I, Jane: In The Court of Henry VIII (36 page)

January 1536

Richmond Palace

J
ane came to her post as lady-in-waiting in the queen’s apartments early the next morning. Anne was still in her bed beneath a swans’-feather counterpane of gold-fringed ermine. Her lap was filled with a collection of her favorite little yelping dogs. Her miscarriage the night before rested unspoken on the lips of everyone in the room.

The moment Jane entered the privy bedchamber, she knew something was wrong. The women around Anne’s bed turned in unison to glare at her. She stopped halfway into the room near the grand fireplace hearth, which was blazing with a freshly stoked fire. It flared and crackled as she passed it, the sudden sounds setting her more on edge and causing the dogs to bark more furiously. Her instinct was to turn from the confrontation, but Jane had learned a great deal these past few years. Armed with the knowledge of the king’s affection for her, she drew in a breath to steady herself, held up her head, and advanced. She wore a pretty gown of gray velvet with scalloped edges and trimmed with gold braid, which gave her even more confidence.

“Well, if it is not the little harlot herself,” Anne remarked as she took a goblet offered by George Boleyn’s wife.

Jane exchanged a little glance with Elizabeth Carew, whose expression was full of worry, but Jane knew she could not be undone by that. This was war. A war that had been brewing since their childhood voyage to France years ago.

As she came to the foot of the queen’s bed, Jane curtsied deeply. “Your Highness. Please allow me to convey my regret over your loss,” she said so sincerely that she almost believed it herself.

“Your regret? What do you regret precisely, Mistress Seymour? The loss of my child? Or the loss of your cover in the pursuit of my husband?”

From the corner of her eye she saw the other women exchanging glances, and she knew what gossip would ensue after she left. But this moment, and how she handled it, was critical. Out of habit, Jane lowered her eyes. What she felt, however, was anything but contrition. This was an evil woman who had been an evil girl, and there was little chance she would ever change. Jane could hear the whispers around her as she drew nearer the bedside.

“I am here to serve Your Highness in all things, now and always.”

“Serve me up on a pike at Tower Bridge, more likely,” Anne grumbled in her white satin and lace chemise with a luxurious miniver collar as two of her favorite chestnut-colored lapdogs lounged beside her on her coverlet. Her onyx hair had been brushed out, long and luxurious and in sharp contrast to the white bedding. “Did you think I did not see you last night, like the tart that you are, sitting astride the king’s lap?”

“Mayhap you should retire for the moment, Mistress Seymour,” offered Lady Rochford, Anne Boleyn’s sister-in-law. “We want nothing to upset the queen.”

A bit late for that,
Jane thought uncharitably, but again she displayed her reverence with another deep curtsy. At that very moment, when she would have taken her leave, the double doors to the queen’s bedchamber slammed back on their hinges, and the king himself strutted toward them in black velvet mourning clothes.

“I shall be the judge of who shall retire!” he bellowed as he advanced toward the grand canopied bed, followed by Nicholas Carew, Francis Bryan, Charles Brandon, and William Brereton. Thomas Cromwell entered with them in his own dark swirl of black velvet, but he wisely lingered near the door.

“How are you, my dear?” Henry asked his wife perfunctorily, and it was obvious that he cared little what her answer might be.

“You imagine I would be
how
precisely after last evening? And now I am forced to face your whore as well by morning’s light!”

Jane stood motionless as Henry’s face filled with crimson fury. “You need not blame someone else for what you brought upon yourself, woman!”

“Are you suggesting that it is my fault that our son is lost to us?”

“The blame certainly does not belong to Mistress Seymour, or any of your other ladies. You alone were the vessel for that boy!”

Jane could not quite believe it when she saw Anne’s eyes fill with tears, even though her expression was still dark with anger. “Your neglect these past weeks has taken a toll, Hal. You must accept your part of the blame. Even though we shall have another son soon enough, we both must learn from our mistakes.”

“I see, madam, that God does not mean to give me a male heir through you, no matter whom we choose to blame,” he said more coolly, entirely disregarding her entreaty as he turned to leave the room. He paused for just a moment when his glance met Jane’s. She
knew it was wrong to delight in hearing his angry tone with Anne, but she could not quite help herself after everything.

“When you are out of bed, I will speak to you. Have someone call for me then,” Henry grumbled. Then, having done his duty to see her, as he had once done for Katherine after her own miscarriages, he unceremoniously left the room. It was to the dismay of some, and the fear of others, who had been left to watch the exchange and wonder who would be victorious in this newest wrinkle in the tumultuous royal marriage.

It was Lady Margaret Douglas who approached Jane after the king had gone. The queen’s most important ladies had gathered around her bedside, but not this influential woman. The expression on her face was stony. They had been cordial once, but Lady Douglas’s loyalty was most definitely to Queen Anne.

“’Twould be best, Mistress Seymour, if you took your leave from the queen’s sight for now,” she said coolly.

Thinking then only of her brothers’ positions and power base, Jane said, “Has my service displeased Her Highness?”

“’Tis not your service, Mistress Seymour, but rather your insolence that has displeased the queen.”

“Mistress Seymour is the least arrogant person at this court,” Lady Rochford suddenly defended, and Jane could not contain her surprise. George Boleyn’s wife rarely spoke to her. “She cannot be blamed for her friendship with the king.”

“If it were only friendship that she was after, perhaps you would be correct, but I have seen enough royal mistresses come and go in my time to know the difference.”

Perhaps you were one of them once?
Jane thought, surprised
herself at her own growing callousness toward Anne Boleyn and her defenders, and the scandal she would be starting if she allowed things with the king to continue.

It was surprising to Jane how little fear she felt at that prospect.

It was no more than a few minutes later, as she lingered absently at a task designed to keep her nearby but out of sight, that Edward and Thomas approached her.

“Come away with us, sister, at least for now,” Edward said smoothly. “There is a family matter with which we must contend.” Both brothers were gazing at her casually, as if this had nothing whatsoever to do with the queen’s displeasure. But there was no mistaking that they had meant to pluck her from the volatile scene.

Jane was angry by the time they reached the first corridor beyond the queen’s presence chamber. “What in blazes were the two of you thinking?” she snapped as they walked swiftly, flanking her, passing guards and servants, tapestries, and blazing wall sconces. “I cannot concede my place to her now!”

“Nor can you miss an opportunity to closet with the king when he is alone and vulnerable, in need of a good friend’s private counsel,” said Thomas.

“Where is he?” Jane asked as they descended the first flight of stairs along another vast, window-lined corridor.

“At prayer in the Royal Chapel, not to be disturbed by anyone just now,” said Edward. “We took the liberty of following him after he left the queen.”

“Then what would make you think he would wish me to disturb him?”

“It is not a disturbance you will offer him but chaste female support, just as you have before. His Majesty is a vulnerable soul just
now. Ambassador Chapuys’s spies said they thought they heard soft weeping, which was when we came to collect you.”

Eustace Chapuys, the imperial ambassador to England, and Katherine of Aragon’s great and loyal friend, had been invited to return to court by Anne herself, who was still desperate to secure the emperor’s acknowledgment of her as queen. With his niece now deceased, the emperor, for his part, wanted an alliance with Henry badly enough to send Chapuys back into the fray. But the reality of the matter was that Chapuys did not like Anne, nor would he ever, and her camp realized that the ambassador would likely be working toward her downfall now that he was here. Jane’s brothers thus trusted Chapuys’s account of the king’s mood.

When they came to the private door at the side of the chapel, Thomas carefully opened it. Then he turned back to his sister. “All that you have witnessed and endured has led you to this moment,” he said with quiet intensity. “We trust that you understand the vital importance of becoming indispensable to His Majesty, though not necessarily through your virtue.”

Knowing her duty, she pressed rising questions from her mind and entered the small candlelit chapel. She saw Henry at the altar on his knees, his head lowered to his steepled, meaty hands. Filtered light poured over him in a kaleidoscope of color through the stained-glass oriel windows decorated with images of the saints. Jane was afraid to advance on him like this, but Edward nudged her forward, then closed the door on her. She stood motionless for a moment, listening to the king murmur. His words echoed through the small nave.

“Forgive me. You were a good woman who deserved better than I gave you…I am still uncertain what came over me, or that I ever will know…By God’s grace, may you rest in peace, Katerina.”

He sank back onto his heels as Jane approached him, and he looked up in surprise with tears brightening his moss green eyes.

“Forgive me, Your Majesty.”

“You must call me Henry. And there is nothing to forgive. I am glad you are here, Jane, though I know not how you passed beyond the guards.”

“I took it upon myself to enter by the private door,” she lied because she did not want to implicate her brothers when she knew how much she would need their help in the coming days.

“Resourceful as well.” He bit back the ghost of a smile and brushed his tears with the palms of his hands.

“Are you all right?” she asked gently, almost caring.

“Not at all, actually.” He took her hand and stood, then led her to the first pew behind them. The wood smelled strongly of beeswax, and the air was filled with incense and the prayers of ages. He sank back against the pew seat, still holding her hand. “I know not what happened to me, to my life, and the only thing that makes any sense to me now is that she is a witch who cast a spell upon me.” Jane knew he meant Anne. “Yet I cannot go back. I cannot change what I have done.”

“’Tis true none of us can go back,” she said calmly, surprising herself with her tone, one that made her sound far more wise than she knew herself to be. “But we can all change the path we are on if we realize it is the wrong one.”

“No one, it seems, but me has ever believed she was the true queen, which means with Katherine dead now, I am a widower. More appropriately, a never-married man. That is what I believe. But what do
you
believe, Jane?” His gaze was intense upon her and yet weary at the same time.

“Oh, Your Majesty, surely I am not qualified to contemplate such
things,” she demurred, lowering her eyes only slightly before she returned her gaze to his.

“And yet I do very much want to know your thoughts, even so.”

“You know well I was devoted to Queen Katherine, so perhaps I am not the most impartial voice on the matter.”

He leaned nearer. His breath was warm and slightly spiced. “Please, Jane.”

She paused for a moment, considering whether or not to be truthful. “I do believe Queen Katherine was Your Majesty’s true and lawful wife until her final breath.”

“Which would make me a sinner and a widower, yet now a free man, able to remarry.”

“My judgment is not the one that matters.”

“In my eyes, it has become so.”

“I would not think England would tolerate you denying a second wife in order to take a third. That is what I think.”

“I have spoken intensively of divorce with Master Cromwell and Master Carew, and my lord Norfolk as well,” he pondered. “All had long supported Anne and her brother, Lord Rochford, staunchly, but now, suddenly, they seem willing to counsel me in it.”

So that was why she had seen less of them all in the queen’s apartments since her return to court. She was surprised to feel a small burst of sympathy for those seeking to find their way to safety, like rats fleeing a sinking ship. She knew how that felt and did not envy anyone close to the queen in these critical days. Jane alone believed herself to be safe for how carefully and patiently she had played the game.

Henry extended his leg and grimaced. It was then that she noticed once again the thick bandage beneath his ecru-colored stocking. “Does it hurt?” she cautiously asked.

“Mostly when I stand. Although I would deny that to Carew or Brandon with my dying breath because they would never let me hear the end of it.”

“It sounds like a competition between my own brothers.”

“Oh, yes. Edward. And the other?”

“His name is Thomas.”

“Oh, Thomas, yes, right, of course. I miss my own brother.” He sighed. “Speaking of
The Imitation of Christ
reminds me of him, as much as it does the rest of my family, so I thank you for that.”

He tipped his head back and exhaled deeply. She could hear how troubled he was. Even so, he still had not let go of her hand. “I need to be away from her, away from here, find the uncomplicated life again. I need to ride, to hunt, to go hawking as I did when I was a youth. Not to feel so tethered as I do by her…by this leg, or by these infernal headaches that torment me.”

He let go of her hand then and began to massage his temples with both hands. His moods changed so swiftly, Jane saw, and it was a little frightening, although she did not let it show on her face. She had become quite expert at never showing her emotions.