Suzannah Dunn - The Queen of Subtleties

‘Options? Such as?’

‘Such as, why not do what she does best? Take up the religious life, full-time, by going into a nunnery.’

I liked it; and, better still, surely so would she. ‘But that’s only one,’ I said; ‘one option. What are the others?’

Henry looked uncomfortable. ‘Well, they were for me.’

‘And?’

‘And I’ve already said no.’

‘But they were…?’

They were that the Pope could give a fresh, unambiguous dispensation, in retrospect, for Henry’s existing ‘marriage’ to his dead brother’s wife—in other words, excuse it—or that the problem of his having no heir could be solved by the marriage of his weasel-faced daughter to his bastard son.

‘They’re suggesting that?’ Naturally, I was aghast. ‘They’re suggesting that half-sister and half-brother could marry?’

Henry nodded, clearly as baffled as I was.

‘Those people are sick.’

Henry said, ‘I didn’t put it quite as bluntly as that—I avoided the word ‘sick’—but I think I made myself clear.’

More than ever I needed that cardinal to meet me. Then he’d realize that I was far from such a bad proposition and didn’t need to be thwarted by such drastic measures—or indeed thwarted at all. I can charm anyone, if necessary; even a foot-sore, pious old Italian. I asked Henry to keep inviting him on my behalf, and to bring some confectionery for me to store at the ready in my kitchens. He brought the confectionery but remained evasive on the subject of the cardinal’s visit. I believed him that he was trying; it was the cardinal, I felt, who was saying no. Instead, I was told, he was visiting Catherine, with Wolsey, where they all spoke in the one language that they had in common: French. My language. She was having the audience that I should have been having, speaking in the language that was mine. As ever, she was insisting that she had been a virgin when she married Henry, that she’d never been a true wife to his brother. For a year now she’d been regaling anyone who would listen—and plenty who weren’t so keen to—with this tale. Had she no shame? Didn’t she understand that this wasn’t really what it was about? Henry wanted rid of her: it was as simple as that. It was obvious. How could she still want him? But she did. She refused the nunnery, time and time again, even when it was put to her in earnest by those she trusted. Even the Pope was keen on the nunnery option; it would solve everyone’s problems. Except Catherine’s, in Catherine’s opinion. She remained insistent that she was Henry’s wife and England’s queen, and would bear those responsibilities until the day she died.

Roll on, that day, I urged.

My Uncle Norfolk said to me. ‘Whatever you think of her, you can’t help admire her.’

‘You can’t,’ I corrected.

It seemed to me from all the visits to Catherine and snubs to me, and the talk of nunneries and incest, that our plans now weren’t going well. And God knows what Wolsey was doing about it. Nothing, as far as I could see.

I raised it with Henry: ‘This isn’t going well, is it.’

He said nothing, but looked guilty.

I waited; I knew he had something to say.

Sure enough: ‘I don’t think it’s going at all,’ he admitted.

I still said nothing; there was more.

Now he looked miserable. ‘I wonder, Anne, whether we shouldn’t just accept it, and find a way around it.’

That intrigued me. ‘Around it?’

‘Just…be together.’ His eyes full of pleading.

That again! ‘We can’t just “be together”, Henry! We don’t have that luxury. You’re a king. Your duty is to make sure that it’s your son who’s king after you.’ I dropped the hectoring. ‘And I’m your chance,’ I urged, ‘And I’m here, I’m ready. Are you really going to let a few scurrying Italians and Spaniards stand in our way?’

His head was bowed, his lip bitten. ‘No,’ he said, quietly. ‘Of course not.’

A week later, at Bridewell, he summoned everyone who was at court and read them a long statement. The gist, relayed to me by George, was that he was sick of gossip and wished to make clear that Catherine was a truly marvellous woman, had been an adoring wife, and theirs had been a supremely happy marriage. And impossible though he knew it was, there was nothing he’d like more than for Cardinal Campeggio to find in Catherine’s favour. And, indeed, if he did so, Henry would marry her all over again.

He was doing well, George said, up to this point. The problem came as he folded up the piece of paper and could no longer avoid facing the polite, restrained but wide-eyed incredulity of his audience. ‘And I’m telling you,’ he suddenly yelled, ‘if I don’t get full cooperation on all this, there’s none of you so grand your head won’t fly.’

Strange to think, now, how I laughed when I heard that. But George, bless him, did a good impression, all puffed-up petulance; and I was thinking, too, I suppose, of the grandees in the audience, the suddenly rigid, po-faced Dukes of Suffolk and Norfolk. I didn’t know, then, of course, how many heads would fly and how many of them would be of people I liked and loved. Nor that mine would, in the end, be joining them.

‘Mark! Haven’t seen you for a while.’ Not since Nonsuch, three or four weeks ago. One step across the threshold and he takes two backwards, aghast at the heat. ‘Oh, the heat: I know,’ and I’m laughing despite being aware of how awful I must look, red- and shiny-faced. But it’s too late to do anything about that, and I’m just glad he’s here. ‘Come in.’

He glances around the preserving pans, the baskets of fruits, rows of jars. Moulds are laid to dry, and subtleties—marchepane baskets, sugar bowls, marchepane and sugar fruits—are in various states of assembly and decoration. ‘You’re busy,’ he says, and now it’s him who’s laughing: ‘You are so busy.’

‘Summer needs bottling.’ Hence the jars. ‘And then there’s mid summer.’ The Feast of St John the Baptist: hence the subtleties.

He enthuses, ‘You’re so organized.’

No, ‘I’m just used to it.’ Which isn’t to say that I don’t think back fondly to when I was a child and the feast day meant none of this, no work, just the bonfire in the fields and the cartwheel set alight and rolled through the village. That village bonfire seemed enormous, to me, then, but I don’t suppose it’s a patch on the one that’s built here, every year.

Inhaling deeply, Mark wants to know, ‘What’s cooking?’

‘That’ll be the cherries,’ a nod towards one of the steaming cauldrons, ‘with cloves and cinnamon.’

He widens his eyes, beguiled. ‘I’d best leave you to it.’

‘No, really: all the more need for a distraction.’ But distraction didn’t sound quite right; nor to him, to judge from his flutter of hesitation. ‘Really,’ I repeat quickly, striking my fruit-sticky hands down my apron.

So, he obliges. Acknowledges Richard: ‘Mr Cornwallis,’ with a twitch of a smile that Richard is clearly intended to see and appreciate.

Which—miraculously—he does: ‘Mr Smeaton,’ he says, quite jollily, although he’s straight back to work. It’s close work that he’s doing: casting tiny details—twigs, in brown sugar paste (cinnamon, ginger), leaves in green (spinach juice), pips in both—and sticking them to various fruits. He is quite jolly, today; there’s been a carnival atmosphere, in here, today. One way to survive, with this much to do.

Mark says, ‘You two have a lot of fun in here, don’t you.’

Actually, I don’t know whether that’s close to the truth or couldn’t be further from it, and my own bafflement makes me laugh. Richard gives me what I think is called a long look; I’m aware of it even though I’ve turned away. I did see, though, that he wasn’t entirely unamused.