The Tapestry (13 page)

I did not realize that the king and ambassador’s conversation con
tinued for a few minutes, for this news sent me into shock. The king did not accuse me of conspiracy or treason. I should have been relieved. But an official court position? This went far beyond weaving a single tapestry. I had no interest—nor, when it came to it, the requisite knowledge—for such a task, which would most definitely chain me to the court. But the king had not asked. He had proclaimed.

“Joanna? Joanna?” That was Henry VIII’s voice, rising in impatience.

“Yes, Your Majesty?” My voice was a half croak.

“I said the ambassador shall escort you to the banquet hall while I settle a few things with the Duke of Norfolk. Sir Anthony will show you the way.”

And so he did, leading me and the ambassador through a series of rooms to the banquet hall. Chapuys stuck out his dry, cool hand and I rested mine atop it. It felt incredible that, after what we had been through last year, I walked with him through an English bishop’s house, moments after learning of a court post I’d be forced to fill.

“I both wanted and did not want to be invited to one of these evenings at Winchester House,” Ambassador Chapuys said in Spanish. I had long thought he knew every language—except English, which he had learned only a little.

“Have there been so many?” I asked, also in Spanish. If he wished to pretend as if we had never conspired, I was willing to go along.

“There have been at least five banquets that I know of,” said Chapuys. “The bishop has no other way to do it, to promote the seduction of the Howard girl. Cromwell has such a tight hold on the palace and employs so many hardworking spies. Only Gardiner’s residence could do as the setting for her corruption. It is deeply distasteful and, of course, it will not work.”

“You do not believe Cromwell can be brought down?” I asked, glancing around. Very few people spoke Spanish in England, but still, ours was a highly dangerous conversation.

“Not this way. If the king discards Cromwell, it won’t be because a seventeen-year-old girl suggested it, a girl stupid enough to believe
her family when they say that if she shares his bed, she will be made queen.”

“Her name is Catherine and she is not stupid,” I said, coming to her defense, but more from habit than anything else, for I was reeling over what Chapuys said. Is that what they’d told Catherine?
Do not feel sorry for me, Joanna. I am the most envied woman of the court. I shall be honored, not disgraced. You’ll see—and so shall Master Thomas Culpepper.
Now it made perfect sense.

Chapuys said musingly, “My counterpart, the French ambassador, believed Cromwell about to be toppled and said so, openly. Then he looked a fool when Cromwell was made Earl of Essex. Marillac doesn’t get things right—well, what can you expect? He’s French. He still thinks some crisis is imminent, that the rivalry of Gardiner and Cromwell cannot continue at this pitch without one of them being arrested. But why not? The king enjoys pitting his people against each other. And who could possibly fill the treasury with as much skill and ruthlessness as Cromwell?”

We neared the banqueting hall, teeming with guests, all of them talking and laughing so loudly that a roar cascaded over us. We would not be able to continue with confidential conversation unless we spoke louder, which was risky. I could not be sure that no one else spoke Spanish. But Chapuys’s extraordinary lecture on English politics begged a question of the ambassador of the Holy Roman Emperor.

“You
admire
Cromwell?” I asked.

Chapuys surveyed the room, taking stock of every single person within it. “I’ve enjoyed my dinners with Thomas Cromwell,” he answered. “He is a man of the world, a rarity in this kingdom. His words are fair, though his deeds are bad. Anyone who determines to act in all circumstances the part of a good man must come to ruin among so many who are not good.” He perceived my deepening confusion and leaned down to say in a low voice, “That is a quote from the philosophy of a cunning Florentine diplomat named Machiavelli—not yet translated to English. And yes, it is possible for me to admire the man while abhorring what he’s done. Just as it is possible
for me to have some degree of fondness for you, Juana, even after you betrayed us.”

“ ‘Betrayed,’ ” I repeated, stunned.

Chapuys for the first time looked at me, truly looked at me, and I saw pain mixed with anger in those intelligent gray eyes. “You do not approve of the court of the king?” he asked, his light, musing tone replaced with something raw. “You do not enjoy being made an example of abject loyalty to me? Perhaps you do not wish to serve the king as tapestry mistress. But everything that you hear or see around you—the tyrant king, the corrupted Howard girl, the cruel ministers, the destroyed priories, the exiled monks and friars begging in the streets—
you
are the agent. You are the cause. Without you, nothing would be as it is.”

Chapuys stalked away, as I struggled to hold on to my composure.

A few moments later, the king came into the room and took a seat at a grand table on the dais, with space enough for the monarch and three others: Bishop Gardiner, the Duke of Norfolk, and, at the right side of the king, Catherine Howard. This was the rightful place for the
queen
. Yet no one else seemed surprised to see Catherine at his side, where Katherine of Aragon, Anne Boleyn, and Jane Seymour presided, one after the other. Where Anne of Cleves should sit now. Was it indeed possible that Catherine would become his fifth queen? The other commoners who had managed it—Anne Boleyn and Jane Seymour—were years older than Catherine when they married Henry VIII. They were both well educated and, while wise to the ways of the court, protected by vigilant parents. Catherine was orphaned, poor, scarcely able to read, and so very naive.

Yet she seemed perfectly calm and poised on the dais. Catherine held up her hands and said, “None of the men will stoop to pullin’ at weeds, so they employ such as me, with small hands that are right strong.” She was telling the king the story of the girl in the garden. For the first time, I saw the king’s suspicious features soften. He looked younger. The sight of my stout, aging sovereign finding contentment thanks to Catherine’s genuinely youthful sweetness
sickened me. The horrible story flashed through my mind of the ravishing Andromeda chained to a rock, intended as a human sacrifice to a powerful and hideous creature of the sea.

My place at the banquet was among the younger Howards, which had the great advantage of no one bothering to draw me into conversation. The plates came and went: a quartet of stag, sturgeon wrapped in parsley, roasted pigeons, jellies, cakes. Goblets brimmed with wine, voices trilled with laughter. But I did not eat, drink, or laugh. All I could do was bear reluctant witness to the king of England making a prolonged spectacle of himself with Catherine. Leaning toward her, smiling, kissing her hand. Had someone discreetly placed the silk stool beneath the table so he could rest his rotting leg while he flirted? I wondered, and then shuddered at such a savagely mocking thought.
You are the agent, you are the cause
, said Chapuys, who had left Winchester House before the meal, claiming his gout. It might be true that I had changed the king’s court, but another truth was that in a short span of time, the king’s court was changing me. Would the transformation continue the longer I stayed at Whitehall? A year from now, I could be unrecognizable from the woman of Dartford.

“You do not drink wine, mistress?” brayed a nasal voice. A tall, broad-shouldered young manservant holding a pitcher regarded me and my untouched goblet with a strange smile curving below his swollen nose.

I shook my head and he lumbered along, enjoying some private joke.

A cry went up across the banquet hall as a quartet of dark-haired men walked in, carrying musical instruments. “Excellent,” boomed the king. “Bishop, you will not regret inviting to your festivities our latest discovery, the Bassano brothers of Venice. Pay special attention to the sound of the violin. Exquisite.”

Poor, poor Anne of Cleves.

At the other end of the banquet hall, servants moved tables aside to make room for dancing. Guests began to mill about again, and
I considered slipping away. A woman should not walk through the bishop’s garden park at night alone nor seek out her own boat across the Thames, but this banquet was unbearable. And what, after all, could be accomplished by remaining? Impossible to speak to Catherine when she was the companion of the king. Tonight, when she returned to her room in Whitehall, I would have it out with her at last.

As I eyed the doorway, calculating the best way to leave unnoticed, I saw a man standing near it, a face so unexpected that I gave a soft cry. I shot to my feet and hurried across the length of the hall. Among all these people whom I had no wish to speak to, here was, incredibly, a friend.

I’d spotted John Cheke, the young Cambridge scholar and friend of Edmund’s who had come to Dartford last summer to attend our wedding. He was moving toward the door to leave.

Thomas Culpepper tugged on my sleeve as I passed. “May I partner you in a dance?”

I glanced up at the dais. Sure enough, Catherine watched us, her perpetual smile in eclipse. “It might not be wise,” I murmured.

Culpepper cocked his head. “Wise?” he asked.

But I darted off without explaining—I did not want Master Cheke to slip away. I had to pick up my skirts and run those last yards, which made heads swivel. It was hardly the behavior of a gentlewoman.

“Master Cheke, wait,” I called out, breathless, to his slender departing back.

John Cheke turned, bowed, and said, “Mistress Joanna, it is good to see you again. Are you well?”

I realized with a sharp pang that Cheke exhibited so little surprise, he must have already seen me at the banquet—perhaps during my conversation with Ambassador Chapuys—and hadn’t been planning on approaching me before he left.

“I thought you at Cambridge,” I said.

“I have not left it,” he said. “But an opportunity arose for me to be appointed to the Cambridge chair in Greek. I cannot be con
firmed without the approval of Thomas Cromwell, which was given, and Bishop Gardiner, who insisted I come for a month, to be questioned at his convenience.” He frowned; I could see the resentment this summons created.

“Where are you lodged?”

Cheke pointed toward the ceiling of the banqueting hall.

“Here?” I exclaimed. “With the bishop’s staff?”

“There are scholars’ quarters upstairs. They are not uncomfortable. But I am also expected to appear at functions such as . . . this.” He gestured toward the line of dancers now leaping and twirling across the floor to the music of the Bassano brothers. Master Cheke wore a plain doublet and hose, not suitable for a royal banquet. But I sensed it was not his threadbare wardrobe that gave him misgivings.

“The king’s presence here disturbs you?” I asked.

“I would very much like to have a conversation with His Majesty,” said Cheke earnestly. “He supports the study of Greek and could sanction my version of how it should be taught, regardless of what Bishop Gardiner believes. But I would want such conversing to occur in the proper place, in the presence of the king and queen, not here, with . . .” His young face tightened with distaste as he gazed across the hall at the dais, where Catherine Howard threw back her head, laughing merrily.

“I understand you,” I said. “In a way, I was compelled here, too. I found that—”

Cheke held up his hand. “Mistress Joanna, I wish I could stay to speak to you for longer, but I cannot. I cannot. I have an appointment tonight. If you will forgive me, I will say good-bye.”

Before I could even bid him farewell, Master John Cheke had ducked out of the room. Was it speaking to me that had filled him with such distaste? I had wanted to ask if he’d heard from Edmund, but there was no opportunity. While I didn’t understand how I’d offended him, there was no other explanation for his cold and abrupt departure.

The Bassano brothers’ violins soared ever higher, to the delight of the dancers. Lady Rochford sashayed sideways, coming close enough for me to reach out and touch her—should I wish to do so, which I decidedly did not. It was so warm in the banquet hall that her unnaturally white face shone like wet paint, the red spots once centered on her cheekbones sliding toward her jaw.

I glanced up at the dais. King Henry VIII gave no attention to any person in the banquet hall besides Catherine. He reached out and slowly caressed her shoulder, his fingers straying higher, to finger her white throat.

I backed away from the sight of the king and Catherine, from Lady Rochford and the other dancers, until I touched the wall. I wanted to cover my eyes, cover my ears, seal myself off from everything in this room.

A hand seized mine, and I instinctively pulled away. It was my cousin Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey, and he would not let go. “You will now dance with me, Joanna,” he said.

“I’ve watched you tonight and you have the face of someone listening to a dirge,” he continued as he led me to the floor. “Yet I hear you’ve been granted an official position, one that is dear to the king’s heart. Celebration would be more in order.”

We stood opposite each other in a long line. The music exploded; the people stamped, turned, and pirouetted. I followed, using the steps of memory. My mother had drilled me in dance.

The next time I was close enough to him to speak, I said, “I do not wish to serve at court.”

“No? Well for someone who dislikes it, you are making a sensational impression,” he said.

“My lord Surrey, we have a request,” the king’s voice rang out.

My cousin bowed with a flourish.

The king said, “A love poem—I know that is within your capacity.”

The musicians stopped playing and all dancing and talking ceased. Many people would have been overcome by such a force of attention. Not my cousin, who offered to share his translation of
Petrarch’s “
Sonetto in Vita
”—from memory, of course. He stood in the middle of the dance floor and recited:

“Love, that doth reign and live within my thought,