‘The dowager princess to Kimbolton Castle, Cardinal Wolsey to hell, and Bishop Fisher and Thomas More to the Tower, only to have enemies under my own roof. The old lords speak against me in council; their old wives gossip behind their hands. All the old people want everything back the way it was. They want the old queen back.’
‘Well, you can’t put them all in the Tower!’ I joke; but nobody laughs. At once, I am grave. ‘Of course, I’ll speak to Agnes.’
Anne stands up in her tight shoes. ‘Fetch her now; she can dress me.’
George drops a kiss on her shoulder and throws a salute to me ‘Thank you!’ he mouths, hidden by the door.
I see the door is safely closed behind him before I cross to the opposite door to the queen’s privy chamber. ‘Her Grace is ready for dressing,’ I say, and three maids of honour obediently rise. Agnes swings past me, not a care in her world.
I touch her arm. ‘Is there any reason that you don’t make a proper curtsey to the queen?’ I ask her pleasantly. ‘I’m sure there must be some mistake.’
‘No mistake but hers,’ she says rudely. ‘I curtsey low enough for her.’
‘Curtsey low enough for a crowned queen. And let the matter end here.’
‘It’ll end where it started: with her.’
I tighten my grip. ‘Mistress Agnes, when I was first at court, I minded my manners. That’s how I rose to be first lady-in-waiting.’
‘And I mind mine! There’s no need for you to pinch me, Lady Rochford. Your sister has a Tower full of torturers to do that.’
‘I wasn’t pinching you,’ I lie.
‘And I curtsey just right,’ she lies in reply, and goes into the queen’s bedchamber.
I watch her through the open door, and I see that she does not.
NEXT DAY, AFTERprayers in the royal chapel, the king stays kneeling on the great embroidered cushion of his prie-dieu, with his hands steepled, his eyes closed, conferring directly with God. Nobody can move until he comes to himself. He beckons Anne to join him on his side of the chapel, and I follow her, carrying our prayer books and her pearl and coral rosary. The king’s secretary, Thomas Cromwell, stands silently behind him, young Francis Weston and my husband George behind Cromwell. George winks as we join them. Francis gives a little bow.
‘My lord husband,’ Anne curtseys to the king, smiles at the courtiers, and acknowledges Thomas Cromwell with a small nod, as if he were a visiting tradesman, come with a bolt of worsted cloth.
‘Cromwell has a question about the visit to France,’ the king says, still on his knees, his hands clasped in prayer. Apparently, God is attending this meeting, too.
‘I did not know if Your Grace wishes to visit France this summer?’ Cromwell asks Anne, circling the obvious question:are you with child?‘Should His Majesty go to France alone?’
We have to persuade France to make an anti-Papist alliance, join us against the pope and Katherine of Aragon’s nephew: the Emperor of Spain. But Anne cannot travel while she is pregnant, and she won’t let the king out of her sight. Master Cromwell’s inquiring brown eyes meet my grey ones.
‘Oh! I shall need you at my side!’ Anne cries to the king. Sheclasps her hands around his, as if he is swearing fealty. Henry holds the pose, like a knight errant kneeling to his lady. ‘You can’t leave me when I’m nearing my time!’
Of course, she is not due until the autumn and perfectly safe to travel; but Anne would rather die than go to France too broad-beamed to dance, and she would never allow the king alone with the notoriously beautiful women of the French court. We are staying home this summer, and so – as he is about to decide – is the king.
‘What d’you think, Sire?’ George asks the king, in a pretty masque of consultation.
‘I ought to go.’ The king is so cheered at the thought of a woman longing for him that he forgets about God and gets up. ‘Lady Rochford, d’you think your lady would be able to sustain a separation from me? Very briefly?’
I don’t need a look from Anne to prompt me. I know this playscript backwards. This is no ordinary love: this isTristan and Iseult– a great Romance; they can never be parted. ‘I wouldn’t advise it,’ I say gently. ‘She would pine for you, Sire. But could your meeting with the King of France be delayed until after the birth? And then the visit could be a celebration? Part of the announcement and rejoicings?’
The king beams as he imagines his triumphant visit to France with the young wife who has given him the son, in place of the old one who did not.
Cromwell takes my hint and joins in. ‘We could send a messenger to suggest a delay. Someone of importance – so they know there’s no disrespect.’
The Duke of Norfolk, George’s uncle, the head of the House of Howard, is the obvious choice; but he and Anne are barely speaking since he pulled off the brilliant trick of marrying his daughter to a royal bastard: the king’s illegitimate son. And almost all the other noblemen are secretly on the side of the old queen.
‘Oh, not one of the old lords!’ Anne exclaims. ‘Not one of the ancients!’
The king taps her cheek. ‘Old friends,’ he says. ‘Faithful friends.’
‘Exactly so! Old friends, old men!’ She smiles at him. ‘Stuck in their old ways – not like you!’
