A Contemporary Asshat at the Court of Henry VIII

by MaryJanice Davidson, Camille Anthony, Melissa Schroeder

  All this to explain why I was sweltering in ankle-length period clothing while my skull sweated beneath a stiff wig while searching for a dentist as I tried not to draw attention to myself or end up named as a witch/heretic/tourist.

  And what was with the heat? It was spring! Was global warming a concern in the 16th century? Because that would be alarming.

  Even more alarming: the people. It was easily as crowded as the Field of the Cloth of Gold; something was up in the enormous building before me. People weren’t bustling to and fro; most of them were standing outside the church, clearly listening. If it had been, say, Times Square, they’d all be craning their necks and gaping open-mouthed up at gigantic screens. No screens here, so they just stared at the building as if they were waiting for something amazing.

  Which probably meant the Lostie was on trial inside. Or tied to a stake inside. If they even did such things indoors … think of the smoke! Or she was babbling in tongues about dark omens like Amazon’s latest takeover and vaccines to a spellbound audience.

  Counting on my costume for protection, I began pushing my way past the crowd. “Excuse me … pardon me … husband, wait for me!” See? Everything’s fine. I’m not alone, I’m supposed to be in that church, I’ve nearly caught up to my legitimate escort and husband, who is certainly not imaginary, and I’m not wearing hipster underwear from Target.

  It was an enormous church with impressive stained-glass windows, spires jabbing the sky, and several pale statues decorating the outside. It was as richly decorated inside, with gleaming dark wood and the colorful glow from the stained glass splashing the floor. The place smelled like incense, smoke, and sweat, almost exactly like the basement of the church where I went to Sunday school.

  I could see some smaller rooms off to the side, and before me was an enormous hall stuffed with people and candles (which was probably a bad idea, but hey: none of my business). The hall would have been dark save for the dozens of enormous windows; the natural light and creamy walls made the place seem bigger than it was, and it was already huge.

  I managed to poke and prod my way forward until I could see. Most of these people were seated, which meant I had a great view of King Henry VIII and Catherine of Aragon.

  Oh. I knew where I was. I even knew when I was. I had shoved my way into the Parliament chamber of the convent at Blackfriars. It was 1529, and Henry’s first marriage was fizzling and dying. For many couples, that meant counseling. For Henry, it meant demanding an annulment and, when thwarted at every turn, forming his own church out of spite. Oh, and killing a ton of people who disagreed with him about his spite-church.

  They’d apparently just finished taking roll, because Henry stood and launched into a short speech, the gist of which was: Catherine of Aragon was wonderful, Catherine of Aragon was crammed full of virtues, he hated the thought of leaving Catherine of Aragon but his tender conscience demanded it, very sorry to inconvenience everyone, especially Catherine of Aragon, and this definitely had nothing to do with Anne Boleyn.

  I caught the highlights, so I didn’t care about the specifics of Henry’s self-delusion. His entire purpose was to convince everyone—himself first of all—that he was right and the world was wrong. He was doing a credible imitation of a man who has fooled even himself, and I didn’t want to hear it.

  No, I wanted to hear Catherine’s rebuttal. I managed to get closer, no easy trick in a crowded hall while wearing what felt like sixty pounds of clothing.

  Oh! The clothes. When I told I.T.C.H. I would go back, several techs ran off and returned with (authentic!) headdresses, kirtles, and bumrolls. Because this was England, not Los Angeles, it seemed as if everyone had a trunk full of period gear. Or were related to someone who did.

  So while I was relieved my costume was protecting me, I had the impression I could be standing there in a tank top and few would notice. All eyes were on the lady.

  Catherine was on her feet now, had crossed to where the king was seated and knelt before him. I was able to get a look at her clothes, which defined sumptuous. Her gown was the color of red wine, her kirtle was deep gold, her sleeves trimmed in dark fur.

  Her headdress made her seem taller, even as she knelt—or perhaps it was simply her presence. Which was spectacular, by the way. And while she had been born and raised in Spain, her English was perfect, and I was amazed by how far her voice carried. I could hear her a lot better than I heard Hank the Tank’s self-serving speech, which was all to the good.

  “Sir, I beseech you for all the love that hath been between us, and for the love of God, let me have justice and right, take of me some pity and compassion, for I am a poor woman and a stranger born out of your dominion, I have here no assured friend, and much less indifferent counsel: I flee to you as to the head of justice within this realm.”

  Yes. Well. Good luck with that, ma’am.

  “Alas! Sir, wherein have I offended you, or what occasion of displeasure have I designed against your will and pleasure? Intending, as I perceive, to put me from you, I take God and all the world to witness, that I have been to you a true and humble wife, ever conformable to your will and pleasure, that never said or did anything to the contrary thereof, being always well pleased and contented with all things wherein ye had any delight or dalliance, whether it were in little or much, I never grudged in word or countenance, or showed a visage or spark of discontentation. I loved all those whom ye loved only for your sake, whether I had cause or no; and whether they were my friends or my enemies.”

  True. It was all true. She loathed the French but had to make nice with them many times, because Henry was always looking for new allies he could piss away money on or with. She took Henry’s side over that of her nephew, Charles, which probably felt like a knife in her throat. She’d supported him in everything and bitten her tongue for … what? Fifteen years?

  “This twenty years—”

  Twenty! My God. Henry, you dick.

  “—I have been your true wife or more, and by me ye have had divers children, although it hath pleased God to call them out of this world, which hath been no default in me.”

  While she was blowing up the hall with hand grenades of truth, her dick husband was trying to get her off her knees (you could almost hear him thinking “you’re making a spectacle of yourself … and worse, of me!”), but she was having none of it, and stayed planted. She was like a stately oak tree, if oaks were swathed in velvet and wore headdresses and spoke with a beautiful Spanish accent.

  “And when ye had me at the first, I take God to be my judge, I was a true maid without touch of man; and whether it be true or no, I put it to your conscience.”

  In other words, if I’m lying, here is your chance to say so. In a court of law. In front of hundreds of witnesses. If I’m lying, speak up right now and say so and put an end to this whole thing.

  He couldn’t. Because he knew she wasn’t lying.

  “If there be any just cause by the law that ye can allege against me, either of dishonesty or any other impediment to banish and put me from you, I am well content to depart, to my great shame and dishonor; and if there be none, then here I most lowly beseech you let me remain in my former estate, and receive justice at your princely hand. The king your father was in the time of his reign of such estimation through the world for his excellent wisdom—”

  Well, his wisdom and his greed. And his paranoia. And his deeply stingy nature. And his incredibly overbearing mother.

  “—that he was accounted and called of all men the second Solomon; and my father Ferdinand, King of Spain, who was esteemed to be one of the wittiest princes that reigned in Spain many years before …”

  Witty. Wily. Sneaky. Back-stabbing. Whatever you wanted to call it, Ferdinand of Aragon was more Machiavellian than Machiavelli. Literally.

  “… were both wise and excellent kings in wisdom and princely behavior. It is not therefore to be doubted,
but that they were elected and gathered as wise counsellors about them as to their high discretions was thought meet. Also, as me seemeth there was in those days as wise, as well-learned men, and men of good judgment as be present in both realms, who thought then the marriage between you and me good and lawful, therefore is it a wonder to me what new inventions are now invented against me, that never intended but honesty. And cause me to stand to the order and judgment of this new court, wherein ye may do me much wrong, if ye intend any cruelty; for ye may condemn me for lack of sufficient answer, having no indifferent counsel, but such as be assigned me, with whose wisdom and learning I am not acquainted.”

  Even my lawyers are on your payroll. Was the concept of conflict of interest not understood in the 16th century? I can’t imagine it was a 21st century invention.

  “Ye must consider that they cannot be indifferent counsellors for my part which be your subjects, and taken out of your own council before, wherein they be made privy, and dare not, for your displeasure, disobey your will and intent, being once made privy thereto.”

  Oof. Very nice. If nothing mattered more to Henry than Henry, a close second was what other people thought of Henry. She was calmly and respectfully calling him out in front of the world, and he could only squirm in his chair. You could almost feel the body blow to his ego.

  “Therefore, I most humbly require you, in the way of charity, and for the love of God, who is the just judge, to spare the extremity of this new court, until I may be advertised what way and order my friends in Spain will advise me to take. And if ye will not extend to me so much indifferent favor, your pleasure then be fulfilled, and to God I commit my case.”

  Cheering would not be wise. Do not cheer. But ohhh, tempting. And I was willing to wager I wasn’t the only one in the hall holding back.

  When Catherine finished, she walked straight up the center of the hall, looking neither left nor right as people stood and bowed their heads. I dropped mine so fast I heard my neck creak, and peeked at her with my peripheral.

  She had taken the arm of the usher, ignored the command to return, and the usher didn’t know (in the poetic words of my father) whether to shit or go blind. He opened his mouth, probably to point out the town crier shouting “Catherine Queen of England, come into the court!”, but the crier might have been a mute mosquito for all the attention she paid. She just said, in a low voice that carried perfectly, “On, on, it maketh no matter, for it is no indifferent court for me, therefore I will not tarry: go on your ways.”

  And out she went.

  Mic drop, three hundred fifty years before the invention of the microphone.

  Chapter Twelve

  And all of it for nothing. Seven years from now, she would die alone, starving, in pain, and miserably lonely. Her impassioned defense of her honor would go down as one of the finest speeches in history, the world would know Henry Tudor, Eighth of his Name, was full of shit, people would be reading about it and writing about it and making movies about it well into the 21st century, but that would have been cold comfort, even as the modern world—dammit!

  I’d been so caught up in current events (so to speak) I’d momentarily forgotten about the modern world, and the Lostie, and the reason I’d entered the church in the first place.

  I turned and started politely shoving my way through the crowd, furious with myself for losing focus. Fortunately, everyone was too busy being flabbergasted to pay me much mind, and in a few seconds I was on the street, no further in my—job? mission? weird new hobby?—than I had been ten minutes earlier.

  “My lady Joan!”

  Eh? Well, Joan wasn’t exactly uncommon. Most likely a coincidence. I couldn’t get distracted again. I had to—

  “Lady Joan Howe!”

  All right, what were the odds? I hopped back up on the church steps so I could see over the crowd and saw a tall, broad-shouldered man holding up his hand like he was waiting for the teacher to call on him.

  “Uh. Hello?” As he moved closer I recognized the cute helpful teenager I’d met at the Field of the Cloth of Bullshit. “Thomas! Come to see the show?”

  “Oh, yes.” He came up the steps, whipped his hat off, and swept me a bow. If I hadn’t recognized him, the dark auburn waves would have been a giveaway.

  Of course. Wolsey was here somewhere; it stood to reason that his secret son would want a peek. I grinned when he came up from his bow. “Sneaky.”

  “Indeed,” he replied with great dignity, and then he grinned back. “And while it is rude to mention a lady’s looks, I am compelled to point out that you have not aged a day.”

  Wrong. I’d aged nine days. But for Thomas, it had been nine years. I had to say he’d sailed out of adolescence in spectacular manner. He still dressed like a scholar on the rise—mostly black, good material, well-cut and well-made—but now he had the body of a man in his prime who didn’t spend all his time on books. If I didn’t take care, it could get messy.

  But he was the only person I knew here. “Thomas, I wonder if you could help me.”

  He’d plopped his hat back on his head but when I spoke, he pulled it off and placed it over his heart. “You have but to ask.”

  “My friend is lost. She’s not well—nice touch with the cap-over-heart, by the way—she’s not well and I think the crowds were too much for her. And she’s not from around here.” At all. “So she’s likely to be disoriented.” Really, really disoriented. “You haven’t seen anything odd, have you?”

  He looked down at me—he’d gained some inches in the last few years—and his lip curled into not-quite-a-smile. “Aside from our king telling the world that his beloved wife, the Queen of England, has been his whore for twenty years, and the Princess Mary a bastard?”

  “Yes, aside from that.” Also: whoa. And his cutting remark reflected the mood of the crowd. There was a lot of head-shaking and dark muttering, none of it in the king’s favor.

  Thomas was already nodding. “There was a young woman running about earlier today, quite hysterical. Her clothing was strange and she seemed not to know where she was, so Master Cromwell had her taken to Bridewell.”

  Cromwell? Wolsey’s right hand man and, very soon, the king’s? Ridiculously intelligent by reputation, and stone cold, doomed to be betrayed by the king but only after a lot of good people were legally murdered? That Cromwell? I had no interest in crossing paths with him. And what the hell was a Bridewell?

  My consternation must have shown, because Thomas put out his arm and said, “I am certain Cromwell means your friend no harm. He thought my father would like to meet her.”

  “He did?” Thomas Cromwell made a habit of fixing people up on blind dates? This detail had escaped my attention—certainly The Tudors on Showtime hadn’t mentioned it.

  “He believes she suffers from amentia.”

  Amentia. Sure. It was probably going around, like the flu.

  “But,” he continued, “my father often says such people are touched by angels and is always pleased to speak to them.”

  Touched by angels, yanked five centuries out of their timeline, tomato, toe-ma-toh.

  There was a pause, broken by Thomas’ helpful, “If you will allow me?”

  I finally realized he was waiting for me to take his arm. “Oh. Oh! Yes. You’ll take me to her? I—I’d rather not bother Thomas Cromwell.”

  “Of course. Ah!”

  I realized I’d clamped down on his forearm. “Sorry! Sorry. I might be suffering from some amentia myself.” Whatever that was. I glanced around to see how it was done, then loosened my grip until my fingers were just grazing his black sleeve. And away we went, off to rescue a dentist without drawing attention to myself while avoiding one of the smartest men on that side of the world.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Bridewell Palace was intimidating and large and beautiful and smelled only a little repellant. I was guessing that was due t
o the weather—their first hot day that spring, apparently, so everything that could be aired out was being aired out. The place probably smelled like a gas station bathroom in February.

  The palace stood on the bank of the Fleet River, and Thomas and I strolled into the outer courtyard past any number of ladies and gents as if we had every right to be there, just another gentleman and his lady, not a cardinal’s bastard and a 21st century medical transcriptionist who was dying, dying for a Coke.

  “This is something else.”

  “Yes, it’s an ongoing project of the cardinal’s. And ideally situated while he tends to the King’s Great Matter.” Thomas pronounced it just like that: you could hear the capital letters. “Pray God this gets resolved while everyone still has their dignity.”

  “Too late.” Plus it would drag on for years. And what was worse for Thomas was the fact that the clock was ticking on his father, too. I wished I dared warn him.

  “Is it heresy to suggest I think God may well steer clear of the whole thing?”

  He laughed. “Perhaps. But no fear—your heretical impulses are safe with me.”

  “And here you are again, Thomas.”

  My escort stopped, so I did, too. A stout, dark-haired man of medium height, wearing what I was beginning to recognize as the business casual of the 16th century, had hailed us. He was standing at the far end of the courtyard, partially hidden which I suspected was on purpose, as he had the look of an avid people watcher.

  “Master Cromwell, this is the Lady Joan Howe.”

  Dammit! The second worst person I could have run into, and Thomas was introducing me to him.

  Cromwell bowed and I tried not to wet myself in terror. (His reputation preceded him a smidge.) He was probably in his late forties, with layers of dark understated clothing that set off a pale expressionless face. Which is what I’d expect from a former cloth merchant. And he wasn’t sweating, though his clothing looked heavy, and his cloak was fur-lined. Which is what I’d expect from a cold man who could sum up anything—cloth, contracts, a monastery, human lives—with a glance.