The Queen's Lady

by Barbara Kyle

  …those of us who live must bear witness for those who have suffered and died. Goodness must prevail…

  A little before midnight Honor left the house with the musicians. She was muffled under the hood of a pilgrim’s homespun cloak beneath which her skirts were hoisted above riding boots. The Marchioness’s servant, Owen, walked beside her. The yawning entertainers crossed the torchlit courtyard, strolled out through the main gate onto darkened Cheapside and, holding lanterns to light their various ways home, bid one another soft good nights. Tucked in among a trio of them, Honor lowered her head as they passed the pair of Wolsey’s men lounging at dice under the sign of the Plowman’s Rest. She knew the men had followed her the day before from Richmond and Chelsea, but as she strolled by them with the musicians they only glanced up before turning back to their dice.

  Her “escape” had proved absurdly simple.

  In the lee of London Bridge she sent Owen on ahead to the Golden Dog. Alone, with only a guttering lantern to light the dark, she stood for a moment, listening. Faint bursts of laughter echoed across the river from the brothels of Southwark. Reflections of torches on the bridge, the city’s only viaduct, flashed off the black water under the twenty arched supports. The water around the arches formed a swirling rapids on the upstream side, a placid mirror on the downstream side.

  Honor looked up. Lights in the houses and shops stacked across the bridge—some four stories high—winked in the darkness. Above the portcullis, two grizzled traitors’ heads impaled on pikes grinned at the night-silvered clouds. Honor hurried away into the packed-earth lanes of the waterfront.

  The sign of the Trident Inn whined on its hinges over the door as she entered. The landlord led her past the few morose customers in the tavern. He opened the door to a small back room and motioned her to enter. It was furnished with only a battered trestle table and some dusty barrels. The landlord bit the coin Honor offered, slipped it into his pocket, and shuffled out, closing the door behind him. Honor set her lantern on the table and moved to the unglazed window. She was staring out at the river, thinking, when the door creaked open again. She whirled around.

  “A gentleman,” the landlord announced.

  Thomas Cromwell stepped into the room.

  Uninquisitiveness was apparently the landlord’s policy, and he waited only long enough to receive another coin from the visitor before closing the door a last time and leaving the couple alone.

  Cromwell remained near the door. “A chilly night to be abroad, Mistress Larke,” he said warily.

  She hurried forward, throwing off her hood. “I believe the business I have to propose will be worth the inconvenience to you, sir.”

  “So your note promised.” He stood still, gravely watching her. The table lay between them, and its smoking lantern.

  Honor’s mouth was dry. How to begin? Her pounding heart drowned out all rational thought. She twisted around and saw the black void of the river and felt suddenly trapped. From the tavern an old woman’s mournful singing crept under the closed door, her voice sodden with drink and regret. Strangely, somewhere in the lost hope of the woman’s song Honor found her courage. She turned back. Yet, still, how to begin?

  By beginning.

  “Master Cromwell, all the world knows how well and truly you serve Cardinal Wolsey.”

  His head jerked in a small bow, his smile pleasant and polite.

  “But,” she asked boldly, “what if I could pave the way for you to directly serve the King?”

  The veil of his easy smile was torn away, and in his eyes she saw a flash of the hunger of ambition. She knew she had struck cleanly. Instantly, his veil of complacency dropped in place again. He took a step closer and was about to speak when she threw up her hands to stop him.

  “Please, sir, no courtier’s babble tonight. I am about an undertaking too large for such trifling currency. Rest easy; I know too little of you, and you of me, for either to bear the other any malice. Therefore, as neutral strangers, let us trust one another. I have asked you here to speak of goals that concern us, you and I. Though these goals lie in different territories, I believe the roads that lead to them cross on common ground. Trusting this, let us speak only the truth. You desire to serve the King.” These last words were put as a statement of fact.

  “There is,” he said cautiously, “much honor in serving the King.”

  “And riches,” she added.

  His eyes were on her, unashamed, waiting. Finally, she caught what fed the hunger there. Like a small key turning in her head, understanding clicked. “There is also,” she said, “power.”

  Cromwell’s face darkened. “I am not fond of games, Mistress Larke. Why have you brought me here?”

  She stepped up to the table and spread her fingertips on its top. “As the Cardinal’s legal council you are no doubt aware of the brief written by the former Pope and recently discovered by the Queen.”

  “Naturally.”

  “With it, as you know, the Queen has evidence to shatter the King’s case. He claims that defects in the dispensation make his marriage invalid, but the brief rectifies the defects, making the marriage legal.”

  “Indeed,” he said impatiently. “Please, get to the point.”

  “The Cardinal is questioning the brief’s authenticity, for the Queen has only a copy.”

  “I know that.”

  “I am on my way to Spain to ask the Emperor to release the brief to me, in the name of the Queen. The original. There can be no question then of its genuineness.”

  Now, Cromwell’s eyes gleamed with interest. “Why do you tell me this?”

  “I propose to hand over the document to you.”

  His mouth fell open. For a moment he only stared. “Hand it over to the Cardinal?”

  “No. To you.”

  “What are you saying?”

  “I am saying that I want you, secretly, to present the document to the King.”

  “Why would you want to do that?”

  “I have reasons.”

  “But if the King has the brief he will, in all probability, suppress it. Holding it, he can pretend it does not exist.”

  “I am counting on that,” she declared.

  “I see,” he said slowly, clearly perplexed.

  “Do you?”

  He stepped up to the table and his eyes narrowed as he studied her face above the lantern light. “Frankly, Mistress Larke, you astonish me. Why should you make me such an offer?”

  “Let me answer by asking you a question. If the Lady Anne were to become Queen, she would welcome in the new religion, would she not?”

  Cromwell’s eyes grew wide. “Apparently, you are keen to see the advent of this so-called new religion.”

  “To see the rot in the old religion gouged out! The Church is a plague, with its power to hunt down and destroy men who seek only after truth. The realm must be cleansed of bloated priests and priest-ridden royal officials who persecute honest folk unto death.” She looked away, conscious that she had revealed too much of her heart.

  “I see,” Cromwell said again, this time with a small smile. “The rhetoric is a trifle strained, but the sincerity most eloquent. Especially to these old ears. Fury is an emotion that only the young can muster, betrayed by the unjustness of an imperfect world. The old resign themselves; the young must rage.”

  She was disconcerted by the way he was studying her, as if she were a cipher. Sharply, she asked him, “Well, Master Cromwell, do you accept my offer?”

  The perplexed look on his face creased into something close to derision. Derision tinged his voice as well. “And how do you propose that this extraordinary transaction be made? When you return, will you dine with me at Stepney while the court spies in my household watch us from a peephole in the gallery?”

  “I have a plan.”

  “And what might that be?”

  “I will collect the brief from the Emperor Charles at Valladolid, just as the Queen expects. I will set out to return to England with it.
But the King’s agents abroad are vigilant, I understand. How if I am attacked by one of them on the road? How if I should lose the document to him? After all, sir, I am a lone, weak woman, traveling with a single servant. Such a disaster could befall me.”

  When Cromwell spoke again there was no longer any trace of mockery. “Very tidy,” he admitted.

  “Now, will you accept my offer?”

  He wove his fingers together over his ample stomach, contemplating her. “Mistress, farmers with cattle to sell cry down the Church for its plethora of fast days when we must eat fish. Fishmongers cry down the Church for its tithe on eels. And for all I know, eels may cry down the Church for blessing ships that sail upon the water. Now, you may have good cause to cry down the Church as well, but I mind that among the priest-ridden royal officials you just spat against is your own guardian, Sir Thomas More. A good and pious man, and known to all as a defender of the faith.”

  “A brutal man! Known to all as a defender of the Church’s abuses!”

  Cromwell seemed lost for words. Finally, he said, “Mistress, for the second time tonight you have surprised me.” He ran a hand over his thinning hair, and chuckled, “And that is two times more than most people can surprise me.” Again, he clasped his hands in front. “And so,” he said thoughtfully, “you look for the day when the Church will be reformed. It is a goal that many good people share.”

  “Do you?”

  He gave her his small, enigmatic smile, but no answer.

  “Well, it matters not,” she said. “If the Lady Anne becomes Queen, the goal will be realized. Now, will you accept my offer? I confess,” she said with some warmth, “I had expected more thanks.”

  “Did you, indeed?”

  “Your future will be made,” she cried. “The King leans on men who deliver.”

  “Why do you not make this offer directly to my lord Cardinal?” he asked. “Or why not simply hand over the document to the King yourself? Why use me?”

  “I do not wish to expose myself. But even without this consideration, I would never deal with the Cardinal. He represents all that people loath in the Church. His palaces and splendor, his bastard son elevated to high church office, his multiple benefices and bishoprics. Wolsey personifies the old Church. But you, sir, are a coming man. All the court speaks well of your temperance and your abilities. I have seen for myself your openness to change. And the Lady Anne trusts you. The way lies before you,” she said, and added softly but sternly, like a warning, “to make or to mar.”

  Neither had moved. Across the table, they gauged one another.

  “There is still a point that confounds me, mistress. Until this meeting you were a person known to me chiefly for your reputation as the Queen’s most loved and loyal woman. And this papal document may be her last chance to salvage her marriage and her estate as Queen. Her last hope.”

  “There is no hope at all for hundreds of people who daily risk the wrath of the Church,” Honor flared. “Under the Queen the wicked Church thrives. Under the Lady Anne I pray it may wither.”

  “Yet I know you love Her Grace. Are you really prepared to dash her happiness against your higher cause?”

  He might as well have slapped her. She knew he had not meant it as a rebuke but she felt it as one. Stiffly, she rubbed the edge of the battered table in an effort to regain control. “Her Grace will be well treated,” she said. “Whether she enters a convent, which would suit her temperament, or decides to live alone, she will be well treated. The King cannot abuse her. He would not dare insult the Emperor so. This way she will be reunited with the daughter she loves. And as for the King, she has lost him already. She deceives herself that it is not so, but he will never live with her again. That much is clear to all but her.”

  She gasped. She had rubbed the wood too hard and a splinter had rammed under her nail. Aware that Cromwell was studying her again, she ignored the pain. “Self-deception is our enemy,” she declared. “I know. I once deceived myself about…someone.” She heard the feebleness in her voice and was angered by it. “No,” she said harshly, “the Queen should accept reality. As you once so wisely suggested we all do, sir. She should accept the world as it really is. She should go quietly, as common sense bids.”

  “Yet you do not,” was his cool reply.

  “I do not what?”

  “Accept the world as it is.”

  She met his gaze, feeling calm for the first time since she had left Chelsea the day before. She answered simply, “I cannot.”

  Part Three

  Hope

  April 1529–April 1534

  15

  Spain

  At an inn halfway between Santiago de Compostela and the Spanish coast Honor sat cross-legged on her bed with a book. She was bone weary, but repugnance at the mould on the wall inches from her back and the grime on the straw mattress kept her vigilantly upright. Ribald singing boomed up from the tavern downstairs. Her head ached from it. She rubbed her temple as her eyes wandered for the third time over the same passage in the book. She glanced at the rancid candle of tallow beside the bed. It had guttered down to a thin disk. In moments it would go out. She was too angry to concentrate on reading in any case. Cromwell’s agent had failed to make the rendezvous. Whoever he was, he was supposed to have met her here by noon.

  Her hand traveled up between her breasts. She felt through her chemise for the leather tube suspended from a thong around her neck. The precious paper, the papal brief, was rolled inside. She had hoped to have been free of its weight—and responsibility—long before this hour. She swatted a cockroach off the mattress. Curse this man of Cromwell’s. What had gone wrong?

  There was a drunken whoop of laughter from below, then a renewed roar of singing. Honor slammed her book shut. Even if she could forget her worries, sleep would be impossible in the din. And yet she longed for sleep. There had been precious little of it in the past few days.

  The twenty-four hours she had spent at the Emperor’s court in Valladolid—the fountains, the music, the perfumed feather beds—wavered behind her now like a mirage, a fantasy that had never really happened. On the return ride she had driven herself and Owen at a punishing pace. They had galloped into Santiago de Compostela and stopped there only long enough for Owen to offer up a prayer at the famous shrine of Saint James and spend his penny on one of its cockleshell souvenirs for his wife before they raced on to make the rendezvous in time. All for nothing.

  The revelry below had been going on for hours. It had begun when a band of mounted mercenaries had thundered into the courtyard after supper, sending the handful of guests scurrying upstairs, Honor among them. She had heard all the hair-raising stories about mercenaries. They traveled in small companies, taking orders only from their own commander who hired the band to any prince or duke, bishop or banking house in Europe who could pay. On the field, they attacked in organized lethal formation with short swords and long pikes, and fought, as the Italians said, “mala guerra”—warfare without mercy. Between military engagements many companies split up into robber hoards to ravage the peasantry. Owen had knocked at Honor’s door and whispered a warning to stay put and bolt herself in. “I’m about to do the same myself,” he had said. “Anyone in his senses will keep clear of that lot. Just don’t let them see you, my lady.”

  The candle sputtered and died. She sat for some time in the dark, furious, her head splitting. The vile room seemed like a prison. Even if she could not concentrate on reading, she wanted light. She had noticed extra candles in a cupboard along the landing that overlooked the tavern. Could I risk slipping out to fetch one? she wondered. Why not? The brutes were so drunk they probably wouldn’t notice an earthquake. Cautiously, she slid the bolt on her door and crept down the dark corridor, then out to the landing. She crouched behind the railing and peered down through the posts.

  The men—she counted twelve—looked like a flock of exotic birds that had flown through a fusillade of gunshot: gaudy, ragged, and filthy. They wore brightly color
ed, baggy tunics and knee breeches slashed ostentatiously to appear cut to shreds in battle. The costume mimicked the infamous German mercenaries feared throughout Europe, the Landsknechts. Huge, tattered plumes swayed in their hats. Greasy but still vivid banners were bound diagonally across their chests, and strips of silk dangled at their knees as garters. Some wore short cloaks in brilliant colors. Most wore their hair shoulder length and wild.

  Six of them sat bawling their song and guzzling ale around a table littered with scraps. One lay on his back on a soggy separate table droning his own melody, a profane version of a Lutheran hymn. The rest sat on the floor in corners, snoring, except for one who stood at the fireplace and spouted urine in spurts over the blazing logs.

  Honor shook her head in disgust. It was true, she thought, that they were probably too drunk to be dangerous, but to get to the candle-cupboard she would have to move along the landing—it was farther away than she had remembered—and movement might draw their attention. It was not worth the risk. She stood to go back to her room, smarting at the self-imposed confinement decent folk always suffered in the presence of such louts. But as she straightened she noticed that a man sitting on the floor against the far corner was looking up in her direction. Instinctively, her hand went up to cover the hidden tube between her breasts. She took a quick step back into the shadows and stood perfectly still.

  The man had slung back his blue cloak across his shoulder, and it covered his mouth so that between the cloak and his drooping hat not much of his face was visible. But Honor thought she read there a scowl of curiosity. He rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands as if to clear a liquor-induced vision, then stared up again through the smoky air at the gloom of the landing. Honor held her breath. A dog came snuffling near the man’s boot, and he looked down at it to deliver a half-hearted kick. The dog scuttled away, and when the man glanced up again at the landing it was with waning interest. Finally, he folded his arms and settled back against the wall to sleep. His head slumped onto his chest. Honor relaxed. She hurried back to her room, quietly closed the door, and bolted it. She sat again on the bed. She watched the fire-lit crack under the door until exhaustion claimed her and she slipped into a fitful sleep.