VIII (26 page)

I stride down the passageway, fast. Guards fall
back as I slam into the room.

“Up. Up. Get up.”

Faces turn; women servants, startled in the middle of their domestic tasks, drop what they are doing and curtsey hastily.

I drag open the bed curtains. Anne’s face – angry, alarmed, puffy-eyed from crying – stares at me from a mountain of pillows.

“I want to see the body that killed my son. Again.”

This new pregnancy has indeed produced a sign: another male foetus – dead.

Anne’s hands are gripping the coverlet. I grab one thin wrist and pull. She has a job to get to her feet in time before I drag her bodily from the bed.

The servants have disappeared. She stands on the rug, her feet bare, her white nightshift falling straight to her ankles; but she stands as erect as if she were wearing the crown jewels.

I walk round her, twitching up the cloth of her nightshift, which she snatches from me and holds in fistfuls. I say, “Tell me. What is so rotten in this body that it cannot hold a child?”

“It can.”

“A
boy
child. Girls count for less than nothing. As you know.”

She looks at me, feral, glaring, her long hair disordered; strands of it across her face. She says, “It was the shock of your accident.”

I stop. There is a table beside me. I lean back against it, my hands on the edge, and regard her with interest. I say, “Ah, I see. It is my fault, then?”

My left leg has healed, but at last week’s tournament, forgetting how weakened it has become, I misjudged a manoeuvre in the joust and took a bad fall from my horse. They tell me I lost consciousness for two hours.

Anne’s eyes flash with something like fear and something like contempt. She says, “No, I didn’t say that. But I was so alarmed by the news that you were lying senseless…” She stops; compresses her lips; begins again: “In other pregnancies you have been concerned for my… my peace of mind. Now you should comfort me. But instead you taunt me.”

Comfort me
. I think of the ravaged figure I saw under the stairs the day she was delivered of the last dead boy. I say, “Taunt you? With what?”

“The attentions you are paying to…” She lowers her voice to a whisper, “… that whey-faced bitch.”

“I’m sorry, to whom?”

“To another lady. Don’t think I haven’t heard. I know what has been going on.”

I raise my eyebrows. “Well. I am glad to hear that your spies are giving you such good service. Sometime I must
remember to find out who they are and punish them. In the meantime, I would advise you to close your eyes, madam, as your betters have done before you. Remember, I have elevated you – and I can humble you again in an instant.”

I turn to go – and get as far as the door before fists pummel my back.

“Why are you cruel to me? You love me!”

I turn, and in one quick movement catch her wrists, and jerk them up, together, in front of her face. “Sweetheart, I really cannot imagine…” She has lowered her head; I dip mine, to meet her eyes, “… what I ever saw in you.” She struggles; I tighten my grip and she stares at me, shocked and defiant, refusing to cry out in pain.

She struggles again. I transfer her wrists to one hand and, with the other, take hold of her hair and drag her head back. The throat is exposed, the ridges of the windpipe stand out beneath the pale smooth flesh. It reminds me of a hunted beast at the kill; this is what the dogs would want to bite.

Pulling her about behind me, I walk across the room. There are noises from her, but not many. She stumbles and struggles – not to get away, but simply to keep her feet and take the weight, dragging, off her hair.

It is when I turn towards the door again that I see, in the corner by the fireplace, the boy. He is crouching on a stool, his knees wide, his hands between, gripping the stool’s front edge. His cheeks are hollow, his eyes glittering in the deep shadows beneath his brows; he is watching with avid interest.

My grip loosens and I am vaguely aware of a thudding sound as Anne’s head hits the floor.

I reach my bedchamber; I don’t even remember leaving Anne’s room.

Servants hover – bowing, frightened, writhing like maggots in fancy dress.

“Clear the room.
Go!
”

I lean over a chair – my hands on its arms. Beyond the sound of my own breathing, I hear footsteps coming up the stairs.

There are no stairs.

But, then… this time it is not Jane who is coming for me.

I draw my sword and set about methodically, energetically checking the room – batting at tapestries, slashing down bed curtains. I see figures in every fold of the hangings. Surely that one covers a face? Surely there a hand is gripping?

I find nothing. But still there is a sense of menace, of something behind me that swings round behind me again each time I move, something that can see me, and is studying me intently – but I can’t see it. I turn and turn like a baited animal.

At last I stand in the centre of the room, holding my sword before me.

I think:
Come – I am ready. Let me confront you properly now
.

My empty left hand is extended, palm down, fingers spread. And that is where I see it first: a mist running from my fingers’ ends. I drop my sword and hold out both hands. Like sand running in the wind over the surface of a beach it comes: something vaporous from my fingers, something that pours out of me to fill an unseen form, like liquid that reveals a bottle’s shape by filling it.

The shape in front of me is quickly filled. It is him. As if I am standing with my fingertips touching a mirror, his shape mirrors mine: his fingertips seem to touch mine, though
I cannot feel them. And just as quickly as the vapours fill his shape, so I am filled with horror. I called him, and he has come. I have conjured him, as they say a witch can conjure the Devil.

He is rattlingly thin, his clothes ragged; he looks squalid, contemptible. His eyes have the cold gleam of a wild beast, his fingers are sharp like claws. Aged and ageless at once, his face bears deep lines now, but they seem more like the lines of a malnourished child than the wrinkles of an old man.

I stare at him, aghast. I say, “Who are you?
What
are you?”

The boy drops his hands; our link is severed. Then a voice speaks, close in my head.

You tell me
.

I think:
You look like a creature of hell
. I say, “Are you a ghost?”

Slowly, he shakes his head.

“Then I believe you are Lucifer.”

A soft, horrible smile curls the edges of his mouth.

Oh, come. Don’t be dramatic
.

He blinks at me. He is still waiting.

So I say, “One of Lucifer’s servants, then? Some lower class of fallen angel?”

This causes him genuine merriment; he throws back his head, his mouth gaping, a black hole of mirth. And as he laughs, rage shoots through me. I think:
This
thing,
this hellish vision, plagues me only because I am an archangel, a warrior of light, battling the dark forces. It is my virtue that draws him
.

With a roar I swing at him, putting all my weight behind a punch – but it passes right through his jaw. I stagger. I have swung round to face the opposite direction – yet here he is, in front of me again.

He tips his head to one side and stretches out his arms, a look of mock pleading on his face.

Comfort me?

He is a devil: he must be. He is a herald of evil. And look what he is showing me now…
Comfort me
. That is what she said – Anne. He is showing me that Anne is his creature. He must have fashioned her precisely to trick me… he made her look like the golden maiden who would provide me with sons. But she was the exact opposite: the Devil’s serpent sent to entrap me.

Just as Jesus Christ was tempted by the Devil in the wilderness, so have I been tempted by Anne Boleyn.

And here is my choice: to relinquish my God-given destiny, the glory for which I have fought so hard, sacrificed so much… or to take courage and destroy this devil in all its forms.

A surge of joy runs through me. I feel ecstatic, sure of my blessed vocation and my virtue. I rejoice in it. And I rejoice that God tests me: that he enables me to see the Devil clearly, as others cannot.

I hear something behind me. I turn away from the boy. On the opposite side of the room, the sill of the window has become a horizon, beyond which something is rising. I hear a slow tread on invisible stone stairs. A swaying, monstrous head emerges; scaly claws and short, muscular legs plant themselves above the cliff-edge. I know this serpent: I dreamed of it. I crouch quickly to pick up my sword from the floor.

When I straighten the serpent has become Anne, climbing the wharf steps, her dainty feet stepping in golden slippers. The train of her mantle leaves behind a bloody trail of
stinking, rotting flesh.

The next moment it is a serpent again; its neck weaves back and forth. The ridges of the windpipe stand out against white flesh. Against scaly flesh, green and grey.

The serpent’s jaws swing towards me, gaping, stinking and dreadful. I step forward, ducking to reach the neck. I slash and slash and slash.

My sword cannot make contact. The creature advances. I begin to back away. Quicker now. My legs collide with something and I turn.

I yelp. I have backed into the bed and now I see the boy, lying there under the covers. He is like a wife, waiting for me. Like a hideous parody of a wife – his hair greasy and shorn, where hers would flow over the soft white linen of the pillow.

I drop my sword and draw my dagger. I stab and stab and stab – his face, his eyes, his neck. He lies there – he does not struggle; it is like stabbing a corpse. But his eyes are open; he is looking at me. There are hands restraining me now. My servants have returned.

“Fools!” I swing round, slashing one of them across the cheek.

Someone calls for a doctor.

I look back to the bed, panting. I have stabbed the bolster, nothing more. There is no blood, no mark to say he lay there. I am sweating and I am cold.

The fire is blazing. Beyond its glow, the room is
dark. I am sitting wrapped in torn bed hangings, my dagger planted point-down in the table in front of me. I am watching the movement of the flames’ reflection in the sheen of the blade.

In my peripheral vision, I am aware of the pale mass of Cromwell’s face, floating like a dumpling in dark soup. We have been sitting for some time in silence.

At last I say, “Anne must die. And it must be handled quickly. I’m not interested in the mechanics. You will find a way.”

“Poison?”

I shake my head. “Nothing underhand. I would be suspected instantly. It must be clear to everyone
what
she is.”

I look at Cromwell. I can see that he understands me completely.

The sunshine is eye-watering, glinting off
trumpets and gilded armour, off swords and shields and cloth-of-gold surcoats. Drifts of blossom from the orchard at the tiltyard’s western boundary flutter on the warm spring breeze and land: a stray petal here on a herald’s crimson cap, there on a horse’s braided mane; a sprinkling of pink and white against the wooden fencing of the arena’s perimeter. The sky is a dazzling blue, the only clouds high thin streaks of translucent white.

We are celebrating May Day but I am not competing; instead I have arrived on my white charger as king not knight, have taken a turn about the tiltyard to the cheers of the crowd and a trumpet fanfare, and have retired into the building known as the Tiltyard Towers, to enjoy my role as spectator.

Emerging now from the spiral staircase into the viewing gallery, I come round a corner and take a sharp breath: she is there, Anne, perfectly dressed in cloth of gold and bright
green satin, jewels winking in the sunlight at every available edging of cloth, at her ears, fingers and at her throat; but none of them as bright as her sharp dark eyes upon me.

I smile. I touch my lips to her hand and watch as an expression of relief and gratification floods her face. She sees only my perfect shell; she thinks her charm has soothed me.

The viewing gallery is a loggia – open to the air on the tiltyard side. We sit in full view of the crowd. Anne’s brother George, armed and mounted for the joust, stops his horse below us and, in the language of chivalry, asks her humbly for a favour. I watch as she leans forward and drops a gold-trimmed handkerchief onto the ground. George sends a page to retrieve it, and twists it round the fabric band on his helmet.

The tournament begins. The sand is churned by hooves, by falling men, by lances cast aside and pages running. It is raked and churned again. Norris’s horse refuses to run; I lend him mine, and the crowd roars its approval.

As two new riders line up and gesture for their lances, a letter is passed to me. I break the seal – stamped with Cromwell’s crest – and read.

Down in the yard, there is a crescendo of yelling as the horses thunder in, and a booming crack as a lance makes contact and splinters. The hit rider, bouncing like a rag doll in the saddle, slumps down towards his stirrups as his grooms run forward.

I refold the letter and rise. I do not look at Anne. I speak to no one as I leave.

“She has had lovers. Many. Norris among them.
And… and her own…”

I look down at my hands – at the brooch I’m turning compulsively in my fingers. I can’t speak the words.

Jane is sitting to my right, halfway across the room. Meek on a low stool; plain as a mouse, even in the new clothes I’ve given her. Softly, she says, “Yes?”

I take a shuddering breath. “
Brother
. Her own brother.”

“
George
?”

“George, yes, George. She’s only got one. Christ!” I lean my elbows on the chair-arms; press my forehead to my fists. “She plotted with them to murder me. If Cromwell hadn’t found out in time I would be in my grave by now.”

Jane whispers, “No.”

My eyes snap open. She adds hastily, “Forgive me, sir, if I can scarcely believe it.”

I raise my head and look at her. I can find nothing snide, nothing calculating in her face. I say, “Evil is shocking to the
godly, Jane. Your innocent mind could never conceive of the depravities these people have committed.”

Looking down again, I open my hand; the brooch has dug red grooves into my palm. It is decorated with five diamonds and five rubies; above the rubies gold letters spell out
Tristis Victima
– ‘Sad Victim’. I ordered it some weeks ago for a masque: I was playing the part of someone struck with the dart of love – now it seems all too appropriate in a different way. I sling it onto the table beside me; it sits spinning on the polished wood.

Jane says, “What will happen to them, sir?”

I push myself out of the chair. “They are in the Tower.”

“The Queen too?”

“Of course.” Near the window, on another table, there is a pair of virginals. I lift the lid and play a few notes. “It is out of my hands.”

For a long while after this I stand motionless, looking towards the window. We are at Chelsea, at Thomas More’s old house on the river. It is a convenient place for Jane to lodge in – for now. The garden is well tended and, as the late afternoon shadows creep and lengthen over its herb beds, scents drift through the open window. Somewhere in the distance a dog barks. I hear a soft rustle of skirts. Gentle, tentative fingers touch my sleeve. “Sir?”

I take the fingers and kiss them. Quietly I say, “You can’t imagine, Jane, what it is to come so close to evil. To have the Devil so near that he almost…” I shut my eyes – shake my head.

Wherrymen are shouting on the river. Somewhere down in the servants’ quarters, a door bangs. In the aviary below the window, a nightingale begins to sing.

“I thank God for my narrow escape, Jane,” I say. “I thank God for granting me life.” I smile at her: at the grave little concerned face. “Life to share with you.”