‘You’re alive, aren’t you?’ he asks gently. ‘Alive when they’re not? You’re still in play, aren’t you? In the game that they lost? You see and speak, though they are still and cold and see nothing and hear nothing?’
‘Not even buried with honour!’ I gasp. ‘Not even in the family vault. I won’t lie with my husband in death!’
‘Unless you’re executed for treason and buried in the Tower chapel!’ he says with a weak attempt at humour. ‘Then you could end up side by side. It could be easily arranged?’
‘I miss them. I miss them, Lord Cromwell.’
‘Ah – I miss them, too,’ he says, surprising me with the emotion in his voice. ‘And that brave old fool Bishop Fisher, and Sir Thomas More – God knows what we lost when we silenced him – and the monasteries, and the nunneries, and the houses and the art and the beauty and the choirs. I miss them all. I remember Queen Katherine when I first saw her; I was a rough young fool, and she was a beautiful princess, and everyone thought that it was a new reign and a new king and new queen and a new dawn for England.
‘It’s not without cost for me – don’t think that it doesn’t cost me, too. I can see where it’s going; but I can’t see where it’ll end. One decision leads to another and then another, and then a host of them have to run after. I believe I’m serving God, and I know I’m serving my king, and I know I’m surviving – but for sure it’s not without cost.’
‘You make it sound like avia ad insanium,’ I say bleakly. For a moment, we look at each other like people in the middle of a wasteland that we have made ourselves: as if we inherited a rich green forest and burned it to blackened stumps and twigs of smutty charcoal.
Cromwell lifts my hand comfortably into the crook of his elbowand leads me towards the courtyard. ‘Assure me that you’re not out of your wits,’ he says gently. ‘Because I want you to think about Mary Howard.’
His question, as much as the warmth of his touch, restores me to my courtier-self. ‘Thomas Howard’s daughter? My cousin? Why?’
‘If the king names his own heir, he seems certain to choose Henry Fitzroy? His beloved bastard son? And Fitzroy is wedded for three long years; but has still not bedded Mary Howard. Her father must be at the end of his tether? Mary Howard married to the lad who’ll be the next king of England, and yet the marriage not confirmed by bedding?’
I smile at my patron’s obvious pleasure. ‘My uncle has said nothing to me – does he press the king?’
‘Doesn’t dare. Would he put them to bed and risk it?’
‘Never.’ I shake my head. ‘She wouldn’t do it. She wouldn’t trust her father; none of his family will ever trust the duke again...’ I break off. ‘. . . after all... after that.’
Cromwell makes a little side-to-side nod as clothiers make, haggling over the value of a kersey. ‘All that. Well, I’m not going to bless the wedding bed. Henry Fitzroy ought to marry a foreign princess. Where’s the gain in ridding the king of Anne, to put another Howard girl on the throne?’
‘Actually, Mary Howard would make a good queen,’ I point out. ‘And she’s in favour of reform.’
‘But her father...’ is all my lord says, with a shrug. ‘I’d rather have a well-trained German princess, even a Lutheran, than another Howard girl. No offence.’
‘None taken.’
‘If you hear any Howard plans, let me know,’ he says, so casually that I know it is important. ‘If her father commands her home, if he throws her together with Fitzroy – anything like that. I count on you, my dear Lady Rochford. And I will reward you. I am aware – well aware – that the Boleyns will never pay your jointure, they will never take care of your debts. I am working on that, youcan trust me.’
He shakes his head to forestall my questions. ‘And now,’ he says politely, ‘are you ready for progress? The queen knows that we don’t sail to Calais? We’re just going to Dover?’
It is part of the everyday madness that the May Day progress delayed to entrap and kill the queen, will now take place with her replacement – just as it was before: the same route and stops along the way to Dover, the same horses and clothes and attendants.
‘I am ready...’ I say – but I am not ready. I think I will never be ready to take my place behind Anne’s red embroidered gown and lift Anne’s heavy red embroidered train and walk behind Jane Seymour, who minces, hesitantly where Anne strode.
Lord Cromwell bows to me and goes back to the house, and I go to the courtyard, where the ladies-in-waiting are mounting their horses and fussing about whether it will rain. Jane will not ride, not even her steady horse – God forbid that she should fall! She sits in Anne’s litter, drawn by the white mules that George brought back from France. She looks very small and pale among the rich cushions, and I tuck Anne’s sables around her; she feels the cold as much as Queen Katherine. Now both Katherine and Anne are forever cold, and Jane is in their sables. This is the new play and the new actors. I mount my own horse, my Norfolk roan, well accustomed to riding beside Anne’s litter, but he sidles sideways and turns his head to look at the billowing curtains, as if he knows that the wrong woman is inside.
The king heaves himself into his saddle and gives the signal; the noblemen follow him through the great stone gateway. Sir Geoffrey Pole rides in the front, the young man’s face bright with self-importance.
I am about to move off, when I notice that Lady Margaret Douglas, the king’s niece, is not where she should be, immediately behind the queen’s litter. Her expensive high-bred horse is still waiting by the mounting block – there is no sign of her. Even the daughter of the Queen of Scotland, half-sister to the King of Scotlandand niece to our king, should not delay Jane, who, though only a Seymour, is queen.
Irritably, I throw the reins to my groom, dismount and make my way up the stone steps to the door to the queen’s rooms, when my uncle the Duke of Norfolk strolls out. ‘What’s the delay?’
‘Lady Margaret Douglas,’
‘Not coming.’ He bares his yellowing teeth in a joyless smile. ‘You can set off without her. No need to make a fuss.’
‘Not coming?’ I ask. ‘Is she ill?’
‘No... no...’ he starts. He glances around furtively. ‘She’s being questioned. No need to tell the queen and the other ladies. It’ll all blow over – it’s courtly love. Nothing but courtly love. No need to cause a scandal for nothing.’
‘I’ve caused no scandal,’ I say instantly, to the man who sent his niece to the scaffold for scandal. I drop my voice. ‘But why is she being questioned?’
