My steward comes into my private chamber, tapping on the door and then stepping in, closing the door behind him as if to keep something secret. Outside I can hear the buzz of the people who have come to see me. I am alone, trying to find the courage to go out and face the inquiries about rents, boundaries of land, the crops that should be grown next season, the tithe that should be paid, the hundred little worries of a great estate that has been my pride and joy for all my life but now seems like a pretty cage, where I have worked and lived and been happy while outside the country I love has slipped down to hell.
“What is it?”
His face is scowling with worry. “The Earl of Southampton and the Bishop of Ely to see you, my lady,” he says.
I rise to my feet, putting my hand to the small of my back where a nagging pain comes and goes with the weather. I think briefly, cravenly, how very tired I am. “Do they say what they want?”
He shakes his head. I force myself to stand very straight, and I go out into my presence chamber.
I have known William Fitzwilliam since he played with Prince Henry in the nursery, and now he is a newly made earl. I know how pleased he will be with his honors. He bows to me but there is no warmth in his face. I smile at him and turn to the Bishop of Ely, Thomas Goodrich.
“My lords, you are very welcome to Warblington Castle,” I say easily. “I hope that you will dine with us? And will you stay tonight?”
William Fitzwilliam has the grace to look slightly uncomfortable. “We are here to ask you some questions,” he says. “The king commands that you answer the truth upon your honor.”
I nod, still smiling.
“And we will stay until we have a satisfactory answer,” says the bishop.
“You must stay as long as you wish,” I say insincerely. I nod to my steward. “See that the lords’ people are housed, and their horses stabled,” I say. “And set extra places at dinner, and the best bedchambers for our two honored guests.”
He bows and goes out. I look around my crowded presence chamber. There is a murmur, nothing clear, nothing stated, just a sense that the tenants and petitioners in the room do not like the sight of these great gentlemen riding down from London to question me in my own house. Nobody speaks a disloyal word but there is a rustle of whispers like a low growl.
William looks uneasy. “Shall we go to a more convenient room?” he asks.
I look around and smile at my people. “I cannot talk with you today,” I say clearly, so that the poorest widow at the back can hear. “I am sorry for that. I have to answer some questions for these great lords. I will tell them, as I tell you, as you know, that neither I nor my sons have ever thought, done, or dreamed anything which was disloyal to the king. And that none of you has ever done anything either. And none of us ever will.”
“Easily said,” the bishop says unpleasantly.
“Because true,” I overrule him, and lead the way into my private room.
Under the oriel window there is a table where I sometimes sit to write, and four chairs. I gesture that they may sit where they please, and take a chair myself, my back to the wintry light, facing the room.
William Fitzwilliam tells me, as if it were a matter of mild interest, that he has been questioning my sons Geoffrey and Montague. I nod at the information, and I ignore the swift pang of murderous rage at the thought of this upstart interrogating my boys, my Plantagenet boys. He says that they have both spoken freely to him; he implies he knows everything about us, and then he presses me to admit that I have heard them speak against the king.
I absolutely deny it, and I say that I have never said a word against His Majesty either. I say that my boys have never said that they wanted to join Reginald, and that I have written no secret letters to my most disappointing son. I know nothing of Geoffrey’s steward Hugh Holland except that he left Geoffrey’s service and went into business, London, I think, a merchant, I think. He may have carried family letters with family news to Flanders for us. I know that Geoffrey went to Lord Cromwell and explained everything to his satisfaction, that Holland’s goods were returned to him. I am glad of that. Lord Cromwell has the keeping of the safety of the king, we all owe him our thanks while he does that great duty. My son was glad to be accountable to him. I have never received secret letters, and so I have never burned secret letters.
Again and again they ask me the same things, and again and again I tell them simply what I have told them already: I have done nothing, my sons have done nothing, and they can prove nothing against us.
Then I rise from the table and tell them that I am accustomed to praying at this time, in my family chapel. We pray here in the new way, and there is a Bible in English for anyone to read. After prayers, we will dine. If they lack anything in their rooms, they must ask, and I shall be delighted to ensure their comfort.
A pedlar with Christmas fairings coming from the London goose fair tells the maids at the kitchen door that my cousin Sir Edward Neville has been arrested and so has Montague’s chaplain John Collins, the Chancellor of Chichester Cathedral, George Croftes, a priest, and several of their servants. I tell the maid who whispers this to me to buy whatever fairings she likes and not to listen to gossip. This is nothing to do with us.
We serve a good dinner to our guests, and after the dinner we have carol singing and my ladies and maids dance, then I excuse myself and go outside as the sky is turning gray, to walk around the ricks. It comforts me, when my precious sons are in danger, to see that the straw and the hay are battened down against the winds, and that everything is dry and safe. I step into the barn, the cows shifting quietly among the straw at one end and my valuable handsome tup at the other, and I smell the scent of warm animals safely penned up against cold weather. I wish I could stay here, all night, in the light of the little horn lantern with the quiet breathing of animals, and perhaps on Christmas Eve at midnight I would see them kneel in memory of that other stable, where the animals knelt at the crib and the Light of the World founded the Church which I have honored all my life and which is not, and has never been, under the command of any king.
Next day, William and the bishop come to my room again and ask me the same questions. I give them the same answers, and they carefully write them down and send them to London. We can do this every day until the end of the world and the harrowing of hell. I am never going to say anything that would throw suspicion on either of my imprisoned sons. It is true that I am weary of my inquisitors and their repeated questions, but I will not fail because of weariness. I will not be putting my head on the block and desiring eternal rest. They can ask me until the dead step out of their graves, they will find me as mute as my headless brother. I am an old woman, sixty-five years old now, but I am not ready for the grave, and I am not so weak as to be bullied by men whom I knew as toddlers. I will say nothing.
In the Tower, the prisoners wait too. The newly arrested churchmen break down and acknowledge that although they swore the king’s oath they never believed in their hearts that Henry was supreme head of the Church. They promise that they did nothing more than break their own hearts over their false swearing; they raised neither money nor men, they did not plot nor speak. Silently, they wished for the restoration of the monasteries and the return of the old ways. Innocently, they prayed for better times.
Edward Neville, my cousin, did only a little more than they. Once, only once, he told Geoffrey that he wished the princess could come to the throne and Reginald could come home. Geoffrey tells the inquisitors of this exchange. God forgive him, my beloved, false-hearted, fainthearted son tells them what his cousin once said, in confidence, years ago, speaking to a man whom he trusted as a brother.