‘How dare you?’ Henry demands. ‘How dare you come into my own garden and insult the queen? My beloved wife! Are you mad?’
Wriothesley opens and closes his mouth like one of the fat fish in the carp ponds.
‘How dare you come in here and distress my wife?’
‘The warrant? Your Majesty! Your royal warrant?’
‘How dare you show her such a thing? A woman sworn to my interests who has no mind but my mind, who has no thought but mine, whose body is at my command, whose immortal soul is in my keeping? My wife? My beloved wife?’
‘But you said that she should be—’
‘Are you saying that I would order the arrest of my own wife?’
‘No!’ Wriothesley says hastily. ‘No, of course not, Your Majesty, no.’
‘Get out of my sight,’ Henry shouts at him as if he is driven to madness by such disloyalty. ‘I can’t bear you! I never want to see you again.’
‘But, Your Majesty?’
‘Go!’
Wriothesley bows to the ground and stumbles backwards through the garden gate. The guards fumble their exit and rush after him, pushing their way out of the sunlit garden, desperate to get away from the furious king. Henry waits till they are all gone and the gate has clanged shut, the guard standing outside it with his back to us. Only when it is all still and quiet again does the king turn to me.
He is laughing so much that he cannot speak. For a moment I fear that he is having a fit. The tears squeeze out of his puckered eyelids and run down his sweating cheeks. He is dangerously flushed, and as he holds his shaking belly he chokes for air. Long minutes pass as he hoarsely cackles before he can steady himself. He opens his little eyes and wipes his wet cheeks.
‘Lord,’ he says. ‘Lord.’
He sees me standing before him, still frozen with shock, and my ladies blank-faced, waiting.
‘What’s the title of the play, Kate?’ he pants, still laughing.
I shake my head.
‘You who are so clever? So widely read? What is the title of my play?’
‘Your Majesty, I cannot guess.’
‘The Taming of the Queen!’ he shouts. ‘The Taming of the Queen.’ I hold my slight smile. I look at his sweating scarlet face and I let the sound of his renewed laughter break over me like the hoarse cawing of the ravens at the Tower.
‘I am the dog-master,’ he says, abruptly abandoning his joke. ‘I watch you all. I set you all at each other’s throats. Poor curs. Poor little bitch.’
The king sits in the garden till the shadows lengthen along the smooth green grass and the birds start to sing in the tops of the trees. The swallows weave along the curves of the river, swirling above their own silvery reflections and dipping into the water to drink. The courtiers come in from playing games and they walk languidly, like happy children with flushed faces. Princess Elizabeth smiles up at me and I see a scatter of freckles over her nose like dust on marble, and I think I must remind her maid to make sure that she wears a sun bonnet whenever she goes out.
‘It’s been a beautiful day,’ the king says contentedly. ‘God Himself knows what a wonderful country this is.’
‘We are blessed,’ I agree quietly, and he smiles as if the credit for the summer and for the weather and for the sun sinking over the glassy river is somehow all due to him.
‘I shall come to dinner,’ he says, ‘and after dinner you may come to my room and you must talk to me about your thoughts, Kate. I like to hear what you have been reading and what you think.’
He laughs as he sees me suddenly go pale. ‘Ah, Kate. You need fear nothing. I have taught you everything you need to know, have I not? It is my translations that you read? You are my dear wife, are you not? And we are friends?’
‘Of course, of course,’ I say. I bow as if I am delighted at the invitation.
‘And you may ask anything of me. Any little gift, any little favour. Anything you like, sweetheart.’
I hesitate, wondering if I dare speak of the broken woman in the Tower, Anne Askew, waiting to hear if she is to live or to die. He has said I can ask anything of him, he has just said I am to fear nothing. ‘Your Majesty, there is one small thing,’ I start. ‘A little thing to you, I am sure. But it would be the greatest wish of my heart.’
He raises his hand to stop me. ‘My dear, we have learned today, have we not, that there are no things, not even the smallest things, that come between a husband and wife like us? The greatest wish of your heart could only be the greatest wish of mine. We have nothing to discuss. You need never ask anything of me. We are as one.’
‘It is my friend. . .’
‘You have no better friend than me.’
I understand him. ‘We are as one,’ I repeat dully.
‘Holy unity,’ he says.
I bow my head.
‘And loving silence.’
‘She’s dead,’ Nan tells me brutally, as they are brushing my hair before dinner. The movement of the heavy brush through my thick hair, the occasional painful pull, seems to be part of her news. I don’t put up my hand to stop Susan, the maid, from grooming me as if I were a mare going to the stallion. My head rocks to one side and then the other with the harsh pulling motion. I see my face in the mirror, my white skin, my hurt eyes, my bruised mouth. My head going one way and then another like a nodding doll.
‘Who is dead?’ But I know.
‘Anne Askew. I just had word from London. Catherine Brandon is at her London house. She sent me a note. They killed her this morning.’
I choke. ‘God forgive them. God forgive me. God send her soul to heaven.’
‘Amen.’
I gesture that Susan is to go away but Nan says: ‘You have to have your hair brushed and your hood pinned. You have to go to dinner. Whatever has happened.’
‘How can I?’ I ask simply.
‘Because she died never mentioning your name. She took the rack for you and death for you, so that you could go to dinner and, when your chance comes again, you can defend the reform of the church. She knew you must be free to speak to the king even if all the rest of us are killed. Even if you lose us all, one by one. If you are the last one left, you must save reform in England. Or she will have died for nothing.’
I see Susan’s aghast face in the mirror behind my own.
‘It’s all right,’ I say to her. ‘You need not bear witness.’
‘But you must,’ Nan says to me. ‘Anne died without admitting that she knew any one of us, so that we would be free to go on thinking, talking and writing. So that you would carry the torch.’
‘She suffered.’ It’s not a question. She was in the torture room of the Tower, alone with three men. No woman has ever been there before.
‘God bless her. They broke her body so badly that she could not walk to the stake. John Lascelles, Nicholas Belenian and John Adams were burned at the same time, but the men walked to their pyres. She was the only one tortured. The guards had to carry her tied to a chair. They said her feet were turned in as if she was wearing them backwards, and her shoulders and her elbows were all pulled out. Her spine was disjointed, her neck was pulled from her shoulders.’
I dip my head and I put my hands over my eyes. ‘God keep her.’
‘Amen,’ Nan says. ‘A king’s messenger came to offer her pardon as they tied the chair to the stake.’
‘Oh, Nan! Could she have recanted?’
‘All they wanted was your name. They would have taken her down if she had said your name.’
‘Oh, God forgive me.’
‘She listened to the priest preaching the sermon before they brought the torches to set the fire, and she said “Amen” only when she agreed with him.’
‘Nan, I should have done more!’
‘You couldn’t have done more. Truly, there was nothing more that any of us could do. If she had wanted to escape death she could have told them what they wanted to hear. They were clear enough with her what it should be.’