The Queen's Mistake Read online

  “If we do what, Father?” Gregory asked, not fully comprehending the plan.

  “Help Culpeper win Catherine Howard,” Cromwell explained, trying not to show the desperation that he felt.

  “We are going to work against the king? Is it worth a dangerous gamble like that?” Gregory asked in astonishment.

  “We have no other choice, boy. If the king wins her first, the Howards’ rise back to highest prominence will be complete. Norfolk would like nothing more than to take away my influence with the king and see to my total destruction. You have been raised your entire life knowing the stakes. Now is the flashpoint. One error and it will be the end of us all.”

  “How could it have come to this? How could you ever have risked championing that horrendous princess of Cleves?” Gregory asked furiously as Cromwell spun around, his red face burning with anger.

  “Do not dare to speak to me with such contempt!” Cromwell flared. “You have no idea what is at stake here! You are a boy, new to a man’s world, and I will not have your judgment upon me. I gave you everything you have! Everything in this court, every movement, every word, every breath has always been a gamble, and I do it all for you—for this family!”

  “Yet a woman like the queen was too great a gamble to champion. I may be untested, Father, but I would never have put my family at risk in such a way.”

  The vein in Cromwell’s bald temple flared. “You are where you are, with your rich costumes, your costly education, your fancy wife and your place at court, because of me, you ungrateful little bastard! Precisely because I took risks like those!”

  Father and son glared at each other for a moment, contempt glittering on both of their faces in a flare of firelight.

  Gregory was the first to break the silence. “Do not be a hypocrite, Father. I am too much of a Cromwell not to know that you did everything you did, first and foremost, for yourself. If there was any benefit for your son, it was incidental only.”

  The king’s most powerful minister stepped nearer the boy he had sired but never fathered, despising at that moment how easily he had gotten the one thing that had eluded the king for so long. “Well, my boy, you had better hope and pray, for both of our sakes, that you learned enough from your wretched old father to ensure that Master Culpeper and Mistress Howard come together, or you may find that empty head of yours on the pike next to mine on Tower Bridge.”

  In the shadowy room where Thomas had just left her, Catherine straightened her heavy gown and adjusted her headdress with trembling hands. As she did, she said a silent prayer that she would not look too disheveled as she walked into the corridor. She was frightened, confused and wildly exhilarated all at once, but she could not tell if it was her tryst with Thomas or the danger of being caught. Catherine tipped up her head, drew in a last breath, and opened the door. To her great surprise, a figure was standing outside of the door, and Catherine let out a little gasp. It was the dowager duchess. Her grandmother had been waiting.

  Chapter Eight

  May 1540

  Whitehall Palace, London

  “Get on with it, Norfolk,” the king grumbled, flipping a bejeweled hand in the air as he lay on his grand black oak bed heavy with fringed curtains. “Let us hear your plan to extricate me from this sham marriage. And be forewarned, I am in no mood for a long explanation.”

  Norfolk and Gardiner, who stood together at the foot of the bed, where the royal crest was stamped in gold, exchanged a glance as the royal physician treated the open ulcer on Henry’s leg with leeches from a glass jar. The putrid odor emanating from the wound caused Norfolk to struggle not to insult the sovereign and openly gag.

  The war with Cromwell was on. Norfolk and Gardiner had already informed the king of the changing political landscape. The balance of power between King Francis I of France, the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V and Henry had once again shifted. His two most powerful rivals were not as tightly allied as before, and they did not pose a strong threat to England at the moment. At the same time, his ties to Germany had weakened, making his marriage to the Cleves woman, and the alliance both, unnecessary. Still, to divorce his wife on illegitimate legal grounds could risk his standing on the world stage and his potential political alliances. But Norfolk and Gardiner claimed that they had found legitimate legal grounds.

  Carefully, Gardiner handed a document to the king, whose legs were spread wide as the physicians applied feverfew and marigold around the wound. Norfolk drew in a breath and exhaled to ensure that his nerves were steady. There was no room for error in this.

  The moment for the Howard family had arrived.

  “It is the proof we believed existed, Your Majesty.”

  Henry’s thin copper brows merged as his gaze slid from Gardiner to Norfolk. Finally, he looked down and began to read, his labored breathing the only sound between them.

  Norfolk dared to venture, “It was not just a promise between the queen and the Duke of Lorraine. Clearly, Your Majesty, this document shows that the queen’s brother had engaged her in an actual contract to wed, binding by any standard.”

  Henry winced, feeling the pull of one of the leeches. He closed his eyes for a moment, then opened them again, leveling his gaze exclusively on Norfolk. “Then I was never truly married to her?”

  “Not in the sight of God, sire, no.”

  “So it is the Lord’s blessing that I did not consummate the marriage, since it is not a true marriage at all?”

  “What it means, sire, is that your tie with Cleves—”

  “I know what the devil it means, Gardiner!” he snarled, and grimaced as two more leeches were placed into the open wound and quickly took hold.

  “It is regrettable that Cromwell sought to engage you in such an alliance without being absolutely certain of the queen’s availability,” said Norfolk. “No leader in the world will fault you for extricating yourself from an illegal union.”

  Again, Henry studied each of their faces with angry eyes narrowed in calculation. In the silence, Norfolk repressed his sense of panic at the expression on the king’s fleshy face.

  “We had hoped the news would be pleasing to Your Majesty,” Norfolk said.

  “I am pleased. I just . . .” The king sighed and laid his head back against the spray of pillows. “I have no wish to insult Anne or her brother. The queen is a good enough woman. None of this is her fault.”

  “Of course not, sire. But the facts remain the same either way.”

  “Would then Your Majesty desire that we take the next step?” Gardiner asked. “We can cautiously craft a suit and—”

  “No. This is Cromwell’s mess. He led me into it and I fully expect him to extricate me.”

  “But, Your Majesty,” Norfolk intervened with as much caution as he could. “This is a matter requiring the utmost care. Cromwell proved himself inept in the construction of the marriage. Why would we assume his further intervention would bring anything but more complications?”

  Henry’s face was mottled red with frustration. “He has been my friend, and my adviser, for a decade. He supported Wolsey during my divorce from Anne Boleyn, just as you two sycophants support each other now. For the love of God, when this is over, I will never trust any adviser again the way I trusted all of you!” He paused, drew in a breath, then sank back into the bed pillows as his physician backed away from the bed. “Be that as it may, I still require an annulment, and the man who dug his own grave may as well bury himself in it.”

  Norfolk struggled not to smile, remembering, understanding and feeling the little chill of recognition that followed. This tactic was classic Henry, and it would work out perfectly for Norfolk and Gardiner. In other words, forcing Cromwell to pursue the nullity suit would be forcing him to admit his failure with Cleves. Once he discovered the challenge before him, Cromwell would be so busy trying to save his own life that he would offer no real opposition to Norfolk’s plan.

  Yes, Henry was angry with everyone right now, and he would not be eager to trust again. N
orfolk knew he would have to be that much more clever in paving the king’s path toward his beautiful Catholic niece. It was his duty, after all, not just to the king, but to England and to God.

  As Catherine sat in the queen’s apartments that afternoon, sewing with Anne and the other ladies, she could not help but let her mind wander to her grandmother’s speech from the night before. At Horsham, the dowager duchess had been a harsh, judgmental crone, unbending in all things. But now Agnes Howard was being oddly kind to her.

  After Catherine had left her private little sanctuary, her grandmother had walked with her back to the queen’s apartments, obviously knowing what had just occurred with Culpeper.

  “Are you happy here at court?” she had asked in a strangely maternal tone.

  “I am trying to adjust, my lady grandmother,” Catherine said, her face still burning with embarrassment.

  “And you are taking care? Horsham was a very different place, you know. You were very sheltered there.”

  “You said I was very silly there.”

  “You were.”

  “And petulant.”

  “You can be.”

  “And too pretty for my own good.”

  “It shall be your greatest asset or the quickest way to your downfall.”

  Catherine looked at her as they walked down a long, paneled corridor, and to her surprise Agnes almost smiled. Or at least, Catherine thought, it was an expression approximating one.

  “I have come here to protect your interests,” the dowager said, surprising Catherine.

  “And my uncle’s?”

  The dowager’s slim smile stretched. “Now, that sounds like a true Howard. Yes, of course, all of ours. Court is not a place where the weak survive. I am here to see that you, however, do.”

  “Because I am weak?”

  “Because there is more than you could ever imagine depending on your success.”

  When they reached Catherine’s room, there was a new dress laid out carefully on her bedcover. It was green silk trimmed with ivory-colored Burgundian lace and a row of emeralds at the bodice.

  “I don’t need another dress from my uncle,” Catherine said, no longer enamored of his expensive gifts now that she knew of his plan to make her queen.

  “This one is from me. Child, you are competing with countesses, duchesses and other titled women now, and their ambitions surround you.”

  “What am I competing for, exactly?”

  The doors to the queen’s apartments opened suddenly, startling Catherine out of the remembered conversation and returning her swiftly to the moment. She perked up, surrendering her needlework to her lap, as the king, Thomas Culpeper, Charles Brandon, Edward Seymour and Thomas Wriothesley were announced into the room.

  Again Catherine noticed that the king walked with more of an effort-filled hobble than the manly stride of his companions. But though he was surrounded by youth, glittering jewels, masculine laughter and yards of velvet and silver thread, the grandeur of his own entrance was not diminished. Catherine was secretly awed to be in the presence of such a man. Swiftly, each of the ladies stood and fell into deep curtsies. The queen’s was the deepest gesture and, in her voluminous dress, the most clumsily executed of all.

  “Your Majesty comes unannounced,” Anne of Cleves sputtered in her Teutonic accent. Catherine felt pained for her.

  “Yes, well, spontaneity is, by design, unexpected. Everyone knows that,” the king said gruffly.

  Anne’s square, ruddy face flushed with embarrassment, but she ignored the slight. Catherine watched as a troupe of court musicians followed the king. They settled themselves into a corner and, on Henry’s nod, began to play a tune. A velvet-covered chair fringed with gold was swiftly brought forward and the king sank wide-legged onto it. He flicked his wrist as an afterthought, instructing the ladies to be seated around him.

  “So what brings you here, sire?” Anne asked awkwardly, clearly uncertain of what she should be doing.

  The king’s companions chuckled unkindly in response.

  “No! Great God, not for that!” Henry’s sudden smile was mischievous. Apparently, he had guessed his companions’ thoughts from their expressions. Sensitive though he could be, Henry still could never quite let a clever quip escape him in the moment, no matter whom it might hurt. “We’ve just come from a game of shuttlecock out in the yard, and Tom here made a bet, knowing the ladies would be at their sewing. Seymour had called needlework too trivial and easy for men, so Tom wagered that Seymour could not sew a straight line in under a minute’s time without pricking a finger and drawing his own blood.”

  Catherine bit back a smile. She wanted to laugh, but wisely she did not. The king, though physically unappealing, could be surprisingly amusing, she thought, looking at the glitter in his small, dark eyes. They were eyes that held the weight of the world, the reflection of unspeakable horrors and monumental, historical events. Yet here he was, indulging in an afternoon’s amusement, smelling of camphor and musk.

  “What is his punishment if he fails?” the king’s niece Frances asked with amusement.

  “Humiliation before you fine ladies seems like punishment enough,” Thomas responded with an easygoing smile.

  The musicians began to play something soft and lovely as Edward Seymour sat down and Catherine offered the needlework in her lap. Seymour picked up the piece of fabric and needle as if to begin sewing. Everyone laughed as he made a face of mock fright. Catherine felt herself free to laugh, too.

  “Very well, then. Off you go,” commanded the king.

  Everyone began to count and laugh above the music. Even the queen, with her normally dismayed and slightly confused expression, was enjoying the game.

  “Bollocks!” Edward Seymour groaned suddenly, sending the fabric and needle clattering to the tile floor as a stream of blood dripped from his finger.

  Henry threw back his head, laughing in delight at the outcome. “I knew it could not be done. Now you must apologize to these fine ladies for assuming that their needlework was not a worthy and dangerous business.”

  Catherine stood and drew a small handkerchief from her pocket as the king’s companions good-naturedly heckled Seymour. She pressed it onto his finger, provoking whistles, laughter and moans of envy from the other men.

  “There,” said Catherine. “That should stop the blood flow in a moment. Apparently your friends told you nothing of the need for a thimble.”

  “Now, what fun would that have been for him, Mistress Howard?” the king asked.

  Catherine glanced up and met the king’s admiring gaze. “I find that a level playing field offers the more rewarding outcome, Your Majesty.”

  I should not have said that, she thought. It sounded as if she had challenged the king, which she had not intended. But the unexpected ensuing laughter from the group assuaged her fears. Henry’s smile was even more unexpected. “And yet a wise competitor seizes his advantages if his ultimate goal is victory,” he cleverly replied.

  Catherine nodded, feeling another quip rising on her tongue, yet she wisely chose to hold it back. Henry signaled to a musician with a nod, and a lute was brought to him.

  “I have heard you play, and you are a worthy enough competitor to make it a level playing field,” he said.

  “Ah, yes, but who could judge fairly when the sovereign is my challenger?” she asked.

  Catherine could feel the glances and smiles exchanged around her. She was in the middle of the lion’s den, but for the moment, she was amused to be there. Henry handed Catherine his lute with an affable smile as he said, “Then Master Culpeper shall decide. He is my trusted aide, honest with his sovereign in all things. He shall not choose my playing out of loyalty alone.” Henry signaled to Thomas. “Come forward and be our judge.”

  Thomas came forward with a confident stride, his smile as charming as always above that square jaw and adorable cleft chin. Dutifully, Thomas nodded to the king, then turned to Catherine to greet her, though she noticed that he avoid
ed her eyes.

  “You may play us something first, Mistress Howard,” the king deigned.

  She held the lute on her lap, intent on meeting the challenge. For a moment she closed her eyes, thinking of the many songs Henry Manox had taught her and what confidence he had given her to play them. Catherine opened her eyes then and began to strum the notes to the most complicated piece she knew.

  Even before the last chord, the king began applauding so enthusiastically that the others followed, all cheering her skill.

  “A lovely tune, Mistress Howard,” Charles Brandon remarked.

  “A pity the king can so easily best you,” Seymour said with a laugh.

  “I am not so certain now,” Henry countered, smiling.

  He took the lute onto his thick thigh in challenge. With his other leg extended, Catherine could see a wide bandage below his nether hose. It was common knowledge that he had been battling an infection for several years, and she could only imagine how frustrating it would be to a robust man who had once been a legendary competitor in all activities. As he began to play Catherine carefully watched how his fingers gently plucked the strings, drawing out the most tender sounds. She saw how his expression changed, the melody taking him to another place.

  “That was lovely,” she said when he had finished. “Your Majesty must definitely take the prize.”

  “Like any man, in some things I can only hope,” he replied vaguely, with a sly smile that widened his pink, moist little bud of a mouth.

  “What tune was that? It was so . . . haunting,” she marveled.

  A silence fell upon the room. Catherine glanced at the faces around her, each one more piqued by surprise than the next. Someone cleared his throat, although she could not tell who it was.

  “I call it ‘Greensleeves.’”

  “You wrote it yourself?”