The Boleyn Inheritance Part 17

The amba.s.sador has written to my brother to say that I am desperately frightened, but I do not hope for a reply. William will not mind my being sick with fear, and by the time they learn of the charges against me it will be too late to save me. And perhaps William would not even choose to save me. He has allowed this peril to come about. He must have hated me more than I ever knew.

If anyone is to save me, it will have to be me, myself. But how can a woman save herself against the charge of witchcraft? If Henry tells the world that he is impotent because I have unmanned him, how can I prove differently? If he tells the world that he can lie with Katherine Howard but not with me, then his case is proved and my denial is just another instance of satanic cunning. A woman cannot prove her innocence when a man bears witness against her. If Henry wants me strangled as a witch, then nothing can save me. He claimed that Lady Anne Boleyn was a witch, and she died for it. He never said good-bye to her, and he had loved her with a pa.s.sion. They just came for her one day and took her away.

I am waiting now, for them to come for me.

Jane Boleyn, Westminster Palace, June 1540 A note, dropped into my lap by one of the servers at dinner as he leans over to clear the meat platter, bids me go to my lord at once, and as soon as dinner is over, I do as I am told. These days, the queen g"s into her bedroom straight after dinner; she will not miss me from the nervous huddle of those of us who are left in her depleted rooms. Katherine Howard is missing from court, gone back to her grandmother's house at Lambeth. Lady Lisle is under house arrest for her husband's grave crimes; they say she is quite frantic with distress and fear. She knows he will die. Lady Rutland is quiet and g"s to her own rooms at night. She must be fearful, too, but I don't know what accusation she might face. Anne Ba.s.sett has gone to stay with her cousin under the pretense of illness; Catherine Carey has been sent for by her mother, Mary. She asks permission for Catherine to come home as she is unwell. I could laugh at the transparent excuse. Mary Boleyn was always skilled at keeping herself and hers far from trouble. A pity she never exerted herself for her brother. Mary Norris has to help her mother in the country with some special tasks. Henry Norris's widow saw the scaffold last time the king plotted against his wife. She won't want to see her daughter climb the steps that her husband trod.

We are all of us guarded in our speech and retiring in our behavior. The bad times have come to King Henry's court once more, and everyone is afraid, everyone is under suspicion. It is like living in a nightmare: every man, every woman knows that every word they say, every gesture they make, might be used in evidence against them. An enemy might work up an indiscretion into a crime; a friend might trade a confidence for a guarantee of safety. We are a court of cowards and tale bearers. n.o.body walks anymore; we all tipt". n.o.body even breathes; we are all holding our breath. The king has turned suspicious of his friends, and n.o.body can be sure that they are safe.

I creep to my lord duke's rooms, walking in the shadows, and I open the door and slip in, in silence. My lord duke is standing by the window, the shutters open to the warm night air, the candles on his desk bobbing their flames in the draft. He looks up and smiles when I enter the room; I could almost think that he is fond of me.

"Ah, Jane, my niece. The queen is to go to Richmond with a much-reduced court. I want you to go with her. "

"Richmond? " I hear the quaver of fear in my own voice, and I take a breath. This means house arrest while they inquire into the allegations against her. But why are they sending me in with her? Am I to be charged, too?

"Yes. You will stay with her and keep a careful note of who comes and g"s, and anything she says. In particular, you are to be alert for Amba.s.sador Harst. We think he can do nothing, but you would oblige me by seeing that she has no plans to escape, sends no messages, that sort of thing. "

"Please " I stop myself, my voice has come out weak. I know this is not the way to deal with him.

"What? " He is still smiling, but his dark eyes are intent.

"I cannot prevent her escaping. I am one woman, alone. "

He shakes his head. "The ports are closed from tonight. Her amba.s.sador has discovered that there is not a horse to buy or hire in the whole of England. Her own stables are barred. Her rooms closed. She won't be able to escape or send for help. Everyone in her service is her jailer. You just have to watch her. "

"Please let me go and serve Katherine, " I take a breath to say. "She will need advice if she is to be a good queen. "

The duke pauses for thought. "She will, " he says. "She is an idiot, that girl. But she can come to no harm with her grandmother. "

He taps his thumbnail against his tooth, considering.

"She will need to learn to be a queen, " I say.

He hesitates. We two have known Queens of England who were queens indeed. Little Katherine is not fit to touch their sh"s, let alone walk in them; years of training would not make her regal. "No, she won't, " he says. "The king d"sn't want a great queen beside him anymore. He wants a girl to pet, a little filly, a young broodmare for his seed. Katherine need be nothing more than obedient. "

"Then let me say the truth: I don't want to go to Richmond with Queen Anne. I don't want to bear witness against this queen. "

His sharp, dark eyes look up quickly at me. "Witness of what? " he demands.

I am too weary to fence. "Witness of whatever you want me to see, " I say. "Whatever the king wants me to say, I don't want to say it. I don't want to bear witness against her. "

"Why not? " he asks, as if he did not know.

"I am sick of trials, " I say from the heart. "I am afraid of the king's desires now. I don't know what he wants. I don't know how far he will go. I don't want to give evidence at a queen's trial *not ever again. "

"I am sorry, " he says without regret. "But we need someone to swear that she had a conversation with the queen in which the queen made it clear that she was a virgin untouched, absolutely untouched, and moreover quite ignorant of any doings between a man and a maid. "

"She has been in bed with him night after night, " I say impatiently. "We all put her to bed the first night. You were there; the Archbishop of Canterbury was there. She was raised to conceive a son and bear an heir; she was married for that single purpose. She could hardly be ignorant of the doings of a man and a maid. No woman in the world has endured more unsuccessful attempts. "

"That is why we need a lady of unimpeachable reputation to swear it, " he says smoothly. "Such an unlikely lie needs a plausible witness: you. "

"Any of the others can do that for you, " I protest. "Since the conversation never happened, since it is an impossible conversation, surely it d"s not matter who says that it took place? "

"I should like our name entered as witness, " the duke says. "The king would be pleased to see our service. It would do us good. "

"Is it to prove her a witch? " I ask bluntly. I am too weary of my work and sick of myself to pick my way around my ducal uncle tonight. "Is it, in fact, to prove her a witch and have her sent to her death? "

He draws himself up to his full height and looks down his nose at me. "It is not for us to predict what the king's commissioners might find, " he says. "They will sift the evidence, and give the verdict. All you will provide is a sworn statement, sworn on your faith before G.o.d. "

"I don't want her death on my conscience. " I can hear the desperation in my voice. "Please. Let someone else swear to it. I don't want to go with her to Richmond and then swear a lie against her. I don't want to stand by while they take her to the Tower. I don't want her to die on the basis of my false evidence. I have been her friend; I don't want to be her a.s.sa.s.sin. "

He waits in silence till my torrent of refusals is finished, then he looks at me and smiles again, but now there is no warmth in his face at all. "Certainly, " he says. "You will swear only to the statement that we will have prepared for you, and your betters will decide what is to be done for the queen. You will keep me informed of whom she sees and what she d"s in the usual way. My man will go with you to Richmond. You will watch her with care. She is not to escape. And when it is over, you will be Katherine's lady-in-waiting, you will have your place at court, you will be lady-in-waiting to the new Queen of England. That will be your reward. You will be the first lady at the new queen's court. I promise it. You will be head of her privy chamber. "

He thinks he has bought me with this promise, but I am sick of this life. "I can't go on doing this, " I say simply. I am thinking of Anne Boleyn, and of my husband, and of the two of them going into the Tower with all the evidence against them, and none of it true. I am thinking of them going to their deaths knowing that their family had borne witness against them, and their uncle pa.s.sed the death sentence. I am thinking of them, trusting in me, waiting for me to come to give evidence for their defense, confident in my love for them, certain that I would save them. "I cannot go on doing this. "

"I should hope not, " he says primly. "Please G.o.d that you will never do it again. In my niece Katherine, the king has at last found a true and honorable wife. She is a rose without a thorn. "

"A what? "

"A rose without a thorn, " the duke repeats. He keeps his face perfectly straight. "That is what we are to call her. That is what he wants us to call her. "

Katherine, Norfolk House, Lambeth, June 1540 Now, let me see, what do I have? I have the murderers' houses that the king first gave me, and their lands. I have the jewels I earned by a quick squeeze in a quiet gallery. I have half a dozen gowns, paid for by my uncle, most of them new, and hoods to match. I have a bedchamber of my own at my grandmother's house and my own presence chamber, too, and a few maids-in-waiting but no ladies as yet. I buy dresses almost every day; the merchants come across the river with bolts of silk as if I were a dressmaker on my own account. They fit me with gowns, and they mutter with their mouths filled with pins that I am the most beautiful, the most exquisite girl ever to be st.i.tched into a too-tight stomacher. They bend to the floor to hem up my gown and say that they have never seen such a pretty girl, a very queen among girls.

I love it. If I were more thoughtful, or a graver soul, then I know I would be troubled by the thought of my poor mistress the queen and what will become of her, and the disagreeable thought that soon I shall marry a man who has buried three wives and maybe will bury his fourth, and is old enough to be my grandfather, as well as very smelly but I cannot be troubled with such worries. The other wives did as they had to do, and their lives ended as G.o.d and the king willed; it is really nothing to me. Even my cousin Anne Boleyn shall be nothing to me. I shall not think of her, nor of our uncle pus.h.i.+ng her onto the throne and then pus.h.i.+ng her onto the scaffold. She had her gowns and her court and her jewels. She had her time of being the finest young woman at court; she had her time of being the favorite of her family and the pride of us all. Now I shall have mine.

I will have my time. I will be merry. I am as hungry as she was, for the color and the wealth, for the diamonds and the flirting, for the horses and the dancing. I want my life, I want the very, very best of everything; and by luck, and by the whim of the king (whom G.o.d preserve), I am to have the very, very best. I had hoped to be spotted by one of the great men of the court and chosen for his kinswoman and given in marriage to a young n.o.bleman who might rise through the court. That was the very pinnacle of my hopes. But instead, everything is to be different. Much better. The king himself has seen me, the King of England desires me; the man who is G.o.d on earth, who is the father of his people, who is the law and the word, desires me. I have been chosen by G.o.d's own representative on earth. No one can stand in his way, and no one would dare deny him. This is no ordinary man who has seen me and desired me; this is not even a mortal. This is a half G.o.d who has seen me. He desires me, and my uncle tells me it is my duty and my honor to accept his proposal. I will be Queen of England *think of that! I will be Queen of England. Then we shall see what I, little Kitty Howard, can count as my own!

Actually, in truth I am torn between terror and excitement at the thought of being his consort and his queen, the greatest woman in England. I have a vain thrill that he wants me, and I make sure that I think about that and ignore my sense of disappointment that although he is almost G.o.d, he is only a man like any other, and a very old man, and an old man who is half impotent at that, an old man who cannot even do the job in the jakes, and I must play him as I would any old man who in his l.u.s.t and vanity happened to desire me. If he gives me what I want, he shall have my favor; I cannot say fairer than that. I could almost laugh at myself, granting the greatest man in the world my little favor. But if he wants it, and if he will pay so highly for it, then I am in the market like any huckster: selling myself.

Grandmother, the d.u.c.h.ess, tells me that I am her clever, clever girl and that I will bring wealth and greatness to our family. To be queen is a triumph beyond our most ambitious dreams, but there is a hope even beyond that. If I conceive a son and give birth to a boy, then our family will rise as high as the Seymours. And if the Seymour boy Prince Edward were to die (though G.o.d forbid, of course), but if he were to die, then my son would be the next King of England and we Howards would be kinsmen to the king. Then we would be the royal family, or as good as, and then we would be the greatest family in England, and everyone would have to thank me for their good fortune. My uncle Norfolk would bow his knee to me and bless me for my patronage. When I think of this, I giggle and cannot daydream anymore, for sheer delight.

I am sorry to my heart for my mistress Queen Anne. I would have liked to stay as her maid and to see her become happy. But what cannot be, cannot be, and I would be foolish indeed to mourn over my own good fortune. She is like those poor men executed so that I can have their lands, or the poor nuns thrown from their homes so that we can all be richer. Such people have to suffer for our benefit. I have learned that this is the way of the world. And it's not my fault that the world is a hard place for others. I hope she finds happiness as I will do. Perhaps she will go home to her brother in wherever-it-is. Poor dear. Perhaps she will marry the man whom she was betrothed to marry. My uncle tells me that she was very wrong to come to England when she knew she was bound to marry another man. This was a very shocking thing to do, and I am surprised at her. She always seemed such a well-behaved young woman; I cannot believe that she would do such a naughty thing. Of course when my uncle speaks of a prior betrothal I cannot help but think of my poor, dear Francis Dereham. I have never mentioned the promises we exchanged, and, really, I think it best that I just forget all about it and pretend that it never happened. It is not always easy to be a young woman in this world that is full of temptation for sure, and I do not criticize Queen Anne for being betrothed to another and then marrying the king. I wouldn't do it myself, of course, but since Francis Dereham and I were not properly married, nor even properly betrothed, I do not consider it. I didn't have a proper gown, so clearly it wasn't a proper wedding or binding vows. All we did was the daydreaming of little children and a few innocent kisses. No more than that, really. But she could do worse, if she is sent home, than to marry her first love. I myself shall always think of Francis with affection. One's first love is always very sweet, probably sweeter than a very old husband. When I am queen, I shall do something very kind for Francis.

Anne, Westminster Palace, June 10, 1540 Dear G.o.d, save me, dear G.o.d, save me, every one of my friends or allies is in the Tower, and I do not doubt but they will soon come for me. Thomas Cromwell, the man given the credit for bringing me to England, is arrested, charged with treason. Treason! He has been the king's servant; he has been his dog. He is no more capable of treason than one of the king's greyhounds. Clearly, the man is no traitor. Clearly, he has been arrested to punish him for making my marriage. If this charge brings him to the block and the executioner's axe, then there can be little doubt that I will follow.

The man who first welcomed me into Calais, my dearest Lord Lisle, is charged with treason and also with being a secret Papist, party to a Papist plot. They are saying that he welcomed me as queen because he knew that I would prevent the king from conceiving a son. He is arrested and charged with treason for a plot that names me as one of the elements. It is no defense that he is innocent. It is no defense that the plot is absurd. In the cellars of the Tower are terrible rooms where wicked men go about cruel work. A man will say anything after he has been tortured by one of them. The human body cannot resist the pain that they can inflict. The king allows the prisoners to be torn, legs from body, arms from shoulders. Such barbarity is new to this country; but it is allowed now, as the king turns into a monster. Lord Lisle is gently born, quietly spoken. He cannot tolerate pain; surely he will tell them what they wish, whatever it is. Then he will go to the block a confessed traitor, and who knows what they will have made him confess about me?

The net is closing around me. It is so close now that I can almost see the cords. If Lord Lisle says that he knew I would make the king impotent, then I am a dead woman. If Thomas Cromwell says he knew that I was betrothed and that I married the king when I was not free to do so, then I am a dead woman. They have my friend Lord Lisle; they have my ally Thomas Cromwell. They will torture them until they have the evidence they need and then come for me. In all of England, there is only one man who might help me. I don't have much hope, but I have no other friend. I send for my amba.s.sador, Carl Harst.

It is a hot day and the windows are all standing wide open to the air from the garden. From outside I can hear the sound of the court boating on the river. They are playing lutes and singing, and I can hear the laughter. Even at this distance I can hear the sharp note of forced merriment. The room is cool and in shadow, but we are both sweating.

"I have hired horses, " he says in our language, in a hiss of a whisper. "I had to go all over the city to find them, and in the end I bought them from some Hanseatic merchants. I have borrowed money for the journey. I think we should go at once. As soon as I can find a guard to bribe. "

"At once. " I nod. "We must go at once. What do they say of Cromwell? "

"It is barbaric. They are savages. He walked into the Privy Council with no idea that there was anything wrong. His old friends and fellow n.o.blemen stripped him of his badges of office, of his Order of the Garter. They pecked at him like crows tear at a dead rabbit. He was marched away like a felon. He will not even stand trial; they need call no witnesses, they need prove no charges. He will be beheaded by a Bill of Attainder; it needs only the word of the king. "

"Might the king not say the word? Will he not grant him mercy? He made him earl only weeks ago to show his favor. "

"A feint, it was nothing but a feint. The king showed his favor only so that his spite falls more heavily now. Cromwell will beg for mercy, sure of forgiveness; he will find none. He is certain to die a traitor's death. "

"Did the king say farewell to him? " I ask, as if it is an idle question.

"No, " the amba.s.sador says. "There was nothing to warn the man. They parted as on any ordinary day, with no special words. Cromwell came into the meeting of the council as if nothing was out of the ordinary. He thought that he had come to command the meeting as Secretary of State, in his pomp and his power, and then, in moments, he found himself under arrest and his old enemies laughing at him. "

"The king did not say good-bye, " I say in a sort of quiet horror. "It is as they say. The king never says good-bye. "

Jane Boleyn, Westminster Palace, June 24, 1540 We are seated in the queen's room in silence, sewing s.h.i.+rts for the poor. Katherine Howard is missing from her place; she has been staying with her grandmother at Norfolk House, Lambeth, all these weeks. The king visits her almost every evening; he takes his dinner with them as if he were a private man, not king at all. He is rowed across the river in the royal barge; he g"s openly, taking no trouble to conceal his ident.i.ty.

The whole of the city is buzzing with the belief that only six months into the marriage the king has taken a mistress in the Howard girl. The spectacularly ignorant claim that since the king has a lover, therefore the queen must be pregnant, and everything is well in this most blessed world: a Tudor son and heir in the queen's belly and the king taking his own amus.e.m.e.nt elsewhere as he always d"s. Those of us who know better do not even take the pleasure of correcting those who know nothing. We know that Katherine Howard is guarded like a vestal virgin now, against the king's feeble seductive powers. We know that the queen is still untouched. What we don't know, what we cannot know, is what is going to happen.

In the absence of the king, the court has become unruly. When Queen Anne and we ladies go to our dinner, the throne is empty at the head of the room, and there is no rule. The hall is avid, like a buzzing hive, seething with gossip and rumor. Everyone wants to be on the winning side, but no one knows which that will turn out to be. There are gaps at the great tables where some of the families have left court altogether, either from fear or from distaste at the new terror. Anyone who is known for Papist sympathies is in danger and has gone to his country estate. Anyone who is in favor of reform fears that the king has turned against it with a Howard girl favorite again and Stephen Gardiner composing the prayers, which are just as they were when they came from Rome, and the reforming Archbishop Cranmer is quite out of fas.h.i.+on. Left behind at court are the opportunist and the reckless. It is as if the whole world is becoming unraveled with the unraveling of order. The queen pushes her food around her plate with her golden fork, her head bowed low so as to avoid the bright, curious stares of the people who have come to see a queen abandoned on her throne, deserted in her palace, who come in their hundreds to see her, avid to see a queen on her last night at court, perhaps her last night on earth.

We return to our rooms as soon as the board is cleared; there are no entertainments for the king after dinner because he is never here. It is almost as if there is no king, and in his absence no queen, and no court. Everything is changed, or waiting fearfully for more change. n.o.body knows what will happen, and everyone is alert to any sign of danger.

And there is talk, all the time, of more arrests. Today, I heard that Lord Hungerford has been taken to the Tower, and when they told me of his crimes, it was as if I had walked from the midday sun into an ice house. He is accused of unnatural behavior, as my husband was: sodomy with another man. He is accused of forcing his daughter, as my husband George was accused of incest with his sister Anne. He is accused of treason and foretelling the king's death, just like George and Anne, charged together. Perhaps his wife will be invited to witness against him, just as they asked me to do. I s.h.i.+ver at the thought of this; it takes me all my willpower to sit quietly in the queen's room and make my st.i.tches neat on the hems. I can hear a drumming in my ears; I can feel the blood heating my cheeks as if I am ill with a fever. It is happening again. King Henry is turning on his friends again.

This is a bloodletting again, a scatter of charges against those the king wants out of his sight. Last time Henry sought vengeance, the long days of his hatred took my husband, four others, and the Queen of England. Who can doubt but that Henry is about to do it again? But who can know whom he will take?

The only sound in the queen's rooms is the little patter of a dozen needles piercing rough cloth, and the whisper of the thread being pulled through. All the laughter and music and gaming that used to fill the arched room has been silenced. None of us dares to speak. The queen was always guarded, careful in her speech. Now, in these fearful days, she is more than discreet, she is struck dumb, in a state of silent terror.

I have seen a queen in fear of her life before; I know what it is like to be at the queen's court when we are all waiting for something to happen. I know how the queen's ladies glance furtively, when they know in their hearts that the queen will be taken away, and who knows where else the blame will fall?

There are several empty seats in the queen's rooms. Katherine Howard has gone, and the rooms are a quieter, duller place without her. Lady Lisle is partly in hiding, partly seeking out the few friends who dare to acknowledge her, sick with crying. Lady Southampton has made an excuse to go away. I think that she fears her husband will be caught in the trap that is being set to catch the queen. Southampton was another friend of the queen's when she first came to England. Anne Ba.s.sett has managed to be ill since the arrest of her father and has gone to her kinswoman. Catherine Carey has been taken from court, without a word of notice, by her mother, who knows all about the fall of queens. Mary Norris has been summoned away by her mother, who will also find these events too familiar. All of those who promised the queen their unending, undying friends.h.i.+p are now terrified that she will claim it and they will go down with her fall. All her ladies are afraid that they may be caught in the trap that is being primed to catch the queen.

All of us, that is, except those who already know that they are not the victims but the trap itself. The king's agents at the court of the queen are Lady Rutland, Catherine Edgecombe, and me. When she is arrested, we three will give evidence against her. Thus will we be safe. At least we three will be safe.

I have not yet been told what evidence I shall give, just that I will be required to swear to a written statement. I am beyond caring. I asked the duke my uncle if I might be spared, and he says that on the contrary I should be glad that the king should put his faith in me again. I think I can say or do no more. I shall give myself up to these times; I shall bob along like a bit of driftwood on the tide of the king's whim. I shall try to keep my own head above the water and pity those who drown beside me. And, if I am honest, I may keep my own head up by pus.h.i.+ng another down and s.n.a.t.c.hing at their air. In a s.h.i.+pwreck, it is every drowning man for himself.

There is a thunderous knock at the door, and a girl screams. We all jump to our feet, certain the soldiers are at the door; we are waiting for the word of our arrest. I look quickly at the queen, and she is white, whiter than salt, I have never seen a woman blanch so pale except in death. Her lips are actually blue with fear.

The door opens. It is my uncle, the Duke of Norfolk, looking long-faced and cadaverous with his black hat on his head like a hanging judge.

"Your Grace, " he says, and comes in and bows low to her.

She sways like a silver birch tree. I go to her side and take her arm to keep her steady. I feel her shudder at my touch, and I realize that she thinks I am arresting her, holding her while my uncle p.r.o.nounces sentence.

"It's all right, " I whisper; but of course I do not know that it is all right. For all I know there are half a dozen of the royal guard standing out of sight in the corridor.

She holds her head high, and she raises herself up to her full height. "Goot evening, " she says in her funny way. "My lord duke. "

"I am come from the Privy Council, " he says, as smooth as funeral silk. "I regret to say that the plague has broken out in the city. "

She frowns slightly, trying to follow the words; these are not what she was expecting. The ladies stir; we all know there is no plague.

"The king is anxious for your safety, " he says slowly. "He commands you to move to Richmond Palace. "

I feel her sway. "He comes also? "

"No. "

So everyone will know that she has been sent away. If there was plague in the city, then King Henry would be the last man in the world to be boating up and down on the Thames tra-la-la-la-ing with his lute and a new love song all the way to the Lambeth horse ferry. If there were sickness in the evening mists curling off the river, then Henry would be away to the New Forest, or to Ess.e.x. He has an utter terror of illness. The prince would be dispatched to Wales; the king would be long gone.

So anyone who knows the king knows that this report of plague is a lie, and that the truth must be that this is the start of the queen's ordeal. First, house arrest, while the inquiry g"s on, then a charge, then a court hearing, then judgment, the sentence, and death. Thus it was for Queen Katherine, for Queen Anne Boleyn, so it will be for Queen Anne of Cleves.

"I will see him before I leave? " she asks, poor little thing, her voice is trembling.

"His Grace bade me come to tell you to leave tomorrow morning. He will visit you, without doubt, at Richmond Palace. "

She staggers, and her legs buckle beneath her; if I were not holding her up, she would fall. The duke nods at me, as if commending a job well done, then he steps back and bows, and takes himself from the room as if he were not Death himself, come for the bride.

I lower the queen into her chair and send one of the girls for a gla.s.s of water, and another running to the cellarer for a gla.s.s of brandy. When they come back, I make her drink from one gla.s.s and then the other, and she lifts up her head and looks at me.

"I must see my amba.s.sador, " she says huskily.

I nod; she can see him if she likes, but there will be nothing he can do to save her. I send one of the pages to find Dr. Harst. He will be dining in the hall; he finds his way in every mealtime to one of the tables at the back. The Duke of Cleves has not paid him enough to set up his own house like a proper amba.s.sador; the poor man has to scrounge like a mouse at the royal board.

He comes in at a run and recoils when he sees her, seated in her chair, doubled over, as if she has been knifed in the heart.

"Leave us, " she says.

I drift to the end of the room, but I don't go right outside. I stand as if I am guarding the door from the others coming in. I dare not leave her alone, even if I won't understand what is being said. I cannot risk her giving him her jewels and the two of them slipping away through the private door to the garden and the path to the river, even though I know there are sentries on the piers.

They mutter in their own language, and I see him shake his head. She is crying, trying to tell him something, and he pats her hand, and pats her elbow, and d"s everything but pat her head like a whipper-in might soothe a fretting b.i.t.c.h. I lean back against the door. This is not the man who can overthrow our plans. This man is not going to rescue her; we need not fear him. This man will still be desperately worrying about what he can do to save her as she climbs the scaffold. If she is counting on him for help, then she is as good as dead already.

Anne, Richmond Palace, July 1540 I think the waiting is the worst, and now waiting is all I do. Waiting to hear what charge they will frame against me, waiting for my arrest, and racking my brains for what defense I can make. Dr. Harst and I are agreed that I must leave the country, even if it means losing my claim to the throne, breaking the contract of marriage, and wrecking the alliance with Cleves. Even if it means that England will join with France in a war against Spain. To my horror, my failure to succeed in this country may mean that England is free to go to war in Europe. The one thing I hoped to bring to this country was peace and safety, but my failure with the king may send them to war. And I cannot prevent it.

Dr. Harst believes that my friend Lord Lisle and my sponsor Thomas Cromwell are certain to die, and that I will be next. There is nothing now I can do to save England from this outbreak of tyranny. All I can do for myself is try to save my own skin. There is no predicting the charge and no guarding against it. There will be no formal accusation in a courtroom; there will be no judges and no jury. There will be no chance to defend myself from whatever charge they have invented. Lord Lisle and Lord Cromwell will die under a Bill of Attainder; all it requires is the signature of the king. The king, who believes he is guided by G.o.d, has become a G.o.d with the full power of life and death. There can be no doubt that he is planning my death, too.

I hesitate; like a fool I wait for a few days, hoping that it is not as bad as it seems. I think that the king might be well advised by men who can see reason. I pray that G.o.d might speak to him in words of common sense and not rea.s.sure him that his own desires should be paramount. I hope that I might hear from my mother, to tell me what I should do. I even hope against hope for a message from my brother saying that he will not let them try me, that he will prevent my execution, that he is sending an escort to bring me home. Then, on the very day that Dr. Harst said he would come with six horses and I should be ready to leave, he comes to me, without horses, his face very grave, and says that the ports are closed. The king is letting no one in or out of the country. No s.h.i.+ps are allowed to sail at all. Even if we could get to the coast *and to run away would be a confession of guilt *we would not be able to sail. I am imprisoned in my new country. There is no way of getting home.

Like a fool I had thought that my difficulty would be getting past the guards at my door, getting horses, getting away from the palace without someone raising a hue and cry and coming after us. But no, the king is all-seeing, like the G.o.d he thinks he is. Getting away from the palace would have been hard enough, but now we cannot take a s.h.i.+p for home. I am marooned on this island. The king holds me captive.

Dr. Harst thinks this means that they will come for me at once. The king has closed the whole country so that he can have me tried, found guilty, and beheaded before my own family can even hear of my arrest. No one in Europe can protest or cry shame! No one in Europe will even know until it is over and I am dead. I believe this to be true. It must be within a few days, perhaps even tomorrow.

I cannot sleep. I spend the night at the window watching for the first light of dawn. I think this will be my last night on earth, and I regret more than anything else that I have wasted my life. I spent all my time obeying my father and then my brother; I squandered these last months in trying to please the king; I did not treasure the little spark that is me, uniquely me. Instead, I put my will and my thoughts beneath the will of the men who command me. If I had been the gyrfalcon that my father called me, I would have flown high, and nested in lonely, cold places, and ridden the free wind. Instead, I have been like a bird in a mews, always tied and sometimes hooded. Never free and sometimes blind.

As G.o.d is my witness, if I live through this night, through this week, I shall try to be true to myself in the future. If G.o.d spares me I shall try to honor him by being me, myself; not by being a sister or a daughter or a wife. This is an easy promise to make for I don't think I will be held to it. I don't think G.o.d will save me, I don't think Henry will spare me. I don't think I will have any life beyond next week.

As it grows light and then golden with the morning sun of summertime, I stay at my seat at the window, and they bring me a cup of small ale and a slice of bread and b.u.t.ter as I watch the river for the flutter of the standard and the steady dip and sweep of oars, for the coming of the royal barge to take me to the Tower. Any beat of a drum, drifting over the water to keep the rowers in time, and I can hear my heart echoing its thudding in my ears, thinking that it is them, come for me today. Funny then that when they finally come, not until midafternoon, it is not a troop but only a single man, Richard Beard, who arrives without warning in a little wherry, when I am walking in the garden, my hands cold in my pockets and my feet clumsy with fear. He finds me in the privy garden when I am walking among the roses, bending my head down to the blooms but unable to smell the perfume of the full-blown flowers. From a distance I must look to him like a happy woman, a young queen in a garden of roses. Only as he comes close d"s he see the whiteness of my blank face.

"Your Grace, " he says, and bows low, as if to a queen.

I nod.

"I have brought a letter from the king. " He offers me the letter.