Philippa Gregory - The Boleyn Inheritance

The duchess smiles. “He did once,” she says. “The Seymour girl was no great philosopher. I think he has lost his taste for argument from his wives. Do you like an educated woman?”

He gives a little snort at this. The whole world knows that he and his wife have been parted for years, they hate each other so much.

“Anyway, what matters most is that she pleases the queen and pleases the court,” my uncle rules. “Katherine, you are to go to court and be one of the new queen’s maids-in-waiting.”

I beam at him.

“You are glad to go?”

“Yes, my lord uncle. I am very grateful,” I remember to add.

“You have been placed in such a position of importance to be a credit to your family,” he says solemnly. “Your grandmother here tells me that you are a good girl and that you know how to behave. Make sure that you do, and don’t let us down.”

I nod. I dare not look at my grandmother, who knew all about Henry Manox, and who caught me once in the upper hall with Francis, with my hand down the front of his breeches and the mark of his bite on my neck, and called me a whore in the making and a stupid slut, and gave me a cuff that made my head ring, and warned me off him again at Christmas.

“There will be young men who may pay attention to you,” my uncle warns, as if I have never met a young man before. I dart a look at my grandmother, but she is blandly smiling. “Remember that nothing is more important than your reputation. Your honor must be without stain. If I hear any unbecoming gossip about you – and I mean anything, and you can be sure that I hear everything – then I will remove you immediately from court and send you not even here, but back to your step-grandmother’s house in the country at Horsham. Where I will leave you forever. Do you understand?”

“Yes, my lord uncle.” It comes out in a terrified whisper. “I promise.”

“I will see you at court almost daily,” he says. I am almost beginning to wish that I was not going. “And from time to time I shall send for you to come to my rooms and tell me how you are getting on with the queen, and so on. You will be discreet, and you will not gossip. You will keep your eyes open and your mouth shut. You will take advice from your kinswoman Jane Boleyn, who is also in the queen’s rooms. You will endeavor to become close to the queen; you shall be her little friend. From the favor of princes comes wealth. Never forget it. This could be the making of you, Katherine.”

“Yes, my lord uncle.”

“And another thing,” he says warningly.

“Yes, uncle?”

“Modesty, Katherine. It is a woman’s greatest asset.”

I sink into a curtsy, my head bowed, as modest as a nun. A laugh of derision from my grandmother tells me that she is not persuaded. But when I look up, my uncle is smiling.

“Convincing. You can go,” he says.

I curtsy again and I flee from the room before he can say anything worse. I have been longing to go to court for the dancing and young men, and he makes it sound like going into service.

“What did he say? What did he say?” They are all waiting in the great hall, desperate to know the news.

“I am to go to court!” I crow. “And I am to have new gowns and new hoods, and he says I will be the prettiest girl in the queen’s chamber, and there will be dancing every night, and I daresay I will never see any of you ever again.”

The weather to cross the English Sea is, thank God, fair at last, after days of delay. I hoped that I would have a letter from home before we set sail, but though we have had to wait and wait for good weather for the crossing, no one has written to me. I thought that Mother might have written to me; even if she is not missing me, I thought she might have sent me some words of advice. I thought Amelia might already be hoping for a visit to England and might write me a letter of sisterly greeting. I could almost laugh at myself tonight, to think how low my spirits must be if I am wanting a letter from Amelia.

The only one I was certain of was my brother. I was sure I would have a letter from him. He never regained his temper with me, not in all the long preparation of leaving, and we parted on the terms that we have lived all our lives: on my side with a resentful fearfulness of his power, and on his side with an irritation that he cannot voice. I thought that he might write to me to appoint me with business to transact at the English court; surely I should be representing my country and our interests? But there are all the Cleves lords who are traveling with me; no doubt he has spoken or written to them. He must have decided that I am not fit to do business for him.

I thought at any rate that he was certain to write to me to lay down rules for my conduct. After all, he has spent his life dominating me. I did not think he would just let me go. But it seems I am free of him. Instead of being glad of that, I am uneasy. It is strange to leave my family, and none of them even send me Godspeed.

We are to set sail tomorrow in the early morning to catch the tide, and I am waiting in my rooms in the king’s house, the Chequer, for Lord Lisle to come for me when I hear something like an argument in the presence chamber outside. By luck my Cleves translator, Lotte, is with me, and at a nod from me she crosses quietly to the door and listens to the rapid English speech. Her expression is intent, she frowns, and then, when she hears footsteps coming, she scurries back into the room and sits beside me.

Lord Lisle bows as he comes into the room, but his color is up. He smooths down his velvet jerkin, as if to compose himself. “Forgive me, Lady Anne,” he says. “The house is upside down with packing. I will come for you in an hour.”

She whispers his meaning to me, and I bow and smile. He glances back at the door. “Did she hear us?” he asks Lotte bluntly, and she turns to me to see me nod. He comes closer.

“Secretary Thomas Cromwell is of your religion,” he says quietly. Lotte whispers the German words into my ear so that I can be sure of understanding him. “He has wrongly protected some hundreds of Lutherans in this city, which is under my command.”

I understand the words, of course, but not their significance.

“They are heretics,” he says. “They deny the authority of the king as a spiritual leader, and they deny the sacred miracle of the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, that his wine becomes blood. This is the belief of the Church of England. To deny it is a heresy punished with death.”

I put my hand gently on Lotte’s arm. I know these are most perilous matters, but I don’t know what I should say.

“Secretary Cromwell himself could be charged with heresy if the king knew that he had sheltered these men,” Lord Lisle says. “I was telling his son, Gregory, that these men should be charged, whoever protects them. I was warning him that I cannot look to one side; I was warning him that good Englishmen think as I do, that God will not be mocked.”

“I know nothing of these English matters,” I say carefully. “I wish only to be guided by my husband.” I think briefly of my brother, who has charged me with bringing my husband away from these Papist superstitions into the clarity of reform. I think I shall have to disappoint him again.

Lord Lisle nods; he bows and steps back. “Forgive me,” he says. “I should not have troubled you with this. I just wanted to make clear that I resent Thomas Cromwell’s protection of these people and that I am wholly loyal to the king and to his church.”

I nod, for what else can I say or do? And he goes out of the room. I turn to Lotte.

“That’s not quite right,” she says very quietly. “He did accuse the Master Cromwell of protecting Lutherans, but the son, Gregory Cromwell, accused him of being a secret Papist, and said that he would be watched. They were threatening each other.”