The Autobiography of Henry VIII: With Notes by His Fool, Will Somers (73 page)

Read The Autobiography of Henry VIII: With Notes by His Fool, Will Somers Online

Authors: Margaret George

BOOK: The Autobiography of Henry VIII: With Notes by His Fool, Will Somers
8.72Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
I shuffled toward the door and ran my hand along its frame. A sliver of light outlined its edges. Through that crack I saw two profiles. One was Catherine’s; the other, a young man’s. He had a hawkish nose and a great deal of dark hair that fell forward over his forehead. Their lips were moving rapidly.
I flung the narrow double doors open, and they started.
“My Lord,” said Catherine, bowing a little. As if she should bow after what passed between us ... or was this a wicked sense of humour?
“Wife.” If so, I joined in.
“Your Majesty.” The young man swept low, then straightened. He was slim and quivering, like an eager rapier. Or something else, something I wished not to think upon.
“This is Francis Dereham,” said Catherine, smiling. “A kinsman from Norfolk. I have known him since my childhood, and he is trustworthy. So I have appointed him my secretary.”
I looked at him. He looked more like a pirate than a secretary. “It is not seemly to overuse one’s prerogative to appoint one’s kinsmen to important positions. The Queen’s secretary must fulfill certain duties—”
“Let him be my honeymoon secretary, then,” she laughed. “Perhaps you are right. In London he would not be adequate. And soon enough we shall returnand dissected them.
I interrupted his impassioned conversation. “The Queen needs you,” I whispered directly into his ear. “Bring your birthing instruments.”
Clearly puzzled, he left his companion and followed me out of the room. As soon as we were out of earshot, I said, “There has been a miscarriage. She needs you to examine her and tend her. Bring whatever instruments are necessary. Not birthing ones, of course. I know not the proper name for them.”
While he was with her, I stood in the outer chamber, pacing and staring at the fire. The dark and querulous Francis Dereham had stalked away, as if it affronted him to share a space with me. Before I could think further on the nasty Dereham, Butts re-emerged. “So quickly?” I was surprised.
“Aye.” He stood looking at me, his brown leather bag of implements and herbal potions dangling from both hands. “There was no child. This was just a normal monthly course. No heavier than usual. Apparently the Queen was mistaken.”
Mistaken? No heavier than usual? But it was six weeks ago that she had told me. “Would not a delayed course like this result in a greater accumulation of blood?”
“Sometimes. It depends on why it was delayed. Whether by natural or unnatural means.”
“Unnatural? But a pregnancy is ‘natural,’ is it not?”
He shook his head, as if pitying me. “There are ways to alter that monthly function, to meddle with it.” He hesitated a moment, then opened his hand. In his palm was a small, smooth pebble.
“This was what the Queen miscarried,” he said.
Still I did not understand.
Sadly he explained, “Her womb expelled it. It had been put there to prevent a babe from growing within. ’Tis a custom in the Middle East much practised with beasts of burden, and perhaps with slaves as well. It makes conception impossible.”
No! Such a filthy practise, no, Catherine could not have...
“Could it have found its way there accidentally?”
“No, Your Grace.”
“How long had it been there?”
“Judging from its appearance, for many years.”
Jesu! Some evil Arab physician had done this to her as a baby. How? But there were Arab physicians ready enough to be found, even in England. I had found Al-Ashkar. The Duchess must have had one at her service, ready to do her bidding. She did not mean her poor niece ever to conceive—why? Was the old woman that bitter and angry at her charge? At having to bear the cost of raising her worthless stepson’s child? There may be children, had she thought, but I’ll assure there are no grandchildren? How cruel old women can be.
“Thank you, Dr. Butts,” I said. I would reward him well for his discovery.
I re-entered the chamber where she lay. My heart ached for her, so misused all her life. To be orphaned and neglected was one thing, but to be rendered artificially barren....
“All was well?” she asked anxiously.
“Yeont>
“He said there would be more bleeding, perhaps heavy,” she said.
It was natural. The womb was rebelling against its misuse.
“It will soon be over.” My hopes for a child were even now staining the cloths beneath her buttocks. “Let us plan our Christmas together, now. Shall we keep court? Where?” I sought to distract her, cheer her.
“Hampton,” she said without hesitation. She could not know how unsettling a choice that was for me. But no matter—anything to make her joyful.
“As a child, whenever I thought of court, I thought of Hampton. All the great glassy windows, the Italian statues, the astronomical clock; I imagined royal barges all lining the river; oversized kitchen ovens cooking night and day ... all the world would be there....”
“Stop, stop,” I laughed. “You have seen all this in your mind?”
She nodded.
“Then you shall see it all in truth,” I promised.
I stood up and looked about the small room. Suddenly I had lost my taste for remote hunting lodges; happiness had proved as elusive here as anywhere else. It was time to return to Hampton.
She bled for a week, following the physician’s instructions and drinking a potion of ground dried pennyroyal mixed with red wine three times a day.
“The wine is to replace the lost blood, and the pennyroyal is to staunch the flow,” he explained.
When that danger was past, we set out for Hampton Court to keep Christmas, sending notice to all eligible members of court throughout the realm, and even to Scots nobles and Irish peers, to come and join us. All were welcome. Replies came quickly, and the allotments of rooms and servants’ quarters were spoken for so greedily that by St. Nicholas’ Day there was not a single chamber or even corner of a chamber free.
“You have your wish, sweetheart,” I assured her. “By my reckoning, fifteen hundred will lodge here for the entire Twelve Days of Christmas. The kitchen fires will blaze night and day. The Lord Steward requests five thousand geese alone to feed this mighty company. How like you that?”
She smiled. “And there will be balls, and masked dancing?”
“As many of them as you wish,” I said.
“Imagine everyone disguised—all fifteen hundred of us,” she said dreamily.
“Much mischief would occur.” Oh, the maidenheads lost, the husbands cuckolded! All in honour of Our Lord’s birth.
I proposed for Will to go about in an Infidel turban and pantaloons, but he refused. As I said, he was most dour and out of sorts these days.
“Costumed or not, you shall not hide yourself away, Will. Too many idle people must be entertained, lest they get into fights. You know the problem of keeping men indoors too long. It transforms them into be-ee-easts.” I sucked my stomach in for the tailor who was measuring me for my masquing-coat. All of clothas reclaiming so many others. And so I would dance, on Ninth Night, for the first planned full evening of ensembles and suites. I practised in my chamber, rehearsing old steps and mastering new ones.
O ! I had missed dancing, in those dead, hollow years, as I had missed so much, so much that I had not allowed myself to dwell on, or even to recall. I thought I had liked being dead.
There! that was it, the proper turn of the galliard. They called it a “shocking” dance, but the younglings loved it....
My leg seemed submissive, although it had, all during the past fortnight, been sending out ominous tingles. What that betokened, I did not know. Perhaps nothing. I intended to regard it as nothing.
 
The Great Hall was cleared, and my finest consort-ensemble gathered together, with their woodwinds—recorders, crumhorns, and shawms—and their stringed instruments—viols, lutes, and harps. I had instructed them to begin with popular measures, so that everyone present might join in; only gradually were they to progress to the more demanding dances. I myself would refrain from joining until the saltarello near the end. My entrance would take the company by surprise, as I had long, long ago....
I chatted, and circulated among the celebrants, pretending I had nothing more on my mind, pretending that I planned to stay swathed in my heavy robes, presiding like an old man.
“Yes, yes!” I nodded and clapped. The rondo was ending.
Next was my dance. I unfastened my cloak, laid it by. I readied myself, enjoying the pretence of talking, all the while flexing my calves and rising up and down on the balls of my feet, pointing my toe.
The first beat ... I moved, thrusting out my leg. And felt excruciating pain in the thigh, suddenly, like a thunderclap. I was frozen with a paroxysm of pain.
The ensemble played on. One would never know that I had missed my entrance cue. Frantically I massaged my leg—the cursed traitor! With each touch I felt fluid ooze up, as if I were pressing on a sponge. Was my leg, then, become a sponge? A sponge of disease? I was wearing black tights, so the stain did not show. Very well. As I formed the words in my mind, a hatred greater than any I had ever felt flamed through me. This was an enemy! An enemy like Anne Boleyn, like Cardinal Pole, like the Duke of Buckingham. It was sent by Satan, like them, to destroy me. But this was more subtle: it would attack from within, rot me out from the inside.
I would dance, despite it. The ensemble reached the entrance point again, and I leapt out on the floor. As I landed, a nail of pain ran up my thigh and into my groin. People backed off to make room for me, to watch the King dance.
And dance he would. And did. I spun and leapt as athletically as a stag, executed all the steps of the galliard perfectly, with a precision usually reserved for clockworks and sword-masters. This particular dance demanded the grace and dexterity of a hummingbird. In this I did not fail.
After the first few beats, I took a mad, savage pleasure in the pain that fought back at me. It was a gladiatorial contest, and I, armed with net and trident, had ensnared and humiliated pain.
The moment the music ended, I was encircled by men and women extolling my skill. They were surprised, oh, yes, they were. The last time anyone had beheld me dance athletically was a decade ago, and many of those faces were gone.
robe—‘Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do’—He did not say, ‘and thou also, Pilate, and Caiaphas,’ although surely in His heart He included them....”
Was this her holiday talk? What, then, was her serious talk?
“Madam Latimer, you are far too joyless,” I chided her. “Surely at Our Lord’s birth, when He came as a babe, as God’s gift to mankind, it is morbid to dwell on His coming betrayal and death.”
Her dark eyes danced with excitement. Theology, then, was what inflamed her passion. “Ah, Your Majesty! But it is all one, that is its perfection, its mystery. The Kings brought frankincense and myrrh—shadows of His future death and burial. ‘Mary took all these things, and pondered them in her heart.’ She ‘pondered’ them, she did not rejoice, or sing; no, it was a heavy thing. I have often wondered,” she said dreamily, like Culpepper stroking a particularly fine piece of velvet, “what Mary did with the gold, frankincense, and myrrh.” I noted that she did not say “Our Lady” or “the Blessed Virgin.” “Did she store it in a cupboard, somewhere amidst the linen, and look at it once in a long while, or by accident after she had finished her ordinary tasks after an ordinary day, waiting for Joseph to stop work and return? Did she touch it then, and feel the miracle all over again, have an epiphany of her own?” The widow Latimer was the most unabashed romantic I had ever encountered, but only for things unknown, unseen.

Other books

Deliverance by Dakota Banks
Trusting Calvin by Sharon Peters
Dead Alone by Gay Longworth
The Last Bachelor by Judy Christenberry
Hostage to Pleasure by Nalini Singh
Next: A Novel by Michael Crichton