gone before the King arrives.’

  What a rich man Sir Henry Norris must be to have such a bed, I thought, for I knew that courtiers furnished their apartments with their own belongings. No wonder Lady Shelton was so keen for her daughter to wed him despite him being so much older.

  A black velvet nightgown was draped across the bed and beside it lay a nightshift of silvery gossamer lawn. Mistress Madge would not look at the garments even though I took her hand and made her stroke the soft, white fur collar of the nightgown and told her of the pretty silver embroidery on the cuffs and ruffles of the shift.

  It was like dressing a corpse. I had to lift her arms and pull them through the sleeves of the shift. The linen was so fine her nakedness would be revealed immediately the King opened her nightgown. He would see her firm, round breasts with their pert nipples and the darkness at her groin teasingly, as through a veil. She refused to look at herself in the polished silver looking glass; only sat on the edge of the bed staring at her feet. I was still combing her hair when I heard the great door opening and I had to scurry away to the closet.

  Constantine had left a meal of bread and cheese and a jug of small ale. I had just begun to tuck into these when I had a terrible thought. What if the King should have need to come into the closet to use the garderobe in the corner? I stripped to my shift as fast as I could and lay on the truckle bed with the blanket over my head.

  Her screams awoke me at dawn. I threw my kirtle over my shift and rushed into the bedchamber. From behind the golden hangings my mistress called out my name. I did not dare to pull them aside for fear the King lay there beside her.

  ‘What is the matter, Mistress Shelton? What ails you?’ I asked softly, between her cries. She reached out, grabbed my arms and pulled me through the heavy curtains on to the bed. To my great relief the King was not there but he had left his smell behind; sour, male sweat mixed with his heavy, sickly perfume.

  ‘Nothing ails me now, yet it may do so within nine months. Whatever shall I do if I should be with child? You are to blame, Avis,’ she charged me. ‘You forgot to bring one of my orange peel cups.’

  ‘If you had asked, I would have brought one, mistress,’ I replied somewhat sharply and earned myself a slap across my face.

  ‘Whatever shall I do?’ she wailed. ‘My lady mother will be stricken if I am got with the King’s child. Surely your aunt has talked of what a woman might do to prevent the coming of a child after she has been taken by surprise in a situation where she cannot refuse?’

  ‘Mother says it is a great sin to prevent a child being born.’

  ‘I care not what your mother says. What does your aunt say?’

  ‘Nothing much,’ I muttered. Nothing that she would wish me to tell you, I said to myself.

  ‘Now don’t sulk, Avis.’

  She pulled off my cap, ran her fingers through my hair and plaited it playfully.

  ‘Once,’ I said, ‘we visited a poor woman who had ten living children, all hungry. My aunt told her to do some hard pissing after she had been abed with her husband unless she had list for eleven hungry children. Shall I fetch ale and water, mistress?’

  ‘There must be a potion that will bring on a woman’s courses. Surely? Have I to go mad with worry while I piss all day and count the weeks until I bleed again?’

  ‘There is a potion, but the Pope says ...’

  ‘Forget the Pope. What is this potion?

  ‘My aunt has bid me not to make anyone else privy to the plants she uses.’

  ‘Never mind your aunt, I ask you again, Avis. What is this potion?’

  ‘I cannot tell you, Mistress Shelton, for I have promised my aunt that I will keep her secret. I have done wrong by my aunt for telling you as much as I have.’

  ‘So you choose to serve your aunt above your mistress. You disappoint me, Avis. Must I find another, more loyal maidservant?’

  I thought she would have no little difficulty doing that. She had too many secrets for a maid to keep if that maid liked to gossip, and most did; but I did not dare to say so.

  ‘I shall gather the herbs and make the potion myself,’ I told her. ‘What I cannot find in the herb gardens I will beg from the dried stores in the great kitchen. Mistress Pudding will surely allow me to use the pipkins in the confectionary to brew the compound.’

  ‘How will you answer when Mistress Pudding asks your purpose?’

  ‘I will say that you are suffering with painful terms; there will be tansy in the compound. Every goodwife knows that it is used by many women every month to ease their pains.’

  I went to the window and pulled the curtains aside. The golden hangings blushed with sunlight.

  ‘Just think, Avis, when I am married to Norris I will sleep every night in a bed like this. I cannot imagine the cost of it. I will keep you for my maid, I have told my lady mother so, and Norris too.’

  ‘Will the King ask for you still, when you are married?’ I dared to ask.

  ‘It will be no matter if he does.’ She pulled me back on to the bed. ‘The King knows how to please a woman. I mean, really please her,’ she said and giggled. ‘As for himself, he was very quick and then he was gone. So it was not such a terrible ordeal as I had thought, and when I am married, if I am got with the King’s child, Norris will own it and who could say otherwise.’

  Everyone, I thought, if the child has the King’s bright hair like the Lady Mary, Princess Elizabeth and the child, Katherine.

  A little later, after I had washed and changed my linen and put on my daytime coif I found her weeping on to the golden bedcovers.

  ‘It is of no matter whom I bed,’ she sobbed, ‘if I cannot have for evermore the man that I really love.’

  Chapter 21

  Autumn 1558

  Every time she visits us old Aunt Bess asks why Mother’s treasures are hidden away in the casket under the table.

  ‘You should display your pewter for your neighbours to admire. Let them see your wealth.’

  What neighbours? Bess and Lydgate are our only visitors.

  ‘All in good time,’ I usually say.

  Today, that time has come. Soon I will take to my chamber in childbed and I suppose I want to have mother’s things around me, to feel that mother is close to me. White Boy fingers each trinket slowly. He strokes the smooth bowls of the Bartle spoons and when he takes up the little mirror case he lifts his clout, just for a moment, to watch it shine in the firelight until he squints in pain and covers his eyes.

  For a long time I hold the pilgrim badge that Mother brought from the shrine of Our Lady of Walsingham shortly before I was conceived. The child Jesus sits upon his mother’s knee smiling inside a halo of holiness. I pray that my child will be just as happy and chubby as this Jesus.

  Some years ago, I had begged my husband to take me to Norfolk to the shrine of Our Lady of Walsingham to pray for a child as mother had done.

  ‘Master Secretary Cromwell had the statue burned and the priory given to King Henry’s commissioners in 1558,’ he told me.

  I think that I might have
had many children all these barren years if I could have prayed to Our Lady at her shrine and I have yet another reason to hate Cromwell.

  ‘Do evil deeds follow a man even after his death?’ I ponder aloud.

  ‘Good begets good and evil breeds evil,’ White Boy says. ‘When I am gone, what good deeds will I have done to be remembered for?’

  ‘Your music will be remembered by all who have heard you play and sing.’

  ‘Mistress,’ he says mournfully,’ how do I look?’

  ‘Your linen is clean, as always, and your hair is tidy. Today you are healthy and happy. Why do you ask?’.

  ‘I have been thinking of when the searchers came.’

  ‘Then don’t.’ They have caused me sorrow enough for two.

  ‘They named me, “old man.” Do I look ancient, mistress? I was but a child when you brought me from Greenwich not much more than twenty years ago.’

  What can I say except the truth? ‘Your pale hair is a silvery hue these days, such as a sage would have. Yes, you have aged faster than most.’

  In the evening, when we eat our supper, White Boy says there is something he wishes to ask of us.

  ‘If it be to visit that hag to buy a scrap of St Augustine’s cloak, do not bother to ask,’ my husband says.

  I frown and glare hard at him. There was no need to speak so sharply to White Boy who is picking at his meat nervously.

  ‘What do you want?’ my husband asks more kindly. ‘I will either say nay or yea and that will be the end of it.’

  ‘I have been thinking that when your child is born and goes to church to be christened, I should like the priest to bless me too and give me a name.’

  My husband puts down his knife and stares at White Boy.

  ‘You do not like the name which we have given to you these many years? We have named you White Boy with much affection.’

  ‘It is the only name that I have ever known and would have you and the mistress call me by no other. It is for my gravestone that I need a good Christian name that the priest has given to me in baptism. We are all mere mortals.’

  ‘Then so be it,’ my husband says.

  Chapter 22

  Summer 1535

  The Queen strode into my mistress’s lodging without her ladies or her guards. Her brother followed fast behind.

  ‘You have betrayed me Madge, you, my own cousin, after all the preference I have shown to you and your family.’ That she did not raise her voice served only to heighten the vicious tone of the Queen’s accusation.

  ‘Nan, pray calm yourself,’ her brother urged and pushed aside Mistress Madge’s boy who had rushed before them to warn her of their coming.

  My mistress said nothing. She had been choosing a pair of sleeves to match a new yellow gown. She began to sort them into pairs on top of the coffer.

  ‘You could have kept him waiting until he tired of you.’ The Queen narrowed her eyes and tightened her mouth and I saw that she was growing older.

  ‘How? He is the King,’ Mistress Madge replied quietly. ‘He only asked for me because Norris wants me for his wife. You know he always wants other men’s women. Have you forgotten that he only noticed you after he had watched Wyatt lusting after you day after day and saw you flirting with Percy of Northumberland?’

  ‘When he courted me I kept him waiting for more than six years and in all that time he looked to no other.’

  ‘He looks to others now,’ my mistress said softly. ‘Perhaps you should have given me some advice. Perhaps you should instruct all your ladies about Henry as a matter of course. When you tell them to read their prayer books, and stitch shirts for the poor, and to dress modestly, perhaps you should also explain how they are to keep your husband from their beds. Your sister couldn’t and she’s got two bastards to show for it. We do not know the tricks you learned at the French court. Tell me, Anne, how do you keep a man happy and satisfied without letting him have you?’

  Even her brother flinched when the Queen slapped Mistress Madge hard upon her cheek.

  ‘Is Weston not enough for you Madge, that you must have the King also.’

  ‘Francis is more than enough. I want no other.’

  ‘Then the more fool you. For know you now, cousin, that I paid Weston good wages to have you to bed these many weeks, thinking to keep you from my husband’s bed.’

  ‘That is untrue. You lie to torment me.’

  ‘It is the truth,’ Lord Rochford said. ‘I handed him the purse myself. Weston is not a wealthy man. He will snatch whatever handout he can.’

  The Queen’s temper was not softened by the hurt that was so plain to see in my mistress’s face.

  ‘He is young and handsome,’ Queen Anne told her cousin, ‘and knows full well how to charm any wench who takes his fancy, especially one so well connected to the royal family. He found you easy prey. If he were free to choose other than his wife, do not think he would look to you.’ She paused, stared at Mistress Madge, burst out laughing and turned to leave. ‘He would look to me,’ she said over her shoulder. ‘He has told me so.’

  ‘Nan, you are hysterical, you cannot say these things,’ her brother said. ‘It is treason to have the King’s wife.’

  He looked towards Mistress Madge who was heaving such heavy sobs I thought she would cease to breathe. ‘The Queen is distraught; she knows not what she says. Women like you who lure men into sin should go to the stews where they belong.’

  ‘You must forgive the Queen her temper, she is very much distressed.’ Lady Rochford was in the doorway rising from her curtsey to the departing Queen. ‘Anne has visited you directly from a very upsetting conversation with the King. She has this morning discovered that her hopes of pregnancy are, yet again, disappointed.’

  There was something about the way this lady spoke that always brought to my mind a plum preserve. However sweet the words and the sympathy, they left a bitter aftertaste.

  ‘Not again,’ her husband groaned. ‘How did the King reply?’

  ‘The King spoke most unkindly to your sister. “Will I get a son by you before I grow weary of you, madam?” he asked, most cruelly.’

  ‘You must be extremely thankful, Jane, that you have no occasion to give the same bad news to your husband every month,’ Lord Rochford said.

  Lady Rochford stared at her husband. Her face became ugly, as if hatred had distorted her features like a snagged thread in an embroidered flower. Her reply to her husband was shocking enough to cause Mistress Madge to cease her sobbing and gasp.

  ‘Has anyone told the King that you visited Anne in her bedchamber immediately upon your return from your failed mission to France? No, I thought not. If anyone should, there will be trouble.’

  ‘For God’s sake, she is my sister. I did not wish her to hear the bad news from anyone but myself. You disgust me with your insinuations.’

  Despite the confidence in his tone the colour spread about his face.

  ‘I disgust you? I disgust you? How do you imagine I feel about your behaviour?’

  ‘I have told you before that I will hear no more of your petty jealousy of my sister.’ He pushed her aside. ‘I must find the Queen before she lets her temper loose upon someone who matters more than this Shelton mare whom the King so generously shares with his friends.’

  My mistress lay face down on her bed within the darkness of the heavy tester and closed curtains. She was sobbing so much she began to retch.

  ‘You will spoil your court attire and displease Lady Shelton,’ I warned her.

  ‘I fell out with my lady mother months ago because of Weston’s and the King’s flirting. What does a gown matter?’

  She let me remove her hood and coif and I sat with her for a long time, stroking her hair. Later, I made her drink a dose of Aunt Bess’s potion and lay beside her. When she finally slept I put my arm around her waist and there I stayed, to comfort her.

  Chapter 23

  Spring and Summer 1535

  It was what King Henry said about Bishop F
isher’s new hat that made Father so incensed that he lost his temper. Bishop Fisher was Katherine’s advocate and the new pope made him a cardinal even though he had been imprisoned by Henry for more than a year for refusing to acknowledge the Act of Succession. His cardinal’s hat was sent upon its way from the Vatican to England. By the time it arrived, Bishop Fisher had been tried for high treason and beheaded.

  ‘He will have to wear his new hat on his shoulders,’ King Henry said, and laughed.

  When a king makes a joke everyone is expected to laugh. I imagined the Queen’s brother laughing with the other gentlemen courtiers. I wondered if Norris laughed. I supposed he had had plenty of practice, laughing at the King’s jokes. The Duke of Norfolk didn’t laugh, I was sure of that, I couldn’t imagine that he ever laughed. I wondered if the Queen laughed. In the confectionary, Mistress Pudding stirred her pipkins and tried to laugh but it came out more like a sob. In the bakery they laughed, most of them; the bakers and the baker boys.

  ‘The King will go to hell for this,’ Father roared. And everyone stopped laughing and stared at him.

  The King’s summer progress was due to set out from Windsor on the fifth of July but it had to be postponed because of another execution. The King’s old friend, Sir Thomas More, was beheaded on the sixth of July and on that day King Henry went hunting.

  ‘The Chin and her Seymour brothers are strutting around like peacocks because the King will stay at their home in September,’ Mistress Madge said.

  I was packing her clothes into her travelling chests.

  ‘I will never finish, Mistress Shelton,’ I told her, ‘if you keep changing your mind and removing clothes that are packed.’

  ‘The Chin will have the advantage of having fresh attire waiting for her at Wolf Hall. I will be travel stained and dowdy.’

  ‘Travel stained, perhaps, although I will do my best to brush your gowns. Dowdy, never,’ I said.