He draped those long, delicate hands over the back of his chair. ‘The problem is,’ he confided, ‘that we have a very, very hurt and angry king.’
Not good enough: ‘He shouldn’t be angry at Francis; Francis isn’t who he should be angry at.’
‘Oh–’ don’t worry–‘he’s angry at the queen, he’s furious with her. But she was his little rose, and someone–’ in the king’s view–‘is responsible for the rot.’
Rot: I recoiled. ‘Not Francis.’
‘No.’ He withdrew from the chair, half-turned to the window, gazing away. ‘Someone else?’
Nothing at all entered my mind; I kept it clear. I could do it, I told myself: I could know nothing. It was crucial that I knew nothing, although I did wish the archbishop knew. Francis’s and my problems might well be over if he knew.
He glanced back to me; just a glance. ‘You’re frightened.’ He was sympathetic.
Of course I am. Tears trembled in my eyes but I held my tongue; he’d get nothing from me, I’d fall into no traps.
He returned to his chair, edged around it before sitting down, and there were those great dark eyes again. ‘What’s frightening you?’
‘I’m not frightened.’ I swiped at a stray tear.
‘Concerned, then.’
‘Anyone would be concerned,’ given the circumstances.
He sighed, sadly. ‘Anyone would, yes. But you?’ So soft a voice. ‘What’s your particular concern?’
‘Same as anyone’s: what’ll happen.’ He could make of that whatever he liked.
‘To the queen?’
I said nothing.
‘To you, then?’ Those eyes. ‘If you tell me what you know?’
How did he know that I knew something? Did he know?
When I said nothing, he said, ‘Well, as for the queen, she can throw herself on the king’s mercy, which she’s already doing, and, frankly, I don’t think it can get any worse for her. And who knows?’ He brightened a little. ‘It might even get better, in time.’
Could that possibly be true?
‘But you: you’re frightened for you?’ Full of concern. ‘Because you’ve known about something?’
Still I said nothing. He was so close, I was stunned.
‘You, alone, know?’
He didn’t have to know that Francis had known, and anyway Francis would deny it; Francis was safe.
‘Is there anyone else I could try?’
Try: that was all it would be. He made it sound perfectly reasonable.
‘Miss Tilney? Is there? Anyone, for me to try? Because if there is, a name will be all I need from you.’
I couldn’t look at him.
‘Do you understand? A name, and then you’ll be free to go.’
To try, was all he’d said. That was all: trying was all he’d be doing. Just a name, nothing else, no information.
‘Miss Tilney?’
He could try and still fail. Kate could deny everything, and they’d be hard-pressed to come up with any proof to the contrary. But they’d no longer have any interest in Francis. Francis could go free. So, I looked him in the eyes and said it: ‘Lady Rochford.’
He recovered himself almost instantly. Stupid Jane Rochford, who’d been so helpful in the downfall of his beloved, clever, reforming queen, Anne Boleyn: he didn’t like Lady Jane Rochford, was what I’d seen.
He bit his lip, nodded. ‘I could, I suppose. Yes, I could…try Lady Jane.’
Silence; but inside, my blood shrieked and roared and I feared that I was about to drown in it.
‘Here’s what I’m going to do–’ he was speaking quickly and lightly, proposing a solution to a problem that he was keen to present as no problem at all–‘I’m going to ask Lady Jane to come and talk to me.’ And then he surprised me with: ‘Will she tell me what she knows, do you think?’ The bitten lip, the wide eyes: it was an honest question. He really did want to know from me what he might expect, how he might proceed.
I was about to say that I didn’t know, when I realised that actually, I did. ‘Not at first.’ In time, though, yes, and probably very little time.
‘But what should I ask her about, d’you think?’ That same pleasantly practical tone. ‘Where, perhaps, should I start?’ A simple matter of procedure. ‘A name,’ he suggested. ‘Just a name, Miss Tilney. Just as somewhere to start.’
Somewhere to start. That was all. ‘Thomas Culpeper.’ My stomach flipped as I said the name.
‘Our very own Thomas Culpeper?’ I heard the considerable effort in trying to keep it casual. Thomas Culpeper: the king’s favourite.
I said nothing; I’d already said more than enough.
‘Our very own Thomas Culpeper,’ he said to himself, and nodded as if he might well have known it all along.
The archbishop had said that I was to go back to the queen’s rooms and carry on as normal: that was how I’d escape suspicion. It would take a while, he explained, for him to question Jane Rochford and then for Culpeper to be called in. Meanwhile, I should give nothing away. But–I’d pressed him–what about Francis? How, and when, was Francis’s freedom to be secured? He’d reiterated: Francis was out of his hands; he could only do so much, but he’d do his utmost and he anticipated no difficulties–not now, he implied, that there was a bigger fish to fry.
As for me, though: I’d never be implicated. Jane Rochford, under questioning, would be the one to confess to having encouraged the queen’s improper behaviour and she’d inform on Thomas Culpeper. The archbishop would be doing the questioning and if and when she cited my role, he’d omit to make a note of it; and, if necessary, he’d explain and ensure that anyone else–such as Wriothesley–did the same. I was to be protected. I had his word.
Go, he’d advised me, but go back to the queen’s rooms and act normally. Easier said than done, as it happened. Emerging from his study into the palace’s inner courtyard, entangled in skeins of rain, I felt incapable of taking another step. I was shaking, and then I retched. This was a fever, I told myself: I’d worried myself ill and was in need of my bed. When I reached my room, I asked Thomasine to take word to the queen’s rooms that I was unwell.
And there I lay, under my blankets, reminding myself over and over again that all I’d done was give the archbishop two names. I’d told him absolutely nothing: just given him two names. The rest would be up to them–Jane Rochford, Thomas Culpeper, and Kate–and they’d play it down. They could make it a simple tale of poetry-composition and prayer-book retrieval; they’d do fine, they were accomplished at deception. Anyway, I didn’t care what they did or how they did it. All I cared about was that Francis should be free. He’d done nothing wrong and he should be free.
When Alice came in, late, I pretended to be asleep and endured her clodhopping attempts at tiptoeing–thankful, for the first time ever, that I’d been allocated a room with her rather than with Maggie, because I would’ve found it much harder to keep from confiding in Maggie. In the morning, I maintained my pretence of sleeping until she’d gone. I couldn’t lie low for much longer, though, I knew, and within the hour I was composing myself at the door to the queen’s Presence Chamber.
Inside, there was no one but Lady Margaret, sitting on a stool at the unlit fireplace, chin in hands, looking like a ragdoll despite her luminous abundance of plush grey silk. She raised her eyes–which looked pink, but they often did–to mine, and shunted them to the far door: Kate’s day room. So, that was where everyone was. Why not her? She unsettled me, perched there, resolutely expressionless, and I was only too happy to oblige, to pass through that chilly room with its reeking ghosts of sea-coal smoke and wick-flare.
However awkward the atmosphere awaiting me in the day room, it’d be preferable. Pushing open the door, I anticipated candle-burnish and a haze of brazier-warmth, a cluster of ladies feigning nonchalance over their embroidery with a dream-wracked dog at their feet. But again a cavernous room glared back at me, the golden magnificence of this one tarnished by unmitigated November mu
rk. Something must’ve happened: there’d been a catastrophe while I’d slept and everyone except Lady Margaret–arch-survivor–had succumbed. But then I recalled the yeomen guarding the apartment: all present and correct and in rude health. And back beyond them, the courtyards had been peopled as usual. Only the queen’s retinue had vanished. Why? Where was Alice, who’d gone ahead of me? The archbishop had said that nothing would happen quickly; and even when it did, would it really be as drastic as this–every last person gone?
One more room for me to try–Kate’s bedchamber–and there was Kate. Alone, unfortunately: I hadn’t anticipated that I might have to be alone with her. I was unprepared and, reeling, cursed my lack of foresight. Trapped on the wrong side of that door, I switched those silent curses towards her, as if she’d somehow snared me. I was trying and failing to discern if she knew yet that Culpeper was under suspicion. Soberly attired, she was standing at the far side of the stripped bed holding an armful of clothes, a couple of leather cases open in front of her on the mattress. She glanced up, expectant, but clearly I wasn’t who she’d expected to see and–to my momentary relief–her attention dropped back to the task in hand, those cases. I was confounded to recognise her plain black gown from our time at the duchess’s. It was worn differently, though, from at the duchess’s: no turned-back cuffs, no raised collar. Worn as the duke, who’d paid for it, would’ve wished. The dress was the only respect, though, in which she resembled the girl from the duchess’s: I was taken aback by her papery skin, dead-fish eyes, and a blueness to her lips as if she were suffering a lack of air.
How had that old black gown turned up here? In one of those cases? What was happening? I stayed by the door, trying to make sense of what I was seeing: was she unpacking, or packing? She’d been folding something and now she laid it in one of the cases. Packing, then. Going. But where? Well, wherever she was heading, she was on her way there as plain Katherine Howard. Going back, then–to the duchess’s? Back from whence she’d come. Was that possible? And under what terms? She was packing her own cases and she was taking her time about it, methodical despite her obvious exhaustion: no sign of compulsion, no evidence of her being under arrest. By the look of it, she was free to go, and I dared to hope that it was all over, that this was the extent of it–this packing up and leaving, this returning–and now we could simply go our separate ways. I only wished it had happened sooner.
She remained unforthcoming and the silence was turning heavy, so I had to ask her: ‘Are you going back to the duchess’s?’
She remained busy. ‘Syon.’
That, I wasn’t expecting, and missed, which she detected, so she repeated it.
‘–Abbey?’ The only Syon I knew of: the old abbey, ex-abbey. Distant, secure, and respectable. Not, then, surely, her choice? I recalled what the duke had said: a nunnery. From there, though, when the furore had died down, would she go back to the duchess’s?
Matter-of-fact, briskly packing, she explained, ‘They know about Thomas.’
I should’ve come straight back at her with an expression of surprise: How? Played the innocent. But I found I couldn’t say anything, was seized up, unable to breathe.
She raised a nightshirt to shake it free of creases. ‘You always said they would.’ And I always said, But you’re not going to tell anyone, are you.
I was right, though: they would’ve known about Culpeper, in time; they would’ve. It could never have stayed secret, under the circumstances; it’d merely been a matter of time. The only surprise was that she and Culpeper had got away with it for so long. How dare she expect sympathy from me. She was about to discover how it felt to have her lover in a dungeon. ‘Well, just don’t own up to very much,’ I managed, linking my hands to steady them, to keep a semblance of calm.
‘No,’ she agreed, but obviously half-heartedly, making a show of humouring me.
At that, I felt a second flush of fury: Oh, don’t give me that, don’t act so put-upon; you’ve lied before, no doubt you can do it again. She could talk her way out of anything; she always had. And, after all, Syon was where she’d be: not in the Tower.
Suddenly, from her, ‘Are you feeling better?’ although she still didn’t pause, still didn’t look at me.
I’d forgotten that I was supposed to have been ill. ‘Much better, yes, thanks.’
She said nothing.
And that was when I realised that she knew: she did know what I’d done. But you’d have done the same, I wanted to yell at her. Indeed, she’d already done it: protected her lover at the expense of mine. Did she know, though? The certainty vanished in the same instant, leaving us just as we’d been: Kate packing her cases, me stuck there by the door. I cast around, panicky: where was everyone? ‘Who’s going with you?’ Because surely she’d be going accompanied to Syon, surely she’d have attendants?
She closed the lid on one of the cases, began buckling its strap. ‘I’m allowed to choose four ladies, and I’m taking Maggie, Alice, Izzy and Anne Basset.’
Not you.
So, there it was, loud and clear. There we were, afraid to look each other in the eye. When I did dare look, I found that she too had relented, her gaze softening as she ventured, ‘Cat, Francis’ll need you here when he’s released.’
But, actually, Francis would be fine; he and I were going to have all the time in the world. Standing across the bed from her, I realised that Kate had never intended any harm. She just hadn’t thought; she never did. She was a girl who couldn’t help but turn heads, she was a girl of no ambition who’d become queen. She was a girl who couldn’t help herself. It was she who’d need me. Don’t you ever go through anything like that again on your own. In spite of everything, my heart welled and I said, ‘But if you need me–’
‘–I don’t.’ She dropped her gaze, letting me go, shaking her head as she lifted the cases from the bed, ready to leave, to pass me on her way to the door. ‘I don’t.’
Afterword
Francis Dereham was never released. On December 1st, 1541, he and Thomas Culpeper were arraigned at Guildhall. Both petitioned the king to be merciful, to commute the punishment to beheading, but whereas clemency was extended to nobleman Thomas Culpeper, commoner Francis Dereham faced the full penalty for treason: to be hanged, drawn and quartered. The men died at Tyburn on December 10th.
Both men had maintained their denials of adultery with the queen–although Francis Dereham confessed to a sexual relationship with her before she was married–and despite Lady Rochford’s incriminating accounts of the queen’s assignations with Thomas Culpeper, no evidence of any overtly adulterous act was ever uncovered. The men were convicted of presumptive treason: Francis Dereham’s coming into the queen’s service, given his past relationship with her, was suspected to have been ill intentioned; and Thomas Culpeper, too, it was accepted, was hoping for sexual intimacy with her.
Katherine Howard never stood trial. For three months, she lived in relative comfort at Syon, her fate uncertain. At the trial of Francis Dereham and Thomas Culpeper, it was recorded that she had ‘led an abominable, base, carnal, voluptuous, and vicious life, like a common harlot, with divers [several] persons…maintaining however the outward appearance of chastity and honesty,’ and, three weeks later, at the trial of various Howard family members and others, it was asserted that she had ‘traitorously retained the said Francis, and one Kath. Tylney, who was procuratrix between them and knew of their carnal life, in her service…and appointed Kath. Tylney one of her chamberers, and favoured them and gave them gifts, employing the said Francis in her secret affairs more than others.’
So many members of the Howard family and of Katherine’s maids and ladies-in-waiting were under arrest by December that the Tower failed to hold them all, and other arrangements had to be made for their detention. One of the prisoners was a woman cited in the letters and records of this time as ‘Kath. Tylney’ Wriothesley wrote of her in a letter, ‘My woman Tylney hath done us good service.’ At a trial on December 22nd, all these priso
ners were found guilty of misprision of treason, and sentenced to the forfeiture of all their goods and to perpetual imprisonment. However, they were all released in the coming months.
Katherine Howard was taken from Syon to the Tower on February 10th, 1542, and the following day her death warrant became law. She was beheaded on February 13th, followed by Lady Jane Rochford.
‘The brilliant spectacle of her career soon faded, leaving nothing but a king grown suddenly grey and aged and a law declaring it to be treason for a lady to marry the king unless she were a virgin, which, it was noted, rather limited the number of candidates.’
Lacey Baldwin Smith, A Tudor Tragedy:
The life and times of Catherine Howard, 1961
Acknowledgements
Many, many thanks to:
Antony Topping, coolest agent in town; and also at Greene and Heaton, those lovely foreign rights gals, Elizabeth Cochrane and Ellie Glason.
Clare Smith and Essie Cousins, at HarperCollins, for their clear-sighted, imaginative, unstintingly supportive and awesomely energetic [that’s enough adjectives, ed] approach to making the most of my novels.
Anne O’Brien, for super-speedy yet gently-done copy-editing.
Sophie Goulden, Katherine Josselyn, Taressa Brennan, Elspeth Dougall, Julian Humphries and Kate Gaughran at HarperCollins, for doing so well what it takes to get the book on to the shelves.
Jo and Carol, for the home from home; and actually at home, David and Vincent, for smiling sweetly throughout the eighteen months that it took me to write this book, when all I did, frankly, was moan.
About the Author
SUZANNAH DUNN is the author of ten previous novels, including The Sixth Wife, The Queen of Subtleties, and The Queen’s Sorrow. She lives in Brighton, England.
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