there wasn’t.’
We stood staring at each other in the darkness. I was listening hard to his silence; I could hear he was thinking of saying something. Then it came, tentatively: ‘Some people would say there was.’
I held my temper, and was straight back at him: ‘Some people will say anything, but Wriothesley’s not asking them, is he. He’s asking you. What did you tell him?’
‘I said no, of course.’ Now making something of being offended that I should even ask.
If he and Kate had been pre-contracted - if they’d promised themselves to each other - then they’d have been as good as married, they’d have been married in all but name and the king’s marriage to her, coming afterwards, would be no marriage at all. Francis would be married to the queen, and - worse - he’d have known it. Kate would be a bigamist, and Francis would at the very least be an accessory to the hoodwinking of the king. So, the answer had to be no.
He and Kate had been a couple, at the duchess’s, and almost everyone in the household had, in the end, known it. Here, now, Maggie and Alice - our old housemates - knew. Francis and Kate had been lovers. He used to call her ‘wifey’, ‘wifelet’: it was a joke, but also it wasn’t. A joke and no joke. I said, ‘You should’ve been more discreet,’ regretting it even as I said it because it was ridiculously unhelpful and even in the shadows I detected him giving me a despairing look. Quickly, I changed the subject: ‘Kate doesn’t know, does she, that Wriothesley had you in?’ I didn’t think so because - I was pretty sure - if she knew, I’d know.
‘No.’
‘Good. Look, this is nothing, Francis, is it. They just have to check. If someone’s said something, they have to check, that’s all.’ And they’d have had to go to him because no one would dare approach the queen with it.
‘Who, though?’ he urged. ‘Who’s the someone? And why, and why now?’
That, I didn’t know and didn’t want to contemplate and it didn’t matter. What mattered was that there was no pre-contract and that Wriothesley was able to establish the fact. What a blessing, in a sense, that he was investigating the past, his attention turned hard from what was currently happening with Thomas Culpeper. This was the luckiest escape ever, for Kate. She should stop what she was doing with Thomas Culpeper, though; she really had to stop it and I was going to have to say so.
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
