Valerie Anand - The House Of Allerbrook

Madam Elizabeth was a small, solemn, redheaded girl, and she at least would be easy to remember, though in the event, Jane saw little of her, since she had her own apartments and rarely came into the presence of either the queen or the king. Another who was easy to remember, however, and was very much part of the queen’s entourage, was “Kate Howard, our youngest maid of honour.”

Kate Howard looked no more than fifteen and was as pretty as a rose, with winning manners. “You are a good girl,” Mistress Lowe said to her once when she had managed to soothe the hurt feelings of Hanna, who was sensitive. “You are like oil in a stiff lock.”

The maids of honour were supposed always to be near their mistress and ready to run errands. Jane found this hair-raising at first, as she was never sure where she was supposed to go or how to recognize whoever it was she was supposed to speak to. The principal officials, who carried white sticks as a sign of office and were actually called White Staves, all looked as dignified as emperors, while their supporting staff, who worked in a perfect warren of rooms, seemed as numerous as an army.

There was a huge department called Greencloth Accounting—because of the green-covered table at which daily conferences were held—which was entirely devoted to ordering food supplies, paying the suppliers, planning menus and dispensing the ingredients to the kitchens. Queen Anna sometimes wished for dishes not familiar to the English cooks, and Jane’s first errand was to the Greencloth Department, armed with a recipe, written out in English by the bilingual Hanna.

She lost her way three times and when she did find the right place, though people were polite and accepted the recipe she presented to them, she felt presumptuous, like a small child trying to give instruction to adults.

Other errands took her outside the palace. Sometimes, with other ladies, Jane went by river into London to look at merchants’ goods and place orders. It was not a pleasure. The court was crowded enough and at times smelly with a distasteful mingling of body odours and cloying perfumes, but London streets were worse. They were a chaos of thronging people and lofty horsemen who seemed prepared to ride down anyone who got in their way; the streets were littered with horse droppings and human ordure flung from windows, and the stench was like a hand clutching at her throat.

But there were more and worse unpleasantnesses to come, as Jane discovered, and oddly enough, her carefully acquired skill at music was responsible. Queen Anna quite soon learned from someone, probably Sir Edmund Flaxton, that young Mistress Sweetwater played the virginals well. There came an evening when, in the queen’s private rooms, which contained musical instruments, the queen, with gestures and halting phrases, asked Jane to perform for her.

The queen took supper apart, with a select group of attendants and courtiers. But the day after Jane’s debut as a musician she was told that she and pretty little Kate Howard had been invited to join the inner circle that evening, as guests. Dorothy was not included, which made her glower.

Jane was instructed to dress with care, and her tirewoman Lisa helped her put on a tawny damask very like the one which had once been meant for Sybil. “The colour suits you well, madam,” Lisa said.

A page showed her to the dining chamber, which proved to be a small but luxurious hall, hung with glowing tapestries and lit by innumerable candles. And this evening the king was present, seated beside his wife. For the first time, Jane beheld King Henry VIII of England.

She was near enough to see and hear him clearly. He was broad chested and strong voiced, jewelled and befurred, a powerfully dominant presence even when he was doing nothing more remarkable than saying good evening to his table companions. He was also, as far as Jane was concerned, heavily jowled and overweight. He reminded her of a bear she had once seen at a fair in Minehead, a lumbering thing with the same small, angry eyes. She pitied the poor queen, if Anna had to endure that hulking body on top of her at night. If Sir Edmund were correct, of course, perhaps she was spared it. In her place, Jane would have been thankful.

“You are new to the court, are you not?” said a voice in her ear, and she turned to find that her right-hand neighbour was addressing her. It was a man, and to her surprise his voice held a trace of the familiar west country accent. She looked at him with interest. He was not unlike Ralph, except that his hair was dark brown rather than black and he had a beard, which Ralph had not, and a more aquiline nose. He seemed older, too. He was smiling pleasantly at her and she smiled back.

“Yes, sir, very new. Everything is still very strange. I know hardly anyone yet.”

“My name is Peter Carew. And you are…?”

“Jane. Jane Sweetwater. Master Carew, was Sir William Carew of Mohuns Ottery in Devon a relative of yours? He was a friend of my family.”

“He was indeed, and I know who you are now, though we haven’t met before. My father spoke of the Sweetwaters sometimes. I am Sir William’s youngest son and was one of his biggest problems, until I went off with the French army and vanished,” said Peter Carew cheerfully, and chuckled.

Across the table Kate Howard called out, “What’s the joke?”

“My family history,” said Carew, grinning. “I was sent abroad when I was young and eventually disappeared so thoroughly that my parents thought I was dead. When I came back to England and went to see them before joining the court, I gave my mother such a shock that she fainted. Peter , she said, you’re dead! You’ve come back from the grave! And then she sat down on the nearest seat and rolled up her eyes and passed out. You cause trouble even by walking through a door! my father said to me.”

Jane was working it out. At that dreadful dinner that should have been for Sybil, Sir William Carew had mentioned a son, Peter, and had described him as a pert, forward brat who, when sent out in the world, had got himself demoted from page to stable boy because of misbehaviour. This must be the same Peter Carew. He seemed to be a sufficiently dignified and responsible young gentleman now. He couldn’t really be much older than Ralph. Was it the beard that made him seem so? No, it was something in the man himself. He had gone adventuring; he had seen the world and acquired experience. That was the difference.

Kate Howard was still listening. “I’m sure,” she said wickedly, “that you could cause all sorts of trouble if you wanted to.”

“Minx,” said Carew amiably, but kept his attention on Jane. “You haven’t been here long enough to realize, I suppose, but the court’s a strange place just now.”

“I know,” said Jane in a low voice.

“I like Queen Anna,” Carew said. “I was with the escort that went to meet her at Calais. But then…” He shook his head and ceased talking, because servants were coming around with dishes and could have overheard. Before supper, Mistress Lowe had warned Jane that some of the deferential persons now recommending a spicy mutton stew were paid to report questionable remarks and opinions to Thomas Cromwell, the king’s most trusted aide.

As the servers withdrew, Carew, as though he knew what Jane was thinking, remarked, “The man who has gone up to the king and is speaking to him now is Thomas Cromwell. He is a great power in the land.”

“The heavyset man in the dark clothes?”

“Yes. Not a fellow to cross, believe me,” said Carew.

“And the tall man three seats along from the king,” said Kate Howard, leaning across to interrupt, “the one with the long face and the long nose, is my uncle, Thomas Howard, Duke of Norfolk. I don’t like him.”