The Deception of Consequences

by Barbara Gaskell Denvil

  “I am delighted to hear that I am given supper before this diversion begins,” nodded Richard without a blink. “As of yet, supper has been a sad disappointment in here, arriving both cold and scant, whatever I have paid in coin beforehand.”

  The gaoler refused to be distracted. “Then, as you lays dying,” he continued, “the knife cuts on and up and over, till you’s laid there in four good pieces, and the head a’rolling. O’course, you be well and truly dead by then, but won’t be no comfy funeral, nor no priest – cleric, that is – and you can face a long crawl through Purgatory instead, trying to hold all them bits of yerself together.”

  Disconcertingly, Richard laughed. “You are trying hard to do your duty, my friend,” he said softly. “But you are not likely to intimidate me with foolhardy tales and threats of eternal damnation for something we both clearly know quite well that I have not done. If the king is so desperate to wed Jane Seymour, then let him find another way. I am exceedingly disinterested.”

  Mention of Jane Seymour confused the investigator. “You’ll not be taking this seriously, it seems, sir,” he objected. “But I reckon you’ll find it serious enough with your head loosed from its neck.”

  “I doubt,” smiled Richard, “whether, in that condition, I should be capable of finding anything either amusing or serious.” He leaned forwards again, elbows to the table. “I wish to write a letter, addressed personally to the king, and demand it be taken directly to his majesty’s apartments. First paper, quill and ink. Wax, naturally, since the letter will be private. And then somebody sufficiently trusted to make the initial approach at the palace.”

  “Impossible,” said the gaoler, aghast. “What insolence, sir. You may write what you will, but on the walls of your cell, and with your finger nails since you’ll be given neither quill nor ink.”

  It was an hour later that a guard came to Richard’s small room. The lock was opened with the usual clank and squeak and the door was pushed open.

  “Paper, pen and ink, I presume?” inquired Richard, looking up.

  A tiny tub of gall ink, a wilted quill with a stubbed nib, a knob of red wax, and two sheets of folded paper were set on the little table next to the brazier. “As you asked fer,” nodded the guard. “But can’t give no fire fer the melting of the wax.”

  “Which makes it singularly useless,” Richard pointed out.

  “Will be back,” said the guard, shuffling out, head bent. “Melt wax. Take letter. Lock door.”

  Which is precisely what occurred within the afternoon as the twilight fell in a grey haze across the grounds.

  “There’s been no confession, sir,” reported the gaoler to the Constable, who reported to the appropriate assistant, who reported to Thomas Cromwell.

  Thomas Cromwell regarded his smiling assistant, as Scrow bowed with just a slight ache of the knee. “He’s not confessed. Four days, sir, after cold nights and long questioning, there’s been nothing. Richard Wolfdon has no intention of pleasing his gaolers, sir. Not unless force is authorised after all.”

  The chair groaned slightly as Cromwell stretched his legs. “I’ve not the slightest desire for a confession, Scrow, as you know full well. If the wretch was foolish enough to confess to something utterly impossible, then I should have to suppress the confession, though I might hang the man anyway for apparent idiocy. Richard Wolfdon is innocent. Her majesty is innocent. I have a far more interesting road ahead, and the design is becoming clear. It does not contain the figure of Master Wolfdon.”

  “But,” grinned Scrow, “you want him interrogated all the same.”

  Cromwell’s smile matched Scrow’s. “Indeed. To thrash some of the arrogance out of the man might be useful, perhaps. But more importantly I need to convince the king of my intentions, and to explore the manner in which I intend to stride ahead. Finally I wish to use this episode with Wolfdon to incriminate Staines.”

  The elderly man bowed once more. “But you’ll not want the Tower guards informed of this, I imagine, sir? No. I see. So the questioning continues. The threats continue. And our good King Henry is notified of what – may – have occurred.”

  “As it happens,” Cromwell nodded, “Master Wolfdon has been obliging enough to write to his majesty to complain of wrongful arrest and declare his innocence. This will serve nicely to entwine his majesty into the thread, and bind them all. The king will send for me in a day or two. I shall explain. Wolfdon will remain at the Tower for a week or three, no more, and then be released on the king’s command. But in the meantime, I shall know exactly what to do next.”

  March was a forgotten chill and April was turning mild. But in the Tower dungeons, there was neither warmth nor comfort, and Richard Wolfdon spent long hours with quill, ink and paper.

  Richard woke on the fifth morning with a dull ache and a restless misery. The fury which had fed his determination throughout the journey from Wiltshire and during those first days incarcerated, was waning in the continuous and monotonous freeze. The cell was small and contained no form of diversion except the narrow window overlooking the western stretch of buildings within the Tower walls, the rooftops of the tenements further west, and a glimpse of the Thames beyond. There the days slipped from dawn to twilight and on into night. Moon, stars and wind whistled past, lighting the sky, or closing it off. A kestrel flew high, dropping suddenly towards its prey, out of sight for only moments, and then flew on with a scrap of something tight in its claws. The squeal of the gulls floated upriver and on a distant window ledge, a raven sat huddled, sheltering from the rain. The weather blew in, and faded into sunshine, then into darkness. It was a window of stories, mysteries and tiny miracles in a world of utter dejection and stagnant nothingness.

  Richard had never passed long hours standing and watching from any window, nor had he ever stayed in bed beyond the need for sleep. But here, in a state of ambiguous threat, he succumbed to those things he had never done before.

  Now the prisoner remained in bed, without motive to arise. He lay warm and the brazier to his side still flickered with the last charcoal ashes of the dying fire. He imagined the woman he missed so desperately. He remembered their love making and his wonder at the pleasure she brought him, and that which he adored bringing to her. He remembered the silken smooth heat of her body from the firm rise of her breasts, the pale valley between, and the pathway down to the dip of her belly. He remembered kissing the softness of her nipples and tasting the warmth there, the pull of his mouth that hardened and aroused them, and how he had then looked up and seen the yearning in her eyes. Her nipples beneath his tongue had risen like the pearl buttons on his doublet, and he had heard her groan of delight. Her breasts were firm and her belly soft, each white skinned and threaded with the faint blue of her veins like threads of damask in a silver veil, and the sheen of the fire light in a pink haze from across the bedchamber.

  He remembered the curve of her arm, the tiny wrist into the slender width of her palm and tapering fingers. He remembered the curve of her hip down to the narrow thighs and on past to the sweet swell of her calves. Even her feet had delighted him, ticklish and sensitive. Lying naked in his arms, her toes had curled with pleasure when he had slipped his fingers between her legs, and he had seen, and chuckled.

  Remembering Jemima, his mind travelled from thigh up again to the velvet between them where her skin, protected, was as soft as duckling down, but led to the most precious place of all. He remembered the tight golden curls at her groin, and he remembered exploring there, and adoring what he found.

  Rolling over, abruptly he banished dangerous thoughts. His own disillusion would worsen, he knew, with such memories. So instead he remembered her face, and her laughter, her whispered endearments, and her timid touch when she tried to bring him the same pleasure of caress which he had given her.

  Still dangerous. Even to remember her name, her smile or the perfume of her breath. Then he heard the door unlock with its usual grind and clank, and knew that the guards had come for him to face t
he new day’s questioning.

  He wondered if they would put him to the rack.

  The walls, and the stench of damp, enclosed him as though they moved inwards. The little chamber shrank.

  Her majesty Queen Anne woke and stretched. Some of the other women were already in a bustle, preparing the morning’s fresh activities. The water was set to boil, the fire having already been lit. The flames were a low flicker and not yet a blaze, but the vast chamber was warming and the night’s chill fading. Once the water was sufficiently warmed, it was poured into both jug and bowl, and brought to her majesty.

  Anne sat up, sitting against the bolster and a wedge of pillows. She still wore her neat white headdress, but it was askew and the pins loose. She pushed dark hair from her eyes, and sat forwards to wash her face and hands in the steaming bowl they brought her.

  Her chemise was already damp for she had sweated, tossing sleepless through the dark hours. She looked up, accepting the towel as her ladies clustered around drying each arm, each hand, each finger. “I need a clean chemise,” she murmured. “This one stinks. It is horribly wet.”

  “Majesty, we have one already waiting here, warmed before the fire.”

  The young Mary Norris scurried to the great chests kept within the far chamber which served both as garderobe and as antechamber to the queen’s apartments. Margery Horsman was already unfolding the crisp white linen, its little sleeves fine and its bodice tucked.

  Wine was spiced and set to warm, freshly baked bread brought up from the bakery and delivered to the door, bustled from page to lady, and set with golden butter on a platter for her majesty. A dozen women clucked and puffed. Nan Cobham and Elisabeth, Countess of Dorchester hurried to the bedside.

  “Your grace, will you arise now? Breakfast is ready if your grace will sit at the table. Or would you prefer to eat in the comforting warmth of your bed, my lady?”

  “Oh, here.” The queen yawned. The endless servitude, the endless polite insignificance and the endless routines seemed suddenly even more drab. She looked around. “Where is Margaret, Lady Shelton?”

  The Countess of Rutland bent to her side, speaking softly. “I can send for her if you wish, madam. But she was at your side for most of the night since you were restless, your grace, and slept ill. She has now retired.”

  “No.” The queen shook her head. “Oh, Eleanor, the bed is full of pins. Look, pearls like tear drops.” She whispered suddenly. “Did he come? No, of course he did not. No word. No sign. He hates me, Eleanor. He wants rid of me. I lost his new little son, and he hates me for it.” She looked up again, then said loudly, “Jane Seymour. Where is she?”

  “Tis three days, your grace, that Mistress Seymour has not come on duty. Perhaps she has a cold.” Nan Cobham curtsied, carrying the full cup of spiced wine and setting it beside her mistress. “Does your grace wish me to send for her?”

  Anne shrank back, pulling the headdress and its falling pins from her hair and shaking her head. “You may find her in the king’s bed. He wants her. I do not.”

  The whispers echoed but no one dared answer. It was old Mary Orchard who came to the bedside. “Drink, my dearest. Drink and eat and forget the rumours and the gossip. None of us know this for sure.”

  “None of you want to know.”

  “Then nor should you, your grace. For misery is not a good way to start the day.”

  The wind was whistling down the chimney and the smoke from the fire gusted in a dark haze, dissipating in the light of the chandelier. It was April, the weather was erratic, and Easter, they said, would be wet. “I shall not go out today,” Anne looked down into her lap. “There are no court duties. If I am needed, then let Henry come and get me himself.”

  “Your grace?”

  “But he won’t,” added Anne very softly. “Because he doesn’t want me at all.”

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Quiet whispers in the palace corridors rose to sniggering gossip in polite and respectable houses, then to raucous shouts in the taverns. “How the mighty fall. Tis a favourite pastime, no doubt, ‘mongst them haughty folk. Shagging the queen. We always did call her the king’s whore.”

  The rain burst from the clouds in a cascade of hail stones. As Sir Walter, admitted by the steward, strode into the small hall, he discovered Alba kneeling by the great spreading hearth, poking at the embers of last night’s fire. “Allow me, madam.”

  “Oh, for goodness sake,” Alba said, sitting back on her heels. “I beg you, sir, call for a page. None of the wretched servants obey me in this horrid house.”

  “Well trained,” nodded Sir Walter. “Richard schooled his household to obey only himself. Now he’s gone the rule of law is in shatters, I imagine. They’ll not know what to do or say.” He paused, scratching his neck, then said, “Strange, all to coincide, as you might say, and very little explanation. But two days back I received a message from your Mistress Jemima. Nothing much, except to say she’d be in London soon and would like to speak with me on a matter she considered urgent. Urgent! Now that’s a word I find worrisome,”

  Alba half scrambled up, steadying herself, kneeling beside the hearth. “The same, sir, the same. A letter from dear Jemima arrived two days back, brought by a very dirty messenger who was entirely out of breath and refused to say where he’d come from or whether he received the message from Jemima herself. All the paper said was that she would return, and asked forgiveness for the long absence. She also wrote that she had plenty to explain.”

  “No word of Richard?” Sir Walter frowned.

  Alba scrambled up. “But have you not heard the rumours, my lord? Word of Richard Wolfdon’s arrest for treason is spreading from gutter to gutter and even I have heard it from the crowds at the market. I had always believed Richard to have run off with Jemima. Now her letter makes me afraid.”

  “Arrest? The Tower dungeons? It is positively ludicrous,” Sir Walter said, raising his voice. “These absurd snippets of gossip are all lies, I can assure you, madam. His majesty is a close and trusted friend, principally of myself of course, but also of my step-son. No fool would be so utterly misinformed as to accuse poor Richard of treason.” He paused, nodding. “Besides, Richard has disappeared as we have all been well aware since before Christmas Day itself, so why would arrest come now so suddenly?. He has escaped north, I’ve no doubt, and has gone hunting with friends, or sailing across the Narrow Sea for his own irresponsible recreation. You tell me he must be with your own step-daughter. I would be surprised. Richard is not a lover of the ladies, you know. Far too serious. Far too smug and self-obsessed. He complains of tedium immediately a silken skirt swishes past him or some sweet faced lady of the court smiles purposefully in his direction.”

  “But Richard has disappeared. Jemima has disappeared. I do not need to be one of your clever lawyers, sir, to put those two unusual occurrences into the same picture. And now April with no mention and no word.” Alba sighed. “To be entirely abandoned by one’s host is not a thing to be expected. I don’t know why I bother to stay here.”

  “If,” said the shadow from the doorway, “you had any sense, Alba, you would have left weeks ago.”

  She looked up. “Oh, Ruth, I might have known it would be you, come to bring springtime cheer and encouragement.”

  “May I remind you, Alba, my dear,” Ruth came forwards into the low firelight, “how a woman of sense and sensitivity should behave. I had the pride to leave this house more than a month back. I have no glorious mansion of comfort to call my own, but what I do have most certainly is my own, however small. I’ve too much pride to stay in a house where the host has been absent for more than three months, and the young woman who was my principal reason for staying, had also gone since Christmas. The servants despise us. Sir Walter visits only to discover his step-son, and yet you and the others cringe here, unwanted and piteous, eating for free and losing all pride.”

  Alba sat in a hurry. “Ruth, remember your place. Since you no longer live here, and have not be
en invited to enter – ”

  She was interrupted. Sir Walter stood central, beaming and amused, but saying nothing. It was Ruth, a little flushed, who said quickly, “I shall do what I wish, as you do, Alba. But at least I have done something of importance and intelligence. No, don’t pout and spit. Listen to me. I have spent the afternoon at the Strand house, and it has been the most unexpected and most fascinating afternoon.”

  “I refuse to return there. The slime-arsed Cuthbert – ”

  Still smiling, Ruth looked behind, calling softly. It was Katherine who bustled into the hall beside her, wrapped snug in crimson cape and brown boots, hands tucked into a black fur muff. “Well, my darlings,” Katherine said, “we have a story to tell which will astonish – and amaze – and delight you all. Sir Walter, I am thrilled to see you, for this will interest you too, my lord.” And she tossed off her muff and came towards the dying fire, Ruth beside her.

  “You may wonder who this is all about. Everyone, my dears, positively everyone. Our darling Edward. Jemima. Richard. And even his majesty the king. Now, my dears,” said Ruth, “who would you like to hear all about first?”

  The slight pause echoed. A sudden flame reignited the fire. Sir Walter mumbled, “What is this about? Why, Richard. Of course, what of my step-son?”