The Baker's Daughter Volume 1

by Bonny G Smith

  Norris bowed slightly and said, “Begging Your Grace’s pardon, but this is an inane discussion, born, no doubt, of the boredom and ennui of life at court. I would not wish Madge…begging your pardon, Your Grace, Mistress Shelton, to hear second hand that there are others I love better than she.”

  “So you love my cousin more than you love your queen?” asked Anne.

  “That is so, Your Grace.” Norris’ face lost all color and had gone quite pale.

  Anne, inexplicably, had begun to take the conversation seriously. Margaret put a hand on her arm, but Anne shrugged it aside. “Then you are excused, sir, and I pray you do not return to my apartments until you are prepared to love your queen above all others, as a courtier ought.” Anne glared at Norris and said, “You may go. At once!”

  Anne did not notice that Lady Cobham and Lady Worcester quit the room in Norris’ wake, exchanging significant glances as they went.

  The Strand, London, May 1536

  A steady stream of sycophants and well-wishers had been requesting audiences with Jane for weeks. Despite the girl’s die-away looks, she glowed with an inner light. At last it was happening! The game was all but won. Her feelings of triumph she kept to herself, but they were no less sweet for that.

  But today she could barely conceal her nervousness. Today was the day that would determine all. At this very moment her future was being decided. She had done all that she could; it was out of her hands. Henry had waited seven years to make Anne his queen; he had waited only seven months for Jane. If the verdict failed, would Henry fail her? Or would he move heaven and earth to have her, as he had done for Anne? She felt a childish urge to bite her nails, followed by an even sillier urge to sit on her hands. She must not manifest any outward sign of discomfiture. Only if she were sure of herself would others be sure of her.

  “Lady Bryan, if you please,” said Jane softly. “That is enough for today.” It was gratifying to think that those who had waited today to see her to pay their respects would gladly return on the morrow, indeed, would return for days to come, until they had been vouchsafed a few moments in her presence, to assure her of their loyalty and support.

  “I quite agree,” said Lady Bryan. “My lady must rest now. We might hear the news at any moment, and then it will be pandemonium, I doubt not!” She swiftly scooped up Jane’s feet from the footstool and lifted her legs onto the sofa, whisking a pillow behind her back in the same swift motion as the girl changed positions. “Will you allow me to bathe your forehead with a cool vinegar rag?”

  “I would prefer lemon water,” said Jane.

  “Of course,” smiled Lady Bryan. Who would want to smell of vinegar when the king came bursting in, as he was wont to do at the oddest of times? She turned to a serving maid and nodded her head. The girl departed posthaste to fetch the lemon water.

  Lady Bryan was still attending to Jane with the lemon water when Lady Margery Seymour arrived.

  “Hello, Mama,” said Jane with a smile. Unconsciously, she extended her hand, as she had been doing most of the morning to the flatterers who had made a parade through her apartments that day.

  Lady Seymour frowned and ignored the outstretched hand of her daughter. With a curt nod, she dismissed Lady Bryan. There were some advantages to being the mother of the future queen, but still…

  When Lady Bryan had retired and the door had been closed behind her, Lady Margery, who was still standing, looked down on her daughter and said, “I like this not, Jane.”

  Jane heaved a sigh. “You sound just like Father,” she said wearily.

  Lady Margery pulled a chair close and sat facing Jane, who reclined on the sofa. She looked about her cautiously.

  Jane knew that look; she was about to get yet another parental lecture. Best to get it over with. Jane indicated by her cocked head and folded hands that her mother had her full attention.

  “Jane,” said Lady Margery firmly. “This verdict is a foregone conclusion. You know that as well as I.”

  Jane sat up and tossed the lemon-scented cloth onto a side table. “Well, what of it? How else am I to become queen?”

  “Daughter, unless I miss my guess, six people are about to suffer judicial murder so that you may realize your ambition. Did you know of this? Did you know how this brilliant future of yours was to be accomplished?” Lady Seymour studied her daughter intently.

  “Have a care, Mama, of that which you say, even in an empty room.”

  “Hmph!” said Lady Margery. “You need not tell me how easy it is to have one’s head lopped off. You are not the only one who has spent time at court!”

  Jane drew a deep breath and exhaled. “What is it you wanted, Mama?”

  Lady Margery’s voice lowered to a whisper. “I want to know how much you knew about this travesty,” she said. “I want to know if you knew that these absurd charges were to be leveled against these innocent men, in your name.”

  Jane met her mother’s eyes. “What difference does it make? It is done now. And we do not know if the queen has been found guilty or not.” With that her eyes travelled to the window, where the shadows were beginning to tell. Why had no one come to tell her what was happening? Her ears strained to hear any evidence of commotion in the city but she heard nothing save the normal sounds of people going about their business; harness jingling, wares being called in the street by their sellers. The voices, she remarked to herself, were muted by distance but still retained some clarity. The Strand was a busy place.

  Lady Margery rolled her eyes. “Daughter, can you be in any doubt? That poor lady will lose her head, as sure as will the others who have been condemned before her.”

  “That,” said Jane, “we do not know. She may be burnt.”

  “Saints preserve us!” expostulated Lady Margery. Her clear gray eyes were truly troubled. She lowered her voice. “Jane, how can you just sit there with folded hands while the king executes these innocent people? You have influence with the king. You could…”

  “I can do nothing,” said Jane. “Such decisions are not up to me, nor can I persuade the king from anything that he has set his mind to do. To try would be naught but the greatest folly. You want to know if I know the king’s mind. Yes, I knew his plans. If he were not making them to my benefit, then he would be making them to someone else’s. So what should it matter to me?”

  Lady Margery’s eyes went wide with shock and dismay. “Is this the daughter I raised to modesty, meekness, and humility? How can you sit by while great harm is done in your name, using means that are both untrue and unfair?”

  “My duty, Madam, is to show my meekness, modesty and humility to the king, by doing as he bids me,” Jane replied. “Am I a seer, that I can be certain that Anne and her men are innocent? Did not Master Smeaton confess to his adultery with the queen? This is England, Mama; good men and true are not convicted of crimes of which they are innocent. If they are condemned, then they must be guilty, and must needs pay the price.” Her eyes glittered with a hardness that her mother had never before seen there.

  Lady Margery threw up her hands in frustration. “God’s teeth, girl, open your eyes! When is anyone in high places ever acquitted of a crime once they are charged? The charges are not to be taken at face value. The guilt or innocence of such people is beside the point, their condemnation is political. It is the king’s pleasure that is done, girl, not English justice!”

  Jane regarded her mother with steely eyes. “Mama, must I warn you again? Have a care what you say. There are ears everywhere.” She leant forward. “Mama, men are placing wagers with good odds in their favor that Rochford will be acquitted. But he will not be. He has had the effrontery to make mock of the king’s potency, and so has no chance of keeping his head on his shoulders.”

  Lady Margery regarded her daughter with disbelief. “I will not even venture to ask, girl, how you can possibly know such a thing.” Then in a voice so low as to be barely perceptible, she said, “I hope for your sake that the taunt is not true. If it is, then you
, too, are doomed.”

  Jane shrugged. “Time will tell. But I think there is nothing much wrong with the king that separating Anne’s head from her shoulders will not cure. She has nonplussed him with her sharp tongue and beleaguered him with her sly wit. I, for one, do not intend to follow her example. My purpose is threefold. To give the king, and England, a male heir, to get the Lady Mary reinstated at court and if possible, in the succession, and to advance my family. Edward has already been made a gentleman of the privy chamber, much to his delight. And more privileges and properties are soon to come our way. Is all that not worth a little injustice, as you call it?”

  Lady Margery put her fingers to her temples, closed her eyes, and again shook her head. “Child, if you are speaking from your heart, then my soul trembles for you. You have accepted the advances of a married man and in doing so have betrayed your mistress, to whom you took a vow of loyalty. Twice have you betrayed a mistress, because you also betrayed Queen Katharine’s trust when you transferred your loyalty from that lady to Queen Anne. And now you sit silently by, you do not even flinch, whilst the actions being taken on your behalf are about to have dire consequences for others besides a possibly guilty queen and her paramour. Oh, yes,” said Lady Margery, “the people already begin to say that if it were one man, or two, perhaps these charges might have been believable. After all, no one has had a good word to say about the queen for many a long day now. But to have us believe that she sinned with five men, and one her own brother? That is absurd.”

  “Mama,” said Jane. When no further speech was forthcoming, Lady Margery opened her eyes and looked at her daughter. “For the wedding, which do you think, the white stomacher with the diamonds, or the gold with the rubies and pearls?” Jane indicated the garments that hung across the chair opposite Lady Margery’s.

  Lady Margery opened her mouth to reply, but no sound came out; in the moment’s interval between her wish to reply and her brain’s inability to choose between the several acid responses that rose to her indignant lips, a commotion in the outer chamber became noticeable and just at that moment, a page opened the door and announced Sir Francis Bryan, Lady Bryan close behind him.

  Jane jumped up, and with her hands clasped under her breast in the age old posture of distress, she asked, “Oh, good Sir Francis! What news? What news?”

  Sir Francis bowed and said, “My lady, guilty. Both of them. And the king is not five minutes behind me, mark you.”

  Jane glanced uneasily at her mother, whose mouth was frozen in an “o” of astonishment. “And…the sentences?”

  Sir Francis swept off his feathered cap and tossed it onto the chair where Jane’s choice of wedding stomachers was arrayed, then he seated himself on a cushioned stool at Jane’s feet. “Boy!” he shouted to the page just outside the door. When the curly head appeared, Sir Francis said, “Wine!”

  While the boy busied himself, Sir Francis said. “To be burnt or beheaded, at the king’s pleasure; no more than what was expected. Rochford is to suffer the full traitor’s death.”

  Lady Margery crossed herself.

  Sir Francis cocked his head at Jane, who shrugged. Lady Margery was too shrewd to repeat anything she heard.

  Sir Francis said soothingly, “Do not distress yourself, Lady Seymour; the sentences will likely be commuted to the least onerous.”

  Another scathing retort rose to Lady Margery’s lips, but years of life experience helped her to beat it down. She cleared her throat and said smoothly, “I have no doubt that our good king will be merciful.” Jane secretly applauded her mother’s restraint. It was better to trust no one.

  Just as the page handed Sir Francis a chased goblet brimming with wine, the king’s escort could be heard outside.

  “Jane!” bellowed an impatient voice.

  And then there he was. Lady Margery was always surprised anew whenever she beheld their sovereign in the flesh. She went down on her knees instantly, but Henry, with an apologetic glance at Jane, took Lady Margery by the hands and pulled her up. “Now, none of that,” said Henry jovially. “After all, you are soon to be my mother, are you not?”

  Lady Margery tittered and replied, “Yes, Your Grace, that honor is soon to be mine, I hope.”

  “You must consider it done, my lady,” said Henry, as he bowed to kiss his future mother-in-law’s hand. “Here stands a man as bachelor as ever was, ready to make your daughter a faithful husband!”

  Lady Margery, who was not good at figures, did some mental arithmetic that convinced her that the king was right; she just could have been the king’s mother. Many girls were made mothers at thirteen.

  Jane listened to the repartee with her tongue in her cheek, at least on her mother’s part. For all her fine words, Lady Margery still dare not do otherwise than trade saucy sallies with the exuberant king.

  Henry then turned to Jane and said, “Sweetheart! It is over. They are guilty. You have heard?”

  “Yes, my lord,” said Jane. “Sir Francis, knowing my anxiety, was kind enough to rush here to put my mind to rest the moment it was over.”

  Henry slapped Sir Francis on the back. “Good Francis!” laughed Henry. Jane had seldom seen him so jovial. It was as if a great weight had been lifted from him. He had said to Jane many times that his most ardent desire was that all of the current unpleasantness could be behind them so that they could get on with their lives…together.

  Lady Bryan, as hostess, had filled wine goblets for all, and was busy handing them out.

  As she approached Henry with a curtsey he said, “Ah, bless you, Lady, but I must fly. Forgive me.” He took the goblet, drained it at a single draft, wiped his mouth on his sleeve and said, “Sweetheart, I must away to Bishop Kite’s, where I shall sup, and then I will return to dine here with you. And then I have a surprise for you. A river pageant, by night. With fireworks! What say you to that, eh? Shall we celebrate?”

  Lady Seymour thought it in the worst of taste, but forbore saying as much. Jane secretly agreed with her, but agreement without dissension, amicability without sycophancy; it was a difficult line to walk. She remembered once at the fair seeing a man walk up a rope, and back down again; the rope stretched from a great peg in the ground to all the way up to the top of the church steeple. She wondered at the time how he must have felt as he performed his dangerous stunt. Now she knew.

  Jane’s eyes met her mother’s; the narrowed lids and pursed lips were silently asking, and how did he know to arrange a river pageant for the evening? There is your English justice!

  Jane’s twisted mouth and an almost imperceptible sigh of resignation conveyed her thoughts; what matter? What’s done is done, and cannot be undone. The whole affair was like a huge stone set rolling down a steep hill. It would gather speed, it would smash everything in its path, and it would not stop until it reached the bottom.

  Henry’s sharp senses, the senses of a man on the trail of his quarry, perceived the sigh and said, “Sweetheart, I know what has you sighing. Pay no attention to these scurrilous ballads that are being sung on the street corners and in the public houses. They only serve to show how clever we English are at crafting a rhyme.”

  Jane smiled. What cared she about a few bawdy tunes? The tunes would change when she was finally Queen of England! Her watchwords would be dignity, decorum, respectability. Where Anne had been overly familiar with those around her, Jane would be aloof. Where Anne had ranted and raged, she would be silent. Her persuasions would be subtle. “They do not bother me,” said Jane sweetly. “They are few, and they will come around.”

  “Ah, that’s my affable Jane!” He gave her a hearty smack on the mouth, an undertaking that he repeated with all the ladies in the room, and then departed.

  No sooner had the king left when Sir Edward came into the room, out of breath from hurrying. He looked around and said, “His Grace has gone then?”

  Jane nodded. “Yes, but he will be back to fetch us all this evening.”

  “That is as well, then,” said Edward. �
�Mother! How now! I am sorry I have not come to speak with you before this.”

  A mother always doted on her eldest son; it was natural. All the boys were cherished, and the girls could make advantageous marriages, but Edward was her favorite. “My dear!” said Lady Margery, holding forth her hand, which he dutifully kissed.

  “I fear me that I cannot stay. I must away. Have you any idea what a job of work it is getting all those “H’s” and “A’s” changed to “H’s and “J’s”? Edward smiled. “A pleasant task, eh, sister?” This timid, seemingly insignificant person had caught the eye of a king and so stood to enrich them all. What luck!

  Despite herself, Lady Margery frowned. H’s and J’s indeed!

  Sir Francis Bryan, who had strolled into the room, added, “Yes, it is so. The phoenix replaces the falcon everywhere, and that is in many places.”

  Jane smiled smugly; the idea of a phoenix as her device had been her own, and Henry, being sentimental, appreciated the poetry of it. Anne’s symbol of the falcon was also apt; sharp beak, sharp claw, harsh call; in short, a killer, but a very subtle one. Killing the flesh was mundane; Anne the Falcon killed the spirit, inch by inch, until there was nothing left.

  Well, thought Edward, Henry had found a more magnificent bird to replace his night crow. Jane’s phoenix would rise above the devastation that Henry’s all-consuming desire for Anne had wrought, and she would take all the Seymours with her in her astonishing and glorious ascent.

  “Well,” he said, eyeing the bejeweled stomachers, “I will leave you to the mysteries of wedding clothes.” With a bow, he left, Lady Bryan in his wake.

  When they were alone again, Lady Margery studied her daughter. She heaved a heavy sigh and said, “Jane, no good will come of this. Mark my words.”

  “My lady,” said Jane. “I have known the king most of my life, albeit from afar. I know who he is and what he is capable of.”

  “Then you must be wildly ambitious.”

  Jane considered this judgment dispassionately. “Yes,” she agreed. “It is a big risk, for all of us. But I think you will find that it is worth it.”