‘We’ll try at Pontefract Castle,’ I promise. ‘It’s a very grand castle, huge. There will be thousands of places where you can meet him.’
Pontefract Castle, Summer
1541
THE CASTLE THEYcall Pomfret is an extraordinary old building, looming over the landscape, towers spiralling upwards, and the great gates thrown open to welcome us as we ride in. It’s big enough to house everyone riding on the progress – a huge northern castle built long ago to host a fighting king, his court and army. The roof has holes where the rain blows in; the corners are shabby; there are whole floors with nothing but lumber stored in them, abandoned to rats and the birds that fly in and out of the unglazed windows. But the great hall is huge and brilliant with tapestries and painted beams, and warm with an old-fashioned fire on a huge hearth in the centre, smoke finding its way out through the hole in the roof high above it. The king’s side is on the right of the great hall, the queen’s side on the left. For the first time in my life, I am a creeping, watching spy, like the men my lord employed to break into houses and makerendezvous– I search for exits and entrances, hiding places and meeting places.
The maids-of-honour and the ladies-in-waiting are disappointed in their rooms – only Kitty’s bedroom and stool room have been refurbished since the castle was built centuries ago, and everywhere is cold and dusty, and we are all tired of travelling and packingand unpacking every week. Only Lady Mary makes no complaint; but she has borne with uncomfortable castles for years. We cannot muster excitement at another poor town; we cannot even pretend we are interested in more rebels seeking pardons.
The queen herself has changed. She no longer romps with her ladies as she used to do, nor does she revel in their stories of flirtations and indiscretions. The love affair between one of the ladies-in-waiting, young Dorothy Bray, and William Parr, a married courtier, interests her only for a moment.
‘Do you love him so much that you feel you would die without him?’ she asks Dorothy.
‘Gracious no!’ Dorothy tosses her head. ‘It is for him to die of love for me, I think.’
‘Then you are a fool to be so indiscreet for nothing,’ Kitty says, as stern as a queen. ‘And I won’t have my ladies behaving badly.’
Kitty tells her ladies that they cannot come to her privy chamber without invitation; she would prefer it if they did not even knock on her bedroom door. This upsets her old friends, who are used to running in and out of her rooms, and insults her sister Lady Isabel Baynton, who has a right to entry. The ladies mutter that they are supposed to provide good company in the queen’s rooms – privy chamber and presence chamber – and if Kitty is too young and too ill-educated to appreciate good conversation, they are wasted here and would be happier at their homes. The maids say simply that she’s got above herself and she’s no fun any more.
Even worse, Francis Dereham chooses this very moment to arrive at Pontefract Castle to take up his post in the queen’s household, as if we ever meant for him to actually work at court. All this time, he has taken a wage to stay away – living at Norfolk House in Lambeth – but now, without invitation, he arrives.
‘What am I to do with him?’ Kitty demands as Webb shows him into her privy chamber.
‘I could be your secretary?’ he suggests. ‘Your personal and private secretary?’ He is darkly handsome; he smiles at her, confident thathe is attractive to women, knowing that she was once in love with him, dangerously sure of himself.
‘You have no qualifications,’ I say coldly. ‘As we agreed. And the queen already has a talented and educated secretary. And why did you leave Norfolk House?’
‘We had a falling out,’ he says with a wink. ‘She has a hot temper for a great lady. And it’s too small a place and too old-fashioned for a young man like me.’
The queen says nothing to her former friend. I can see her holding her hands clasped tightly in her lap. I imagine she wants to jump off her chair and slap his smiling face.
‘I was the duchess’ personal secretary—’ he begins, and then he sees my raised eyebrow. ‘Well – gentleman usher,’ he amends.
‘Her Majesty could recommend you for service to another household,’ I suggest. ‘One more in the way and... more fashionable?’
He shakes his head decisively. ‘Nothing’s more fashionable than a young queen. I’m stopping here. But trust me, you’ll be glad you hired me. And I won’t go anywhere else.’
I lean towards Kitty so that he cannot hear our quick whispered consultation. ‘We have to have him,’ she says crossly. ‘I can’t let him gossip about what went on at Norfolk House. He can’t say a word.’
‘We can offer you a post, but it is for a discreet and quiet gentleman,’ I tell him. ‘You understand that you have to be sober, well-behaved, and respectful?’
He bows low to Kitty. ‘I do know how to behave,’ he says, with a rueful smile at her. ‘You did like me once. Very much, if you remember?’
‘I like you still,’ Kitty says through her teeth. ‘And I will like you again, if you cause no trouble. But the old days are long gone, and I have forgotten all about them.’
‘Oh, then I’ve forgotten, too,’ he says. He bows at me; he winks again. ‘I promise you, Lady Rochford: nothing to fear from me! I have forgotten everything.’
As soon as he has smilingly bowed himself out of the room,I round on Kitty. ‘What did you do with him?’ I hiss. ‘Were you lovers? Were you full lovers? Did you promise marriage – was that why you held his savings?’
She is coldly furious. ‘I did nothing with him,’ she says. ‘How dare you suggest such a thing? Look at him! I would never stoop so low.’
THE COURT DINEStogether in the great hall, and now the king has rested, there is music and dancing after dinner and gaming tables set up and card games to entertain him. He waves his young companions to dance with the girls, and when Kitty sits beside him rather than dance with a young man, he laughs and pinches her cheek and says that she must take a whirl around the floor with a handsome young man, and who is her favourite?
She names Thomas Seymour, the court favourite; she chooses John Dudley; once, she makes the king laugh by naming her uncle Thomas Howard, who scowls at her and says that he is too old for dancing and if he was going to make a fool of himself, it would not be with his niece. She never so much as looks towards Thomas Culpeper, and he is never more to her than one of many courtiers, with a courtier’s charm.
We dine in the thick woods that surround the castle after the hunts; we paddle like children in the river; we go out boating; we have a moonlight supper, and the king is so well entertained and so exhausted by the court merrymaking that he comes to the queen’s bed only once, escorted by half a dozen companions. The clatter they make as they come through the hall early in the night gives us plenty of time to prepare, and Kitty is in her bed with her nightcap on, looking pretty by the time the king arrives.
All the other nights, Thomas Culpeper comes to her bedroom, up a little twisting stair that is used by the spit boy to bring firewood and take out the ashes. Sometimes, he even creeps into her room in the late afternoon, when Kitty is resting before dinner. They are never alone; they never ask me to leave. We lock the bedroomdoor, and I sit beside it on a footstool, and the two of them sit in the window seat, withdrawn a little so that no one glancing up at the queen’s tower can see them. Sometimes, they have only a few minutes together; some days, he can stay for an hour. At night, when the castle is quiet but for the patrolling guards, they sit side by side before the dying fire and whisper together until the sky lightens with the early summer dawn and the birds begin to sing, and he whispers: ‘I have to go...’ and she says: ‘Oh, don’t... not yet...’
