The Baker's Daughter Volume 1

by Bonny G Smith

  Dodd’s horse lowered its foaming mouth to the cool water to drink. Poor animal; Dodd had ridden her hard to get the news to Mary, and now she had ridden her hard again. She must wait and let the horse recover her wind before she attempted to ride back.

  The sound of a foot on a twig made a distinctive snap, and Mary’s head flew around. Approaching from behind her was a soft-eyed doe, come to drink at the brook. The little doe showed no fear; she may never have seen a human being before. She picked her way delicately through the bracken and lowered her head. She was dappled in the sunlight that filtered through the trees. Mary stirred; the doe lifted her head and regarded her with solemn brown eyes. She took a second drink and then turned and walked away.

  Fresh waves of misery flowed over her every time her mind recalled the reason for her spontaneous, headlong flight. It recalled to her the day so many years ago, here at New Hall, when she had received the letter informing her that she had been stripped of her title of royal princess, and was now nothing more than the king’s bastard daughter. She had ridden hard and long that day, too, leaving Mother Pole to worry about her in a state of agitation for which she had not been able to forgive herself for quite some time. Frances and her other ladies must be in similar case now. The shadows were lengthening. Unless she intended to spend the night out of doors, she must start back.

  Mary looked about her. The water in the brook flowed, the breeze lifted the branches of the trees, the birds sang. But the world would never be the same for her again.

  Richmond Palace, July 1541

  Anne studied Mary with a worried eye. The king may have divorced her for his empty-headed little fool, but she would always regard Mary as her step-daughter, and she was very concerned about her. It had been barely a month since the Countess of Salisbury had met her grisly end; Anne shuddered every time she thought of it…it might so very well have been herself who had been called to meet the axe. She had not a single regret about losing the king; as she had said at the time, the Howard was welcome to him. An altogether nasty piece of work, was the king of England, and she considered herself well rid of him. She had her money, her palaces and manors, and her freedom. There was no mother to hover over her and to dog her every step, no brother to use her as a royal pawn.

  The day she had first realized that the king loathed her for an ugly, smelly cow had been a hard one, and the times grew worse as she realized that her days as queen were numbered. But she had emerged back into the light again with her head still on her shoulders and with no obligation to any person but herself.

  But obligation was one thing; love and caring were another, and she loved Mary. She would never be able to repay her for preparing her for the news that otherwise might have left her raging and hysterical. Forewarned was forearmed, and that she had been thoroughly prepared for the onslaught when the Pricy Council came calling that awful day she had Mary to thank.

  “You are too thin,” she said, shaking her head and placing her plump hand atop Mary’s now claw-like hand. “I am vorriedt about you, Marie.” Mary had lost so much weight that her eyes seemed dark and hollow, the skin of her face barely stretched over her teeth, and her wrist bones stuck out like a pauper’s. Her complexion was so pale that it was almost transparent, and one could see the blue veins at her temples. Her clothes hung on her body as if from a scarecrow in a corn field.

  Mary smiled her wan smile. “Oh, I am all right,” she replied. “You mustn’t worry.” She remarked to herself how much improved Anne’s English was; and she had begun to dress in the French style, which was so much more becoming. Mary was glad that Anne looked so well, and seemed so happy.

  “You haff not gone on der Progress, yah?” asked Anne. “Insteadt you come to see your friendt who vill fatten you up!” Anne rocked with laughter; she hoped to draw Mary out of herself, even if it was only for a little while.

  Mary’s face darkened. “No,” she replied. “I was not well enough to travel.” And she had no desire to spend months in the company of the queen! She had made her peace with Katherine, as Charles had commanded her, through Chapuys, to do. But spend time in her company she would not.

  Two weeks before Lady Margaret’s execution, her father and Katherine had visited Edward at Waltham Holy Cross in Essex. Mary had been there to thank Katherine in person for sending Mother Pole the new clothing that Chapuys had told her about. Fences were mended and the king and queen had welcomed her warmly back to court. The visit was brief, but Mary came to realize in that short time that Katherine was really just a child, with a child’s limited ability to reason, and that she wanted nothing more than to be liked and accepted. Mary was convinced that the girl was half-witted, and she suddenly understood during that visit why her father could not see it. Her mother, Katharine of Aragon, had been highly educated, as had Anne Boleyn, whatever else she might have been; but her father no longer desired an intellectual equal, he wanted a bed partner. It was evident that Katherine fulfilled that role to perfection, and at this point, her father required nothing more. A young girl who would bear him more heirs was all he wanted, or needed. Well, she wished him joy of her.

  “It is goot dat you haff madet your peace viss der queen,” said Anne. “I haff done so ass vell, ass you know.”

  Mary did know; Anne had sent Katherine a pair of beautiful white horses from Cleves as her New Year’s gift to the new queen, complete with lavender velvet and cloth of silver trappings. Katherine had been delighted, and unable to conceal her delight. Anne had later gone on her knees to the queen to do the obeisance that Mary had refused for so long to do, using illness as her excuse. Henry was grateful to Anne for not only making things so easy for him with the royal divorce, but for appearing to accept Katherine as queen so readily and so demonstrably. Those who said that Anne had given up too easily missed the point. Anne was decidedly politically astute and willing to swallow her pride to keep her head on her shoulders; and not only that, she had come out of the whole sorry affair a rich woman, with the eternal gratitude of the king.

  Mary cleared her throat and said, “Have you…have you heard aught of Philip?”

  Anne knew the sort of news that Mary wanted to hear, but she had none. “Ach, he fight viss his broder Otto, he fight ass mercenary. Both der broders are heavily in der…vat is vordt? …debt, and…but you do not vish to hear dese things. I am sorry.”

  So it was true, she thought. Had he loved her even a little, or was it only the prospect of her wealth, connections and possibilities for a throne that had brought him to England, professing eternal love and devotion to a woman whom, up until that point, he had never even laid eyes on? Or had those things indeed been the attraction, but had he actually fallen in love with her when he met her? She would probably never know. It was not appropriate for them to correspond; only affianced couples were permitted to do so, and then only under strict supervision. She would not want king and council to read her letters, even if she were allowed to send them. She could have indulged in a clandestine correspondence, but she would not have wanted to put Anne, the only viable channel to Philip that had even the possibility of remaining secret, in such a position. Neither of them had enough stock with the king of England to take such a risk.

  “Ah, well,” sighed Mary.

  Anne patted Mary’s hand once again and said, “Do not despair. None of uss knowss or can even guess vat life hass in store for uss. All vill yet be vell. You shall see.”

  Mary knew that Anne meant well, but she was not so sure. It was true that her father had relented and restored her ladies to her after their visit at Waltham in May. But what was that, to providing her with a husband and the chance for motherhood?

  As if she had read Mary’s thoughts, Anne said, “Dere iss no possibility off der French match?”

  Mary shook her head, tears welling in her eyes. There would be no match for her; she knew that now. No imperial match with Dom Luis, no French match with the Duc d’ Orleans, no Protestant match with Philip. There was only the long road o
f life ahead of her, doomed to loneliness. If only she could be more like Anne, who seemed so contented with her lot.

  Anne watched as the thoughts that crossed Mary’s mind each showed themselves briefly on her face as plainly as if someone had written them there. If Mary thought her well and happy, that was as well; only she knew how shattered her heart was, into so many pieces that she would never be able to put it together again. She was German and it was not her way to show her true feelings. To the world, to Mary especially, she would show her intrepid, merry side. Only she herself would ever know the truth.

  Pontefract Castle, August 1541

  Sweat ran into Culpeper’s eyes as he ascended the spiral staircase, and he wiped it away impatiently with his sleeve. The castle was old, and the stone turret claustrophobically narrow, the better to allow besieged soldiers to keep their attackers at bay. He had no candle of his own and was dependent upon the dim, uncertain light flickering from Lady Rochford’s wavering lamp. The yellow glow threw distorted shadows upon the stone walls as they climbed, and reflected in the dampness running down the walls; it seemed that the castle sweated along with its inhabitants on this sultry, airless summer night.

  “By the five wounds of Christ, Jane, where in hell are we going?” he whispered in frustration; the closeness of the walls was beginning to raise some unknown panic in him. Would this climb never end?

  Although he had whispered, the sound seemed to run of its own accord up and down the slimy walls. There was no telling who might hear, and hearing them, discover.

  “Be quiet!” she hissed back. “Not much farther now.”

  The king had taken to retiring early to his bed on this Royal Progress, and was not a reliable contender for the queen’s bed as he had been when they were resident in the castles and palaces around London. Culpeper did some hasty reckoning and decided that he had deposited more substance into the queen’s royal womb than the king had done since the Progress had commenced in July. Perhaps the king was impotent, although Katherine swore that it was not so; but did she really know? She was and insatiable bitch, but she was as dim as Jane’s lamp. Perhaps the king did not perform as he ought to, she none the wiser, and Hs Lofty Grace not willing to make it known.

  The Royal Progress had exhausted the king, and even though he tried to hide it, Culpeper knew that his leg was paining him greatly. The disgusting wound seeped constantly, and the king carried about his person almost all the time now the sickening sweet smell of corruption. Certainly it could not be long now before the evil humours in the wound poisoned the king’s blood and he would die.

  But in the meantime, the fact that His Grace was growing impatient with Katherine’s failure to conceive was becoming evident, at least to those closest to him.

  He and Jane had discussed the matter, and decided that they must convince Katherine to pretend that she was with child long enough for the king to plan her coronation at York. Meanwhile, he would do his best to succeed where the king seemed to be failing. For have a child she must, or all his plans were for naught. If the king died and Katherine had never been anointed queen, she would likely not become regent for the prince, and that would certainly spoil his schemes; and the king would not crown her until she proved to him that she was capable of a son.

  It was a pity that the king’s sore had been lanced and then had not closed back up again. It had been the perfect opportunity for His Grace to drop dead. But, as Culpeper well knew, the timing would not have been conducive to his plan and it was better this way.

  And so he and Jane had convinced his dim-witted cousin to tell the king that she believed she was with child. Lady Jane, as chief lady-in-waiting, had charge of the queen’s linen, and it was easy enough to outwit a laundress who was as dim as the queen herself. That maneuver had bought them some time, but not enough; still the king made no mentions of plans for Katherine’s coronation at York Minster. The king insisted that no such ceremony would take place until the child quickened, and again, the timing just would not work. And Katherine had finally conceded that, after some guarded rejoicing on the king’s part, that it was not so; there was no child; she had been mistaken. That the king had been skeptical in any case was evidenced by the fact that he had made no announcement about the child, indeed, he had told no one, not even those closest to him. So there would be no coronation, and Katherine would remain queen not by the grace of God, but only by the sufferance of a besotted king.

  So have a child she must…but what would happen if such a child came forth without the red hair and distinctive look of the Tudor? If the child Katherine conceived and bore were his own, he had a story ready for her to tell. Had not John Lackland been born, the last of four sons to the Plantagenet king Henry II, as a short, fat, dark changeling child in a family of hitherto blonde giants? It was possible; it could happen. It had happened. And it was conceivable that it could happen again. And if the son Katherine bore were his and not the king’s so much the better! A way could be found to make short work of Prince Edward, and then he, Culpeper, would be the power behind the throne for his own son, instead of for the Tudor whelp!

  Even he, though, was beginning to believe that the queen might be barren; she had been warming the king’s bed for over a year, and his own since March when the king had gone to Dover without her, and there was still no real sign of a child. The thought of all his plans depending upon Katherine’s stubborn womb was enough to drive him to distraction. Could the Almighty really have put such an opportunity, such a weapon, into his hands, only to thwart him? Or mayhap Katherine’s infatuation for him, which had occurred coincident with her unexpected rise to queenship, had been the work of the Devil, and not of God at all? Satan was the Father of Lies, was he not? Perhaps he would be made to pay for his terrible crimes, the crimes the king had forgiven him for without much ado. And what was the rape of a lowly park keeper’s wife, or the murder of a villager? These people were insignificant nobodies.

  Jane made a last turn and finally they faced a thick, oaken door, chased with intricate iron findings. It was open a crack and light streamed through it. In this stronger light, he could now see Jane clearly, but by some trick of the open door, a gust of air rushed past them and he could also smell her; they had been making love since dusk, when the palace had retired, exhausted from the day’s weary journey in the driving rain. The mingled odors of their sensuous pastime sent a thrill through him and his loins contracted. He was ready for the queen.

  # # #

  The gust of wind lifted the arras that covered the secret door, to reveal Katherine sitting on the bed. As soon as she saw Lady Rochford, who held the tapestry aside to allow Culpeper to enter the room behind her, Katherine gave a little squeal of delight and bounded up from the bed. She wore only a gauze shift that was so sheer she might have been wearing nothing. Lady Jane knew a brief moment of intense jealousy; Katherine was a beauty and still had the dew of youth upon her. Lady Jane knew in her heart that she had long since lost that quality, even though she was still comely for her age. The feeling passed swiftly. Although Culpeper might enjoy the queen’s body, she, Jane, had his heart. Once they had realized their dreams of power, the queen would become merely a necessary evil in their lives.

  Lady Jane nodded briefly to Culpeper, retreated behind the arras and, ostensibly, behind the door; but even though she let the arras drop back into place, she did not close the door all the way. She would have to wait in the stifling turret while Culpeper serviced the queen, and then would be needed to return Katherine, and the room itself, back into a proper state, while Culpeper would take the lamp and return to his own quarters. She would help Katherine to wash, perfume herself, and brush out her tangled hair. No trace of her tryst with Culpeper must be left evident.

  Katherine was simple, and did not take any pains at all to hide her affection for her cousin. She guarded neither her tongue nor her actions; the queen’s closest servants therefore knew of her affair with Culpeper. Mistress Restwold, Jane knew, had been recruited sever
al times to carry letters; Elizabeth Tylney, Katherine’s cousin, was in the queen’s confidence; and Margaret Morton had already been touching the queen for small amounts of money. Until Culpeper’s plans came to fruition, powerful bribes would be needed to buy the silence of these and several others who either knew or suspected that the queen was cuckolding the king with his favorite privy chamber man. But there would be plenty for all when the time came; the royal pockets were deep.

  With that thought, Lady Jane sat on the top step of the turret and leaned back against the wall. She would listen to the exchange between her lover and her mistress, because it amused her to do so; when it sounded as if they were ready to fetch her back, she would gently pull the door closed and pretend to doze. In fact, it was so hot and still in the turret that Lady Jane moved closer to the door, not only the better to hear, but to feel the breeze that blew from the slightly open door. Otherwise she might very well have fallen into a doze, if only from the heat.

  “Dear Thomas!” squealed the queen. Katherine threw her arms around Culpeper’s neck and planted indiscriminate kisses on his face, neck and hands. “Come,” she cried, tugging at his sleeve and pulling him towards the bed. “I have a gift for you!” She giggled in delight, and then disappeared from view as she bent over her traveling trunk. Buskins, slippers, elaborate headpieces all went flying as she sought her quarry.

  Culpeper removed his doublet and chausses, letting them drop where he shed them. Despite the un shuttered wind-eye, the room was stiflingly hot. He removed his shirt as well. There were candelabra in all four corners of the room, adding to the heat.

  Outside in the turret, Jane felt a trickle of sweat roll down between her shoulder blades; it made her shudder.

  When Thomas looked up, Katherine stood naked before him wearing nothing but a black velvet cap that was far too large for her, and which slanted jauntily down over one eye, weighed down by a glittering diamond brooch. He eyed her up and down. By the Rood, she was beautiful, and in his opinion, utterly wasted on their decaying sovereign.