The Confession of Katherine Howard Read online

  ‘Kate?’ Kate had been nobody when she’d lived at the duchess’s: she was just a girl. That was her virtue. All those previous complicated queens with their connections, but Kate was no one–a Howard, yes, but a minor one–and she had no history.

  ‘Kate and me,’ he said, and then suddenly I knew what he meant and my heart shrank. I tried to keep myself steady. He was looking at me–of course he was–and I resented it, I wanted not to be there under his scrutiny; I wanted to be away, by myself, alone.

  ‘And’–he sounded wondrous–‘he knew it all.’

  All: well, I didn’t want to think about that. A tiny word encompassing so much, none of which I wanted to remember. I’d assumed we’d left it long behind.

  ‘I don’t know how,’ he continued. ‘But it was just, “We have information.”’

  ‘You didn’t do anything wrong,’ I said, because that was the point, pure and simple, and we needed to keep to the point. ‘She wasn’t married to the king, then.’ Why, though, then, had Wriothesley questioned him about it? ‘You did nothing wrong, there’s no law against it.’

  I was right, I knew I was right, so Francis’s scepticism–a puff of dismissal–riled me. There was some reluctance from him–a held breath–before he ventured, ‘But if there was pre-contract–’

  ‘But there wasn’t.’ My insides were tight. ‘Was that what Wriothesley was asking about?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Well, there wasn’t.’

  We stood staring at each other in the darkness. I was listening hard to his silence; I could hear he was thinking of saying something. Then it came, tentatively: ‘Some people would say there was.’

  I held my temper, and was straight back at him: ‘Some people will say anything, but Wriothesley’s not asking them, is he. He’s asking you. What did you tell him?’

  ‘I said no, of course.’ Now making something of being offended that I should even ask.

  If he and Kate had been pre-contracted–if they’d promised themselves to each other–then they’d have been as good as married, they’d have been married in all but name and the king’s marriage to her, coming afterwards, would be no marriage at all. Francis would be married to the queen, and–worse–he’d have known it. Kate would be a bigamist, and Francis would at the very least be an accessory to the hoodwinking of the king. So, the answer had to be no.

  He and Kate had been a couple, at the duchess’s, and almost everyone in the household had, in the end, known it. Here, now, Maggie and Alice–our old housemates–knew. Francis and Kate had been lovers. He used to call her ‘wifey’, ‘wifelet’: it was a joke, but also it wasn’t. A joke and no joke. I said, ‘You should’ve been more discreet,’ regretting it even as I said it because it was ridiculously unhelpful and even in the shadows I detected him giving me a despairing look. Quickly, I changed the subject: ‘Kate doesn’t know, does she, that Wriothesley had you in?’ I didn’t think so because–I was pretty sure–if she knew, I’d know.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Good. Look, this is nothing, Francis, is it. They just have to check. If someone’s said something, they have to check, that’s all.’ And they’d have had to go to him because no one would dare approach the queen with it.

  ‘Who, though?’ he urged. ‘Who’s the someone? And why, and why now?’

  That, I didn’t know and didn’t want to contemplate and it didn’t matter. What mattered was that there was no pre-contract and that Wriothesley was able to establish the fact. What a blessing, in a sense, that he was investigating the past, his attention turned hard from what was currently happening with Thomas Culpeper. This was the luckiest escape ever, for Kate. She should stop what she was doing with Thomas Culpeper, though; she really had to stop it and I was going to have to say so.

  He read my mind. ‘Don’t tell her,’ he insisted. ‘Don’t say anything. Wriothesley said I’m to tell no one at all, no one, understand? Or this’ll get nasty: that’s what he said.’

  ‘Nasty?’ I was taken aback. Nasty? How dare he! Suddenly I felt sick to think of how the questioning might’ve been for Francis: the tone and the content of it. Yet in a sense the threat was a good sign, surely: under no circumstances was the queen to hear of any of this; it could be resolved without her ever having to hear of it. I returned to what mattered: ‘Did he–Wriothesley–believe you? About the pre-contract?’–the lack of one.

  ‘I don’t know.’

  Not the answer that I’d wanted, but at least he was being honest with me. ‘Francis, listen: he has to believe you. You have to tell him. You have to tell him it was nothing, that you were just two silly kids…’

  He said, ‘Yes,’ but I heard the anger in it. He didn’t like me being dismissive of whatever it was that he’d had with Kate in the past. Look at us, I despaired: it wasn’t each other with whom we should be angry. Then the realisation, ringing with the clarity of a bell: I must protect him. He was incapable of doing it himself: he didn’t think ahead. But I did, it was as natural as breathing to me and now I could do it for him. I’d do anything to protect him. I took his arms, ran my hands up and down his arms: not much of a touch, but something, and enough, because he gave in, stepped forward and folded himself down over me. ‘Go back to bed,’ I whispered against his chest. ‘Get some sleep.’ And saying so, I could make an end to it, at least for now. ‘Whatever this is about,’ I said with utter certainty, ‘it’ll blow over.’

  And I believed it, absolutely I did. I was right to think that Francis had done nothing illegal, and I was naïve enough, back then, to believe that what mattered was the truth. Worried, though: yes, I was, and of course I was. Wriothesley was secretary to the king: he was the man who, effectively, ran everything. Not, presumably, someone with time to waste on anything unimportant. But I’d heard nothing to suggest he was an unreasonable man, as some of the king’s men were known to be. He was one of the new men: a capable administrator. Presumably, his hands were as good as any for Francis to be in, although I didn’t like what those hands had already done to him, he who was usually so sweetly devil-may-care. But, I reminded myself, Wriothesley would’ve had to be thorough. Someone had let something slip and it’d come to the attention of the king’s own secretary who was duty-bound to investigate and then, finding it unsubstantiated, get rid of it. Which he would, because Francis had done nothing. Yes, he and Kate had messed about, but who hadn’t? Well, to some extent, anyway. What mattered was the future: that’s what I kept reminding myself, all through that night. The king adored Kate. Even if he did ever hear of what she’d got up to in her earlier years, he’d turn a blind eye because he was looking to the future, to–at long last–a successful marriage and, God willing, a second male heir. He was getting on in years; he hadn’t the time for quibbling over details of the past. He’d finally found what–or who–he’d been looking for. He’d never been happier–everyone said so–and Kate was doing such a good job. She was ideal: uncontroversial, with no strong religious affiliation–simply a traditional girl–and the Howards were stalwarts, not newcomers. And in any case her ties to her family were comfortably loose. And she was English, too, not foreign like the first queen and the latter. She was everything he needed. True, she wasn’t yet pregnant, but these were still fairly early days and she was young and healthy. She was entirely trouble-free except for what went on, sometimes, in her bed behind her closed door on nights when the king hadn’t asked for her. But no one knew about that, except me and Francis and Jane Rochford, and anyway it’d stop, soon enough, despite what Kate claimed; I knew it would; it always did, although probably she’d then take up with someone else. I wished she’d stop it, now that she was queen. Why couldn’t she stop it?

  I did manage some sleep, in the small hours–I must’ve, because before I knew it, I was up against the morning and there was nothing for it but to drag myself out of bed. I was slower than the brisk, ever-organised Alice: she was gone even before I’d placed both feet on the floor. Dressing under Thomasine’s brisk supervision, I
was dogged by unease, slipping free of it only whenever she snared my attention. Francis had been terrified: the fact was inescapable. I didn’t want to think about how he’d looked; I’d never seen him like that before. Every time I closed my eyes, there he was, but he wasn’t the Francis I knew.

  Outside, a fine rain pulsed in gusts. Again I arrived at Kate’s rooms later than usual; later than everyone, I established instantly, except Francis. No Francis. I steadied myself in the doorway, told myself that perhaps he was sleeping late, as I’d done. Perhaps, like me, this morning, he was befuddled and slow to emerge. Perhaps, though, he’d gone on the run. Would he? If he ran, they’d chase him. I willed him: Be sensible. But that was a lot to ask of Francis.

  I was barely across the threshold before Kate was heading for me, which had my heart catch before I registered her expression. Amused, she looked, and my blood surged because perhaps she was going to laugh and say, You’ll never guess what… and, I told them…, and everything would be fine and she’d given Francis the day off to recover. I hardly dared hope it. She gestured that I should join her in the gallery: we were to talk privately. I followed her train of rosy velvet stitched with gold-thread swirls and studded with pearls, and the others in the room barely glanced our way; they’d think nothing of Kate going off to gossip with her oldest friend.

  In the gallery, she led me into a window recess hung with a cage of songbirds.

  ‘Francis is in for questioning about tax,’ she said, cheerfully. ‘Did you know?’

  My heart contracted. Something else, something more? Was someone, for some reason, out to get him?

  ‘They sent a man to tell me,’ and it was this, apparently, that had amused her, the formality of it. She quoted the officious man: ‘“He will be unavailable for duties, today.”’ I understood it differently, though, this despatching of a messenger. This was nothing to do with tax. Wriothesley had Francis for a second day and had gone to the trouble, this time, of putting Kate off the scent. A second day of it? How many ways were there to ask the same question?

  ‘What’s he been up to, then?’ she was asking, affectionate. As if she cared. ‘I hope they don’t drag me into it, because he did give me that money, once, to look after.’

  What money?

  ‘When he went off to Ireland, that time.’ She smirked. ‘I’m queen, see: good strongboxes.’

  Yes: as queen, she’d have been the safest option. I’d said it before I could stop myself: ‘You should be careful, Kate.’

  She tipped her head to one side, teasing. ‘About what?’

  I glanced around, first. ‘About–’ I didn’t even like saying his name–‘Thomas.’ ‘Thomas Culpeper’ would’ve sounded ridiculously formal, but I’d hated having to say the familiar ‘Thomas’. He wasn’t ‘Thomas’ to me.

  ‘Thomas?’ A whispered, incredulous laugh. ‘But I am. You know I am.’ In the same tone, ‘What’s brought this on?’

  A pinch of panic, because, of course, I’d promised not to say. ‘I don’t know, just–’

  Francis was mine, Thomas Culpeper was hers: that’s how, I hoped, she’d account for it.

  And presumably she did, because she didn’t pursue it. ‘Of course I’m careful.’ She dipped her head, quizzical, to bring my gaze back up to hers. ‘There’s only you who know.’

  I was about to correct her but she said it for me, dismissively, as a kind of chant: ‘Oh, and Francis, and Jane Rochford,’ I know, I know. ‘And–’ laughing again in that whispered way as she swept back across the gallery to the door gallery to the door–‘it’s not as if any of you are going to tell, are you.’

  All morning I waited with mounting disbelief for Francis to appear, sometimes thinking he might’ve been released but gone elsewhere: to chapel, or to his room. Several times I came close to confiding in Maggie–sweet Maggie, who’d have been so concerned for me, I knew, and would’ve tried her very best to reassure me–but I couldn’t face explaining everything. Kate didn’t mention Francis again. She decided to hold a tennis tournament on the covered courts. While the king was away, she’d keep his gentlemen busy. Summoning Oliver Kelly, keeper of the courts, she made him cancel all prior bookings. Francis was on his list: ‘Your Mr Dereham,’ as Mr Kelly referred to him, scanning the page.

  So, I spent most of that long afternoon sitting on a hard bench between equally bored Maggie and Alice with rain puffing through the wire-netted window at my back while, in front of me, various gentlemen exerted themselves on opposing sides of a taut, fringed rope. Despite the pretence of playfulness, they took themselves seriously: red-faced and clamp-jawed as they wielded their leather racquets and disputed points. Thomas Culpeper was down to his cambric shirt in no time. Kate cheered him on whenever he played; and whenever he scored a point, she blew him a kiss. She was enjoying scandalising the more staid of her ladies but I was in no mood for such games.

  As soon as I could, I went directly to Francis’s room–but there was no sign of him. Then, just as I’d done two days before, I went in search of Rob, his room-mate, when I was fairly sure where he’d be: dining in the Great Hall. He told me that the last he’d seen of Francis was when they’d left their room together in the morning, and he’d assumed Francis was on his way to the queen’s rooms. (‘Didn’t he–? Is something up?’) I returned to their room and used some of their firewood ration, hoping they wouldn’t mind, and sat there, then lay there on the bed that he and Rob had to share.

  Francis turned up sometime after the strike of six. I’d expected him to be pleased or at least relieved to see me, but he didn’t even look at me–bar one stinging glance–and turned his back to tend the fire, which needed no tending. I held my breath and steadied myself; there was nothing else I could do. This was new to me, this contempt from him, and I was going to have to feel my way. He was obviously exhausted: whey-faced, and his eyes red-tinged. I supposed he was dreading any further questioning. I had to question him, though, if I were to be able to help; I had to know what had happened.

  He, though, was the first to speak: ‘It was Mary.’ He was hunkered down on the little hearth, poking his fire-iron into the incandescence. I’d got to my feet and was standing awkwardly behind him, above him, longing to put my fingers into his hair, to soothe him, to crouch down and cover him with myself.

  ‘Mary?’

  ‘Wriothesley’s information comes from Mary.’ Still he didn’t look around; still jabbing into the fire.

  Which Mary? I knew countless Marys.

  ‘From the duchess’s,’ he said.

  Mary Lassells. My old room-mate Mary. But she’d been gone for years. Gone back home and probably into some marriage, pity her poor husband. And anyway, no one ever listened to Mary: that was who Mary was, the girl to whom no one ever listened. True, she’d be quite likely to want to cause trouble for Kate, and certainly she’d know enough to be able to do so, but how on earth would she–silly Mary Lassells–ever get her information to Wriothesley?

  ‘Her brother,’ Francis said, answering my unasked question. He turned around but made no other move towards me; on the contrary, he sat back on the hearth and hugged his knees. My hovering over him felt even more conspicuous and, reluctantly, I returned to the edge of the bed. ‘Mary Lassells?’ I said, pointlessly. ‘Her brother?’

  He said nothing; I’d got it right. I didn’t remember any brother of Mary’s, but why would I? I’d lived alongside Mary for years, but only alongside: she’d been nothing, really, to me; I hadn’t ever known her and if she’d mentioned a brother, I wouldn’t have been listening.

  ‘He’s come to Wriothesley with these stories of what Kate was up to.’

  ‘But why?’ The risk he’d taken was unthinkable: allegations about the adored queen.

  He shrugged.

  Mary’s revenge, at last, and she’d found someone who’d listen to her, if only via someone else. Whatever his reasons, this brother of hers had gambled on finding an ear for his allegations. And, worryingly, he had.

  ‘Wrioth
esley told you, though.’ He hadn’t had to tell Francis of the source. Was it a good sign, then, that he had? Wouldn’t he have been in a stronger position if he hadn’t–if he’d stuck with that mysterious, We have information. But, then, perhaps he had no need for any added strength.

  ‘Oh, we’re pretty frank with each other,’ Francis said. ‘We’ve no secrets from each other.’ This was in a bitter tone–the like of which I’d never heard from him and of which I’d never have guessed he was capable. He stared at me as if with a challenge.

  I guarded against rising to it. ‘What did he want to know about, today?’

  ‘When it stopped.’

  I didn’t like that, either: the bluntness of it. But, anyway, the fact was that it–their romance, or however else Francis liked to think of it–had stopped when she’d lost interest and moved on.

  ‘And why she gave me the job here.’

  ‘But she gave us all jobs here.’ Her family–sister and stepmother, aunt and cousin–and her old friends: me, Maggie and Alice.

  He splayed his hands–exactly–but there was defeat in the gesture.

  ‘What?’–it dawned on me–‘he thinks it was…’ but I didn’t know how to put it, ‘…more than that?’

  Francis said nothing.

  ‘But that’s ridiculous,’ I protested. ‘And in fact she gave you your job because of me, so I could have you here with me–’

  He frowned and I saw that he’d never thought of it that way.

  ‘–and I’m going to go and tell him.’

  He snapped, ‘Don’t go anywhere near him.’

  ‘But if I–’

  ‘Remember what he said: no one else should know, or it’ll get nasty. It’s not just me who’s in trouble, here, it’s Kate, too, and I won’t do anything to endanger her, do you understand that?’

  Oh, perfectly. He’d made himself quite clear. I doubted his loyalty would be reciprocated if the situation were reversed, but he’d never been able to see that. Anyway, would I go to Wriothesley? He should be coming to me. But he wouldn’t even know of my existence. I was no one.