Her voice could be heard across the vast room, where dozens of officials, messengers, servants and hangers-on gathered in order to be near the king and, if possible, to approach him for favors. There was a brief lull in the din of talk, then it gathered volume once again.
King Henry, who was engaged in a game of chess, the checkered board and carved ivory pieces spread out on a low table in front of him, did not look at his wife but let out a chuckle.
“The pope’s familiar, is she? What do you think of that, Madge?”
His chess partner was Madge Shelton, Anne’s blond, dimpled cousin. She sat across from him, wearing a gown of a delicious strawberry pink color, a color most becoming to her rosy cheeks and full red lips.
“I can’t imagine.” Madge toyed with her queen, rubbing it and nudging it slightly, uncertain where she meant to move it.
“She must be executed! At once!” came Anne’s demand.
“I have never liked a woman with a shrill voice,” King Henry remarked, to no one in particular. “It upsets me. It makes my leg hurt.”
Madge held out her goblet.
“Here, Your Majesty. Have some more of this posset. It will do your sore leg good.”
The king took the goblet and drained it, then handed it back to his chess partner, allowing his hand to rest lingeringly against hers.
“Where is the prince?” Henry asked my brother Ned, who was among those standing closest to him, watching the progress of the game.
“Playing at quoits with his companions, sire. Shall I bring him to you?”
The king nodded, then looked across at Madge. “Your posset is giving me ease,” he said in honeyed tones.
“I’m glad, sire.” Her bright smile was tinged with invitation.
Anne stamped her foot, but only those of us in attendance on her paid any attention.
Before long Henry Fitzroy came in, escorted by three other boys. The scrawny, weakling boy prince had grown into a delicate, leggy, undersized young man, though he appeared to be no more than a boy. He was dressed, as always, in imitation of his royal father, in a rich robe of ermine-trimmed velvet and a jeweled hat with a feather. The fullness of the robe could not entirely disguise the fact that his arms and legs were as thin as twigs, but his long face had lost its sickly pallor and in imitating his father he had taken on something of King Henry’s domineering, arrogant manner. It was evident to us all that he thought himself to be very important indeed.
Among the three boys accompanying the prince was my nephew Henry.
Ever since the tragic year when the sweating sickness had carried off Henry’s younger brother John, Will had taken it upon himself to oversee Henry’s upbringing, and had recently brought him into the prince’s household, where he soon became Henry Fitzroy’s favorite companion.
Raised by one of the king’s former guardsmen, Henry had taken his foster parents’ name, and was called Henry Glyndell. He remembered little of his early childhood; he had rarely seen his busy father and his mother had thought it best to let him believe that she had died.
Ned showed not the slightest sign of recognizing Henry as he entered the throne room. Having disowned both his small sons years earlier, when he disowned his wife Cat and had her locked away in the convent of St. Agnes’s, he had never spoken of the boys since—at least not to me. It was as if he had forgotten about them entirely. And he had no idea that only one of them was still living.
“Ah, my prince,” the king cried when he saw Fitzroy, smiling broadly and beckoning him to come closer.
“He looks well, does he not?” the king said to Madge. “Fit to govern this realm, when the time comes.”
“My child is heir to the throne of England!” Anne fairly shouted, but at a wave of Henry’s hand, she was escorted hurriedly from the throne room, her protests drowned out by a chorus of rude boys chanting “Nan, Nan, the devil’s dam” amid a ripple of laughter.
The fickle court had lost no time in shifting its fragile loyalties from the never popular Queen Anne to Henry’s newest favorite. I knew the whims of the courtiers, I had seen them in operation often enough. Whoever was in the king’s favor gained widespread approval, whoever was out of royal favor was shunned, lest their disfavor rub off on others.
“And how is your newest daughter,” Madge ventured to ask.
The king dismissed the question with a gesture.
“A scrawny little thing,” he said. “Barely hanging on to life. The mother was not strong enough to produce a son.”
“Ah.” Madge’s beautifully shaped eyebrows were raised. “And does that mean, Your Majesty, that she may not have an opportunity to produce another child?”
The talk in the room subsided. The question hung in the air.
“Why speak of such things,” Henry said at length, “when there are pleasures to be had here and now?” And as he spoke he moved his rook.
“Checkmate,” he said, smiling and glancing at Fitzroy, who applauded his father’s finesse, the entire room joining with him in a thunderous chorus of praise.
* * *
My father’s health was failing.
He had fallen down the new staircase at Wulf Hall and was so injured he could not get out of bed. No amount of opium could ease his pain, nor help him to breathe. Ned and I traveled together into Wiltshire to see him, having been cautioned by his physicians that we would need to be respectful and subdued. The least upset, they said, could be so alarming to him that he might stop breathing altogether.
Despite this warning I could not help but cry out when I glimpsed him, his shrunken form heaped with woolen blankets, a stubble of white beard on his sunken cheeks, his eyes red and his mouth drooling. He had become an old man, a helpless old man.
“Father,” I managed to say, suddenly feeling like a child once again and kneeling at his bedside. “Father, I most humbly ask your blessing.” They were the words we had been taught to say when we were children.
I felt him put his hand on my head, then sensed that Ned had knelt beside me to receive his blessing in his turn. I heard a muffled sound and, looking up, saw that the wrinkled face on the pillow was laughing.
“Where are your haughty court manners now, eh?” he muttered. “Where are your grand ways and all your pride?”
Tears washed down my cheeks. All the anger and resentment I had nursed for so many years fell away. The tall, loud, arrogant father who had seduced Will’s sister and ruined my hopes for a happy life was more than worthy of my harsh condemnation. But this man, this aging, frail man with the sardonic grin, brought forth only my pity. Though in truth he was far from pitiful; he was full of mockery, making light of my pain.
“Sad little Jane,” he was saying, “don’t you wish you had been nicer to me? And you, Ned, aren’t you sorry you didn’t come to see me before this? Have you no sympathy for me, now that I am in my dotage?”
We squirmed under his merciless dark teasing, and he enjoyed watching us squirm—until a spasm of pain struck him, making him grimace.
He began to wave one arm frantically.
“Out! Out!” he cried. “Get out, before I throw a fit!” His voice cracked. He managed to go on. “Don’t worry, I’ve left you money! You’ll find out soon enough how much!” And as he burst into choked laughter, Ned took my arm and we left the room together, to the sound of our father’s coughing and sputtering and—I could swear—his cackling laughter.
* * *
“Jeanne, ma douce Jeanne!” Galyon embraced me with an eagerness that surprised me, an eagerness that had an edge of urgency. I had not been away in Wiltshire long. What could have happened to give his affection such added passion? A terrible thought came to me. Could it be that for some reason he had been summoned back to France? Had the work on the queen’s apartments come to an unexpected end?
He had sent me a note to meet him in a dim loft, and there, in the darkness with only the horses in their stalls for company, he told me a story so bizarre that even now, recalling it, I shake my head i
n disbelief.
“Jeanne, my sweetest, my most precious Jeanne. I do not know what to do. You must help me. You must save me.”
I put my arms around him. He was trembling.
“My dearest Galyon, I will do anything for you. You know that.”
We sat together beside a steaming brazier, one blanket warming us both, and he went on.
“Jeanne, she came to me, alone, the queen with six fingers, and she showed me a purse of gold coins. More gold coins than I have ever seen in my life. I don’t know how many.
“‘I must have another child,’ she said. ‘The king—he is of no worth. He cannot do what a man must in order to have a child. A strong child. A boy. You must help me or the king will lock me up, cast me out.’
“I knew what she meant. I was frightened, Jeanne. So very frightened. I said, ‘Madame, I cannot do this. I cannot.’ I was trembling, I was so frightened. I would not take the purse of coins. But I could not call out, there was no one I could turn to. I dared not try to tell the king. He would have sent his men to seize me as a liar and a traitor. So I ran from her, and hid here in this loft until I knew you had returned. Until I could turn to you.”
He was panting, it was difficult for him to speak. But I had no doubt that every word he said was true. His eyes were the clear, sincere eyes of a boy. Besides, what he was saying made sense. Anne faced a dilemma—King Henry had all but told me that he was not puissant in bed, as the common phrase went—that he was no longer confident that he had the potency to impregnate Anne. Anne faced dishonor, ruin, exile—or worse—if she remained queen but could not give the king a son. In the past, she had solved her dilemmas through bribery, or murder. (The more I heard Galyon say, the more I believed Anne guilty of causing the death of Jane Popyngcort, and of attempting to poison Henry Fitzroy.) Why should she not bribe Galyon to do what the king could not? Galyon and King Henry were not unalike in coloring; if he and Anne had a son together, the boy would very likely resemble the king.
“Jeanne! Can you help me get away, back to France, before she takes out her anger on me?”
“I will do all I can for you. You know that. I would give my life for you. But we need to think clearly, and not act rashly.”
I took a deep breath, then told Galyon of the strong suspicions about Anne, and how after Jane Popyngcort had been sent across the sea to Flanders, she had been killed—most likely by men in Anne’s pay.
“There may be nowhere safer for you than right here, my dearest Galyon.” Except perhaps the Spice Islands. I suddenly remembered the doomed Eglantine, and how Will and I had once hoped to sail far away from the court and its entanglements aboard her. Such a vain youthful dream! It seemed so very distant now, so very naive.
“Stay here, my love. I will see that you have food and whatever else you need.”
“But what if I am discovered?”
I had no answer for that. Who was there that I could trust, someone who would be able to protect Galyon and conceal him? There was no one in Anne’s household who could not be bribed. I had trusted friends in the princess dowager’s household but they were far away at Buckden, and in any case I was not eager to make my own ties to Galyon known. Ned would not help us, Ned helped only Ned. Will had never failed me—but would he protect my lover? Could I be certain that no lingering spark of jealousy or rivalry would arise to divide his loyalties?
I had no answer for Galyon. What were we to do? I looked into his dear eyes.
“Trust me, my love. I will do my best to find an answer. For now, I don’t know what to say—except trust no one else!” And with a kiss I left him there, in the hayloft, and made my way back to the queen’s apartments, looking deep into the shadows at every turn.
EIGHTEEN
In the middle of the night Ned roused me from my bed in the dormitory room I shared with the other maids of honor.
“Quickly! You must dress and ride with me to Wulf Hall! Our father is dying!”
Groggily I got up and, with the aid of the servants, put on my riding clothes, while Ned paced impatiently in the next room.
As we rode together toward Wulf Hall on that chilly night, all my thoughts were of Galyon. How could I arrange for him to stay hidden and supplied with what he needed if I was in Wiltshire? Would Anne or her minions discover him? Ought I to have brought him with us? But no, she would be certain to look for him—through her spies—at Wulf Hall. Galyon and I had been discreet, but Will knew of our closeness, and I had confided in Bridget also, and Galyon’s fellow workers too had seen us together.
I worried, continuing to think of Galyon’s plight as we made our way along the rough roads in the dark, our wagon jouncing and pitching with every hole and rock and tree branch in our path.
I thought of confiding in Ned, but held back. Ned could easily protect Galyon—but would he? I could not be certain. If I told him the story Galyon had told me, he might not believe it—or, if he did believe it, he might well have Galyon hidden away in a dungeon and then brought out to bear witness against Anne. Ned disliked Anne, she had spoken scornfully to him and had tried to persuade King Henry to remove him from the court. She sensed his opposition and his cunning. If Ned imagined that he could find a way to turn the king against Anne, he would be eager to use it.
I did not want Galyon to become a pawn in the dangerous game of court intrigue. So I held my tongue, and did not confide in my brother.
Once Ned and I reached Wulf Hall we were swept up in the larger family drama surrounding our father’s final hours. He did not long outlast our arrival. He lay in his wide bed, his eyes closed, unaware of any of us in the room. At our mother’s insistence, he was given the last rites, although that sacrament belonged to the old Roman church and it was unclear whether the new church, headed by King Henry, still acknowledged and practiced it. At any rate the family chaplain gave the blessing and said the prayers, touching the holy oil to our father’s wasted body. Soon afterward father’s breath ceased and he was still.
We had the consolation of knowing that our father had been shriven, his sins forgiven and his place in heaven assured. How it would have vexed me, only a few years earlier, to imagine him among the saints! Now, however, I could no longer judge his behavior so harshly, for had I not proven my own sinful weakness by sleeping with the married Galyon? Had I not betrayed Will’s trust? I was no saint, and I realized I had a great deal to learn about Christian forgiveness.
I could tell that Ned was not troubled by any such scruples of conscience. If he mourned our father, he hid his feelings well; what concerned him above all, in the first hours and days after our father died, was his own inheritance, and his new role as master of Wulf Hall and the entire Seymour estate.
Watching Ned in the days immediately after our father’s death I sensed a new mastery about him. It was not that he was greedy for money or for the inevitable rise in status that his inheritance would soon bring him. Rather, I thought, it was a sort of inner growth. He was changing from within, so that he could take charge of the responsibilities that would soon be his.
I could not help admiring my brother just then, for no one had taught him what to do or how to act in his new role. Our father had not provided a good example. He had not managed Wulf Hall at all well, his tenants gave him grudging obedience but cursed him behind his back. From what I knew of father’s estates, he had neglected the crops and paid no heed to the villagers who worked the land. His stewards were greedy and uncaring. Yet I could see that Ned was giving much thought to what needed to be done, what changes needed to be made. Perhaps, I thought, he had been preparing mentally for the time when he would take over our father’s responsibilities. And I had been unaware of this.
I began to see Ned in a new light. But I still did not tell him of Galyon’s situation or his revelations about Anne.
Father was barely laid in the ground before his will was read and its provisions fulfilled. Ned became master of nearly all father’s lands and possessions, but there were other legacies, inc
luding one for me. Father was generous; he thought me likely to remain unmarried, and so he left me the money I would otherwise have had as my dowry—enough to keep me in comfort, with quite a bit to spare. I was very grateful—indeed I was quite overcome with emotion, I who have always been seen as exceptionally self-possessed and able to cope calmly with emotional situations.
I wept. I said my prayers. And I worried over Galyon, in his loft.
Will was present at the funeral. The Dormers and the Seymours were connected, after all, through Will’s sister’s marriage to Godfrey Seymour. Will came to represent his family and to offer condolences. Seeing him reminded me of the other Seymour relation who was not present: young Henry, the son Ned refused to acknowledge as his own, and whom Will had watched over and sponsored when he entered Henry Fitzroy’s household.
Young Henry! My realization was sudden and swift. My nephew Henry was in London—and I knew I could trust him to deliver food and water and other supplies to Galyon.
I took Will aside and confided in him all that had happened, how the queen had tried to bribe Galyon and how, having evaded her entreaties, he had had good reason to fear her revenge. I explained where Galyon was hiding and asked Will to send a message to Henry, in all secrecy, requesting his help.
I had no doubt Will would want to defend my dear Galyon against Anne. After all, it had been Will who cautioned me that Anne might have plotted the poisoning of Henry Fitzroy. His words had stayed with me. “Anyone who hinders her plans in any way,” he had said, “could be vulnerable.” Galyon was hindering her plans—and was a threat to her, for if he revealed her attempt to bribe him (always assuming he was believed) then their roles would be reversed. Galyon would be the one who was loyal to the throne and the true succession, and Anne would be the traitor.
Will sent a trusted messenger to London at once to find young Henry, and I felt relieved. I spent several weeks at Wulf Hall, confident that until I returned to my duties at the palace, all would be well.
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