The Queen's Mistake (55 page)

“He is hunting, my lady. He cannot hear you. Alas, there is much more for us to speak of,” said Cranmer. “By His Majesty’s order, you have already lost your title, your money has been sealed, your jewels confiscated, and your household is to be disbanded. You would be wise to confess the full truth in your own words if you have any hope of saving your life or Lady Rochford’s.”

“Tell him!” Jane begged suddenly. “There is no other choice left to us!”

As Henry limped through the gallery with Anne Basset beside him, he heard the whispers. He had not been meant to hear them, nor had he wished to. He had spent the day in the forest to escape them, but there would be no escape.
She is no better than Anne Boleyn
, they said.

Those ancient wounds had been cut open and were raw again.

But as Henry hobbled across the gallery, he heard something else. It was the unmistakable echo of Catherine’s pleading cry. At first it surprised him, but anger, not sympathy, swelled in his heart. Catherine Howard was not his wife. She never had been, after all. He turned away from her call, taking Anne Basset’s hand stubbornly in response.

After Cranmer had finished interrogating Catherine and Dereham, he came to Henry with Southampton, Wriothesley, Brandon and Seymour. There was not a hint of mirth on their faces. Henry knew what they wanted without asking.

“I went to the Tower to see Dereham this morning, Your Majesty,” Cranmer announced dryly. “May we speak privately?”

Henry released Anne’s grasp, leaving her behind as they continued on.

“How bad is it?”

Cranmer dared to touch his shoulder in a gesture of support as they walked. “I beg you, allow me to speak entirely alone with Your Majesty.”

They went together into the small, private oratory inside the chapel within the palace walls. It was quiet and full of soft shadows. Cranmer closed the door.

“I know not how to tell you this, sire.”

“Straight out, man. That is always the best way,” he replied irritably. What more could there possibly be; what worse news than that the woman he had loved so dearly had lived a lie? “Have we proof for the annulment?”

“We do.”

“So, he confessed?”

“To more, I am afraid, than we ever expected.”

Henry lowered his gaze for a moment and said a small prayer for strength. He was not certain he could bear to hear that there were even more thorns on his precious rose.

“Out with it, Cranmer,” he snarled.

“After I saw Dereham at the Tower, I went straight to Lady Catherine for confirmation. But alas, I did not need it, as the information had already been confirmed by several of her ladies.”

Henry did not look up, and his tone was very low. His body knew instinctively how to protect itself from heartbreaking attack when he sensed its approach. He’d had a lifetime of it already.

“There was a reason Master Dereham was never a threat to Your Majesty here at court.”

“Did their affair end before he arrived?” Henry asked.

“It did, sire, because there was someone else here, among your
courtiers, who had succeeded Dereham in the queen’s affections before he arrived from Horsham.”

Henry drew in a labored breath, then exhaled. “Very well, Cranmer, tell me who it is.”

It was over. Everything Catherine had tried to balance for so long was taken from her. Cranmer had badgered her for hours upon hours, questioning her about every word she spoke. And the secretary scratched away on his vellum, recording it all.

She had not meant to involve Thomas, but Francis Dereham had already done so. Mary Lassells and Katherine Tilney had confirmed it. She knew there had been no point in the lie, so she had tried to explain. Her only hope had been to make the archbishop understand that she had never once dishonored her husband by having intercourse with another man during their marriage.

Her explanation had not been well received.

Shortly before her interrogation began, Jane was removed by guardsmen from the royal apartments. Catherine knew they wanted to see if her friend would corroborate her story.

Jane never returned.

Near midnight, Wriothesley had entered the privy chamber, where Catherine sat in the window embrasure, arms wrapped tightly around her knees, trying to hold in what was left of her sanity. She had listened with closed eyes as he had announced that, since she was no longer queen and would be removed from court, there was no longer need of her servants. The charge, he said blandly, would be treason. Only her sister Margaret and Lady Baynton were allowed to remain.

Cranmer had painted her as an adulteress, and she had tried desperately to deny it, but the archbishop layered the sordid details of her past like paint, which steadily covered her own version of the truth.

“Was Culpeper your lover or not?” he pressed for the third time, his voice brittle and threatening.

“My lord, I was
never
unfaithful to the king.”

He arched a brow. “You did not meet him clandestinely on the back stairs?”

“We only spoke!”

“Did you not exchange glances while in the king’s presence?”

She tried to press the panic back, but it was too powerful. “He was often in the presence of the king. I would acknowledge him, but that is all!”

“You did not refer to His Majesty’s dear, trusted friend as your ‘sweet fool’?”

Catherine’s blood went absolutely cold. There was no one else in the world who knew her pet name for him besides Thomas. At that moment, she knew there was no escape. They knew everything. The opportunists, the Reformists, the vultures had won.

Dear Thomas, my heart, did they torture you to get you to tell them my name for you?
she asked herself.
What have they done to you to make you betray me?
But she could not bear an answer. Cranmer had driven her, cleverly and methodically, to the very edge of sanity, from which she would fall if she knew the truth.

But, even so, her undoing came when Cranmer held a letter out to her. She saw her own writing, her own passionate plea, and her signature beneath the words:

Yours as long as life endures.

And so it was true. They had everything. She, Thomas and Lady Rochford were under arrest. And their fate was sealed.

She thought of him as she lay on the floor beneath the window, curled in a protective cocoon. He deserved so much better from this life.

Short is the joy that guilty pleasure brings.

The ancient quote, which had often fallen from her grandmother’s lips, was strangely prophetic in hindsight.

Now that they had broken her, it was Wriothesley’s turn to drive the first nail into her coffin. He loomed over her.

“You will leave by morning’s light, my lady Catherine.”

He did not expect a response and did not receive one, but her mind raced through a host of questions anyway.

Was she to be taken to the Tower?

Would she be sentenced to death?

Could Henry, an old, fat, bitter wreck of a man, whom she had nevertheless cared for, be so cruel as to refuse her side of the story?

Had Anne Boleyn felt this way on her swift journey to the block?

Had Anne tried to reason with the tyrant?

What had been her plea?

“You will take only your sister and Lord and Lady Baynton with you,” Wriothesley added, breaking through her thoughts. There were too many things to weep for, and Catherine was certain she did not even know all of them yet. If Cranmer had his way, however, she would know them soon enough.

Take care, my greatest love
, she thought
. Forgive me for loving you . . . and save yourself if you can.

Before Cranmer’s final visit with Catherine, Thomas was brought into the king’s presence, not in velvet or silks this time, but in a white muslin shirt and rough, gray wool pants, his hands bound by heavy chains. His wrists and hands had gone numb several hours ago.

Not so his heart, or his conscience.

He was responsible for all of this.

Despite the look of utter devastation on the king’s face, Thomas did his best to bow to Henry.

“Spare me your false show of fidelity,” Henry said with a voice so hollow and thin that Thomas was stunned.

The king’s expression was blank, yet the advancing age and despair behind it were as clear as a cold moon in the winter sky. He sat hunched, his usually broad shoulders weak and rounded. His costume was gray and unadorned, like mourning attire. A single large candle burned on the table beside him, as if it were a last monument to something or someone. Perhaps it was, Thomas thought.

“I’ll not ask you if it is true. There is too much evidence for you to deny. I do, though, want to hear you say how you could have betrayed not your king, but your friend. I trusted you, Tom.”

Thomas felt the sting of Henry’s words. Yet no matter what he said, Thomas knew he had already been tried and convicted. His sin was unforgivable.

“All of those months when I spoke with you about her . . . asked your advice . . . when I confided in you . . .” The words barely escaped the king’s lips.

“It was over by then,” Thomas reassured him.

“But you loved her.”

“Yes.”

It was all Henry needed to hear. “Take him.”

Thomas did not look back as he was led away, chains cutting into his wrists. But when he came to the door, he paused for a moment. His soul would have found no rest if he had not.

“Have mercy on her, Henry, I bid you. She did love you.”

He was not certain if the king had heard him over Henry’s own sobs as the door slammed shut behind him.

Syon Abbey, a building of ancient stone and ivy, stood in the massive shadow of Richmond Palace, the home of Anne of Cleves. Both
were grand, imposing structures set along the same stretch of silvery, snaking river. But while one former queen thrived in one building, another waited in the other to face her end. Catherine saw the great difference in their fates, but also saw how their paths nearly touched.