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 - ‘it’s not as if any of you are going to tell, are you.’
All morning I waited with mounting disbelief for