I, Jane: In The Court of Henry VIII Read online

  “People assume what they will of the quiet ones,” Thomas said, taking her hand as they began to stroll back toward the palace gate.

  “Perhaps they should take better care with their illusions,” Jane said, as a stray image of William whispered through her mind like a sudden Wiltshire fog. Then it dissolved, disappearing just as quickly as he had disappeared from her life.

  Chapter Nine

  June 1527

  Windsor Castle

  The Sack of Rome in the summer of 1527 changed much for Henry VIII, the impatient king. With the pope imprisoned by angry, unpaid soldiers on the side of the emperor, the Holy Father’s hands were tied in the ongoing matter of an annulment. No matter what diplomatic skills Cardinal Wolsey utilized at the moment, the issue was at a frustrating political standstill.

  Anne Boleyn was not amused.

  “Tell me that not!” the king raged. “By God Almighty, tell me she did not leave again!”

  His guttural cry was loud enough that Jane and the queen’s other ladies in the Royal Chapel could hear it. The crash of furniture and shattering glass from the king’s private study next door followed, and the painted walls seemed to bow with the sound of his anger.

  “She would not leave me! ’Twas promised between us!”

  As they knelt at Lauds, Jane slid a cautious sideways glance to the queen, whose head remained lowered in prayer, but Jane could see the shudder that had taken over her shoulders, as if she were physically holding back her own grief at the pleading in her husband’s voice for another woman.

  Jane had known that Anne might leave court for Hever Castle again from what she had personally overheard these last days as the hope of an annulment slipped further from her fingers. But to see the repercussions of that meted out to the queen, who had shown Jane such kindness, felt physically painful to her.

  Suddenly, the queen shot to her feet and charged with purpose across the open gallery. Jane and the queen’s other ladies followed dutifully behind, barely matching her stride as they approached the open door of the king’s study.

  “Go away, woman!” Henry’s growl was like that of a wounded dog as Katherine entered the chamber. Jane and the others paused at the threshold.

  “Pray, my lord, let us go to Beaulieu to see Mary. ’Twould be good for us as a family to be away from all of this conflict for a while.”

  “Go if you wish, and then you may remain there,” he said rudely.

  “I shall not leave you for our daughter, nor for anyone else in all the world, Hal,” Katherine returned so swiftly, and with such compassion, that Henry groaned with frustration.

  “’Twould make it so much simpler if you would.”

  Jane saw the remark strike the queen—the weapon of words sharper than any dagger’s thrust.

  “Leave us!” he cried, realizing then that they had an audience just outside of the door.

  “’Tis my wish that they remain,” Katherine declared, but there was a slight tremor to her usually strong voice. “I do not trust myself when the conversation between us is about her.”

  “Her name is Anne,” he shot back.

  “I know perfectly well what her name is. Anne of the Curious Extra Finger,” she countered stingingly.

  “You dare to mock her so boldly before me, madam?”

  “Is there anything to do but mock when the situation is so entirely absurd?”

  They glared at each other then as rival combatants, not as two people who had known great love together and shared a life since they were very young.

  “Katherine, we must speak privately,” he said finally, cutting the awkward silence with a surprisingly gentle tone.

  “Anything we have to say to each other can be said before these women. They are my companions and my friends.”

  “I am your husband and your king!” he said without seeming to think about the words or their implication.

  “You were my husband. But, then, that is what this is really all about, is it not?”

  He sighed deeply and then sank into a cushioned chair. “Would that I could still be the man you wish me to be.”

  “For that to happen, you would be required to try.”

  “Do you not believe I have tried, Katherine? All of these years, and with every fiber of my body I have tried! How I have tried to be a good and faithful partner to you!”

  “One out of two, perhaps, can be claimed without sinning,” she coolly replied.

  The cutting way she said it was not lost on Jane.

  The awkward silence fell hard again, and Jane felt herself squirm inside. She knew she should not be there in the doorway, nor should any of them, amid this private scene. While it felt as intense as one of the royal masques, complete with the players and the drama, this was someone’s real life. She did not like the king, and she was no longer in awe of him after all she had seen.

  “Please, let us speak privately…Katerina, I bid you,” he said, calling her by her Spanish name in a tone that, to Jane, bore a lethal combination of sincerity and resolve.

  His voice went softer then, as Jane and the others idled awkwardly beneath the massive curved, arched doorway dressed with drawn-back drapes and gold cords.

  He pulled the queen forward, as if it were natural, and she fell to her knees before him. His voice went even lower then as he took up her hand, and from that distance, Jane thought they could be lovers for the gentle connection that brightened between them.

  “We must separate,” he said with the tenderness of a man who had just declared his love.

  The queen stiffened again. “I understand you not.”

  “I mean to continue on in a life that does not include you as my wife.”

  “There is no such life, Hal, since we are legally wed until death should part us.”

  “Or the pope ends our marriage.”

  “He never shall.”

  Henry’s tone began to rise again, and his face colored to a mottled shade of crimson. “Just because your nephew owns him does not mean he can ever purchase the favor of our sovereign God!”

  “The truth shall be the victory, my lord, not the pope, not the emperor, and not your whore.”

  “I warn you, madam, not to call her that.”

  “I am Queen of England. I shall call a spade a spade.”

  “And I am king, by Almighty God!” He shot to his feet, a rancorous ramrod of fury. The heavy gold baldric studded with jewels across his chest clanked with the movement. “Call anything what you will, entertain your fantasies as you please, but this will be the end of our union! We shall separate as man and wife for the error of it.”

  “It was that same Almighty God who joined us, my lord, and he alone can break our bond!”

  “He made a faulty union based on a lie! You were not free to wed me since you had wed and bedded my brother first!”

  Jane squirmed in her shoes, hurting for the queen’s humiliation.

  “Arthur and I did not ever consummate our vows! By all that is holy, we did not. You know that! Dios mío, would you stand here and call your wife a liar in front of these witnesses?”

  “You shall be called my wife no longer, so the point is moot,” he spat back at her cruelly, pivoting away in a swirl of amber-colored embroidery until once again his expression landed on Jane. His sea green eyes bore into hers, and she felt the oddly powerful connection.

  It was only an instant, but it felt like an eternity.

  “I must do this,” he said brokenly.

  “You lead with your heart, Hal, but it is your soul that shall take you into eternity.”

  “Neither matter to me if I do not have her.”

  “Then, by God, take her!”

  “She will not have me like that!” he raged in frustration. “Not unless she is my queen!”

  “Then God help you, my husband, because you make a deal with the devil for a bit of heaven in your bed!”

  “She has only given me her promise, not yet her heart!”

  “Well, I gave you
my whole life!”

  “I need more! I need a son!”

  “You have Fitzroy.”

  “He is a bastard, Katherine!” he cried aloud, as if it were something she did not very well know.

  “Well, your fantasy woman is a harridan.”

  He rolled his eyes and slapped his forehead, not as angry now as Jane might have expected, but his frustration was a palpable thing. “Och, I cannot talk to you!”

  “And I cannot reach you. Your heart is lost to me.”

  “Then do not fight me. Let me go.”

  “Until my last breath, you will have a wife, and by God, it shall be me. I have never left you. And after all, Hal, where is she if she wants my place so desperately?”

  Jane watched him shift on his elegantly slippered feet. There was an odd air of hesitation as the question dangled between them. She almost could not believe what she was seeing.

  “The pope will give me the annulment because you were married to, and bedded with, my brother before me. I shall have my desire. But in the meantime, you know there is to be a banquet tonight to welcome our new Spanish ambassador. You will, I trust, attend with me for the sake of England’s alliance with Spain.”

  “Diego Hurtado Mendoza is no one’s fool, any more than Caroz was! You shall not use him to convert the emperor to your sinful desire, no matter how grand your banquet!”

  She had gotten too angry and lost her advantage. Caroz had been one of her greatest supporters and companions. Katherine was still smarting from his return to Spain only the week before. Henry bit back a sudden smile. “I had no such thought in my mind, my dear. I only want to be certain your health is maintained with a proper meal and your heart is lightened by a bit of entertainment. That is what everyone shall believe as we welcome the new ambassador.”

  “I’ll not change my mind in this, no matter who you turn against me with your outward false gentility,” she warned.

  “Nor shall I change my mind. But shall we away to prepare for dinner anyway, and make a show of it?”

  “That is what the world will expect,” she replied, clearly forcing up a tone of diplomacy. “There is much to tell you of our daughter, Mary, as I have just today had a letter from Ludlow about her progress, which in spite of our differences, I am excited to share with her father. For that reason alone, I shall make a show of it with you.”

  The shimmering pride of motherhood crossed Katherine’s expression. Jane felt a shudder for the futility attached to such a nuance, since anyone could see it was too late for them. The king continued to seem not a lovable or tender man, but a vainglorious prig. It was difficult to imagine what such a parade of women saw in him beyond the crown. Perhaps that was all they saw, because there was nothing else there.

  Jane would always feel sorry for the queen.

  But Anne Boleyn, it seemed, was about to get exactly what, and whom, she deserved.

  “Jane!”

  Shocked by the sound of her name spoken with desperation, she stopped in her tracks outside in the vast corridor. “Forgive me, Mistress Seymour, for being too familiar. Urgency does have a way of bringing out the worst in me.”

  She had left the chamber with the others to prepare for the banquet, but as usual they moved ahead of her and she was left, like a calf to slaughter, alone. He loomed behind her now, alone as well. The vainglorious prig himself. The king.

  Knowing it was he, certain of the voice, yet not wanting to look into those deep green eyes until the last possible moment, Jane pivoted back very slowly to face him.

  “Forgive me if I startled you,” he said.

  “Your Majesty does only humble me,” she lied, and quickly dropped into a curtsy, happy for a reason to lower her eyes against the bright light cast from his regal expression, which stood in stark contrast to the queen’s misery.

  “You are a discerning girl, Mistress Seymour. Your brother Edward speaks highly of your skills of discretion.”

  She was surprised to hear that Edward spoke of her at all, but she was certain if he had, it had somehow been to his own advantage.

  “Thank you, sire,” she replied awkwardly as he drew a sealed sheaf of paper from the folds of his great braided hunter green vest and held it out to her.

  “I am told you were in France as a child, so I assume your French is sound?”

  “My understanding of it is passable, Your Majesty, but I would not deign to declare my speaking skills anything but elementary.”

  “It only matters that you understand what you read.”

  “I do.”

  “Then take this missive and give me your opinion. You are respectful to Mistress Boleyn, your own cousin, and she favors your company, so I trust you. There are few women who keep company with both her and the queen about whom the same can be said. As a young woman yourself, you shall be able to advise me whether this letter I have written has an air of too much pleading, or if it might prompt Mistress Boleyn’s return to court.”

  “Oh, sire, I know not whether—”

  He cut her off as he awkwardly tucked the letter into the top of the long plastron of her dress, bidding her to swiftly secret it away.

  “The queen must not know of this, you understand,” he said, his eyes boring into her suddenly in a most unsettling way.

  “Holding my tongue was my first learned skill,” she said truthfully.

  “Splendid. Read the letter anon; then I shall send a messenger to your chamber after the banquet. When he retrieves it, you shall tell him any misgivings or concerns you have with the sentiments enclosed so that I have enough time to alter it, if I so choose.”

  It was not a request. Jane heard that much in the clipped, slightly brittle tone of his voice. This was a royal command like any other, and as he began to scan the corridor nervously, she knew he intended her compliance to be swiftly confirmed.

  “I shall do as I have been bid, Your Majesty,” she replied, lowering her eyes again to his powerful stare.

  It was then, for the first time, that Henry actually smiled at her.

  “You really are a shy little thing, aren’t you?”

  “I haven’t the skills to show great confidence the way the other women of Your Majesty’s court do,” she replied, feeling the heat rise in her cheeks, loathing the feel of his gaze upon her for the many lives and hearts that same look had destroyed.

  “Better for you that you do not. With the exception of Mistress Anne, everyone around me is fundamentally the same, exchanging the same pleasantries, playing the same tedious games, issuing the same dreary compliments. The predictability of that can be loathsomely dull.”

  “I am sorry, sire.”

  “You mustn’t be sorry, Jane. May I call you Jane without you blushing at every turn? Let us be more at ease together. Especially now that you hold my heart so very near to your own”

  For a moment she did not know what he meant, and her own heart began to beat very fast until he indicated with his eyes the letter that she carried. “I am counting on you. Do not disappoint me, Jane.”

  After her awkward, impromptu meeting with the king, Jane secreted the letter to Anne Boleyn even more deeply within the bodice of her gown and returned to attend the queen. When Jane arrived in the privy chamber, she was later than the others and the entire room was in an uproar. Spanish words were flying like doves set free from a cage. Maria de Salinas held out dress after dress, brought to her in succession by a line of ladies’ maids, for the queen’s approval.

  “Jane, do come here,” the queen suddenly bid her, which was rarely her custom, as she gazed at her own reflection in the long gilt-framed looking glass and saw Jane hovering behind it. “Give us your opinion on the matter. I must wear a dress this evening alluring enough to remind the king why he married me, yet, at the same time, it must not be reminiscent of that whore.”

  Jane pressed the letter close to her chest and, along with the crinkle of paper, felt a little stab of guilt even though she was being forced into playing both sides against the mid
dle.

  She tried hard to examine the first two dresses. The one that Francis’s mother, Lady Bryan, held out to the sunlight that streamed through the long windows was stiff black silk with a Belgian lace collar and cuffs. It was studded on the bodice with rows of small, costly black pearls. The second dress was velvet, the color of whey, studded on the bodice and the long, turned-back sleeves, with red, blue, and green gems. It was a beautiful dress, yet still it had nothing of the flair of one of Anne Boleyn’s exquisite French designs that the other women of the court already secretly copied.

  Behind her, Maria held a third gown of rich plum satin encrusted with shimmering coral beads and ornamented with gold braid. The design was simple, even if a bit old-fashioned, but the elegance of it was unmistakable, and in that it trumped anything her rival could have worn.

  “Oh, Your Highness, I should not deign to give an opinion on such a personal matter,” Jane demurred.

  “You are correct, Mistress Seymour, you should not deign. But since it was asked of you, you are to offer your opinion enthusiastically.”

  Jane drew in a breath. She exhaled. The directive could not have felt more distressing, but it was a sensation she must push past.

  “Very well. If it pleases Your Highness, since you wish to stand out this evening, I would think that would be most boldly effected in the purple. Is it not, after all, the one color no hopeful competitor might don?”

  Katherine turned away from the mirror to the line of ladies. She gazed at the purple gown as if it were the first time she had seen it.

  “That dress was refashioned for me a number of years ago. It once belonged to my mother,” she said wistfully. “The jewels at the bodice, embedded in mounts of Spanish silver, are from a crown she once wore. I have not considered the dress often enough in all these years, as I have tried to be a good English wife.”

  Jane wanted so badly to say more, but the words caught like pebbles in her throat. She could not presume to know how a queen felt, and she certainly had too little experience with men to offer advice to her as a woman.

  “In my opinion, the king will find that one a desperate attempt at competition,” Maria de Salinas suddenly interjected. “And that is not a position in which Your Highness can afford to find yourself in the battle to save your marriage.”