‘I’m always proud to be of the House of Howard,’ I say cautiously. ‘I am always glad of your friendship, Uncle.’
‘Never more than today!’ he taunts me and heads up the stone stairs to the privy council chamber.
THOMASCROMWELL MUSTbe at the privy council meeting with my uncle and the other lords, and I expect he will find me when the meeting is over. The meetings usually take all morning, especially in these troubled times when the king’s wishes are uncertain and changeable, and one group rises and the other falls, and only Thomas Cromwell – Lord Essex as he is now known – rides the crest of every tide.
In the queen’s rooms, the girls are sewing, and Kitty Howard is showing the queen the steps of a new dance. I walk past them to the tall Venetian glass windows and look down to the quayside and the river beyond.
The barge from the Tower is moored by the pier again – I rub my eyes as if I cannot believe that I see it again, as if it is a ghost, a harbinger. A black-painted barge without a flag or standard, rocking lightly on the ebbing tide, the oarsmen in their places, as if ready to go in a moment, the gangplank against the pier, the stanchions in place, the bargemaster waiting at the pier as if he has to stand to attention because his passengers will be here at any moment.
And then I see the prisoner: bare-headed, slightly stooped, stumbling as he comes down the stone stairs, along the paved quay, one hand clasping the front of his beautiful black jacket where it has been ripped in a struggle. Someone hurls his cap after him, and as it flies through the air, I recognise it. It is the neat black velvet embroidered cap that Thomas Cromwell always wears – little different from the cap that he wore when he was a wool merchant. The man walking behind him catches it and hands it to him with an odd little bow, as if he does not wish to be impolite to this man who is limping as if fatally hurt, to this man who says nothing as he stumbles along, to this man who ruled all of England this morning and is being hurried into the Tower barge to catch the ebbing tide, to take him to the Tower this afternoon.
It is Thomas Cromwell under arrest. It is Thomas Cromwell, bare-headed, with his cap in his hand, his jacket torn where someone hasripped off his insignia, his breeches tattered where someone tore off his precious Order of the Garter. This is a disaster for me, for the queen, and for Thomas Cromwell himself.
I glance back to the room, at the ladies so pretty and comfortable and busy in their little occupations, and I think: nobody will ever know the terror that is gripping me in this pretty room, as I turn from the window and smile and say that we must start getting ready, for the king and the noblemen will come soon, and it will be dinnertime.
I supervise the dressing of the queen; I am most particular in the placing of her jewels and the positioning of her hood on her fair hair. I meet her questioning brown eyes in the mirror, as if she is asking me why any of this would matter, if she is to go to Richmond Palace tomorrow? If she is to declare herself a duchess of Cleves and not a queen of England? Why dress like a bride to agree to the annulment of her marriage?
I don’t tell her that this poor outcome is now our most ambitious hope – that the man who planned to end her marriage and save her neck is going swiftly downstream in an unmarked barge to the Tower of London, and I don’t know what will greet him when he gets there. I cannot tell her that there was another plan, all in place and ready to hand, a plan where she dies on the scaffold, just as my sister-in-law died.
I don’t know who will become head of the dark chamber if Thomas Cromwell is beheaded, who will open the box of secret letters, who will choose what plan grinds into place. Both plans for the removal of the queen are equally ready, but one gives her Richmond Palace and 8,000 nobles a year, and the other deals her disgrace or even death. I don’t know what will happen to her, without Cromwell shuffling the pack of picture cards; I don’t know what will happen to me without his protection.
I smile confidently and say to her: ‘Will Your Grace dance tonight?’
‘Oh, do let’s,’ says Katheryn Howard.
The queen laughs at Kitty Howard’s unending desire for dances and young partners, and says: ‘Yes, why not?’
AS MY UNCLEthe Duke of Norfolk predicted, I am at his door the very next morning, although the queen’s barge is at the pier, waiting for the flowing tide to Richmond Palace. I ask his servant if His Grace is at home and if I may speak with him, and the duke himself comes to the door smiling.
‘Ah, Jane. I was expecting you,’ he says. ‘Do come in, dear niece.’
He leads me to his inner chamber. The empty grate is filled with herbs, and the room smells of lemon balm and hyssop. ‘You’ll be anxious about your spymaster.’
I nod. There is no point in denying it.
He gleams in his triumph like a well-fed falcon. ‘Lord Essex – now once again Master Thomas Cromwell – is being questioned in the Tower for heresy and treason. He’ll be executed within the month.’
I feel cold. ‘You seem very sure, my lord?’
‘They’re dancing in the streets for joy.’
‘Might there be a pardon? Or some mistake?’
‘The king’s archers have collected sacks of gold plate from Austin Friars, chests of money, and Cromwell’s debt book. D’you think he’s going to give it back?’
‘His lordship is to face a trial?’ I ask.
He shakes his head. ‘As he says himself, trials take too long, with too many opinions. Quicker and easier for us all if I put the evidence before the Houses of Parliament and they issue a writ of attainder, and he is executed.’
‘That’s not justice,’ I say simply. ‘Nobody can think he has been treasonous to the king.’
‘As I say, I don’t need opinions. Clearly, he forced the king into a marriage which was against the king’s best interests. Clearly, she’s a Lutheran bride and he’s a Lutheran spy. The marriage will be annulled, and the man who treasonously forced this marriage on the king will die for it. The king’s true friends, the old lords of the realm, the true nobility will be restored as his only advisors. We’ve all had enough of new men. We won’t be ruled by merchants andmayors. The king will be free to marry whoever he chooses. As it happens, he will choose my niece.’
‘Kitty?’
‘Mistress Katheryn Howard. So she’s not going with you to Richmond. You can make up some excuse to tell the duchess.’
‘The duchess?’
