‘And that was the second?’ he confirms, softly as a midwife himself, as gentle as the egg woman in the hen coop.
‘We denied the first.’
‘And the ladies all know the king is unmanned?’
‘No, of course not – these are private matters between husband and wife... except that we all spend all our lives trying to encourage him,’ I say in a little rush of resentment. ‘It’s hardly a secret. You know – you do it yourself?’
‘I?’ His blackcurrant eyes widen in astonishment that he might be thought part of the court’s ceaseless encouragement of the king’s potency.
‘When we tell the king how much we admire him, how beautiful Anne is, how everyone is in love with her, how he is the only man who can hold her?’ I challenge him. ‘When everyone talks all the time about his strength and his manliness? His good looks?’
‘You say this and don’t mean it?’ He looks astounded.
I ignore his false face. ‘We all speak to encourage love.’
‘She has created a court of constant love affairs to inspire him to love? To incite him? To arouse him? She creates sinful excitement with other men for this purpose? The masque is nowThe Most Desiring?’
‘No!The Most Desirable...’
‘But some of these love affairs are real,’ he pursues.
‘Of course they are. The game of courtly love often overflows into real love. Lord Thom and Margaret Douglas are courting, and Anne Parr and William Herbert, and Henry Norris and Margaret Shelton...’
‘I’m just a simple man. I don’t understand this game of courtly love.’
I smile at him, suddenly confident. ‘Master Secretary, youunderstand perfectly well. This has been the entertainment of every royal court since Eleanor of Aquitaine.’
‘Eleanor of Aquitaine? The adulteress?’
‘Well, yes. But that’s not the point.’
‘The point is that the court makes a game of adultery around the queen, to encourage the king in his love for her? Because everyone knows that he needs encouragement?’ My friend Thomas Cromwell smiles kindly at me. ‘Don’t worry, Lady Rochford. All this, I know already. I use you as my touchstone for truth, not as a witness to be recorded.’
He rises to his feet, and I understand that our meeting is over.
‘I thought you were preparing for a trial,’ I remark.
He shakes his head and opens the inner door for me and bows as I pass into the gap between two doors, and open the outer door into the shadowy stone hall. The double doors mean that no one can eavesdrop.
‘But what was that about Lady Margaret Douglas?’ he asks me very quietly.
A man is waiting outside – Dr Richard Sampson: Anne’s expert on church law. This is the advisor who produced all the church law to end the king’s marriage to Queen Katherine. Master Cromwell does not acknowledge him; I assume he is to be invisible.
‘She’s courting Lord Thom, my uncle’s young half-brother,’ I say quietly, one eye on Dr Sampson, wondering what he is doing here. ‘He gave her a cramp ring.’
‘Does she suffer much from cramps?’
‘Not now,’ I say. ‘Not now she’s got a cramp ring.’
He gives a little chuckle at that. ‘Anyway, nothing out of the ordinary for you ladies?’ he confirms.
I shake my head. ‘Just courtly love.’
‘Tell me if it goes further,’ he says casually. ‘She’s half-sister to the King of Scotland. He won’t want her marrying a Howard. Whatever you Howards would like.’
He turns to Dr Sampson, who bows to me in silence, with a smile,and walks past me into Master Cromwell’s private room to sit on the same chair where I was seated, and, no doubt, offer Master Cromwell information that he knows already.
WE HAVE TOplan a merry May Day for the king even though he cannot ride as his leg wound is still too bad. We declare loudly that Anne has begged him not to ride, she is so fearful for his safety – but the truth is far worse.
