I kneel beside her, and I proffer my missal for her to share. I have knelt close before, to prompt her in the ritual which is strange to her, but this time I whisper: ‘I have to advise you, Your Grace.’I speak in German, so none of the English ladies will understand if they overhear us.
She is no fool. Not a flicker of an expression crosses her face. She keeps her eyes on the words of the service, her lips moving in prayer; she does not even steal a glance at me.
‘The king’s minister is going to end your marriage,’ I say. I don’t know the word for annulment in German, and this would sound more tactful in French; but we are safer in her language. ‘Please stay still and quiet.’
She keeps her eyes on the altar. She says: ‘Amen,’ to the end of a collect, and I take it as agreement.
‘There are two ways this can be done. One is very bad for you. Very bad.’ I wait until I see her half nod. She knows what ‘very bad’ means for a queen in England. ‘The other way gives you a pension, two beautiful houses. You would be a single woman, an Englishwoman, as free and as wealthy as a rich widow. You would be respected.’
She has gone very white; I am afraid that she is going to faint. Under the shelter of the velvet shelf where our prayer books are resting, I clasp her hand. She does not take her eyes from the officiating priest but she minutely nods. ‘Sprechen,’ she whispers. ‘Speak.’
‘They will ask if you were betrothed to the Duke of Lorraine.’
‘They asked me already. I told them no.’
‘I know. But they will ask again, and this time you must answer differently. Don’t deny it this time. Just say that you don’t know. You were only a little girl – you don’t know what your father agreed. And now your father is dead, you can’t ask him. How would you know?’
‘Because I have seen the contract of release,’ she says simply. ‘I swore on my honour I was free to marry the king, my husband.’
‘You have to say that you may be mistaken,’ I tell her. ‘On your life – for your life – you have to do this.’
‘But it is a lie,’ she observes quietly, her gaze on the crucifix on the altar.
‘I know. But you must say it, and then the churchmen will inquire, and they will decide that you were married before and your marriage to the king is invalid.’
‘So, I am married to the Duke of Lorraine?’ she confirms quietly. ‘And I have been married to him since I was eleven years old?’
‘It doesn’t matter that this makes no sense. It is a pretence, like a masque. But it’s going to save your life.’
Again, she goes a terrible waxy white.
I pinch her soft palm. The priest has started the bidding to mass. I don’t have long to make her understand. ‘You have to say that the marriage to the king has not been consummated,’ I whisper. I have no idea of the word ‘consummated’ in German. ‘You have to say he hasn’t swived you. No bed. No bed. No fuck. No baby. You understand?’
‘Because he is old?’ she whispers. ‘He cannot?’
‘No, no! Never, never say he cannot. If you say it, they will say there is a witch – an overlooking – evil magic. You say that you don’t know what should be done in bed. You are a maid. You know nothing about it. He kisses you goodnight and good morning, and you thought that was all that was needed to make a baby.’
‘He knows better...’ she observes.
‘Yes, but he says that he does not do it, he chooses not to do it, because he knew as soon as he met you that you are the wife of the Duke of Lorraine.’
Even in this terrible danger, she has a sense of the ridiculous. She lowers her eyelids to hide the gleam of amusement in her dark-brown eyes. ‘How does he know this?’ she whispers in English.
‘God told him,’ I say without a smile.
She hides her face in her hands as if praying.
‘Whatever you think, whatever the truth, it has to be done this way,’ I say sternly.
The priest has started the confessional; the ladies behind me follow the strange English words in a whispered chorus.
I hold up the prayer book to hide the queen’s face from the officiating priest. ‘You have to agree that the king has not bedded you; then the marriage can be annulled, and you can get your pension and your lands, and you will be safe. You have to agree that you were precontracted; you have to say that you’re still a virgin; you have to agree that the king has slept by your side but never touched you. You didn’t know there was more. You kiss goodnight and good morning, and that is all.’
‘It’s not true,’ she says flatly. ‘Everyone will know it is not true.’
‘If you don’t say this lie, then the king will say he is impotent, and others will say it was caused by witchcraft.’ I press my words into the side of her hood with my lips, as if I would force them into her head. ‘They will say someone put a spell on him, to make sure that he never had a baby with you. They may even say that you knew, that you wanted the king unmanned. They may even say it is you who is the witch.’
I thought she might be frightened, but under her heavy gown, I see her shoulders make a tiny shrug. ‘Is as stupid as the other,’ she says in English, and if we were not in chapel with the king opposite and Cromwell putting down death warrants before him, she would have shocked me into laughter.
