My mother neither looked back at her nor checked her step. She walked from the room without a word. When the door clicked behind her I thought, this is the end. The end for Anne.
"I have done nothing," Anne repeated. She turned to me and I thought of the potion from the witch and the night that she lay in the secret room with a gold mask over her face, like a bird"s beak. I thought of her journey to the gates of h.e.l.l and back to get this child for England.
The midwife turned away. "I shall have to tell the king."
At once I was between her and the door, barring her way. "You are not to distress His Majesty," I said. "He would not want to know this. These are women"s secrets, they should be kept among women. Let us keep this between ourselves and deal with it privately and you shall have the queen"s favor, and mine. I shall see that you are well paid for tonight"s work and for your discretion. I shall see that you are well paid, Mistress. I promise you."
She did not even glance up at me. She was holding the bundle wrapped in her arms, the horror of it hidden by the swaddling bands. For one dreadful moment I thought I saw it move, I imagined the little flayed hand putting the cloth aside. She lifted it up toward my face, and I shrank back from it. She took her chance and opened the door.
"You shan"t go to the king!" I swore, clinging to her arm.
"Don"t you know?" she asked me, her voice almost pitying. "Don"t you know that I am his servant already? That he sent me here to watch and listen for him? I was appointed for this from the moment that the queen first missed her courses."
"Why?" I gasped.
"Because he doubts her."
I put my hand to the wall to support me, my head was whirling. "Doubts her?"
She shrugged. "He did not know what was wrong with her that she could not carry a child." She nodded to the limp huddle of cloth. "Now he will know."
I licked my dry lips. "I will pay you anything you ask, to put that down and go to the king and tell him that she has lost a baby but she is able to conceive another," I said. "Whatever he is paying you, I will double it. I am a Boleyn, we are not without influence and wealth. You can be one of the Howard servants for the rest of your life."
"This is my duty," she said. "I have been doing it since I was a young girl. I have made a solemn vow to the Virgin Mary never to fail in my task."
"What task?" I demanded wildly. "What duty? What are you talking about now?"
"Witch-taking," she said simply. And then she slipped out of the door with the devil"s baby in her arms and was gone.
I shut the door on her and slid the bolt. I wanted no one to come into the room until the mess was cleaned up, and Anne fit to fight for her life.
"What did she say?" she asked.
Her skin was white and waxy. Her dark eyes were like chips of gla.s.s. She was far away from this hot little room and the sense of danger.
"Nothing of importance."
"What did she say?"
"Nothing. Why don"t you sleep now?"
Anne glared at me. "I will never believe it," she said flatly, as if she were talking not to me, but to some inquisition. "You can never make me believe it. I am not some ignorant peasant crying over a relic which is chipwood and pig"s blood. I will not be turned from my way by silly fears. I will think and I will do, and I will make the world to my own desire."
"Anne?"
"I won"t be frightened by nothing," she said staunchly.
"Anne?"
She turned her face away from me, to the wall.
As soon as she was asleep I opened the door and called a Howard-Madge Shelton-into the room to sit with her. The maids swept away the bloodstained sheets and brought clean rushes for the floor. Outside in the presence chamber, the court was waiting for news, the ladies half-dozing, their heads in their hands, some people playing cards to while away the time. George was leaning against a wall in low-voiced conversation with Sir Francis, heads as close as lovers.
William came toward me and took my hand, and I paused for a moment and drew strength from his touch.
"It"s bad," I said shortly. "I can"t tell you now. I have to tell Uncle something. Come with me."
George was at my side at once. "How is she?"
"The baby"s dead," I said shortly.
I saw him blanch as white as a maid and he crossed himself. "Where"s Uncle?" I asked, looking round.
"Waiting for news in his rooms like the rest of them."
"How"s the queen?" someone asked me.
"Has she lost the baby?" someone else said.
George stepped forward. "The queen is sleeping," he said. "Resting. She bids you all to go to your beds and in the morning there will be news of her condition."
"Did she lose the baby?" someone pressed George, looking at me.
"How should I know?" George said blandly, and there was an irritated buzz of disbelief.
"It"s dead then," someone said. "What is wrong with her that she cannot give him a son?"
"Come on," William said to George. "Let"s get out of here. The more you say, the worse it will get."
With my husband and my brother on either side of me we pushed out through the court and down the stair to Uncle Howard"s chambers. His dark-liveried servant let us in without a word. My uncle was at the big table, some papers spread out before him, a candle throwing a yellow glow all around the room.
When we entered he nodded to the servant to stir the fire and light another branch of candles.
"Yes?" he asked.
"Anne went into labor and gave birth to a dead baby," I said flatly.
He nodded, his grave face showing no emotion.
"There were things wrong with it," I said.
"What sort of things?"
"Its back was flayed open, and its head was big," I said. I could feel my throat tightening in disgust and I gripped William"s hand a little tighter. "It was a monster."
Again he nodded as if I were telling him news of a most ordinary and distant nature. But it was George who gave a small strangled exclamation in his throat and felt for the back of a chair to support him. My uncle seemed to pay no attention, but he saw everything.
"I tried to stop the midwife taking it out."
"Oh?"
"She said that she was already hired by the king."
"Ah."
"And when I offered her money to stay or to leave the baby she said that it was her duty to the Virgin Mary to take the baby because she was a..."
"A...?".
"A witch-taker," I whispered.
I felt the odd sensation of the floor floating underneath my feet and all the sounds of the room coming from far away. Then William pressed me into a chair and held a gla.s.s of wine to my lips. George did not touch me, he was clinging to the back of the chair and his face was as white as mine.
My uncle was unmoved.
"The king hired a witch-taker to spy on Anne?"
I took another sip of wine and nodded.
"Then she is in very great danger," he remarked.
There was another long silence.
"Danger?" George whispered, pushing himself upright.
My uncle nodded. "A suspicious husband is always a danger. A suspicious king even more so."
"She"s done nothing," George said stoutly. I stole a curious sideways glance at him, hearing him repeat the litany Anne had sworn when she had seen the monster that her body had made.
"Perhaps," my uncle conceded. "But the king thinks she has done something, and that is enough to destroy her."
"And what will you do to protect her?" George asked cautiously.
"You know, George," my uncle said slowly, "the last time I had the pleasure of a private conversation with her she said that I might leave the court and be d.a.m.ned to me, she said that she had got where she was by her own efforts and that she owed me nothing, and she threatened me with imprisonment."
"She"s a Howard," I said, putting the wine aside.
He bowed. "She was."
"This is Anne!" I exclaimed. "We all spent our lives to get her here."
My uncle nodded. "And has she repaid us with great thanks? You were exiled from court, as I remember. You"d still be there if she had not needed your service. She has done nothing to recommend me to the king, on the contrary. And George, she favors you, but are you one shilling the richer than when she came to the throne? Did you not do as well when she was his mistress?"
"This is not a matter of favor but a matter of life and death," George said hotly.
"As soon as she bears a son her position is secure."
"But he can"t make a son!" George shouted. "He couldn"t make a son on Katherine, he cannot make one on her. He is all but impotent! That"s why she has been going mad with fear..."
There was a deadly silence. "G.o.d forgive you for putting all of us in such danger," my uncle said coldly. "It"s treason to say such a thing. I did not hear it. You did not say it. Now go."
William helped me to my feet and the three of us went slowly from the room. On the threshold George spun around, about to complain, but the door silently closed in his face before he could speak.
Anne did not wake until the middle of the morning and then she had a raging temperature. I went to find the king. The court was packing to move to Greenwich Palace and he was away from the noise and the bustle, playing bowls in the garden, surrounded by his favorites, the Seymours very prominent among them. I was glad to see George at his side, looking confident and smiling, and my uncle among the watchers. My father offered the king a wager at good odds and the king took the bet. I waited till the last ball had been rolled and my father, laughing, handed over twenty gold pieces, before I stepped forward and made my curtsy.
The king scowled to see me. I saw at once that neither Boleyn girl was in favor. "Lady Mary," he said coolly.
"Your Majesty, I am come from my sister, the queen."
He nodded.
"She asks that the court delay the move to Greenwich for a week until she has perfectly recovered her health."
"It"s too late," he said. "She can join us there when she is well."
"They have hardly started packing yet."
"It"s too late for her," he corrected me. There was an instantly suppressed little mutter around the bowling green. "It is too late for her to ask favors of me. I know what I know."
I hesitated. A very strong part of me wanted to take him by the collar of his jacket and shake the fat selfishness out of him. I had left my sister sick after a nightmarish childbirth and here was her husband, taking his ease, playing bowls in the sunshine and warning the court that she was far from his favor.
"Then you must know that she, and I, and all we Howards have never swerved for a moment from our love and loyalty to you," I said. I saw my uncle"s scowl at the claim of kinship.
"Let us hope you are not all tested," the king said unpleasantly. Then he turned from me and beckoned to Jane Seymour. Modestly, eyes downcast, she tiptoed forward from the queen"s ladies.
"Walk with me?" he asked in a very different voice.
She curtsied as if it were too much of an honor for her even to speak, and then laid her little hand on his bejeweled sleeve and they walked off together, the court falling into line at a discreet distance behind them.
The court was buzzing with rumors which George and I, working alone, could not deny. Once it had been a hanging offense to say one word against Anne. Now there were songs and jokes about her flirtatious court circle, and scandalous insinuations about her inability to carry a child.
"Why doesn"t Henry silence them?" I asked of William. "G.o.d knows he has the power of the law to do so."
He shook his head. "He is allowing them to say anything," he said. "They say she has done everything but sell her soul to the devil."
"Fools!" I stormed.