‘Oh no!’ She laughs, blushes, and then catches at my hands. ‘Oh, don’t ask me! You know what it’s like, when you’re first in love – you make all sorts of promises, and you do all sorts of things! But now I’m come to court, I see that it was nothing serious. He means nothing to me now that I’ve met young noblemen. Fancy giving me money but not for spending! Saying he may never come back!’
‘You’d better give it to me, and I will keep it in my treasure chest in my room. It’ll be safe there. If he comes back, you can tell me, and I’ll return it to him myself. That way, you’re not obliged to him, nor him to you. And if he doesn’t come back, then I’ll return it to you and we’ll say no more about it. As long as you’re sure it’s not stolen, Kitty? What work did he do to earn such a fortune?’
‘He was a purveyor for my grandmother’s household at Lambeth,’ she says airily. ‘So you can see, I would never have been betrothed to a young man like that.’
‘Indeed not,’ I say. ‘He’s far beneath you, and our family would never have consented. But at any rate, we can see how he made his profit: he stole from the dowager duchess.’
She looks stricken. ‘I suppose he must have done,’ she says. ‘I thought he was wonderful when I lived there. But now I have come to court and seen gentlemen like Master Culp—’ She breaks off.
‘There are many handsome gentlemen and noblemen at court,’ I say severely. ‘Far better suited for you than your grandmother’s purveyor. But there are rogues and tricksters at court, as at Norfolk House. You must take care, Katheryn. You’ll have to marry where you’re ordered, not where you like. You’re the daughter of a great house. Our good name is your name. You must carry it with pride.’
‘Oh, I do!’ She widens her hazel eyes; she is completely unconvincing. ‘I really do.’
‘Did the duchess or your uncle promise you a great marriage?’ I ask curiously. ‘Did they tell you what to say when the king came in disguised at Rochester?’
She gives a little giggle. ‘Over and over again! They tried it out a dozen different ways. They rehearsed it like a masque until I knew exactly what to do. But it was easy – the king is such a sweet old man, and old men always like me.’
‘You can’t allow any favours,’ I warn her. ‘Not to old lords any more than young ones.’
‘Oh no!’ she says. ‘My grandmother is very strict. She says I may be surprised at my good fortune if I can stop myself behaving like a slut.’
‘Good advice,’ I say. ‘Though rather blunt. But you do that.’
Westminster Palace, Spring
1540
LORDCROMWELL SUMMONSme to his grand rooms in a tower of the Palace of Westminster. The secret of the queen’s cold bed has got out but not from us. The king has betrayed his own secrets. He has chosen to tell his friends that he is impotent with her – the most extraordinary self-shaming. No man at this court of boisterous cavaliers and seducers would ever admit to such a weakness. But the king has done so. He is so desperate to tell the world that he doesn’t like her, that he is ready to call himself unmanned, to say himself what it is illegal for us to say: that he is impotent.
I find my spymaster gazing down from his window at the little garden below his tower. Daffodils dance at the foot of a tree of springing green; a blackbird is singing in a ripple of notes. I don’t think I have ever seen him idle before. I close the heavy wooden door and take a seat.
His counting-house books are one end of the table: he uses the Italian double-entry system, counting what goes out of his purse as well as what comes in and calculates his wealth by comparing the two of them. The old lords, my uncle among them, only count income: rents, fees, gifts, bribes, and pensions and hope they are spending no more than last year. If their steward tells them that the stocks are running low in their treasure room, they increase the rents or sell land or get a loan. I never knew until I worked for Lord Cromwell that it was possible to know to a penny what I was worth. From him, I have learned to calculate my treasure chest, the rents from my new lands, and the cost of running my house at Blickling. And – more importantly – I account for my own life: ambition against defeat, advancement against being dropped. I double-entry my power and influence and watch my value rise.
‘The king says her body is slack with use.’ Lord Cromwell turns from the view to scowl at me. ‘He says her belly is fat, like a woman who has given birth, her breasts hanging down like a woman who has given suck.’
My courtier mask falls from my face in my amazement. ‘She’s a virgin of twenty-four years old! Her breasts are plump and high; her belly is round and firm. Susannah Hornebolt could paint her asBeauty.’
He snorts. ‘Holbein painted her as a beauty; that’s why she’s here.’
‘Does the king complain to Master Holbein?’
He shrugs away the question. ‘He says she stinks.’
Lord Cromwell knows as well as I do that the king suffers from constipation and purging that brings on stinking farts, and the sore on his leg oozes a noisome pus. The grooms of his chamber and Dr Butts change the bandages three times a day, but still the reek goes with him everywhere. We all carry pomanders for when he is close, and we launder the queen’s sheets every day to be rid of the familiar stench of king.
‘D’you deny it?’ he demands.
I give him a long level look. ‘Obviously, she doesn’t smell.’
‘Then he must be suffering from a delusion,’ Cromwell says, pleased, as if this is a good answer. ‘He must have been bewitched. Someone has put a spell on the king to make him find his Lutheran wife displeasing. Who would do such a wicked thing as that?’
‘Bewitched?’ I repeat slowly, as I take in a new move.
My spymaster tuts at my slowness. ‘Jane, please. Let’s assume, for the sake of argument, that the king has been bewitched so badly that he is unmanned.’
‘We can say unmanned?’
‘For the sake of argument.’
