‘Ask her yourself,’ I told him. ‘I won’t. We’re servants. We have to keep our mistress’s secrets. That’s what we’re paid for.’
That night, after I had snuffed the candles I opened the drawstring of my cardinal red purse and held the three angel nobles in my palm for a long time. Slowly, very slowly, I let them drop one by one into my purse.
‘What are you about Tom?’ I whispered into the darkness.
‘Will I ever see the fourth or fifth angel before you die a traitor’s death?’
Chapter 25
September 1558
‘That was when I learned to dance; well, to dance just a little,’ I say.
White Boy’s fingers fly across the harp’s strings and I try to remember the steps. I dance clumsily with my big belly before me and my feet swelling inside my slippers.
‘Mistress, you are breathless, you should rest.’ White Boy stops playing.
‘I will have the music. Play,’ I say.
‘Mistress, the master has charged me to ensure that you take your rest.’
White Boy is right. I should rest. My belly has been tightening in little spurts all day. They are not proper contractions. They are painless and strangely reassuring. As if my belly is practising for when the time is right.
‘Fear not for me. I will rest and we shall sing together.’ It occurs to me that I have never heard White Boy singing.
‘I know no songs, mistress. I cannot read the ballads that the master has pasted upon the walls. The master does not sing them.’
‘Shall I teach you Anne Boleyn’s song? A song of love?’
‘I believe you have told me a little of this song already. Is it not the song you were singing when Sir Francis Weston came upon you in the King’s park at Greenwich?’
I begin to sing and White Boy plucks his harp and tries a few chords before settling upon a gentle, pretty melody and we sing together:
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.
How perfectly do our voices mingle. White Boy sings in a thin, wavering tenor that weaves in and out of the words and the music, binding them together. I hear my own voice fuller, richer against his silvered tones.
For each other we shall be,
First flower of the month of May,
First cry of a new-born babe,
Last kiss on an age-old grave.
White Boy learns the words easily. He hears each stanza only once and he has it forever. Hearing is all to him. If he should lose it as he ages, if he should be both blind and deaf ... I dare not think of this. I have to close my eyes and pray to God to take good care of White Boy’s ears. Is there a saint for hearing, I wonder? Should White Boy visit his shrine?
‘Why so pensive, mistress?’ White Boy asks. ‘The words are beautiful. Do they sadden you?’
How can it be that he knows my mood without reading my face? He is sharp-witted, this servant of ours. My husband has often said thus. My mother named me a sorceress; a cunning woman. Does White Boy have the cunning too? Does he read my thoughts like I read a woman’s belly, seeing the secrets that lie inside her?
I want to ask White Boy if he has ever been in love, if it is possible to fall in love without eyes to see your lover. I answer my own question. A loving touch or a gentle voice is all that is needed. It was all that I needed.
‘Where there is love all is beautiful,’ I say and we sing;
Timeless beauty caught in time.
A lifetime for this love of mine.
A lifetime for my love, so true,
Is not enough to give to you.
‘Did Anne Boleyn compose this song for King Henry?’ White Boy asks. ‘For he did not give her a lifetime of love. You have told me that he took a mistress within months of marrying her.’
‘When you have learned all of the song you will be able to answer that question yourself,’ I tell him.
There is a melancholy about the music when we sing the final two stanzas, as if the harp weeps.
To meet and love and not to touch,
This is a torment much too much.
To see and speak and needs refrain
From loving, brings me too much pain.
‘This song is not about King Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn,’ White Boy exclaims. ‘It is about a secret love the Queen must hide.’
He has predicted the final stanza which we sing in sad unison.
Our separate lives the years must take.
My love for you I’ll not forsake.
Forever in my memory,
My secret love to comfort me.
‘The song is about Anne Boleyn’s first love,’ White Boy says. ‘A secret love. Was he banished? Who was he? Was he there to comfort her at the end?’
‘Yes, he was there. How much comfort he gave I will leave you to judge for yourself when we come to the end of her story.’
‘Play again, White Boy, and I will tell you of a happy time, for there was a brief, happy time for Anne Boleyn, between the months of disquiet. And the music was wonderful.’
Chapter 26
November 1535
The Queen was finally with child again. There was no need for a doctor or midwife to give their expert advice. Everybody knew that it was so, beyond any doubt. My mistress had to sleep in the Queen’s bedchamber every night and I in a closet nearby for, when the Queen awoke in the morning, Mistress Madge had to be alert to her needs and call for me to hold the beautiful silver basin decorated with nymphs and all manner of foliage, for the Queen to vomit into. It happened every morning for weeks.
The Queen was brought all the remedies that her ladies knew. She could not suffer the odour of mint, albeit blended with sugar paste, so early in the morning and indeed, she vomited all the sooner for the smelling of it. A concoction of wormwood and balm helped a little but after a few days she had a flux of the bowels so she would not take it again. Mistress Pudding made ginger biscuits and suggested that the Queen try to eat one immediately upon waking. The Queen told me to thank Mistress Pudding for her kindness and gave them to her ladies. She could never abide strong spices before midday.
There was no mention, of course, of what had happened last time or of the many disappointments during the last year some of which may have been early miscarriages.
‘I am happy to have this sickness each morn,’ the Queen told Mistress Madge, ‘I was never thus with Elizabeth. It is a boy this time, surely. I have heard it said that the mother must suffer more with the carrying of a boy.’
While she lay abed in the mornings the Queen worried about the plight of the poor people. The summer of 1535 had been doubly perilous. The plague had taken many lives in the towns and villages. In the countryside, the wet summer had ruined the harvest. Bread was scarce, although there was plenty at court. Some poor folks had to eat horse bread made with beans. Others starved. The Queen lay upon her bed wearing her purple embroidered cap and black nightgown trimmed with ermine, very similar to the one King Henry had given to Mistress Madge, and called for her uncle, James Boleyn, who was her chancellor, and Master Cromwell to talk of what could be done to help the needy people.
She worried about the King too.
She confided to Mistress Madge that she would fain have kept the pregnancy secret from the King for a little longer to keep him in her bed. ‘He will seek a mistress to get what he cannot have from me for many months to come,’ she complained.
‘Do not look to me to take that part again,’ my mistress snapped.
‘He tired of you soon enough,’ the Queen retorted, ‘and I will not have another of my ladies betray me. Watch them,’ she charged Mistress Madge. ‘Tell me of any wanton behaviour, of anyone who dances and smiles overmuch with the King. I will not have lewd behaviour in my household, Madge, whether it be with the King or any other gentlemen.’
‘Of course not,’ my mistress replied sweetly, ‘y
et once you did encourage a certain married gentleman to look in my direction,’ and she turned her face away from the Queen.
‘Forget Weston. He has a wife at home and dallies with you at his pleasure, your ruin, and the disgrace of my household. Norris wants you and it will be a good marriage. Good for the family.’
‘The King has been much in conversation with the Chin since the court returned from progress, haven’t you noticed?’ Mistress Madge said, hoping, I thought, to divert the conversation from talk of marriage plans.
‘The Chin? Whoever do you mean?’ the Queen asked.
‘Mistress Jane Seymour, of course. Don’t you think she has a rather ugly chin?’ Mistress Madge replied.
‘I’ve hardly noticed her,’ the Queen said. ‘She sits and reads and says nothing. Is she dumb?’
‘I think she expects her brothers to do her talking for her excepting when she is in Henry’s company.’
‘Watch Bessie Holland. Norfolk is too thin and small to be much of a man between the sheets and that woman might want more than he can give.’
‘Gracious Anne, the King is not attracted to bawdy baskets like her. He likes his women to be sweet and virginal and Mistress Seymour is both.’
‘She is not beautiful enough to entice the King.’
‘Sweet enough, perchance, to entice Henry to have a little taste,’ Mistress Madge murmured.
‘Oh Madge,’ Queen Anne wailed. ‘How am I supposed to keep loving him when he is so faithless? If I did not see with my own eyes men like Weston and Wyatt casting admiring glances in my direction, I would verily believe that I am as old and ugly as Katherine was after all her useless pregnancies.’
Mistress Madge laughed. ‘One thing’s for sure. You’ll never be as fat as Katherine became, even when you take to your chamber in seven months’ time.’
The Queen was as happy as she could be for those early weeks of the pregnancy. When she was up in the afternoons, she smiled graciously to her ladies and her husband’s gentlemen, to ambassadors, poets and musicians who enquired of her health. She enjoyed sending to her privy kitchen for special delicacies to tempt her poor appetite and asking for her seamstress to alter her garments although there was no present need for her stomacher was not at all raised. She began to embroider a baby’s cap while her ladies worked new hangings for the ornate silver cradle that the King had ordered during that other pregnancy, the one no one mentioned.
I knew what the Queen really needed was belladonna, to prevent a miscarriage. Aunt Bess had taught me well. Of course, the Queen would have to be given a very small amount, an overdose would be fatal, but first, she had to ask for it and she never did.
Chapter 27
September 1558
White Boy has been sick of a bad tooth for five days. Already we have burned five candles to Saint Apollonia and White Boy’s pain worsens. She is beautiful, St Apollonia, leaning against the stem of Mother’s pewter candlestick with her flowing hair and her strong martyr’s face, waiting bravely for the fire. She cannot smile; she was tortured by the pulling of her teeth. She holds a pair of pincers that grip a tooth far too large for her tight little mouth.
From the apothecary I have purchased ground hart’s horn to make a poultice for the bad tooth and mandrake root which I soak in sweet wine to make a potion for his pain. Today, White Boy is feverish and shivering. His breath stinks worse than a crow-pecked carcass in a sheep fold, and his jaw is badly swollen. Yellow puss leaks from the rotten tooth. My husband tells me that prayers and potions are worse than useless and I must fetch the barber-surgeon or he will pull the tooth himself with a piece of twine tied to the door latch.
They are in the street, watching me pass; my neighbours; Goodwife Trinder, Goodwife Napier and Goodwife Smedley, she whose children died of the summer sickness. These three who eat my bread yet will not come into my house nor invite me into theirs until I have a living child for fear the evil spirit that makes me barren will touch their lives. My husband has bid me ask them directly whether they will assist me when my time comes.
‘It is the usual way of things to have your neighbours around you at the birth of a child,’ he says.
I have told my husband that these women have never asked for my help in their labours. They have each other. Aunt Bess will come to me. He says she is too old. She is forgetful and, anyway, how can she practise midwifery with those shaky hands. He insists that I speak to my neighbours who are close at hand.
They greet me politely, ask after White Boy’s health and dress their faces with frowns of concern. I tell them I am going for the surgeon and they shake their heads, tell me my servant is proving to be costly indeed but then if folks have servants it is their bounden duty to take good care of them. They ask after my own health. Not long now, they say, six weeks perhaps. I tell them eight. I wait, unwilling to ask them about my lying-in, hoping they will offer to help. They know I have no family except my ancient aunt. I may not find a better moment to ask but I say nothing. Four women in a cluster upon a street and nothing to say. Eventually, I give them good day and as I leave, Goodwife Trinder speaks words to the others which are intended for my retreating back.
‘Tis a dull-witted woman who sees her husband rowing across the river to Southwark three nights weekly and supposes him to be earning money.’
‘Aye indeed,’ Goodwife Napier concurs.
‘Throwing money away in the stews, more like,’ says Goodwife Trinder.
I hurry away, hearing Goodwife Smedley tut tutting. I tell myself that these are spiteful women, that they are not worth my disdain. I allow that Mistress Smedley is a grief-stricken, bitter woman who needs my sympathy. Still, I feel hurt and angry for have not these women spoken of matters that I have never dared to raise with my husband. His journeys in the night have ever been privy. It has been a silent understanding between us. Three nights a week, Goodwife Trinder said. She has kept a tally. Yes, his nightly outings have become more frequent during my pregnancy, during these enforced months of abstinence from being a proper wife in his bed, according to the teachings of the church.
London’s noise retreats until my ears fill only with my neighbours’ accusations; waves pummelling the shore … ‘Tis a dull-witted woman, a dull witted woman; throwing money away in the stews, the stews, the stews; three nights weekly, three nights weekly, three nights weekly.
I am overcome by a heaviness, a great loss.
I walk through the streets of London Town towards the barber-surgeon’s house. A woman grabs my skirts. There is a rank stink about her, as if she lives her life in the filthy streets, even sleeps there. I am surprised how easily I yank her greasy hand away. Then I notice the crutch under her arm and looking down see just one shoe beneath her kirtle. She lifts her skirt to show me the stump that was once her knee, bound in what looks like an ox bladder and tied with a filthy rag.
‘A shilling for your kindness to help a poor mother feed her child.’
Do I look wealthy enough to so readily throw away a shilling to a beggar? Mother would have called her a ‘clapper-dudgeon’ and dragged me away. But Mother is not here: the wasting sickness has seen to that.
‘Where is your child?’ I ask.
She shrugs and tries to touch me again. I flinch and step away. She has her hand cupped ready when I pull a shilling from my purse. My husband will want to know how I have lost a shilling. I will tell him the truth and he will say she is lying and has no child. I know that, of course, I will say, but how else is this woman to live?
After I have visited the barber-surgeon and he has promised to ride immediately to our house I make my way towards the river. Surely, the sounds of London are all around although I hear nothing. Do not the street sellers call their wares, the bargemen barter and curse, the stevedores sing their ballads? The river has its own watery sounds. Surely waves gush, oars pull, prows cut. The silent swans beat their wetted wings to fan the still summer air. I do not hear their powerful, gentle music. I stand at the riverbank staring at London t
own reflected dimly in the brackish Thames: the little brick and wood houses, our ancient church tower, the bright barges with their ochre-dyed, reddish-brown sails, the white, immaculate mute swans. All London ripples, upturned beneath the water.
*
When I return the surgeon is long gone. My husband is sitting at the board supping small ale and eating oysters. St Apollonia has returned to her place on the cupboard. White Boy lies slumped on the settle holding a bloody cloth to his jaw. In the palm of his other hand he clutches the pulled tooth. Its slimy, yellow roots are jagged and sharp.
‘Master, I crave pardon for my boldness but ...’
‘Then be not so bold,’ my husband interrupts.
‘Prithee, master, take your turn to tell a story for our entertainment this eventide.’
‘What manner of tale will you have a weary waterman tell? Shall I make a lullaby of wherries, tides and bridges to hasten your slumber?’
‘The mistress has almost reached the ending of her story. Your story should bind with hers. They must need end together.’
‘Wherefore should this be so?’
‘The blind need order or else all is chaos in their dark world,’ I say.
White Boy nods. My husband takes his knife to lift an oyster from its shell.
‘I was born in Ipswich, at least so I have been told, I cannot myself remember.’ He gives me a wink. I turn away too sick in my heart to want his good humour. He sighs and shakes his head. ‘Now I work upon the Thames,’ he tells White Boy ‘‘What more is there to tell?’
I sit apart by the fireside. The goodwives’ taunts will not leave me be. My husband is all concern. He tells me I am pale and mute. He asks what ails me. I shake my head and refuse the refreshment he offers; refuse to look into his eyes although I read concern upon his face. He comes to me.
‘You know that I cannot tell you everything that I do,’ he whispers, so that White Boy cannot hear. ‘We have our secrets, both of us, and let it be thus until the time comes when we may tell.’
Mayflowers for November Page 23