Brandon. Both widows, you see! I believe I have given him a taste for widows. And none but a widow would dare return the King’s loving glances. Sister, my life hangs by a thread; and who is holding that thread? His Majesty. And how he jerks it, depends on the Duchesses of Richmond and Suffolk…and the state of his health!”
“You must not laugh like this. It frightens me. You must be calm. You must be serene. Your smallest action is of the utmost importance.”
“Oh, sister, what will they do to poor Anne Askew?”
“They dare do nothing. They cannot torture a woman…a highborn woman. The King would not allow it.”
The Queen looked at her sister and broke into fresh laughter, and the Lady Anne Herbert had great difficulty in soothing her.
THE BISHOP AND THE CHANCELLOR walked once more in the Great Park.
“What news, my lord Chancellor?” asked Gardiner.
“My lord Bishop, good news. I had the jailor taken as soon as he left the court woman. He admitted in the torture room that the clothes and food which the prisoner has been receiving were sent at the Queen’s command.”
Gardiner nodded. “That is good.”
“Well, is it not enough?”
The Bishop shook his head. “It’s that accursed leg. The woman is such a good nurse.”
“You think he is so fond of her still that he seeks no other?”
“While the King breathes he will always be ready to seek another wife—providing the current one has shared his bed for a month or more.”
“My lord Bishop, it was but a week ago that he said to me: ‘Three years of marriage, Wriothesley, and no sign of fruitfulness. I cannot think the fault is mine; therefore must I wonder if my marriage finds favor in the sight of God.’”
“That was good.”
“And have you seen the looks he casts at my lady of Suffolk?”
“Not so good. She, like the Queen, inclines to heresy. I would my lady of Richmond did not worry his conscience. The warmer his feelings grow for her the better. Everything depends on the warmth of his feelings.”
“But…if he should turn to Brandon’s widow?”
“We must see that that does not happen. But first we must rid him of Katharine Parr.” Gardiner looked grave. “We must practice the utmost caution. Remember Dr. London, who has since died of the humiliations inflicted upon him.”
“I do remember him. But the jailor
“The word of a lowborn jailor could not be of great account. We must remember this, friend Chancellor: The situation is not a simple one. When Cromwell found evidence against Anne Boleyn, the King was already impatient for marriage with Jane Seymour. Now it is less simple. At one moment the King wishes to be rid of his wife, and at the next he remembers that she is his nurse and necessary to him. To bring the jailor’s evidence before the King when he needs his nurse, might bring down Heaven knows what on our defenseless heads. Nay! We must learn by the mistakes and successes of others. Think of the King’s love for Catharine Howard. Cranmer was fully aware of that. What did he do? He presented the King with undeniable evidence of his Queen’s guilt. That is what we must do. But the word of a lowborn jailor is not enough.”
“You mean the woman herself—this Anne Askew—must speak against the Queen?”
“That is what I mean.”
“But you know her mind. She will say nothing against anyone. ‘Kill me,’ she will say. ‘I’m not afraid of death.’ And, by God, you will have but to look at her to know that she speaks truth.”
“It is easy for a fanatical woman to say these things, and to die quickly is easy. But to die slowly…lingeringly… horribly… that is not so simple. The bravest men cry out for mercy on the rack.”
“But… this is a woman.”
Gardiner’s thin lips smiled faintly. “This, dear Chancellor,” he said, “is our enemy.”
IN HER CELL in the Tower, Anne Askew daily waited for the doom which she felt must certainly be hers.
She had knelt by the barred window and prayed, and praying lost count of the hours. On the stone walls of this cell which had been occupied by others before her were scratched names, messages of hope and words of despair. She prayed not for herself but for those who had suffered before her. She knew that there was some grace within her, some extra strength, which would enable her to meet with courage whatever was coming to her.
It was midnight when she had knelt, and now the dawn was in the sky. It filtered through the bars of her cell; another day was coming and she was still on her knees.
It was some days since Nan had visited her. She had had little to eat, yet she did not feel the need of food. There were times when her mind wandered a little—back to her childhood in her father’s house, back to the days when she and her sister had wandered in the gardens and been happy together.
Anne had always been the serious one, loving books more than play. Her elder sister had laughed at her, and there had been times when Anne had envied her. She was so normal, that elder sister of Anne’s; she liked good things to eat, fine clothes to wear. She had said: “Anne, you are strange. Sometimes I think you are a changeling —not the child of our parents. You are like a fairy child, and in your eyes there burns such fervor that I feel your sire must have been a saint.”
Sometimes Anne imagined that she was back in the days of her sister’s betrothal to Mr. Kyme.
She could hear her sister’s light chatter. “He is very rich, Anne. They say he is the richest man in Lincolnshire, and I like him well enough.”
