‘If I can,’ I say softly. I am genuinely moved to tenderness. ‘If I can, I will.’
‘So you can command me,’ he says gently. ‘I will do anything that you want. You just have to say.’
I trust him. I think that I will dare to name the favour that I want. ‘It’s my rooms at Hampton Court,’ I start. ‘Please don’t think me ungrateful, I know they are the finest rooms and Hampton Court is—’
He waves away my words. ‘It’s the most beautiful palace in England, but it is nothing to me if you don’t like it. I shall demolish it if you wish. What displeases you? I will have it altered at once.’
It is the ghosts in every corner, it is the initials of dead women on the stone bosses, it is the flags where their feet walked. ‘The smell,’ I say. ‘From the kitchens below.’
‘Of course!’ he exclaims. ‘You’re so right! I have often thought it myself. We should rebuild, we should change. The place was planned by Wolsey. He looked after himself, you can be sure of that. He planned his own apartments perfectly but he did not think what the other wing would be like. He never cared for anyone but himself, that man. But I care for you, beloved. Tomorrow you shall come to me and we shall get a builder to draw up new rooms for you, a queen’s side that will suit you completely.’
Truly, this is a rare husband. I’ve never known anyone so quick to understand, and so eager for the happiness of a wife. ‘Lord husband, you’re very good to me.’
‘I love your smile,’ he replies. ‘You know, I watch for your smile. I think I would give all the treasures of England for that smile.’
‘My lord . . .’
‘You shall be my wife and my partner, my friend and my lover.’
‘I will,’ I say earnestly. ‘I promise it, husband, I will.’
‘I need a friend,’ he says confidingly. ‘These days, I need a friend more than ever. The court is like a pit for dogfighting. They turn on one another and everyone wants my agreement and everyone wants my favour, but I can’t trust anyone.’
‘They seem so friendly . . .’
‘They are all liars and dissemblers,’ he overrules me. ‘Some of them are for the reform of religion and would make England Lutheran, some of them would have us return to Rome and put the pope at the head of our church again; and they all think that the way ahead is to trick me and entice me, step by step, down their way. They know that all the power is in my two hands. I alone decide everything, so they know that the way ahead is to persuade me.’
‘Surely, it would be a great shame to go back on your godly reforms,’ I say tentatively.
‘It’s worse now than ever. Now they look beyond me to Edward. I can see them trying to calculate how long I might live and how they can win Edward to their will and against mine. If I were to die soon they would fight over my boy like dogs over a bone. They would tear him apart. They wouldn’t see him as their master, they would see him as their road to greatness. I have to save him from that.’
‘But you are well,’ I reply gently. ‘Surely, you will live for years yet? Long enough to see him grow into a man and into his power?’
‘I have to. I owe it to him. My boy, my only boy. His mother died for him, I have to live for him.’
Jane again. I nod sympathetically and say nothing.
‘You will guard him with me,’ the king rules. ‘You will be as a mother to him, in place of the mother that he has lost. I can trust you as my wife in a way that I can trust no councillor. Only you are my partner and my helpmeet. You are my second self, we are as one. You will care for my power and for my son – no-one else can love and guard him. And if we go to war with France and I ride with the army you shall be regent here, and his protector.’
This is the greatest trust, proof of love beyond anything I ever expected. This is far more than I could have dreamed, better than birds or jewels, better than new rooms. This is the chance to be a queen indeed. I have a moment of vaulting ambition succeeded by fear. ‘You would make me regent?’
The only woman to be regent in the absence of the king was Katherine of Aragon, a princess raised to rule a kingdom. If the next were to be me then I would be honoured higher than anyone but a royal in her own right, born and bred. And if I were Regent of England and protector of the heir then I would be expected to guide the people and the church in the way of God. I would have to become a defender of the faith, just as the king named himself. I would have to sponsor the faith of the people. I would have to learn the wisdom to steer the church towards truth. I am breathless at the prospect. ‘My lord, I would be so proud, I would work so hard. I would not fail you. I wouldn’t fail the country. I don’t know enough, I don’t understand enough, but I will study, I will learn.’
‘I know it,’ he says. ‘I know you will be a devoted wife. And I trust you. I hear from everyone that you were Lord Latimer’s friend and his helpmeet, that you cared for his children as if they were your own, that you saved his castle from the ungodly. You shall do the same for me and mine. You are above faction, you are above taking sides.’ He smiles. ‘You shall be Useful in All that You Do. I was so moved when they told me that was your motto. For I want you to be useful and to take pleasure, too, my dear. I want you to be happy – happier than you have ever been in your life.’
He takes my hands and kisses one, then the other. ‘You will come to love me and understand me,’ he predicts. ‘I know you would tell me that you love me now, but that is to flatter an old fool. These are early days for us, honeymoon days; you have to speak of love, I know that. But you will come to love me in your heart, even when you are alone and no-one is watching. I know it. You have a loving heart and a clever mind and I want them both devoted to me. I want them both turned to me and to England. You will watch me at work and at play, at bed and board and at prayer, and you will understand the man that I am, and the king that I am. You will see my greatness, and my faults and my tender parts. You will fall in love with me. I hope you will fall in love with me completely.’
I give a little nervous laugh but he is completely convinced. He is quite certain that he is irresistible, and in the face of his smiling determination I think he may be right. Perhaps I will learn from him and love him. He is very persuasive. I want to believe him. It is God’s will that I married him, there can be no doubt of that. Perhaps it is His will that I will come to love my husband fully, as a wife should do. And who could not love a man who trusts a wife with his kingdom? With his children? Who pours treasure at her feet? Who offers his love so sweetly?
‘You need never say one word of a lie to me,’ he promises me. ‘There shall never be anything but honesty between us. I don’t need you to say that you love me now. I don’t want any early promises, easy words. I need only to know that you care for me now, that you are glad to be my wife, and that you accept that you might love me in the future. I know that you will.’
‘I will,’ I say. I did not know that he would be like this as a husband. I never dreamed it. I have never had a husband who cared for me. It is an extraordinary sensation to have the devotion of a powerful man. It is extraordinary to feel this tremendous will, this burning concentration turned on me. ‘And love will grow, as you say, my lord.’
‘Love will grow, Henry,’ he prompts.
I kiss him, unasked. ‘Love will grow, Henry,’ I repeat.
I know that I have to understand more about the changes that my husband has brought to the church in England. I ask both Thomas Cranmer and Stephen Gardiner to recommend preachers who can come to my rooms and expound their views to me and to my ladies. By listening to both sides of the debate – the reformers and the traditionalists – I hope that I will understand the cause that divides the court and the country, and the careful route that Henry has so brilliantly traced between the two.