by David Field
‘No, Mark, there may be no need for torture, if you tell me freely what I need to hear.’
‘You were tricking me when I am going to where the Queen she sleeps.’
‘That is of no matter, Mark. You were found in the Queen’s bedchamber in a state of undress. You are believed to have been about to engage with her in carnal behaviour.’
‘What is being this thing — “carnal”?’
‘Sex?’
‘No, never — she is my Queen! They say they will break my fingers if I do not say things that are not true. You must tell them what is the truth!’
‘I may be able to do that if you tell me things that I need to know.’
‘Please ask, and then I will be let go from here?’
‘That will depend upon what I hear you say,’ Cromwell replied as he squatted down on the floor to better hear what the terrified boy might be prepared to tell him. ‘First of all, Mark, it has been noted that you dress very well, and that you have several good horses which you keep hidden in a stables in King Street. Where does your money come from? You receive but a hundred pounds a year from playing music for the Queen, and when you were in the Cardinal’s household you were known to dress poorly. Whence comes your wealth?’
‘The ladies,’ Mark admitted with a downcast look of embarrassment and shame.
‘What ladies? And why do they pay you?’
‘For — for — for you know, the sexing?’
‘They pay you money to fuck them?’ Cromwell insisted, trying to keep the grin from his face, since the intimidation was clearly producing results. When Mark nodded, Cromwell persisted. ‘Which ladies?’
‘Must I say?’
‘You must if you wish to continue playing the lute. I am no musician myself, but I would imagine that broken fingers would not assist my efforts. The names — now!’
‘There is Bess Holland. She was first.’
‘Elizabeth Holland, Norfolk’s mistress?’
‘He grows tired of her, so she comes to me for comfort.’
A wonderful start, Cromwell told himself, and who knows where this might lead? ‘There were others?’
Mark nodded, and looked up hopefully. ‘If I tell you them all, you will give orders for me to keep my fingers, yes?’
‘Just keep talking. Who else?’
‘Mary Shelton.’
‘The Queen’s aunt, Mary Shelton? But she is ancient!’
‘No, the other Mary — the young one who is the Queen’s cousin.’
‘Any more?’
‘Just one. There is also Lady Worcester. She pays the most.’
‘She is also with child, Mark. Is it yours?’
‘So she is saying, but we must keep silent.’
‘But you will tell all, if asked?’
‘Will I keep my fingers?’
‘That will depend. You must now tell me about the night you were found in the Queen’s bedchamber.’
‘You tricked me.’
‘I know that, and you know that. But it will be my word against yours, unless...’
‘Please, what must I say?’
Cromwell sat back on his haunches and deliberately gave the impression that he was thinking deeply, although the version of events he was about to give Mark had been authored some days ago, before he dispatched Richard to give Lady Rochford a seeing to.
‘If you were to say that you heard a noise from the Queen’s bedchamber while you were on your way to the closed stool further down — you know the one?’
‘Yes. I sometimes use it, and it is necessary that you pass the chamber on the way.’
‘Good. Now, if you could say that when you entered the chamber, a man jumped from the Queen’s bed and ran into the chamber next to it, reserved for the Queen’s lady?’
‘I would be not to blame for being in the chamber?’
‘No, because you would have a good reason for being there. You believed that the Queen was being attacked.’
‘This is good, yes?’
‘It is if you could give me a name.’
‘I am not understanding.’
‘Who was the man you saw going from the Queen’s bed to the adjoining chamber?’
‘I must think of a man, yes? But that man, he would be killed by the King?’
‘Probably. Who do you hate most, Mark? Who has recently done you wrong?’
‘Harry Norris!’ Mark said without hesitation, and Cromwell’s intuition had been correct. The morning had not been wasted.
‘You would say that, to save your fingers?’
‘Of course — where is the paper on which I must write?’
‘It will be brought to you in a day or two. You have just preserved your future as a musician, Mark. As a prostitute, perhaps not. But as a musician, yes.’
Mark began to cry tears of relief and gratitude, and Cromwell made his way down to the private quarters of Sir William Kingston, Constable of the Tower, with a brief set of instructions.
‘The boy Mark Smeaton — he is to be fed regularly, and in no way harmed, unless and until I say so. And you might wish to give instructions for your best chamber to be cleaned and suitably equipped to host a very royal prisoner.’
X
‘Why am I here,’ Sir Henry Norris demanded, ‘and since when did the Master of the Rolls have the authority to order the arrest of the Groom of the Stool?’
Cromwell nodded for the armed escort to withdraw, and invited Norris to take the vacant seat in front of his table in the inner chamber of the Chancery Suite. Then he adopted a pained expression. ‘It was either me, and this place, or Norfolk and the Tower.’
‘On what grounds could the Earl Marshall of England — or you, for that matter — have me treated so grossly? The King shall hear of this.’
‘Indeed he shall, Sir Henry, in due course. But then he will learn, no doubt to his considerable anger, that the man who wipes his arse so gently also applies his gentle touch to various parts of the Queen.’
‘Outrageous! Unworthy! A disgraceful accusation!’
‘I could not agree more, which is why it pains me to have to accuse you of it. In deference to your closeness with His Majesty, I have kept your apprehension as discreet as possible, but whether you leave here to return to your royal duties, or are conveyed to the Tower, will depend on how you acquit yourself during the next few minutes. Although I have the entire morning free, should that be necessary.’
‘Of what am I being accused? Did I hear you aright? Having to do with the Queen?’
‘I have a witness.’
‘A witness to what, pray?’
‘To your sliding guiltily from the Queen’s bed into the adjoining chamber occupied by Lady Rochford.’
‘That scheming whore? She has no love for me or the Queen, and would say anything to bring down a Boleyn. Her husband prefers boys, did you know that? And not just boys, if the rumours be true.’
‘What rumours, Sir Henry?’
‘No more of that. She is your witness?’
‘No doubt she will confirm what Mark Smeaton told me barely an hour ago.’
‘That peasant who is fit only to strangle noises from a lute? Why would you believe anything he says?’
‘Because he has two strong reasons for telling the truth. For one, he wishes to retain the use of his fingers. Secondly, you recently humiliated him in the Queen’s presence.’
‘Is that all the evidence you have for this scandalous allegation? The lies of a low-born musician under torture?’
‘I did not say he had been tortured, Sir Henry. Simply that he fears to be.’
‘It’s the same thing. Why would you condemn a man on mere lies?’
‘It would not be the first occasion, in your lengthy experience. May I ask you to cast your mind back to a windy evening some years ago, when you were dispatched to meet my late master the Cardinal on his first journey from York Palace, as it then was, to a more humble lodging across the river?’
‘I was bearing him a to
ken of good will from King Henry.’
‘Indeed you were. And did you not occasion him to kneel in the mud at your feet in order to receive it? The Cardinal Legate of Rome, the former Chancellor of England, the Archbishop of York?’
‘He chose to kneel, from sheer joy!’ Norris protested.
‘That is not how I heard it,’ Cromwell glowered back at him. ‘I was not there on that occasion, but his Steward, George Cavendish, told me a different story. He was distressed by it for days.’
‘So this is what this is all about? Vengeance for Wolsey? His downfall was ordered by King Henry, remember — have a care how you take your revenge.’
‘He was not alone, and he was not the one most guilty. Your partner in lust must bear the lion’s share.’
‘You accuse an innocent man in order to be avenged of Queen Anne? You have fired your arrow of accusation at the wrong target, Cromwell. I can give you a far better one.’
‘That person being?’
‘Weston. That drivelling old tosspot Sir Francis hangs on her every word, her every gesture in his direction, her assurance that were she free to marry again, he would be her choice. It is a constant source of merriment amongst her gathering how he seems to glow every time she favours him with so much as a smile in his direction.’
‘She speaks out loud of being free to marry again?’
‘Regularly. She has left none of us in any doubt that Harry Tudor can’t get it up any more, and that even if he did, it would get lost somewhere inside her, it is so small.’
‘You would be prepared to say so publicly?’
‘Certainly. And her promise to Weston that he would be next between her shrivelled thighs.’
‘Have a care, Sir Henry. How could you know the state of her thighs?’
‘A figure of speech only.’
‘Do you have another moment of indiscretion available in order to name others to whom she might have promised carnal favour?’
‘Brereton.’
‘Sir William? He is barely capable of tottering around the Palace these days, surely?’
‘They say there’s no fool like an old fool. The Queen delights in promising Brereton one day and Weston the next. There are also hints that they may each have done the deed with her, and that she looks forward to their next encounters.’
‘Again, you would be prepared to say such things to persons other than me?’
‘If it leads to the removal of your baseless lies against me, most certainly.
‘Thank you, Sir Henry,’ Cromwell smiled back appreciatively. ‘You are free to wipe Henry’s arse. Although, given your position at present, you might be better advised to lick it clean.’
‘Lady Worcester, what a pleasant surprise.’
‘Pray dispense with the mealy-mouthed shit, Cromwell. You asked to see me.’
‘And how does your Ladyship? The child sits easily inside you?’
‘Why am I here? And why is Mark Smeaton in the Tower?’
‘I may conveniently answer both of your questions at once, may I not?’
‘Your meaning, if there is one?’
‘The child you are carrying may well prove to have musical talent just like Master Smeaton’s?’
The arrogance slid from her face as if a veil had been lowered, and her skin turned the colour of the vellum rolls on Cromwell’s table. ‘Who told you? The Queen?’
‘I have it on better authority than that, Lady Worcester. But, purely out of interest, how would the Queen know?’
‘I owe her money, and being the mean, spiteful, two-faced, evilly-disposed whore that she is, she demanded to know the reason for my debt.’
‘I feel sure that Her Majesty would speak more highly of you than you do of her,’ Cromwell chuckled, ‘but may I assume that the money was for the Queen’s musician to finger a more mature instrument?’
‘You’re enjoying this, aren’t you? But you are in no position to pass moral judgements, Cromwell. It is common knowledge that you once went to it with your wife’s sister, but days after your wife had been laid in her grave.’
Cromwell took several deep breaths to control his anger. ‘You would do better than to listen to the drivel of those dismissed from my service for stealing wine and selling it to a local alehouse keeper, whose premises, incidentally, I caused to have shut down. But then, you are more comfortable in lowly circles, are you not? Could you have caught that disease from your husband Henry Somerset, who prefers to fuck kitchen wenches up the arse?’
Lady Worcester grimaced her displeasure. ‘We could spend an unpleasant morning exchanging insults, Cromwell, or we may cut to the chase. What is the price of your silence — some of what Mark Smeaton enjoys?’
‘I do not recall him saying that he had enjoyed it, merely that you were the main source of his revenue. Not the sole source, but an important one. As for the offer to buy your way out of trouble on your back, you must be advised that while I enjoy my meat well flamed, I could not bring myself to consume it so well done.’
‘Enough of this dissemblance, Master Secretary. What do you seek?’
‘The Queen’s darkest secrets.’
‘How dark do you want them? Her flirtations with the gentlemen of her Courtly circle? Her promise to Mark Smeaton — purely, I am sure, in order to cause me pain — that if the King were dead she would like nothing more than to lie on her bed and enjoy “such music as he could produce with his urgent fingers”? Those were her exact words.’
‘They would certainly be worth recording. But my interest was tweaked by the other thing you said — she actually spoke of her desires if the King were dead?’
‘She most certainly did. She often holds the randy old goats with whom she surrounds herself in thrall with her fantasies about who might have her next, like a bitch on heat waving its cunny into the breeze to attract a mate.’
‘You obviously missed your true vocation as a writer of bawdy verse,’ Cromwell grinned, ‘and I thank you for your candour, as also for your most descriptive way of conveying it.’
‘There’s more — the blackest yet.’
‘Go on,’ Cromwell encouraged her, barely able to conceal his excitement.
‘The main reason for her dislike of me. The reason why she fears me so much that she must hold me down with threats and slights. I caught her going to it with her brother.’
‘Lord Rochford? Good Christ Almighty, can you tell of that?’
‘With considerable satisfaction. I was one night established in the side chamber to her own bed chamber. You know of the arrangement?’
‘Indeed I do, but to forestall any further speculation, I have never taken advantage of the fact that the dividing door is invariably kept closed.’
‘There is good reason for that. If asked, Anne will tell you that it is in order that her ladies may be attended during the night by their husbands, or whoever. But it is well known that the true reason is that she may admit her own chosen cocks through the side door to the hallway. Then, there was this one night ... may I have some refreshment for my throat?’
Cromwell reached for the unused goblet to the side and poured a generous measure of best Burgundy into it, handing it over with a smile.‘Pray do not delay, now that we have reached the nub of it.’
‘Well, as I was saying, there was this night when I awoke and heard when I thought were cries of pain from the Queen’s chamber. Fearing that Anne was ill, I opened the door between us, and there she stood with her brother. They were leaning back on one of the posts that surround her bed, and he was rubbing his fingers into her cunny while she was frigging his cock. They did not seem to be aware of me, but the next morning I made the mistake of telling Anne what I had seen, and promising never to divulge it to a soul. Nor have I done, until today, but she has persecuted me for that knowledge ever since.’
‘I thank you most sincerely for that, Lady Worcester, and I apologise if my manner toward you earlier was less than gallant. But you gave as good as you got, as I recall. I bid yo
u good day, with the assurance that Mark Smeaton will shortly be back inside you, and that your debt to the Queen will expire in the near future.’
‘By a lawful process?’
‘Most certainly, my lady. It will, like all debts, expire on the death of the creditor.’
‘Richard told you what we had been up to?’ Lady Rochford asked nervously as she took the seat not long vacated by Lady Worcester.
‘Not the precise details, no, but I am a man not unfamiliar with these things. Between a man and a mature woman, that is. Not something that Lord Rochford would be all that familiar with, however. Would I be correct?’
Jane Rochford turned bright scarlet. ‘What passes between my husband and myself is no business of yours, Master Secretary.’
‘Until it becomes my business. I am not so much concerned with what passes between you and your husband as what passes between him and his sister.’
Her jaw dropped. ‘What are you suggesting?’
‘That he prefers flesh closer to his own, that he prefers small boys and girls, and has even been known to cast lascivious eyes on his own horse.’
‘That is quite disgusting! I was warned that your mood today was one that properly belongs in a brothel or the Paris Garden, but really, this is beyond any justification!’
‘But like any man who leaves his wife as unsatisfied as you, he must realise that you take your pleasures elsewhere?’
‘If you intend by this means to threaten me into disclosing matters regarding the lady whom I serve, then you have misjudged the situation,’ Jane said. ‘My husband could not care less if I fuck his groom of the stable, provided that I make no such demands of him.’
‘But while you are taking your pleasures in the adjoining chamber, you are not guarding your queen, as you duties require?’
‘And why would he care about that?’
‘His own sister? And, if the truth be known, the woman he prefers in his bed to you? How can you bear to spend each day being commanded by she who is preferred over you, contrary to the laws of God and mankind? Surely you would wish revenge for that cruellest of slights?’
‘I have long resigned myself to what passes between the two of them.’