The Queen's Lady

by Barbara Kyle

  “But I am no longer at court,” Honor reminded her.

  “No, and thank goodness for that,” Cecily said with a vehemence that almost balanced the erratic logic. “But beef suppers or no, I hear it’s not merry in the Queen’s service, either, what with the King ordering even more of her ladies away. Not many of you left, are there?”

  Honor shook her head sadly as she scratched the dog’s ears. “Only a handful. Most of those who weren’t sent packing by the King have deserted. Even Margery Napier finally gave in to the pleas of her family and left. Married Lord Sandys’s son.”

  “That simpleton?” Cecily grimaced. “Ah, well,” she sighed, “we all do what we must. But you, Honor, you’re like a rock. Running and fetching for Her Grace. Straining your eyes to read to her day and night. Never stirring from her side.”

  Honor was about to dispute this hyperbolic picture of devotion.

  “Yes,” Cecily insisted, “I think your loyalty’s quite wonderful. And I hope Her Grace appreciates it. Your sacrifice, I mean. You could have married two or three Earls’ sons by now.”

  “I believe the Church still frowns on bigamy,” Honor said with a smile.

  Cecily laughed. “Oh, you know what I mean. It’s been well over a year since the Blackfriars trial and you’ve stuck by the Queen through thick and thin—mostly thin—when you could have been well settled long before this. So, all I’m saying is, I hope she’s grateful.”

  Honor asked herself, not for the first time, why did she work so hard to make the Queen comfortable? A penance for her betrayal?

  Cecily came close and stroked Honor’s cheek. “Don’t think me a busybody, dear, but I worry about you. I believe this last twelve-month has been more of an ordeal for you than you let on. There’s a sadness in your face I never used to see. And I cannot help thinking that marriage and motherhood are what’s missing from your life. Goodness, most women of twenty have a husband snoring beside them and children scampering underfoot. But you spend your days in solitude with a grieving queen. It’s not natural. It’s not healthy.”

  Honor stood. She clasped her friend’s hand and squeezed it affectionately. “Dear Cecily,” she smiled. “Don’t fret for my sake. I’m alright.”

  “Well, you must marry eventually,” Cecily said matter-of-factly. “Woman’s destiny, you know. You can’t wait on the Queen forever.” She started toward the kitchen door. “I’ll just get that Angel’s Cup for your cough.” She disappeared into the kitchen.

  Honor sighed. The dog rolled on its back, shamelessly begging more attention. Honor crouched again and stroked its warm belly. Its tongue lolled in voluptuous bliss. Was Cecily right? Honor wondered. Was marriage all she was good for? Was she useless, except as a channel through which her father’s property could pass to a husband? Goodness knew she’d been useless enough up to now. The only thing her adventure in Spain had accomplished was to bring Cromwell what he wanted, the King’s confidence. Cromwell said to have patience, but—curse his patronizing—she didn’t understand what he was up to, and there was still no change in sight. She’d betrayed the Queen, and look at the results: Cromwell had advanced, Sir Thomas had risen to the chancellorship, and her grand scheme for a new order had crumbled to dust. What a botch she’d made. As the boys at the hearth burst into private laughter over their game, she looked over at them and could not help envying them their uncomplicated lives.

  The door slammed again. Honor straightened and the spaniel bounded to its feet to keep near her, yapping and jumping up to paw her skirt. The boys called out to restrain it. Over the noise Honor hopped backwards, laughing, to get clear of the dog, and bumped into the arms of Sir Thomas.

  “Steady, child,” he said with a smile. “I’m mud from head to foot.” From behind, he gently grasped her shoulders to hold her away from him.

  She broke his grip and whirled around.

  Three men walked in after More. All were soaked and their boots were caked with mud. Cuthbert Tunstall, Bishop of London, was wrapped in a drenched cloak. He headed straight for the fire, shaking water from his wide-brimmed hat. More’s bailiff, Holt, came next with a chain in his hand. The third man was attached to the chain. He shuffled in, his wrists and ankles manacled. He and Holt stopped beside More.

  Honor stared at the prisoner. She did not know him. He was a tall, reedy man, almost bald. His lips were purple from the cold. He wore no hat, no cloak, only thin wool breeches, a shirt plastered to his shivering skin, and a dripping leather jerkin. The sight of the jerkin unleashed a memory of Ralph that cut her heart.

  “It’s good to see you, child,” More said peeling off his hat, “but where is everyone?” He nodded at the Bishop. “Our guest needs warm wine and dry clothing. Where’s Lady Alice?”

  Honor felt her throat tighten. She could not speak. In the silence, the Bishop glanced around at her from the fire. The spaniel sniffed the prisoner’s legs.

  Cecily burst out of the kitchen wiping her hands on a towel. “Father! My lord Bishop!” She bobbed a surprised curtsy. “Why, you’re soaked to the skin! Oh, I’m so sorry no one was here to greet you. Lady Alice is stocking wine in the cellar with the vintner, and John and Anne are visiting Meg, and Elizabeth…oh dear, we simply didn’t expect you.”

  “I dare say,” More laughed, wriggling out of his cloak. “I didn’t expect to make it here. You’ve never seen the roads from Hampton so thick with muck. Bishop Tunstall’s horse dug in under shelter of a tree and for ten minutes refused to budge.”

  “French nag,” Tunstall grumbled. “A gift from the Bishop of Orleans. I should have known.”

  “Well,” More laughed, “Cecily will make you comfortable with a thick slice of English beef, eh?” He nodded to his bailiff. “Lock the prisoner away, Holt. Then get yourself dry and warm.”

  Holt shoved the prisoner toward the far end of the passage. His chains clanked on the flagstones. The boys, on their knees at the hearth, craned their necks, enthralled by the misery of the departing felon.

  More frowned at the low fire. “Cuthbert, this won’t do. Get you away to the hearth in the kitchen. And, Cecily, find our guest some dry clothes.” He handed her his own wet things and took the towel from her hands. “And send in Matthew to stoke this poor excuse of a blaze.”

  “Yes, Father. He’s just gone to fetch wood.” Cecily gestured for the Bishop to follow her. “Do be careful, my lord, don’t slip on that wet patch.” They passed into the kitchen.

  “I’ll help…” Honor blurted, hurrying to follow.

  “Stay, child,” More said to stop her. “A word with you, first.”

  He stepped up to the hearth and smiled as his grandsons stood and bowed to him, then waved them on to return to their game. He faced the fire and rubbed the towel through his hair. “How goes it with Her Grace?” he asked over his shoulder.

  “As well as can be expected,” Honor said.

  “And with you?” he asked, turning.

  She was silent.

  “How are you, child?” His voice was gentle, and warm with concern. “We never see you anymore.”

  “You are mightily busy in your new office, sir.”

  She could not hide the rancor in her voice, but he seemed not to notice it and only nodded wearily, agreeing. He shoved the towel onto the mantel and stared into the fire and slowly rubbed his hands together. She watched his back. The dark hair that hung just over his ears was still glossily wet, camouflaging the streaks of silver she knew to be there, and giving a false sheen of youth.

  “This prisoner,” she ventured carefully, keeping her voice disinterested. “What is his crime?”

  “Selling illegal tracts. He’s from Coventry. Came to visit his sister in Hampton and tried to peddle his stuff to the villagers.” His sigh was heavy with fatigue. “Another cursed bookseller.”

  Honor had to force her eyes down lest he turn and catch on her face the contempt she could not mask, contempt for his rule by intimidation. Immediately upon taking office as Lord Chancellor he had de
clared publicly that the extermination of heresy would be his prime policy, and had issued two proclamations that clamped in place severe press censorship. The first commanded all civic authorities to identify persons possessing proscribed books, and they were to present the suspects not to a Bishop, as before, but to the Royal Council at Westminster. That was an innovation. Further, no scriptural books were to be printed in England unless examined by a Bishop, and all books approved were to include the name of the printer.

  His second proclamation was a law and order measure for ‘resisting and withstanding heresy.’ It denounced Lutheranism as sedition, commanded all officers—from peers to village constables—to be vigilant against heterodox sermons, and outlawed all unlicensed preaching.

  Finally, he personally compiled an index of prohibited books and empowered himself to enforce it in Star Chamber by virtue of the Council’s inherent, but seldom used, powers to punish breaches of proclamations. The proclamations had been followed by a bonfire of books at Paul’s Cross.

  Honor hated to think of this corruption of Star Chamber, the special court Wolsey had set up to bring quick justice to petitioners—the very court in which Sir Thomas had so eloquently defended her from Tyrell and Bastwick. Now, booksellers and pamphleteers were paraded under its star-gilded ceiling before the new Lord Chancellor who ordered them to do public penance, then threw them into the Fleet prison.

  More turned around from the fire. “What is your interest in this bookseller?” A slight smile curved his lips. “Not another former servant lost to the Devil, I hope.” Clearly, she saw, he meant the jibe to be droll. It could not have stung her more.

  “I am interested in all men who suffer, as Christ bade us,” she answered, head high.

  More nodded, smiling. “You rebuke me, child. Indeed, I deserve rebuke if I act out of any motive other than Christian concern. But truly, these wretches are not worth your pity. They have cast themselves out of the community of Christian men. Their hearts are stone. They are lost. Unless we can prod them to recant. As, in the fire, some do.”

  “And then they are saved?”

  “But of course,” he said gently, as if reassuring a child that all was well. “Their souls may then go to God.” He stepped up to her and lowered his voice. “I’ll share some news with you, although it is not official yet. I have just received the results of a special inquiry into the death of one Friar Heywood, burned at Smithfield some time ago. People were whispering that Heywood did not recant at the end, but I now have proof that he did. You see? Documented proof of the good effects of punishment by fire. Besides protecting ignorant folk who might have been infected by his poison, the fire brought Heywood himself to die in the bosom of the Church. His soul was saved.”

  Honor stared. It was not so! Heywood was the young friar who had burned beside Ralph. But he had made no such abjuration at the stake. She remembered clearly. He had said only, “I trust I am not separate from the Church; I know that I am closer to God.” That was all. She was sure of it. How could she forget one word, one gesture, of that horrible day? The awful realization flooded that, to prove a point, Sir Thomas was using the law to subvert the truth. Sir Thomas More was lying.

  “A special inquiry?” she asked steadily. “Isn’t that…irregular?”

  His enthusiasm evaporated. “Well…yes. No bill of complaint or information was filed in proper form. I am sorry for that.” He pulled his soggy collar away from his neck, obviously uneasy at her question. “I must change these wet clothes,” he muttered. “But you see, the necessity of the situation forced me to act ex officio, using my authority…contrary to Star Chamber’s due process…”

  She looked away, disgusted.

  He shook his head with a sigh. “It is dreadful, this epidemic of heresy. The Bishop and I can barely keep up with it. And there are so many tragic”—he seemed to be searching for the right words, aware of the pitfalls the wrong ones might create—“so many unforeseen consequences of its poison. Look at you and me. We have become strangers. Ever since…that day you asked about your former servant. Pym, wasn’t that his name?”

  Again she had to look down, unwilling to trust her tongue if their eyes should meet. But she felt him watching her.

  “Child, I have missed your company.”

  She heard his heart reaching out to her in his voice, so tender, so full of good will. She had to fight to maintain a shield against its seduction as she looked up at him.

  “You’ve grown thin,” he said suddenly. Then, at her continuing silence, he added with a wink, “Does the Queen not feed you?”

  Still she did not speak.

  “I understand,” he said. “I know your lot with your royal mistress is a hard one. You endure it with dignity.”

  Honor could bear his scrutiny, his presence, no longer. “Sir, if there is nothing else, I must be gone.”

  “So soon? I hoped we might talk…once I’ve changed…”

  “Her Grace expects me.”

  “Even in this weather?”

  She made no answer.

  “Well, of course,” he stammered, “if you must go…”

  She curtsied with stiff politeness and hurried out of the hall.

  She had just turned into the screened passage leading to the front door and was about to leave when Holt slipped in at the opposite end, wet from having locked up the bookseller. “All safe, your Lordship,” he called into the hall.

  More answered from around the corner, “Good.”

  Holt threw Honor a leering smile that made her shiver. He jangled his ring of keys. “Safe and sound and tucked up like a sleeping babe, eh, Mistress Honor?” He touched his sodden hat to her, then ambled into the hall to join More.

  Honor lifted the front door latch to go. She heard More say to Holt, “I’ll try for information this evening.”

  She stayed her hand.

  “Got it already, your Lordship,” Holt said proudly.

  “Did you?” More sounded eager.

  “I put the question to him in a manner so as to catch his undivided attention, you might say. The answer slipped out of him, smooth as a priest’s prick from a whore’s hole.” He cleared his throat. “Beg pardon, your Lordship. I’m that pleased with the result, I’m forgetting your Lordship’s tender ears.”

  “Forgiven,” More grunted. “If you’ve really found out where we can track down Frish.”

  “That I did, your Lordship. Told me he was on his way to see Frish when we nabbed him. And to a house you’ll be familiar with. Coleman Street again.”

  “The Devil’s hive,” More said. “Alright, get a few of your men together, and go.”

  “It’ll take some time to harness the dogs, Your Worship. And, with the rain…”

  “The rain is letting up, Master Holt. And there’s five shillings for you if you bring Frish back here by nightfall.”

  “Consider it done!”

  The front door slammed. More and Holt looked around from the hearth, startled by the violence of the sound.

  She did not go upriver to Richmond. She went downriver to the city. She hurried north on Old Jewry, then north again up Coleman Street. The rain had stopped by the time she stood on the doorstep of Humphrey Sydenham’s house. She banged a fist on the door and waited under the dripping eaves.

  The courtyard was deserted. In front of the empty stable a cart robbed of three wheels sat lopsided and lame. It had been stripped for parts, and bits of wood and iron lay scattered around the skeleton, abandoned to rot and rust.

  The front door creaked open. Expecting to see the red-haired Edward as before, Honor had to lower her gaze to a girl’s small white face smudged with soot and framed by a tumble of dark curls. The child clung with both hands to the latch above her head. On the stone flags her feet were bare.

  “I’ve come to see the mistress,” Honor said gently.

  The child only stared suspiciously, as if ready to bolt.

  Honor drew from her pocket the package of honey comfits Cecily had given h
er for the Queen. The child’s eyes widened at the gold ribbon, and as she watched Honor unwrap the silk her small mouth opened in wonderment. Honor stretched out her hand, offering the candies. The child’s grimy fingers instantly grabbed one and popped it into her mouth. She beamed up, full of trust now, and tugged Honor’s sleeve. “I’ll show you,” she said.

  Honor followed her to the great hall. The once fine room looked like a soldier’s encampment. Two long tables were upended and shoved like blockades against the far doors. Ten or twelve straw pallets lay in corners. On one, under a nest of dirty blankets, someone lay coughing. Heaps of clothing—more rags than clothes—were ranged along the wall under the high windows. Beside the hearth, jagged lengths of rich oak paneling lay in stacks, apparently to be used for fuel. Honor was shocked by the squalor. A huge kettle was slung over the fire, and there a woman was bent, stirring a ladle through a mess that stank of old cabbage. At her feet two children were giggling over a basket of kittens.

  “Mistress?” Honor said softly.

  The woman at the hearth wheeled, brandishing her ladle like a weapon. Her other hand tugged the closest child roughly to her knee.

  There was no mistaking the tall, strong body and fierce, bony face of Bridget Sydenham. But how changed she was! The lady Honor remembered had been a starched chatelaine, the well-heeled wife of a merchant. This was the poor widow of a heretic. Her dress was rough homespun, and her head covering, once so crisp and white, was dingy and barely controlled the wiry tangle of gray hair.

  “Mistress Larke!” she cried. She moved the child aside and stalked across the filthy floor straw. “I never thought to see you again, not in this world at any rate. You are well met, lady!” Her hands took Honor’s in a firm clasp of friendship. To Honor, her skin felt as dry as parchment.

  “Jane, fetch a seat for our guest. Anthony, take her cloak.” Bridget Sydenham’s commands were instantly obeyed. Honor was led to the fire. A stool was whisked under her and her sopping cloak peeled away by small hands. Bridget Sydenham perched on a stool beside her and gazed into her eyes as if searching for remnants of the past. Honor glanced at Jane, the little girl who had greeted her, as the child struggled to drape the water-heavy cloak over the firedogs.