‘Bishop Gardiner’s man came to me and asked me to search your closet for papers,’ he says in a whispered rush. ‘He said I would be rewarded if I would secretly copy anything and bring it to him. Your Majesty, I think he is assembling a case against you.’ The little bird tickles my palm as it shifts its feet and pecks at the crumbs. I did not expect this warning from William. I did not think that they would dare to go this far. I see my shocked expression is mirrored in his troubled face.
‘Are you sure it was the bishop’s man?’
‘Yes. He told me it was to take to the bishop. I could not be mistaken.’
I turn away from him and go to the window, the yellow-winged canary clinging to my outstretched finger. It is a beautiful summer day, the sun just dipping below the high red-brick chimneys, the swifts and swallows swirling around. If Bishop Gardiner is prepared to take such a risk in approaching one of my servants to steal my papers then he must be very confident that he can make a case against me to the king. He must be very sure that a complaint from me to the king will not bring down a storm on his head. He must be certain that he will find something to prove my guilt. Or, even worse, perhaps he has already made a case against me and this is the last stage of a secret enquiry, finding the paperwork to back up the lies.
‘It was to take to the bishop? You are sure of that? Not to the king?’
His face is pale with fear. ‘That he didn’t tell me, Your Majesty. But he was bold as brass: that I was to go through all your papers and bring him whatever I could find. He said to copy down the titles of books also, and to search for a New Testament. He said that he knew you had several.’
‘There’s nothing here,’ I say shortly.
‘I know. I know that you have sent everything away, your beautiful library and all your papers. I told him there was nothing, but he said to look anyway. He knew that you had a library for your studies. He said that they guessed you wouldn’t have been able to part with your books and that they would be hidden in your rooms somewhere.’
‘You have been very fair and honourable to tell me this,’ I say. ‘I shall see that you are rewarded, William.’
He bows his head. ‘I don’t seek any reward.’
‘Will you go back to this man and say that you have looked and that I have nothing?’
‘I will.’
I put out my hand to him, and as he bows and kisses it I see that my fingers are trembling and the little bird on my other hand is shaking as he clings to my thumb. ‘You don’t even think as I do, William. You are kind to protect me when we don’t even agree.’
‘We may not agree, Your Majesty, but I think you should be free to think and write and study,’ he says. ‘Even though you are a woman. Even if you listen to a woman preacher.’
‘God bless you, William, in whatever language He chooses, whether through a priest or through your own good heart.’
He bows. ‘And the woman preacher . . .’ he says very quietly.
I turn in the doorway. ‘Mistress Askew?’
‘They have moved her from Newgate.’
The relief is tremendous. I cry out. ‘Oh! God be praised! She is released?’
‘No. No, God help her. They have taken her to the Tower.’
There is a moment of blank silence as he sees that I understand what he is saying. They have not released her into the custody of her husband; they have not bound her over to keep the peace. Instead, they have moved her from the prison where they keep the common criminals, to the prison where they keep those accused of treason and heresy, near to Tower Hill where they hang the guilty, not far from Smithfield meat market where they burn the heretics.
I turn to the window behind me, and I unlatch it and swing it open.
‘Your Majesty?’ William gestures to the open cages, to the parrot on his perch. ‘Your Majesty? Take care . . .’
I hold the little canary up to the open window so that he can see the blue sky. ‘They can go, William. They can all go. Indeed, they had better go. I don’t know how long I will be here to care for them.’
I am dressed in complete silence, my ladies handing me my things without a word, in well-practised choreography. I don’t know how to reach Anne Askew behind the thick stone walls of the Tower. It is the prison for enemies who will not be freed for years, for the gravest traitors, for evil people who have to be held without any chance of escape. For a prisoner to enter through the watergate, concealed from the City and from all the people who might rise up to defend him, is to set sail on the river Lethe – towards oblivion.
At the heart of my fear for Anne is that I don’t know why they would move her from Newgate to the Tower. She has been arraigned for heresy, she has been questioned by the Privy Council, why do they not leave her at Newgate until they send her for trial, or grant her pardon and send her home? Why would they move her to the Tower? What is the point of it? And who has ordered it?
Nan comes forward and curtseys as Catherine stands behind me and fastens my necklace. The priceless sapphires are heavy and cold on my neck. They make me shiver.
‘What is it, Nan?’
‘It’s Bette,’ she says, naming one of my younger maids-in-waiting.
‘What about her?’ I ask shortly.
‘Her mother has written to me and asked for her to be sent home,’ she says. ‘I have taken the liberty of saying that she can go.’
‘Is she ill?’ I ask.
Nan shakes her head with a pursed mouth, as if she would say more but she is angry.
‘So what’s the matter with her?’
There is an embarrassed silence.
‘Her father is a tenant of Bishop Gardiner,’ Catherine Brandon remarks.
I take a moment to understand her. ‘You think the bishop has advised Bette’s parents to remove her from my keeping?’
Nan nods. Catherine curtseys and leaves the room to wait for me outside.
‘He’d never admit to it,’ Nan says. ‘So there’s no point in challenging him.’
‘But why would Bette leave me? Even if he advised it?’
‘I’ve seen it before,’ Nan says. ‘When Kitty Howard was charged. The younger maids, those who didn’t have to stay to give evidence, all found excuses to go home. The court shrank like linen on a washday. Same as when the king turned against Queen Anne. All the Boleyns disappeared overnight.’
‘I’m not like Kitty Howard!’ I exclaim in a rush of sudden temper. ‘I am the sixth wife, the sixth disregarded wife, not the fifth guilty wife. All I have done is to study and listen to preachers. She was an adulteress, or perhaps a bigamist, and a whore! Any mother would take her daughter away from service to a young woman like that! Any mother would fear the morals in a court like that! But everyone says that my court is the most virtuous of any in Christendom! Why would anyone take their daughter away from me?’
‘Kitty’s maids left in the days before she was arrested,’ Nan says levelly, not responding to my anger. ‘Not because she was light, but because she was doomed. Nobody wants to be in the court of a falling queen.’
‘A falling queen?’ I repeat. I hear the words: it sounds like a comet, like something in the night sky. ‘A falling queen.’
‘William told me that you opened the window and let your birds fly away,’ she remarks.
‘Yes.’
‘I’ll go and close it again, and call them back if I can. There’s no point in showing that we are afraid.’
‘I’m not afraid!’ I lie.
‘You should be.’
As I lead my ladies in to dinner I look around as if I fear that the court too will be slipping away. But I cannot see any absences. Everyone is there, in their accustomed places. Those who believe in reform do not feel they are newly endangered, it is only those of my household, those who are close to me. Everyone bows respectfully and deeply as I go by. It seems as if nothing is changed from every other night. The king’s place is laid, the cloth of state hangs over his great reinforced chair, the servers bow as they come int
o the room and present the finest dishes to his empty throne as ritual demands. He will dine in his own rooms with his new circle of favourites: Bishop Stephen Gardiner, the Lord Chancellor Thomas Wriothesley, Sir Richard Rich, Sir Anthony Denny, William Paget. When dinner is over I may leave the great hall to sit with the king in his rooms, but until then there must be someone at the head table. The court needs a monarch, the princesses need a parent to dine with them.
My gaze goes across the room and I note that the Seymour household has an empty place laid at the head of the table. I glance at Anne. ‘Is Edward coming home?’ I ask.
‘I wish to God he was here,’ she says bluntly. ‘But I don’t expect him. He doesn’t dare leave Boulogne: the place would fall in a moment.’ She follows my gaze. ‘That place will be for Thomas.’
‘Oh?’
‘He has come to see the king. They can’t raise the Mary Rose. They’re trying some new way, pumping her out as she lies on the ocean bed.’
‘Really?’
Thomas comes into the great hall, bows to the empty throne and then bows to me and to the princesses. He winks at Elizabeth and takes his place at the head of the Seymour table. I send out dishes to him, to the Duke of Norfolk, and to Lord Lisle, without favouritism. Without looking directly towards Thomas, I can see that he is tanned like a peasant, the skin at his temples lined from smiling into the sun. He looks well. He has a new jacket in velvet – deep red, my favourite colour. Dozens of dishes come from the kitchen, the trumpeters announce each fresh course with a scream of sound. I take a small portion from everything that is presented to me, and I wonder what the time is now, and if he will come to me after dinner.
It takes forever for the feast to be over, and then the court rises from the tables and the men stroll about and talk to one another, and approach the ladies. Some people settle to cards or games, the musicians play and a few people start to dance. There is no formal entertainment this evening, and I step down from the dais to make my way slowly towards the king’s rooms, pausing to talk to people as I go.
Thomas appears at my side and bows. ‘Good evening, Your Majesty.’
‘Good evening, Sir Thomas. Your sister-in-law tells me that you have spoken with the king about the Mary Rose.’
He nods. ‘I had to tell His Majesty that we made an attempt to raise her but that she was stuck fast on the seabed. We’re going to try again with more ships and more ropes. I will send swimmers down to try to make her watertight below decks and pump her out. I think it can be done.’
‘I hope so. It was a terrible loss.’
‘Are you going to see the king?’ he asks, his voice very low.
‘I go every evening.’
‘He seems very displeased.’
‘I know.’
‘I told him that since my marriage to Mary Howard is not to go ahead, I am still looking for a wife.’
Carefully, I don’t look up at him. He extends his arm. I rest my fingers on it. I sense but I do not grip the strength of his forearm. I walk beside him, our paces matching. If I stepped a little closer my cheek would touch his shoulder. I don’t step any closer.
‘Did you say that you hope for Princess Elizabeth?’
‘I did not. He was not in the mood for conversation.’
I nod.
‘You know, there was something in Mary Howard’s refusal that I still don’t understand,’ he says quietly. ‘The Norfolks all agreed, Henry Howard the oldest son, and the old duke himself. It was Lady Mary herself who refused.’
‘I can’t imagine her father allowing a daughter to have her own way.’
‘No,’ he says. ‘That’s true. She would have had to fight like a wild cat to oppose her father and her brother, acting together. She would have had to defy them openly. It makes no sense. I know that she doesn’t dislike me, and it was a good match. There must have been something about the terms of the marriage that were completely unacceptable to her.’
‘How unacceptable?’
‘Unbearable. Unimaginable. Anathema.’
‘But what could such a thing be? She could know nothing against you?’
His wicked smile gleams. ‘Nothing of that gravity, Your Majesty.’
‘And yet you are sure it was her refusal? Her determined refusal?’
‘I hoped you might know.’
I shake my head. ‘I am surrounded by mysteries and worries,’ I say to him. ‘The preachers who spoke in my rooms are arrested, the books that the king gave me to read are banned, it is even illegal to own the king’s Bible, and my friend Anne Askew has been moved from Newgate Prison to the Tower. My ladies are slipping away from my rooms.’ I smile. ‘This afternoon I let my birds go.’
He glances around the room and smiles at an acquaintance as if he is merry. ‘This is very bad.’
‘I know it.’
‘Can’t you speak to the king? A word from him would restore you.’
‘I’ll talk to him this evening if he is in a good mood.’
‘Your only safety is in his love for you. He does still love you?’
I make the tiniest gesture, of denial. ‘Thomas, I don’t know that he has ever loved anyone. I don’t know that he can.’
Thomas and I cross the king’s presence room filled with petitioners, lawyers, doctors and hangers-on watching our footsteps, estimating our confidence at every stride. He pauses at the door of the king’s privy chamber.
‘I can’t bear to leave you here,’ he says unhappily.
Hundreds of people watch us as I give him a cool smile. I extend my hand to him.
He bows, touching my fingers with his warm lips. ‘You are a brilliant woman,’ he says quietly. ‘You have read and thought more than most of the men in there. You are a loving woman and you believe in God and speak to Him far more intensely and sincerely than they ever will. You can surely explain yourself to the king. You are the most beautiful woman at court, by far the most desirable. You can rekindle his love for you.’
He bows formally, and I turn and go into the king’s rooms.
They are in the middle of a discussion about chantries and monasteries. To my speechless amazement I realise that they are agreeing how many religious houses – closed at such cost and with such heartbreak – might be reopened and restored. Bishop Gardiner believes that we need monasteries and convents in every town to keep the country peaceful and the people supplied with religious solace and comforts. The corrupt marketplaces that traded in fear and superstition, which the king rightly closed, are now to reopen, as if there had never been a reformation in England. And they are to return to the business of selling lies at a profit. As I come in, Stephen Gardiner is suggesting the restoration of some shrines and some pilgrim routes. Slyly, he suggests that they might pay their fees directly to the crown, not to the church – as if that makes them holy. He says that it is possible to do God’s work at a profit. I sit quietly beside Henry, fold my hands in my lap, and listen to this wicked man suggest the restoration of superstition and paganism to the country in order that poor people might be robbed by the rich.
But I make sure that I say nothing. Only when the conversation turns to Cranmer’s liturgy do I speak to defend the reform version. Thomas Cranmer was commissioned by the king to translate the Latin into English. The king himself worked on it, and I sat at his side and read and reread the English version, compared it to the old Latin original, checked it for copying errors when it came back from the printers, wrote my own translations. In a low voice I suggest that Cranmer’s work is adequate and should be used in every church in the land; but then I get stirred and argue that it is more than adequate, it is beautiful, it is even holy. The king smiles and nods as if he agrees with me, and I am emboldened. I say that people should be free to speak directly to God in church, their contact with God should not be mediated through a priest, should not be undertaken in a language that they cannot understand. As the king is father to his people, so God is father to him. The line between king and people is just like the co
mmunion between people and God; it should be clear and open and direct. How else shall there be an honourable king? How else shall there be a loving God?
I know in my heart that this is true; I know that the king believes it too. He has gone so far to drive popery and paganism out of this country, to bring his people to true understanding. I forget to sweeten every sentence with praise of him as I speak earnestly and passionately, and then I realise that his face has grown dark with ill-temper and Stephen Gardiner is looking down, hiding a smile, not meeting my bright eyes. I have spoken too passionately, too cleverly. Nobody likes a clever passionate woman.
I try to retreat. ‘Perhaps you are tired. I will say goodnight.’
‘I am tired,’ he agrees. ‘I am tired, and I am old, and it is a fine thing in my old days that I should be taught by my wife.’
I curtsey very low, leaning forward so that he can see down the top of my gown. I feel his eyes on my breasts and I say: ‘I could never teach you, Your Majesty. You are so much wiser than I.’
‘All of this I have heard before,’ he says irritably. ‘I have had wives before, who thought they knew better than me.’
I flush. ‘I am sure not one that ever loved you as much as I do,’ I whisper, and I bend and kiss his cheek.
I hesitate at the smell of him: the stink of his rotting leg, like decaying meat, the sweet sickly smell of old sweat on old skin, the bad breath from his mouth, his constipated flatulence. I hold my breath and I lay my cool cheek against his hot damp face. ‘God bless Your Majesty, my lord husband,’ I say gently. ‘And give you good night.’
‘Goodnight, Kateryn Parr,’ he says, biting off his words. ‘Don’t you think it odd that every one of your predecessors called herself by her name: Queen Katherine or Queen Anne or – God bless her – Queen Jane? But you call yourself Kateryn Parr. You sign yourself Kateryn the Queen KP. P for Parr.’
I am so surprised at this ridiculous challenge that I reply before I can think. ‘I am myself!’ I say. ‘I am Kateryn Parr. I am my father’s daughter, educated by my mother. What else should I call myself but by my name?’