by Deryn Lake
‘God’s blood, my Lord Duke, have you no sense of proportion? Richard III must be dust and yet you speak of enemies. And you, as a man in a man’s world, dare not mention the bastard of your youth? Wouldst have your grandchild born out of wedlock as well? Where is the sense in all this?’
And he snatched up his cloak and left the room calling out, ‘I’ll to Maidstone and plead my cause myself. Jane shall not suffer humiliation at the hands of anyone for she is a good and kind-hearted girl. Goodbye, Lord Duke.’
Thomas Howard fell back on to his pillows. In his imagination he could see Zachary striding out of the palace and boarding his barge, hunching his shoulders against the cold. He loved his son so much that he could even visualize the scowl on his face, the way those black curls would squash as he pulled that ridiculous hat down to cover his ears.
‘God damn all,’ said the Duke of Norfolk, rising from his bed. ‘If I take to horse now I can get to Maidstone before him. Will, Will ...!’ — his principal servant came hurrying into the room — ‘... get out my warmest riding clothes — and quickly. It would appear we have an urgent journey to make.’
The roads were hard with frost, which in some ways made the going easier, and the cold seemed to have discouraged the cut-throats. Despite this, Norfolk took the precaution of riding with three armed men as an escort. Now that he was President of the Council of England he would be an even more attractive target for robbery and probably murder. But despite his good intention and hard riding, a blinding snowstorm at Wrotham Heath halted his progress and he was forced to take shelter in an inn. Though anxious to reach Wyatt’s home before dark, Howard had to admit that the enforced stop was extremely comforting and it was with just a shade of reluctance that he saw the snow ease away and, casting a longing look at the fire, got into the saddle once more.
But the delay had been enough to give Zachary the advantage for his son must have continued through the blizzard. As darkness fell over Kent the Duke saw a familiar figure coming towards him from the direction of Allington Castle. There could be no mistaking the unconventional dress nor could there be any mistaking the desolated droop of the shoulders and the miserable attitude of his head.
‘Zachary!’ he called out.
In the gloom he saw his son peering to see where the voice was coming from.
‘Over here.’
Visibly cheered Zachary trotted his horse to where Howard had halted his party.
‘Lord Duke,’ he said, kissing his father’s hand, ‘I knew you would come.’
‘The crystal ball, no doubt,’ answered Thomas drily. The impish face was suddenly creased in a grin.
‘No. Just good judgement on this occasion.’
The Duke motioned his guard out of earshot and then said, ‘What has happened? Did Wyatt show you the door?’
‘More than that. He thrashed me for giving his daughter a great belly.’
And for the first time Howard noticed that the boy sat on his horse with obvious pain and that there was blood running down from a cut on his head. Now it was his turn to lose his temper.
‘God’s life,’ he roared, ‘I’ll have that bastard in the Tower on some trumped-up charge. He shall answer for this. By Christ, he will!’
And spurring his horse into a gallop he took off, shouting instructions to his servants to take Zachary to the nearest inn and attend to him. Allington Castle lay another three miles away but it was pitch black by the time he arrived. The drawbridge had been pulled up for the night but the Duke, sweating with rage despite the cold, stood up in his stirrups and screamed, ‘Open up in the name of the King of England. Lower this bridge, do you hear me?’ until eventually the porter’s frightened face appeared at a window calling out, ‘Who’s there?’
‘The Duke of Norfolk, Lord President of the Council of England.’
With a great rumbling the drawbridge descended and Thomas Howard’s horse thundered across it and into the courtyard.
‘Where is Sir Henry Wyatt?’ he demanded tersely.
‘He dines, sir, and cannot be disturbed.’
‘Oh, can’t he,’ said Howard. ‘Tell him the Duke of Norfolk is here and demands an audience. At once!’
And with that he strode into the castle in the wake of scurrying and terrified servants.
Sir Henry, when he found him, was sitting alone at his dining table in one of Allington’s smaller chambers. Without so much as a formal greeting the Duke sat down immediately opposite and said, ‘How dare you thrash my son, sir? How dare you? The King’s Grace shall hear of this, I can promise you.’
‘Your son, my Lord?’ said Wyatt, half rising.
‘Yes, my son, sir,’ answered Howard, pushing him down again.
‘You mean that rag bag who was here earlier? That creature who has robbed my daughter of her virginity? Yes, indeed, His Grace shall hear of the matter.’
‘Listen,’ said the Duke, grabbing Wyatt by the collar of his coat, ‘your damnable daughter is being offered marriage by a Howard. You should consider yourself honoured. A small country knight to be allied with the most powerful family in the land. God’s head, you are most fortunate to get such a match for the wretched girl.’
Wyatt’s eyes tightened.
‘But he must be a bastard. Surrey is your heir.’
‘Even the King has a bastard,’ retorted the Duke. ‘Have you forgotten Henry Fitzroy? Well, you have just laid hands on Zachary Fitzhoward and I’ve a mind to lay a charge of assault against you. I feel His Grace will not be unsympathetic.’
‘But what of Jane’s child? He has made her swollen in the belly, did you know that?’
‘Of course I did,’ snapped the Duke angrily. ‘That’s why he wishes to marry her. As for dowry and settlement we do not require them. It is I who shall settle estates and money on her. Does that satisfy you?’
An unreadable expression was beginning to creep over Sir Henry’s face.
‘If — I repeat if — I consent to this union you will accept my daughter as a Howard?’
‘Yes, yes.’
There went any final hopes that the Duke might have of ever mending the breach in his marriage — but to the Devil with it.
‘And contracts shall be exchanged between us?’
‘Yes, damn you,’ said Thomas. ‘And for your part I want the wedding to take place within a week. Also you shall buy my son a great gift to compensate him for the injuries that you have inflicted upon his person. And now I am going to dine. Prepare your best chamber, Sir Henry, for tonight the Lord President of England sleeps beneath your roof.’
‘One final thing.’
‘Yes?’
‘My daughter has a good position at Court.’
‘In the retinue of my niece, the Lady Anne Rochford. I shall have her released from that as soon as I return. Send your other daughter, Margaret, in her place. Now speak no more or I might anger.’
And with that the Duke of Norfolk fell to feeding leaving Sir Henry Wyatt in a state bordering on nervous collapse.
*
It was in early March that Ann Pickering first heard what she always thought of as the stirring of spring. At last the relentless frost and snow had cleared and she was able to take her favourite horse out for the gallop they both needed. And it was there, on a hill overlooking the village of Kendal, that it happened. Turning her face into the weak sun she suddenly felt tremendously aware of all the sounds of the earth.
‘Listen, it’s spring,’ she said.
Her Steward laughed at her. She had always had this fancy ever since a small girl.
‘I hear nothing, mistress, except the birds. They’re twittering a little more.’
‘Yes, that’s part of it. But the hills are singing to one another.’
‘That’s just the wind echoing round.’
‘Oh, Seaton, you really can’t hear it, can you?’
‘No, mistress, perhaps there are only some of us allowed to do so.’
‘Now you’re humouring me.’
&n
bsp; But she knew and she felt the stirring within herself; as if somewhere deep inside a spring brook, that had been frozen for the winter, broke free of its crystal gaoler and began to gush forth, gathering speed as it flowed towards the wild flowers that grew along its bank.
‘Come, we must go home,’ she said.
‘Tired already, mistress?’
‘No, not tired. In fact the opposite. But there is so much to be done, Seaton. I am to be a bride in May and there are only six weeks left till I depart.’
‘But your sewing women are well ahead, are they not? I saw your wedding gown being stitched only the other day.’
‘It’s not that. I have to say goodbye to Killington — and to Moresby. And all my friends from childhood. And then there are the practical things — the packing of the goods I shall take with me to Sutton Place.’
Seaton was silent for a moment, then he said, ‘You won’t come back here to live then, mistress?’
‘No, it is not possible. My future husband is a courtier — a favourite of the King. How could a man like that live here?’
‘But how could a country girl live at Court?’
He had known her for so many years that he could say such things.
Ann looked thoughtful and then she turned her wide blue eyes on him.
‘Seaton, I think Master Francis is the kind of man that I could lose if I did not stay close by. Please don’t misunderstand me. He is not a bad man — just easily distracted.’
Seaton thought, ‘What a wise brain lies in that head of seventeen years. She’ll bring this colt, Weston, into a good running rein.’
But he had reckoned without one thing — the flaw in the diamond; Francis’s total inability to sense danger, utter ineptitude in realizing when a situation was worsening and only a change in course would avoid disaster. It was as if the political awareness of two men had gone into his father leaving none whatsoever for the son.
It was the middle of April when Ann finally set out with her suite; her maid Peg, several other women servants and various men of her household who would conduct her to Sutton Place and handle the enormous amount of baggage that was going with her. As the winding entourage finally rounded a corner in the grassy track and Killington Manor was lost to view she turned her horse and galloped back for a last glimpse.
‘Don’t worry,’ she said to the house in which she’d been born, ‘I’ll bring Francis to see you if I have to drag him by the hair.’
*
Three weeks to the day later Francis set out from Greenwich Palace to become a married man. He was nineteen, the sun was out and he had never felt more pleased. In the last week he had beaten the King at tennis on four separate occasions, winning four angels per game — very high stakes indeed. Added to this he carried on him the King’s wedding present — £6.13s.4d.; not to mention the three new shirts and pairs of hose as an extra gift. And his tailor, Bridges, had made him such a fine white doublet with silver threads and buttons and decorations of drop pearls for his wedding day, which was now only one week away. Small wonder that a song rose to his lips as London was left behind and he and his man servant stopped at The Wheatsheaf at Esher to drink some midday ale.
Looking across at Wolsey’s now empty residence, which was visible from where they sat, Francis wondered how the Cardinal fared in his diocese of York where he had at least retained the title of Archbishop. Just for a moment a thought went through his head about how devastating it must be to fall from a favoured position to nothing. He had heard that the Cardinal now wore a hair shirt and lived most modestly but, greatest degradation of all, the man who had been the ‘other King’ had been forced to take to his heels and make an undignified exit north on being told by his Steward, Thomas Cromwell, that the Duke of Norfolk had threatened, ‘If he go not away, I will tear him with my teeth.’
‘I should dislike more than anything to lose favour,’ thought Francis. But small chance of that. Why, the King had embraced him most fondly earlier this morning when he had left Greenwich Palace and on the previous evening Anne Boleyn had brushed her cool lips against his cheek and wished him great joy.
‘Will you not come to my wedding?’ Francis had said.
‘Aye, I might,’ she had answered with one of her strange smiles. ‘Would you welcome me?’
‘Of course.’
She had laughed then, putting her head back so that her long, slender neck had suddenly looked frail and vulnerable. She was so small and thin and yet so mighty that there was something disquietingly unreal about her. Francis sometimes had the ridiculous notion that they would all go to sleep and wake up in the morning to find that Mistress Boleyn — or the Lady Anne Rochford as she now was — had never existed at all. But he didn’t like those thoughts. They led him down paths to sinister recesses in his mind where dark things lay.
Unconsciously, as it so often did, his hand stole up to feel the amulet round his neck which had now been joined by the carbuncle that Giles had left behind for him. And that was another nasty idea — that somewhere in the thick forest Giles lay rotting. For Dr Zachary had assured the Westons that their Fool had returned to the wild to die. Francis stopped his train of thought and ordered more ale. This was no mood to be in with his wedding only seven days off.
Yet a frown was to return to his face once more as he came within sight of Sutton Place for there, distinct against the sky-line were two riders at full gallop and the great mass of red hair streaming out from behind one of them told him that it was his betrothed, Ann, and that she was accompanied by a man.
He had not seen her for nearly two years and he couldn’t in all honesty say that he had spent his time pining — for gambling, drinking and whoring were pursuits guaranteed to deploy the concentration — but now a totally unreasonable jealousy swept over him. He dug his spurs into his horse’s side and sped forward to catch the riders up. The thud of the approaching hooves must have caught Ann’s attention for he saw her look over her shoulder, heard her joyful shout and watched her rein her horse round. She hastened towards him but her companion merely halted and stayed where he was. As Francis drew nearer he saw that it was Henry Knyvett.
‘Oh Francis, Francis,’ she was calling. ‘You are here at last. My household came ten days ago. I thought you were never going to arrive.’
Francis was surprised with himself. Instead of greeting her lovingly he said, in quite the most churlish manner, ‘Well I see that you’ve been kept amused.’
Ann looked amazed and then she followed his eyes which were fixed firmly on poor Henry who, fortunately, was too far away to hear what they were saying.
‘God’s life,’ she exclaimed, ‘don’t you start any stupidity, Francis! The days have been boring enough without your company. And Henry arrived at his house in East Horsely for your wedding before you — the bridegroom! Did you expect me to sit like a nun when he invited me to ride? I suppose you have spent the last few days in virtuous prayer rather than leave Court to join me?’
He suddenly felt utterly foolish but decided to battle on.
‘I am a courtier,’ he said grandly. ‘I cannot leave His Grace’s side willy-nilly. I have been busy.’
‘Oh, no doubt,’ she retorted. ‘The King would need your opinion on matters of state, of course. I hope the entire monarchy does not collapse in the few days that you have taken off in which to marry me. Now go to.’
And she wheeled her horse once more, called ‘Henry’ to the bemused Knyvett and went off so extremely fast that both men were left staring after her. Henry trotted over to where Francis sat, gazing after the vanishing figure of his betrothed.
‘Francis!’ he said extending his hand. ‘I left Court two days ago. How did you get on with that last tennis match? It was still being played as I departed.’
Francis lowered his voice to a guilty murmur which was quite unnecessary for Ann was by now a mere speck in the distance.
‘I won,’ he said, ‘but don’t mention it in front of Ann for she has just rounded on me
. She feels I should have been here sooner.’
Henry thought, ‘Had I such a woman to marry nothing would have kept me from her. Francis Weston takes his luck to the limits sometimes. I am only grateful that that hideous creature my father had selected for me died of the Sweat.’
And then he crossed himself for such thoughts were evil even if they happened to be true.
‘I think,’ he said mildly, ‘that you are fortunate indeed, Francis, to have Ann Pickering. I thought it when I first met her and I think it even more now. She has grown into a full-fledged beauty and you will have to work hard to keep her at your side.’
Francis decided to vent his spleen on his unfortunate friend.
‘How dare you?’ he said. ‘I love her dearly.’
‘Then show it you doltard,’ answered Henry and headed his horse off in the direction of East Horsely. Francis could not remember ever having seen him angry before.
Sutton Place was swarming with servants and guests for the great occasion of the marriage of the son of the house and Francis, after a vain attempt to find either of his parents, was about to retire sulkily to his chamber when he ran into his brother-in-law, John Rogers.
‘Ah, there you are,’ John said. ‘We wondered when you would be arriving. ’Tis all hurly-burly here. Catherine is with your mother going through great lists of food. There are enough victuals in the place to feed the Court, I’ll swear.’
‘Did you ...’
But Francis’s voice was drowned by the musicians starting their practice in the Great Hall.
‘Christ!’ he bellowed furiously. The day, which had begun so brightly, was fast turning into a tragedy.
‘Come and drink with me in the Gate House wing,’ shouted John. ‘It is less like the Tower of Babel.’
And he tactfully led Francis away and bolstered him up with some of Sir Richard’s malmsey.
‘You know, Francis,’ John said, ‘you have a beautiful bride who will bring you a great deal of property and prosperity, yet your father told me that you stayed on at Court to play tennis! Don’t you think that rather stupid?’
‘His Grace would not have been pleased if I had left before the games were done.’
