The Queen of Subtleties Read online

  How things had changed, over a few years, between Wolsey and me. When we’d first faced each other, arguing about Harry Percy, what he’d seen was a petite, sparky newcomer barely into her twenties. Too eye-catchingly dressed, and her head held too high. Lacking in the appropriate deference, to say the least. Rude, to put no finer point on it. Worse: a Boleyn; another Boleyn clawing to heights which weren’t intended for Boleyns, this time under the guise of love. For Wolsey, nobody except the king had ever been of any importance, and on this occasion he made it clear that I was merely a tiresome episode before lunch. He addressed me with exaggerated patience, for which I ached to slap him.

  When Henry took up with me, Wolsey’s hastily swallowed surprise was apparent every time he came across us together. He was keen for me to understand that I remained of no real consequence, so he opted for humouring and a laboured deference. I detected it, even if Henry pretended not to. A couple of years on, now, and he’d had to change his attitude. He was attentive, or tried to be. Not knowing how, he sat forward as if he were giving great consideration to whatever I was saying, and focused on me so hard and long that he’d forget to blink. But for all the bright eyes, there was a weariness to him. That eye-brightness, I noticed, was often a glaze. His broad shoulders sagged. His teeth were now more yellow than his once-famed blond hair, his face scratched with veins. I suppose I should probably stop and think, now, shouldn’t I, of what it must have been like for him: little Pope, demi-king, able to travel the length and breadth of England stopping for every meal at a house he owned…I should try to think of how it must have been to have had all that—to have had England, basically—and see it taken away by a girl not yet thirty.

  On the day of his departure from Grafton, I was up at dawn. ‘It’s a lovely morning,’ I announced to Henry.

  He struggled up, his nightshirt twisted, and frowned at the window. ‘Is it?’ Sceptical. With good cause, as it happens, because it was in fact rather bleak.

  ‘Autumnal,’ I enthused.

  ‘Autumnal,’ he repeated, just as sceptical.

  I sat back on the bed, finger-combing my hair. ‘Let’s go and get some air. Just you and me.’

  His frown, now, was for me: bemusement.

  ‘Before the weather breaks,’ I said. ‘It’s our last few days here. Come on. Just for a half hour or so. As if we were young again.’ That did the trick, as I knew it would: he was up in a trice.

  Once we were out there, it was easy. The morning was indeed autumnal, but in the right way, far more promising than at first glance. The air had a tang, brewed up in the long, dewy grass and hedgerows. We cantered smack up against it, our breaths and those of our horses firing through it like arrowshots. I led Henry further and further away from the lodge: To that copse over there! To the river! Along this bridleway, across this pasture, this valley…It was a good hour or so before he called to me, ‘Shouldn’t we go back?’ He didn’t say, To see Wolsey off; but he looked hesitant, guilty. I shrugged: a big, devil-may-care shrug, not surrendering the decision but asking, Why? Henry hates trouble, needs someone to do it for him; and there was me, doing just that. No going back, was what this was all about. It was all over, for Wolsey; we both knew it. Well, it was time to let him know, too. Time for him, now, to be the tiresome episode before lunch. When we did return, early afternoon, he’d gone; and Henry never saw him again.

  From then on, Wolsey’s downfall was a job for the Attorney-General, who, a week later, charged him with exercising the Pope’s authority over and above the king’s, dismissing him as Lord Chancellor—instating a reluctant More as replacement—and designating his Esher house as his place of imprisonment. Everything else he owned—even his tomb under construction—transferred to Henry.

  Back in London, the day after Wolsey was charged, Henry told me I should dress for the barge: ‘I’ve something to show you.’ Mum and Harry Norris came with us. The journey took us a couple of hours upriver. The sun in its autumnal throes blasted the willow trees and riverwater, but our breaths made momentary snowfalls. The barge finally glided to a halt alongside the white stone walls of Wolsey’s York Place, and Henry didn’t have to say it: This is ours, now.

  We spent hours, that day, exploring its galleries, gardens, halls and suites of rooms, but my falling in love with it had happened almost instantly. As soon, in fact, as I’d realized that this was no royal palace with an apartment for the king and another for the queen, and room to be found somewhere for me. This could be our fresh-start palace: truly ours, Henry’s and mine. Deserted, sweetly eerie, it did seem to welcome us, its doors opening with gasps, its floorboards singing to our tread. The staff had not long gone. Dust was barely detectable, nestled into the carvings on the chairs and frosting the Venetian glassware. Along the miles of shimmering, silken tapestries, my trailing fingertips found an occasional telltale breadcrumb: the hangings had recently been rubbed clean.

  So, we could have moved in, then and there. But why settle for it as we found it? We made plans, that very day, as we walked around. It all took a year or so to complete, hundreds of builders working around the clock under torchlit canvas. And then gone was a whole suburb of London. In its place was a wing for me and my parents, and a massive riverside sports complex of indoor and outdoor tennis courts and bowling alleys. Our fresh-start palace was honoured with a new name: Whitehall. We were desperate to move in. When we did, the plastered walls were still warm in places where the plasterers had been trying to speed up the drying with braziers.

  With Wolsey a nobody, wheezing at his home in Esher, everything was once again possible. And indeed—fortuitous timing—a few days before that first trip of mine to Whitehall, we were visited in Greenwich by a man who had an idea on how to proceed with the divorce. He came along with Henry’s secretary, Stephen Gardiner; and although I’ve never warmed to Stephen—surely no one ever has—I’m well aware how clever he is. This brilliant new find of Stephen’s was a widower-turned-clergyman: Thomas Cranmer. Dog-like eyes, is what I recall of him from that first meeting. Oh, and his idea, of course: that the divorce was no matter for canon law, but divine law. There should be no need for the Pope to be involved. Canvass the universities—the theologians—around Europe, he suggested; that’s where I’d start, he said, if I were you.

  Henry was impressed. He sent for my father, not just because he knew he’d want to hear the latest, but also because he suspected that Dad would take to this studious but straight-talking man. He was right: Dad ended up, that very afternoon, offering Thomas a room in Durham House, which was at that time our family home in London. ‘We need a new chaplain,’ he decided, and so, suddenly, Thomas was one of us. And so he has stayed.

  But if we had a talented newcomer, then so did the other camp: the new Spanish ambassador, Eustace Chapuys, assisted by his hand-picked, English-fluent staff. Forty-ish and—although I hate to say it—wearing well. Well-dressed, well-connected, and well-mannered to everyone but me. Calm in a crisis; and, let’s face it, his posting was one long crisis. The very picture of charm. Which was why, unbelievably, Henry liked him. He’d readily admit it. ‘He’s a very charming man,’ he’d laugh.

  ‘Not to me,’ I’d counter; but Henry would merely stroke my face and coo, ‘Oh, you…’

  Yes, me, whom that lizard Chapuys never once acknowledged, and whose name, I’m told, he never spoke. If he had to mention me to Henry, I was ‘the lady’; to everyone else, I was ‘the whore’. When I reported this to Henry, his response was a jovial, ‘So? He’s loyal. An excellent quality in an ambassador, wouldn’t you say? Particularly an ambassador with as difficult a job as his.’

  Difficult indeed; and made increasingly so by Catherine, who was missing no opportunity to tell Henry that he knew very well that she was a virgin when they married. Once he made the mistake of whirling round and snapping, ‘Yes, all right. But this marriage should still never have happened.’ It made no difference; she didn’t stop, and duly made no exception for the St Andrew’s Day Feast. This fea
st was one for her; she was to preside in her official capacity, at the king’s side. I didn’t care. No contest: the din of the Great Hall and the lisps of the Nevilles with unspoken death threats in their smiles; or the ample comfort of my own fireside with a select few good friends. When it came to it, though, I wasn’t in the mood even for friends. I was due a period; the blood pooled in me, making me hot and heavy. Any sound chafed, even the clearing of a throat or a collapsing coal. And this was the last day of November, a day of clattering rain which I’d spent indoors with a view of scoured gardens and the sludge that was the Thames. Winter was closing down around me. Another winter.

  Henry arrived at my door surprisingly early in the evening. Everyone bolted up, dizzied, but he’d already flapped a hand: Sit. In three strides he was with me, slinging himself down to the floor, leaning back against my knees. More heaviness. Franky turned from me to Billy, politely leaving us to it. I laid a hand on Henry’s head, more from want of anywhere else to rest it than from affection. Ask me how I am, I willed him; ask me how it’s been for me, stuck here while you and that Spanish lump play husband and wife.

  But he said nothing, or not for a moment; and then, when he did speak, it was to complain, ‘She excelled herself, this evening.’

  I didn’t, of course, need to ask who.

  More of the same.

  He dropped his head back into my lap and spoke to the ceiling. ‘If I have to hear any more of it!’

  Suddenly, my blood was everywhere in me, scalding my heart, flushing down my arms. ‘Henry, if I hear any more of it!’

  He froze.

  ‘It’s all I ever hear! Poor you and your difficult situation! What about me?’

  He swivelled to face me, a hand on my knee.

  I batted it away. ‘How many more feasts am I going to spend shut away like this? Christ, Henry, just how many years has it been?’

  He was staring at me, sharp eyes narrowed, mouth hard.

  ‘Three. Three years. I was a girl—remember?’ And I laughed, or it was something like a laugh. ‘Remember? And now what am I, Henry? Hmm?’ I leaned forward, my face close to his. ‘I’m nearly thirty.’

  He recoiled, and sat tall: very clearly no contact.

  Fine: I slumped back in my chair. ‘I could have married someone else,’ I said to no one in particular. Across the room, Francis’s one eye—although carefully directed to his hands—shone, wide and amused. Next to him, my brother’s eyes were closed and his fingertips held to his temples.

  ‘I could have had children,’ I said to Henry. ‘I could be having a proper life.’ Instead of endless fiddling under nightgowns.

  My maid Annie’s fingers were pressed to her lips, one hand over the other.

  ‘You promised me,’ I said to Henry. ‘Remember that? You promised. You fucking promised.’ Oh, it’s no use: I stood; ‘I’m going to bed.’

  George, bless him, snapped into action: a couple of claps, and, ‘Everybody back to mine, please.’

  Rasping fabrics. I was in the thick of them, already halfway to my door, when Henry stepped in front of me, held up his hands: Stop. Those small eyes were still glass but then he winced. He made as if to say something but only breaths came, deep and sounding scorched. He shook his head—low, slow swings like a mule’s—and his hands swooped on mine, squeezed them, moved them in circles. ‘You’re right,’ he said. The two words I most love to hear. ‘You’re so right. From now on, everything I ever promised you, it’s yours. I’ll do it: whatever it is I have to do, I’ll do it.’

  Kill Catherine? was what flashed into my mind and switched a fingernail down my spine. He pulled on my hands, drew me to him, wrapped himself hard around me. The jewels on his doublet clawed my cheek, my ear. ‘Next to you,’ he said, ‘nothing else matters.’

  The very next day, I was on my way to Henry’s apartment when a boy I didn’t recognize—some groom—whizzed in my direction with, looped over one arm, some shirts that I did recognize: Henry’s. As far as I knew—and surely I’d know—Mrs Harris, and only Mrs Harris, deals with Henry’s clothes. So, what was this? Theft? Of clothes, now? The king’s? I paused only for him to draw alongside me, then swiped a hand from its glove and slapped it onto the linen bounty. He stopped dead in his tracks, eyes down. My hand, on his arm, was the one with the strange little finger, the double nail: perfect for terrifying errant servants. I made the most of it, bestowing a couple of luxuriously slow pats. ‘And where are these going?’

  His eyes, wide, came up to mine. ‘For mending.’ A bat-squeak of protest.

  I nodded in the direction he’d come. ‘Mrs Harris has a trunk in there for mending.’

  He didn’t look; his eyes didn’t move from mine. There was too much Adam’s apple in his puny throat. ‘…not for Mrs Harris.’

  ‘Oh? Oh, I see. There’s someone else around here who does the king’s mending.’

  Nothing, from him. As if I’d made a reasonable remark.

  Which unnerved me. ‘Is there?’

  He nodded.

  I folded my arms.

  When it struck him that I was waiting to be told who, he whispered, ‘The queen.’

  It was my turn to swallow hard. ‘Who sent you to her?’

  ‘The king.’

  I snatched the shirts, strode to Henry’s rooms, and, there, banged through door after door until I found him. He was at his desk with dog-eyed Thomas Cranmer, who was instantly up, off balance, bowing and cringing all at once. ‘Good morning, Thomas,’ I said, glaring at Henry. ‘Please don’t leave.’ I hurled the shirts onto the desk.

  Henry frowned at them. ‘These are my shirts.’ The frown transferred to me.

  ‘But guess where I found them—on their way to your ex-wife for mending.’

  The frown deepened. ‘And the problem is…?’

  Was this, I wondered, really happening? Did he really, honestly not know? Because if he didn’t, I doubted I could make it clear. But I could have a damn good try: ‘You’re supposed to have left her!’

  That brought him to his feet quick enough. Once there, he didn’t seem to know what to do. ‘Anne,’ he said, sharp, exasperated, ‘she likes mending my shirts, it gives her something to do.’ He gestured at them, ‘They’re just shirts…’

  ‘They are not just shirts…’

  Thomas was slipping towards the door. ‘Don’t leave,’ I called to him, ‘don’t spare him showing himself up as the complete fucking idiot that he is.’ To Henry, I said, ‘Mending your shirts is a wifely duty. Do you understand? What other wifely duties does she still perform for you?’

  His lips tightened in disgust and embarrassment. ‘Anne, really.’

  ‘These are not just shirts.’ I jabbed at them. ‘They’re a betrayal: yours, of me.’

  He glared at me. ‘They’re a couple of shirts that need a stitch or two. And she is still, technically, my wife.’

  ‘And I am…?’

  With that, I had him. It was a joy to see him squirm: ‘You are…you are…’ Clearly he regretted it, now, this clash. He was in too deep; damage was being done. Suddenly inspiration came: ‘You are…always right.’

  He couldn’t have done better and he knew it, looking to me, bright-eyed, for praise.

  I bit down, begrudging, on a smile. ‘Yes, I am.’

  He braved his own. ‘Yes, you are.’

  And so we stood there, chancing smiles at each other. He made the first move, stepping from behind his desk. ‘You know, Anne,’ he came and took me gently, almost absently, by the shoulders, ‘I really didn’t think. I’m so sorry. It’s just that they’ve always gone to her. And she…well, she still does them.’

  ‘Of course she does.’

  He touched my cheek, and nodded, grave. ‘Yes.’

  ‘Things have changed, Henry. And now everything has to change.’

  ‘Yes. Yes.’ As he dipped to kiss me, I remembered Thomas; stopped the lips with my fingertips and glanced around for Thomas. His awkward smile made all three of us laugh.

 
; That year ended not so badly after all. The new parliament, convened with regulation pomp in November, had immediately had lots to say, all of it negative, on the subject of England’s clergy. We had converts, it seemed. There was one dissenting voice, but, belonging to old Bishop Fisher, Catherine’s champion, it was irrelevant. The farce of a trial at Blackfriars had folded, and Wolsey had gone. And to top it all, in December Henry made my father Earl of Wiltshire and Ormonde, and, in January, Lord Privy Seal, which meant that George became Viscount Rochford—and was back in the Privy Chamber—and I was Lady Anne.

  When he heard the news, Dad, deadly serious as usual, came to warn George and me that he expected us ‘to behave accordingly’. He was barely out of the room before George and I cracked up.

  ‘You bet I’ll behave accordingly,’ said George, ‘starting with a visit to my tailor.’

  For me, no need: I already had a gown underway for the celebratory banquet. Thanks to Henry, I had quite a collection; but this particular dress was to be different. Purple, no less. I knew what people would say: Purple? She’s pushing her luck, isn’t she? I’d never made any bones about it: luck exists to be pushed. If I dressed like a queen, people treated me like one. That’s what I’d been busy learning, that year.

  So, it was in purple velvet that I swished to my place with Henry at the head of that laden table. Sitting there, I turned the old order topsy-turvy: down-table from me were the two women who’d fancied themselves the most important behind England’s queen, Mrs Norfolk and Mrs Suffolk, my thunder-faced Auntie Liz and Henry’s cold-blooded, wet-fish-wedded sister. Henry’s sister was not as beautiful as I’d remembered: there were drizzles of white in that orange hair of hers, and her face was pinched. Not only hers, though. From the expressions around that table, I could see that although in their opinion I’d been fine for getting rid of Wolsey, they didn’t want me for their queen.

  The woman they did want for their queen—who, ridiculously, still was their queen—made the required appearances during the Christmas celebrations, while Henry and I were biding our time and planning our escape in early January to Whitehall. Whenever she postponed her purgings and leechings for long enough to appear in public on Chapuys’ arm, she looked awful. Never having been much to look at, she now shone with pallor.