by Deryn Lake
Rather too quickly she answered, ‘No, no. I would discuss it further.’
‘Perhaps in your chamber then for it grows mighty cold.’
She pressed against him and said, ‘You may follow me at a reasonable distance. Remember that I am mistress to His Grace and dare not have scandal spoke of me.’
Thinking of his earlier conversations with Brereton Francis grinned openly but said, ‘Your reputation will be cherished. Remember that I too wish this matter secret. I have a wife with child.’
The cat flashed in her eyes.
‘Men who speak of wives and children are dull beyond measure. Do not bother to pursue me, Sir Francis.’
And turning round she was gone in a rustle of skirt. He stood wondering for a moment what he should do and then, pausing absent-mindedly to pick a flower, he followed silently and secretly.
She entered the palace by a small hidden side door and made her way up a stone spiral staircase to a corridor at the end of which lay the royal apartments. Francis, concealing himself behind a tapestry, watched her go through a carved opening and vanish. He hurried forward and found himself at the entrance to an ante-room. A serving woman sleeping on the floor before the fire raised her head as he went in but after looking about her for a second or two was still again. The door to Madge’s bedroom lay invitingly ahead of him, open an inch or two. Stealthily walking forward he pushed it and it swung noiselessly giving him just enough room to ease through and close it again behind him.
Madge must have undressed at breakneck speed for she lay naked on her bed apparently fast asleep. Francis was immediately suspicious. How anyone could have lost consciousness quite so quickly was beyond his understanding and looking more carefully he saw her peeping at him through lids that were meant to be closed. So that was what she wanted to play! Hoping he fully understood the rules he threw his clothes off and, still as quiet as a mouse, crept on top of her and put his hand over her mouth.
Her eyes flew open in mock astonishment as he sunk his shaft but struggle and pound him as she might nothing could disguise her outright pleasure. She was the lustiest woman he had ever had and a strange delight filled him. Nothing to compare with his love for Rose but yet a darker side of him was ecstatic.
It was only in the morning with the fire of passion burned to ashes that he felt sick with shame and remorse. He was so consumed with his wife and the babe-to-be that he physically choked. He had betrayed them both; he would never touch Margaret Shelton again. But even as he thought it he knew it was untrue. A part of him that had always been lying dormant had been aroused and he would pursue the King’s trollop to the ends of the earth if need be just for the pleasure of one more night with her.
18
In his sloping room beneath the stars Zachary Howard sat staring blindly at the view from his window. The Thames flowing at the end of the meadows was at full ebb, the skiffs and barges bobbing along cheerfully, their owners intent on their business. It was July, 1535, and probably very few realized that this day Sir Thomas More was waiting in the Tower for execution and Anne Boleyn was arranging a great masque, ostensibly not to celebrate but a happy coincidence that it should fall upon the same day.
Very slowly — for nowadays it was an experience that he did not enjoy — Zachary took his crystal glass into his hands. At once the weight as he moved it from palm to palm told him that there was sorrow. He smiled a little wryly. Anyone in the Kingdom with intelligence would have known that without a gift of clear sight. On the surface all might be well but scrape beneath and there was decay.
Anne, of course, had made a great effort, had recovered and rallied from the blows of two miscarriages, had forced her mighty will against the onslaught of Margaret Shelton, had had her hair brushed until it gleamed and put lotions and creams on her face so that once again she outshone every woman at Court. Her laughter had never been gayer, her dancing never more fleet of foot, her brilliant manner never more noticeable. It was spoken of in whispers that when More in the Tower had asked after the Queen and been told that she had never fared better — dancing and sporting her days away — he had answered, ‘These dances of hers will prove such dances, that she will spurn our heads off like footballs, but it will not be long ere her head will dance the like dance.’
A sinister prophecy from the man who had refused to swear the Act of Succession — that the future rulers of England should all be issue of Anne’s body — and the Act of Supremacy — that Henry Tudor was now the Supreme Head of the Church.
The scrying glass was the black of mourning as Zachary hunched over it. And as he looked the odd thing that sometimes happened to him at such moments took place. It was as if he stood there in the future, observing but unobserved, leaning against the damp miserable walls of Kimbolton Castle and watching the last breath of life eke out of Katharine of Aragon who lay on a small, hard-looking bed, only her lips moving in prayer betraying the fact that she still lived. There were several people in the room, one of them a priest, and round the bed knelt the last of her faithful Spanish ladies. And it was on one of these that Zachary found his eyes fixed. For as Katharine let out her last gasp and her dead eyelids sprung open that all might see the glazed sadness of her look, the little dark woman raised the Queen’s hand to her lips. She said not a word but in his trance-like state her thoughts were audible to the astrologer.
He heard her think, ‘Let there be revenge. Let the Queen herself smite back at the great whore who sits upon the throne. Let there be divine justice. Let my hatred bring it about.’
And then he saw the black spiral that was force, that was power, come whirling into the death chamber and gather itself round the kneeling figure. And then he was back in his own room and just before the crystal finally misted over he saw his father’s face quite distinctly and knew that in some mysterious way it was Norfolk who would not only pronounce sentence of death upon Anne but would be instrumental in her downfall.
The distant sound of a drum roll and the shout of a crowd wafted up the river by a trick of the breeze told him that Sir Thomas More was finished, that the most honest man in the realm had died for his convictions. And Zachary knew that Anne, on hearing the news, would hug herself with relief that an implacable enemy had been removed. Unaware that, like a monster, for every adversary that fell six more would grow in his place.
*
The merging of the great forest of Windsor with that of Sutton was indefinable except to those who knew almost to the first oak tree where the Manor boundaries lay. Francis, who had ridden this way so often and in so many differing moods, was vaguely aware that he was now on his father’s land, the place where the Saxon Kings had once hunted with hawk and hound. But with his eyes he noticed nothing for he had never in his twenty-four years felt such desolation of soul as now swept him.
He had for the last seven months been in the grip of the most feverish love affair of his life. And yet to call it love was in some ways an insult to the word. For Madge Shelton possessed him in a way that was not healthy. He was besotted, enflamed, sick with desire. When he was in her bed, in a secret part of the gardens, in a cornfield — anywhere so long as he could have her — he was exultant. When he was apart from her all he could do was plot and scheme as to how soon he could be with her again, what different ways he could please her. It was like an illness the cure for which was detestable. He felt that if Madge was taken away from him he would rather be dead.
And in this terrible world he had created for himself there was simply no time to think of anything else but his voracious mistress. Rose, his parents, his sisters, even Sutton Place itself, had ceased to exist other than as grudging thoughts that took him away for a few precious minutes from his feverish contemplation of the ravishment of her wicked embrace. He had not even bothered to replace the amulets that had protected him for so long, afraid to face Zachary lest he should know the overriding desire that was slowly destroying him.
So when he was suddenly given a letter just as he was preparing
himself to go to her for a snatched hour he was angry at the interruption. But when he had opened it he had felt fit to vomit with self-disgust. It was from his father and dated the 6th day of December.
Right trusty and well-beloved son, May it please you to be advertised that on this day at one hour past first light your wife, after labouring mightily, did for your pleasure and comfort deliver and bring forth a son. And that both he and his mother are in good health at this time. Trusting that you will be soon once more at Sutton Place.
Your most loving father,
Richard Weston
And then after reading such tidings he had — as far as he was concerned — plummeted to the depths of degradation for he had gone to Mistress Shelton just as if nothing had happened and heaved and sweated and shouted with joy as if Rose and the sweet suckling babe did not exist.
When he had returned to his apartments he had been ill, bending over the basin and retching with loathing and despair. Then he had wept and held his head in his hands. He was a betrayer, an offender to God, as low as the beasts in the field. But he was powerless. He coveted Margaret more than life itself. He could see no way to save himself from this nightmare of lust and rapture.
And now he was going home. The Queen on hearing his news had granted him a week’s leave from duties. The smile she had given as he had told her that he was at last a father had been radiant for was it not rumoured all round the Court, though Anne herself had said nothing, that she was once again pregnant and restoring herself in Henry’s affections? And it was true, Francis thought miserably, that Madge had been more available lately. Dear God, what was he coming to that he waited his turn for favours like a pig at a trough?
Sutton Place was visible in the distance as his horse climbed a hill and he paused for a moment on the summit. He had felt many emotions on first glimpsing the manor house but never before had he experienced dread. What had become of him that the normal pleasures of mankind had gone? That the joy he should be feeling on first seeing his newborn son completely eluded him? Heavy with despair, he walked his horse slowly towards home.
As soon as he entered the bedchamber Rose could see that he had changed. He was as beautiful to look at but there were lines about his eyes that she had not noticed before and in the eyes themselves burned a look that she could only think of as frenzy. Even as he bent over the cradle to gaze at the babe — as yet unnamed — there was a distance about him, an indifference that was hardly credible.
‘What ails you Francis?’ was the first thing she said.
‘Why nothing, nothing.’
And the very way in which he said the words told her that it was everything, everything.
‘Are you not pleased with him?’
‘Of course.’
‘It has taken us long enough to get him.’
And something of the inexplicable depression that she had felt since the birth, but which Dr Burton had told her was a normal part of motherhood and she should ignore as best she could, swept over her and set the tears stinging behind her eyes. Francis seemed to make an attempt at rallying.
‘He is beautiful, Rose.’
And he bent over to kiss her but instead of caressing her mouth his lips brushed her forehead. With the certainty of someone who had known him since childhood Rose realized there was another woman. She hesitated for a second as to whether she should play the minx but her old country ways got the better of her and she said directly, ‘There’s no need for pretension, Francis. Nor am I in the mood for falsehoods. You care as much for the child as you do for your hound’s whelp — probably less — and as for me, I am naught but a distraction to your thoughts. Thank God I know not her name for by the Mass I would tear her eyes from her head.’
Just a glimmer of the old Francis showed for he gave a fleeting smile and said, ‘Still the wild Rose of Cumberland, I see.’
She sat up in bed pulling the counterpane tightly to her chest with an angry fist, the tears of a few moments ago banished.
‘Roses have thorns, Francis — remember that. Tell me her name.’
He hesitated on the lovely cold brink of confession. To cleanse himself. To slide into the waters of say-too-much and reveal the shadowy depths of his benighted spirit. And then he remembered his father — the thick thatch of hair, the widely-spaced eyes, the hard look — as he said, ‘Never tell aught, Francis. Admittance is a feather bed for the weak. A man carries his own cross to the grave. Think about it.’
And he had. Foolish, empty plaything he might be but Sir Richard’s wisdom, both political and human, he had never doubted. So he looked his wife as evenly in the eye as he could and said, ‘There is no one Rose. Your imagination is over full. My mind is packed with Court affairs which swing extremely from one hour to the next.’
Again she hesitated. The lie was patent yet the game was obvious. Her lips played with replies but finally she said, ‘Ah well! So what shall we name the child?’
‘Henry — for the King?’
‘Henry.’
The child destined to fight for Mary Tudor at Calais and entertain her half-sister Elizabeth at Sutton Place slept on in his crib.
*
‘And there shall be entertainments like none His Grace has ever seen,’ said Anne.
She stood just a trifle defiantly as was her stance these days. The twelve festivities of Christmas were soon to be upon them and this year above all she must prove her resplendence. From everything she had heard — and there were so many glad to whisper in her miserably willing ear — Margaret Shelton was out of esteem and a certain pale young woman of double receding chin, daughter of the house of Seymour and as sweet as a stinging hive, sat with downcast eyes awaiting His Grace’s bluff laugh and alighted blue gaze. So she — dark and glowing and pretending the confidence of long ago — must entertain. But in her belly lay the key to it all. She was pregnant and past the immediate fear of abort. Once again Henry had focused the power of his concentration upon her so the cards stood favourably stacked. With the husky laugh of yesteryear Anne ordered fruits and sweetmeats and tinsels set in gold. All would be in bright array to catch her sovereign lord’s notice and set his foot dancing in her direction.
*
On the eve before Christmas it was so cold that Norfolk almost decided against the river as a means to journey to Zachary’s home in Greenwich. He had already visited Kenninghall Castle some days previously to give a fur mantle to his wife and had seen both Surrey and the Duchess of Richmond — his legitimate son and daughter — at Court. So now it was the turn of his bastard. He looked at the many gifts he had assembled for them; a doublet and hose in a bright but passable shade of red for Zachary — would he ever, he wondered, educate his son in the way of sober dress? — a great muff of ermine for Jane, toys, games and fine stuffs for Sapphira and Jasper, to say nothing of the cured hams, the capons, pies and wildfowl. The mound was more than a horse-load and despite the bitter wind and the lowering sky, heavy with unshed snow, he decided that his barge was the only sensible means of travel. The oarsmen were blowing their fingers, their noses blue with cold, as he went aboard and sat in the cabin wrapping his great fur-lined cloak around him and pulling his hat down to cover his ears.
And it was just as he was about to make mooring at Zachary’s wharf that he noticed another barge pulling away and thought far more of it than he would have done normally because of the cruelty of the bitter day. Who else would venture out on the eve of Christmas on a Thames that was beginning to freeze in places? To his great surprise he saw an insignia flying from the masthead and recognized it as that of Sir Richard Weston but the figure huddled in the cabin could have been anyone, swathed as it was in a voluminous wrap, the hood obscuring the face of the wearer. Norfolk peered, rubbing the ice-frosted glass of the cabin window with his sleeve and, as if aware of his scrutiny, the muffled figure huddled into itself even more. And then, just for a second, he saw a glimpse of ember red hair stray out from beneath the head covering. So Rose, Lady Weston had risen
from her childbed and made the hazardous journey to London in these bleak conditions.
‘And not just for a forecast of events,’ thought Norfolk and wondered immediately if that very old but very wise dog Sir Richard was up to some new trick at his advanced time of life.
Zachary stood waiting for him before a fire that roared half way up the chimney, sniffing the herb-sweet cooking smells that came from the kitchens and thrusting a poker into the wine that mulled on the hearth.
‘So, Lord Duke my father, the year ends,’ he said.
‘And will all be as prophesied?’
‘Aye. The strands of the web are beginning to tighten.’
‘And the house of Seymour?’
‘Their star rises — as that of Boleyn descends.’
The Duke sipped from the steaming tankard in his hands.
‘I shall not be sorry,’ he said. ‘If I were never to set eyes on a Boleyn again I would not shed a tear, for a more ruthless mob of self-seekers have never been born.’
‘They have — and worse. Watch for the Seymours. They will bear you no love.’
Norfolk shook his head.
‘That I expect from no one — except perhaps you.’
‘That you have. But remember your words to Thomas More, Lord Duke. It is perilous striving with princes.’
‘But I will survive?’
‘I have told you — by a cat’s whisker only.’
There was silence between them for a few minutes, only the distant sound of the children’s voices and the small explosions of the summer-dried logs breaking the quietness.
