The Queen's Governess

by Karen Harper

  “Yes, my lady.”

  “And since you will be privy to some of my business, you must also realize that the king does not use those passages to visit me secretly, for I have told him that cannot be. But cleverness and care—that is what I expect of you. I believe you understand,” she went on, “that I will at times have need of you to carry a message for me to our mutual friend and perhaps return such from him, quietly and circumspectly.”

  “I do, my lady.”

  “It is all for a righteous cause, and those who stay with me to the end will reap rewards.”

  “Yes, my lady. I shall serve you loyally.”

  How many times later I recalled her words to me when we first parted: those who stay with me to the end. That day she dismissed me, I left her standing there at the window, suddenly silent, frowning and brooding. I quietly approached the outer door to not disturb her thoughts. When I opened it, Lady Jane, who must have been leaning tight against it, nearly fell into the room.

  CHAPTER THE FIFTH

  HAMPTON COURT

  September 1528

  Come one and all, ladies!” Mary Talbot summoned us on my fifth day in Anne Boleyn’s household. Mary clapped her hands as if we were the lap spaniels the ladies loved so much, though Anne herself stood out from the rest by favoring a sleek greyhound at her heels. “Bowling on the green today with the king’s coterie. Though,” Mary went on, rolling her eyes at me, probably because she believed I was so new and unconnected that it didn’t matter a fig what I saw or heard, “I wish he would not bring my helpmeet with him, damn the man—not the king, of course, but Percy.”

  At age seventeen, Henry Percy, after his secret betrothal to Anne Boleyn had been crushed by the king and Wolsey, had been ordered to wed Mary. Their union had been agony for both. Mary would fall flat on the floor if she knew that Cromwell had told me all that. After two years of wedlock, with Percy yearning for his lost love, moping about, oft falling ill, Mary had left him. Yet both served at court these five years later, he as esquire of the body for the king, she first with Queen Catherine and now with Anne. The Percys tolerated each other—barely. It was, I thought, a fair warning about forced marriage. But my parents had chosen each other, and they fought far too much. And then there was the Tudor royal marriage, or rather, the ruin of it.

  Her fourteen ladies fell in behind Anne, somewhat in pecking order, which put me in the last pair beside the pretty Madge Shelton, whom I was helping to learn to write a better hand. She read poorly too, but my tending to that would have to wait. I vow, I had never studied geography, history or Latin verb conjugations harder than I studied the customs and courtiers of the king. The do’s and do not’s of the Tudor court astounded me.

  I had to learn titles and duties—for example, an esquire of the body, like Henry Percy, was in charge of everything above and below stairs while the king slept at night. I became familiar with proper allotments in the bouche; that is, the amount and selections of food, drink, candles and fuel for each position at court. My bouche included a few coins monthly, too, but I learned I must save that to go toward His Grace’s—and mayhap this year, the Lady Anne’s—Christmas gifts. I realized I might be dependent on Cromwell for extra money, since there had been no mention of such from Sir Philip.

  At first I had little to report to Cromwell, nor did the Lady Anne send me to him with missives, until this fifth day at Hampton Court when so much happened at once that I struggle to recall and record it all.

  First, I must note that, although the Lady Anne I saw in my brief initial interview had then seemed reserved, polite and pensive in private, she was quite the opposite when in public. She knew her allure and how to use it, and, I must admit, I studied that. I saw now why heads, especially men’s heads, turned her way when she passed, and it wasn’t all just reflected glow from the king’s presence. She exuded enjoyment and excitement. From her time at the French court, she had evidently learned to bestow a daily bon mot on most courtiers and a tease for her king; her laughter trilled; she knew everyone’s name and, some said, their secrets.

  This was the first day she whispered to me in passing, though her smile did not fade and she laughed to throw others off her purpose: “Mistress, there is a note for our friend pinned on the bottom of the stool in which you sat the day we met.” I smiled back at her as if she had made a pleasant jest.

  With everyone trooping outside in order, I would have to find a solitary moment to go back to her chamber to fetch the note. I knew Cromwell and his army of clerks were ensconced near where Cardinal Wolsey still kept some privy chambers.

  But, oh yes, before I recount the events of this day, I must record that Henry Tudor at age thirty-seven was a giant bestriding his world. Tall, robust, with a reddish sheen to his hair and beard and a golden sheen to his entire person, no one could best King Henry. He could out-eat, out-joust, out-dance, out-hunt, out-reason anyone. All the air seemed to suck toward him when he entered a room. His booming voice, his exuberant, hail-fellow-well-met greetings—though he could terrify one by glowering or even pouting—filled our lives. As his power spilled over onto Anne, most of his bonhomie spilled over onto us, that is, unless someone called the Spanish Catherine his queen. That is, unless someone did not show the proper demeanor to or delight in his dear Anne. That is, unless someone seemed too familiar with his sweetheart, which is what happened that day.

  So her ladies followed Anne outside to the bowling green near the many acres of tiltyards. Along the gravel pathways, on tall posts, stood the king’s beasts, staring down at us as they did in the gardens and gates of the palace: the lion rampant, the red dragon of Wales, antlered deer, griffins and unicorns and all manner of ornately carved, painted and gilded creatures.

  I had heard of the game of bowls but had never seen it played, so I hoped no one would ask me to take part. At dancing, I had been included. I had been nervous, then delighted when I found myself paired for a pavane with Tom Seymour, whom I had not seen in the crowd. He had asked me to meet him out by the fishpond in the gardens that night. I might have been entranced enough to do so, but the Lady Anne had retired early that evening with pain from her monthly menses and had taken her coterie of ladies with her.

  Today I saw Tom standing back on the opposite side of the bowling green, as if he felt not quite part of things either. Before I knew it, as the king and some of his favorites took turns casting the round bowl or jack, Tom appeared at my side.

  “Would you pleasure me with a stroll in the maze while they are all at their own play?” he whispered and shot me a hopeful grin. He was as charming and well favored as I remembered him; my pulse pounded.

  “I am busy, attached to the Lady Anne,” I told him, hoping he did not see me as an easy conquest.

  “I’d like for us to be attached—very.”

  “You are a rogue, Tom Seymour.”

  “So, if not now, will you dare to slip away tonight? Meanwhile, we shall watch this rogues’ gallery of gallants, eh?” he asked and pinched my bum right through my layers of skirts. I jumped. I still had my old wardrobe, which made me stand out like an unshorn sheep among those with fine, clipped coats. But I was waiting for my allotted three kirtles, four sets of sleeves, two bodices and other items made through the Lady Anne’s—actually, His Majesty’s—bottomless purse.

  Tom and I could almost talk full voice now, for the laughter and wild bets—the courtiers wagered at everything—rent the air. “Rub! Rub! I’ll place half a crown on my next cast!” Henry Percy shouted as his bowl headed for the wooden mark. But he was eliminated, so that left only the king and a man I did not know. Courtiers pressed closer, cheering, urging them on. His Majesty’s opponent was classically handsome with a Roman nose, close-clipped beard and curly hair. He reminded me of the stone carvings of the emperors’ heads which adorned the outer walls of this palace.

  “No cutting out!” someone shouted. “I’ll wager my inheritance on His Grace’s cast!”

  “And I’ll wager my poems and masq
ues on myself!” a clarion voice called out. I saw it was the man who opposed the king.

  “Who is that?” I asked Tom.

  “Handsome, isn’t he? Thomas Wyatt, and he’s wed, so don’t get your hopes up.”

  “I would not presume.”

  “But I believe you do presume, my sweet—at least as much as the rest of us just waiting for our chance, eh? Wyatt’s an old friend of the Lady Anne from way back—farther back than Percy. First loves are oft not forgotten, and Wyatt’s much enamored of her still.”

  “How unwise of him. But then—why would His Grace allow him here?”

  “He’s useful. Poet, playwright, lutenist, deviser of masques—and, if he knows what’s good for him, loser at bowls. But he has a stubborn streak, a man after my own heart. See that thin gold ring His Grace wears on his little finger?”

  “He took it from Lady Anne in jest as a love token yesterday—as if he needed such, but I think it was so romantic.”

  “Romantic? Hell’s gates, you sound as silly as the rest of them,” he muttered, frowning. “But see that locket on the chain Wyatt’s wearing? It was Anne’s too. He’s had it for years, dares to wear it about his neck, the lackbrain. And, what the deuce,” he said with a snicker and shake of his head, “but it looks as if he’s actually out to best the king. If he can’t have the lady, at least he’ll have this little victory.”

  I, too, stared at the position where both bowls had landed.

  “I win,” the king declared, hands on hips. “Mine’s slightly closer to the mark.”

  “I’m not so certain,” Wyatt declared. “Here, let me measure to be sure.” He unclasped the very locket Tom had just mentioned and, stretching it out end to end, measured that his bowl was nearer to the mark than the king’s. His Majesty’s snort and dour look threw a damper on all the noise and movement. It was as if everyone had frozen in position in a game of statue like Sir Philip’s children used to play. Even the impeccably controlled Lady Anne looked as if she’d swallowed something dreadful.

  Crooking his little finger with Anne’s ring at her—perhaps at us all—Henry Tudor announced, “I prefer to be shooting at the butts today anyway. Poet Wyatt, I leave you to your own games, but beware putting that locket back on your neck. Lockets and necks can be delicate things . . .”

  Perhaps he swore or muttered else, I know not. I only knew that I had something to tell as well as take to Cromwell at last, not that it was privy information, but that it had ramifications. The king was still jealous of Anne’s past suitor Wyatt, mayhap of Henry Percy, too.

  “Devil take Wyatt, we’ll all suffer from the king’s bad temper for that foolish affront,” Tom groused. “Tonight then,” he said in my ear, heating its shell and lobe with his warm breath, “when the moon is full, during the dancing. I will be at the very start of the maze so you won’t get lost within—it is I who am lost in admiration for you, mistress.”

  I knew full well his pretty words were mere bombast, but I treasured them anyway. I was glad to see him dart away with the others, for I had my own business—Cromwell and my lady’s business—to attend to.

  As I hurried back to the Lady Anne’s apartments, I rehearsed what I would tell the guards at her door: that she had sent me to fetch a handkerchief she’d left within. But no one stood watch. Her bedchamber door was unlocked and, surprised at that, I darted in. Perhaps those guards who trailed her today had come from here. The yeomen looked alike to me in their caps and red and gold garb, especially standing behind their big halberds that were half lance and half battle-ax.

  I noted for the first time that the embroidered stool on which I had sat was adorned with the white falcon and tree stump of Anne’s badge. I knelt and felt underneath, pricking my hand with one of the pins that held the note in place. I pulled the missive out and squeezed a drop of blood from my finger. Anne was a fine seamstress, so could she not be more careful with pins?

  “Blast it!” I clipped out, doubly angry with myself. Not only had I gotten a blot of blood on the note, but I was beginning to take up the courtiers’ custom of swearing. My mother had hated cursing, and I tried to honor her memory by avoiding it.

  I decided to put the missive, which was sealed with wax, down my bodice, but I noticed that the twice-folded parchment had a single scribbled line on the outside: For the hind of my heart, it read.

  I frowned, staring at that. A hind was a female deer. Surely, I could not have taken the wrong note. I had no intention of making a mistake and annoying the lady or Cromwell. Without breaking the seal, I squeezed the folds of the note so it belled open and I could read the signature. I turned toward the window light and read the last few lines of what appeared to be a poem, a sonnet, which was all the rage for courtiers to write to their ladyloves:

  ... graven with diamonds in letters plain

  There is written, her fair neck round about,

  “ Noli me tangere, for Caesar’s I am,

  And wild for to hold, though I seem tame.”

  It was signed simply but boldly TW.

  Thomas Wyatt? He was leaving her love sonnets in her bedchamber? Was he mad? And now I knew a dangerous secret.

  I reread the lines I could see. Noli me tangere meant “Do not touch me” in Latin, and it was obvious that Caesar was the king. Were Wyatt and Anne playing an even more dangerous game than his flaunting her old locket and winning at bowls? Could he have been sneaking up those secret stairways from outside she had mentioned?

  Panicked now, I got on my knees, put one ear clear into the rush mat and saw another letter pinned on the far side, one more neatly placed. I put Wyatt’s back and took the other. I was shaking to think of the power I held now—knowledge that could harm Anne, however much in thrall she seemed to hold the king, knowledge that could change a poet’s life and maybe mine. It was something I should tell Cromwell, but would I? Maybe if he knew this, he could warn her to be more careful, but then she could deduce I had found the poem. Or I could just take it and destroy it. No, no, I would do only what the king’s lady had ordered me to do and be the first to tell Cromwell about what happened on the bowling green. That would be enough to tip him off that Wyatt was playing a dangerous game.

  A dangerous game, that’s what I knew I was playing with Tom Seymour that night too. I had done what Cromwell said, sent a note to Master Stephen and then met Cromwell on the back stairs when he came down. He had taken Anne’s note and listened avidly to my rendition of the royal explosion on the bowling green. He’d said, “The Tudors keep those they do not trust either in prison for interrogation or at their elbow for observation. You have done well, Kat, or is it Mistress Katherine Champernowne here?”

  “I have asked Mary Percy and Dorothy Cobham to call me Kat, but the others do not.”

  “Back to your new life,” he’d said and turned away, reading the lady’s note as he climbed the stairs. But now, even as gaming went on in the king’s apartments after dancing, I had slipped away to meet Tom Seymour at the maze. I wasn’t going into it with him, I’d vowed to myself. From the second-story windows, the huge hornbeam maze could be seen in the distance, tall, thick and daunting.

  Tom emerged instantly from the dark mouth of the maze when I ventured toward it. He pulled me inside, directly into his arms for a long kiss, one in which he slanted his head, then moved it so his lips caressed mine, coaxing them open so his tongue could plunder my mouth. I had never been kissed like that and I liked it immensely. His hands were busy on my waist and hips, but that felt reassuring as well as arousing. His cheek pressed to mine, he whispered, “Kat, Kat, I have dreamed of this, such a sweet kiss.”

  Perhaps Wyatt wasn’t the only poet on the premises, I thought. When the next kiss finally ended and we were both breathing raggedly, I tugged back a bit to restore my control. “But you are so young,” I blurted foolishly.

  “Which means I have no experience at this?” he countered with a low laugh that sent my stomach into even faster cartwheels. “Have you not heard of country ma
tters, sweet, coupling in the hay and such? Wolf Hall in Wiltshire, I warrant, is as fine a place for such schooling as is your Devon.”

  “You’re teasing me.”

  “No, you’re teasing me—your face, so calm which hides such unleashed passion, your beautiful body. Kat, more kisses . . .”

  While he kissed me again, however tightly I was laced in back, he managed to tug my low, square bodice off my shoulders and down to bare my breasts. While I gasped and fought to calm my trembling knees, he used his wicked fingers, then his tongue to awaken them and me. I became aware of myself in a whole new way. The world spun; the hedge seemed to swallow us. He actually had me on the ground under him and was ruffling up my petticoats when we heard voices close by.

  We froze. Sanity smacked me. I was not such a green girl I did not know where my tumble with Tom could take me—to the heights of joy but also to the depths of shame, censure and banishment from all I’d worked so hard for, especially if I caught a child from him. And I knew whose voices those were just one width of hedge away. Jane Rochford was arguing with her husband, George, Anne’s brother.

  “I followed you!” she said, hardly keeping her voice down. I pulled away from Tom and sat up, tugging my bodice back in place.

  “If I favor a solitary walk in the moonlight, I don’t need you about!” he countered.

  “Meeting someone for a tryst?” she hissed. My face flamed. As much as I was attracted to Tom, I could not let my passions rule me.