I nodded assent, looking round the cobbled outer courtyard. I had been there briefly before, in Lord Cromwell’s time. To the right was the wall of the loggia surrounding the King’s Privy Garden. The buildings on the other three sides were magnificent, the walls either chequered in black and white, or painted with fantastic beasts and plants in black relief to stand out more against white walls. Beyond the Privy Garden, to the south, I could see a long range of three-storey buildings reaching along to the Great Gate, which I remembered were the King’s private apartments. Ahead of us was a building fronted with ornately decorated pillars. More guards stood at the door, which was ornamented with the royal arms. Behind soared the high roof of the chapel.
The courtyard was crowded, mostly with young men. Some were as richly dressed as the three at the gate, wearing slashed and brightly decorated doublets and hose in all colours, and huge exaggerated codpieces. Others wore the dark robes of senior officials, gold chains of office round their necks, attended by clerks carrying papers. Servants in the King’s livery of green and white, HR embroidered on their doublets, mingled with the throng, while servants in workaday clothes from the kitchens or stables darted between them. A young woman accompanied by a group of female servants passed by. She wore a fashionable farthingale dress; the conical skirt, stitched with designs of flowers, was wide at the bottom but narrowed to an almost impossibly small waist. One or two of the would-be courtiers doffed their hats to her, seeking notice, but she ignored them. She looked preoccupied.
‘That is Lady Maud Lane,’ Cecil said. ‘The Queen’s cousin and chief gentlewoman.’
‘She does not seem happy.’
‘She has had much to preoccupy her of late,’ he said sadly. Cecil looked at the courtiers. ‘Place-hunters,’ he said. ‘Office-seekers, opportunists, even confidence tricksters.’ He smiled wryly. ‘But when I first qualified I, too, sought out high contacts. My father was a Yeoman of the Robes, so I started with connections, as one needs to.’
‘You also seek to rise?’ I asked him.
‘Only on certain terms, certain principles.’ His eyes locked with mine. ‘Certain loyalties.’ He was silent a moment, then said, ‘Look. Master Secretary Paget.’ I saw the man with heavy, slab-like features, brown beard and slit of a downturned mouth, who had been at the burning, traverse the courtyard. He was attended by several black-robed servants, one of whom read a paper to him as they walked, bending close to his ear.
‘Mark him, Serjeant Shardlake,’ Cecil said. ‘He is closer to the King than anyone now.’
‘I thought that was Bishop Gardiner.’
He smiled thinly. ‘Gardiner whispers in his ear. But William Paget makes sure the administration works, discusses policy with the King, controls patronage.’
I looked at him. ‘You make him sound like Cromwell.’
Cecil shook his head. ‘Oh, no. Paget discusses policy with the King, but goes only so far as the King wishes, no further. He never tries to rule him. That was Cromwell’s mistake, and Anne Boleyn’s. It killed them both. The great ones of the realm have learned better now.’ He sighed heavily. ‘Or should have.’
He led me across the cobbles. Two burly men in the King’s livery, each with a ragged boy in his grasp, passed us, went to the gate, and threw them outside with blows about the head. Cecil said disapprovingly, ‘Such ragamuffins are always getting in, claiming to be the servant of a servant of some junior courtier. There aren’t enough porters to throw them all out.’
‘There’s no security?’ I asked in surprise.
‘In the outer court, very little. But inside – that, you will see, is a different matter.’
He led me across to the door bearing the King’s arms. Two Yeomen of the Guard carrying long sharp halberds stood there in their distinctive red doublets decorated with golden Tudor roses. Cecil approached one and said, ‘Master Cecil and lawyer for Lord Parr.’ The yeoman marked his list, and we passed inside.
WE ENTERED a large hall. Several men stood there on guard. Their clothes were even more magnificent than those of the yeomen; black silk gowns, and caps with large black feathers, their brims embroidered with gold. Round their necks each wore a large golden badge on a chain. All were tall, and powerfully built. They carried sharp poleaxes. This must be the King’s personal guard, the Gentlemen Pensioners.
The walls were decorated with bright tapestries, painted wooden chests standing by the walls. And then I saw, covering the whole of one wall, a picture I had heard of, painted last year by one of the late Master Holbein’s disciples: The King and His Family. It showed an inner room of the palace; in the centre, the King, solid, red-bearded and stern, sat on a throne under a richly patterned cloth of estate, wearing a broad-shouldered doublet in gold and black. He rested one hand on the shoulder of a little boy, Prince Edward, his only son. On his other side Edward’s mother, Henry’s long-dead third wife Jane Seymour, sat with hands folded demurely in her lap. Standing one on each side of the royal couple were a young lady and an adolescent girl: Lady Mary, Catherine of Aragon’s daughter, and Lady Elizabeth, daughter of Anne Boleyn, both restored to the succession two years before. Behind each of the young women was an open doorway giving onto a garden. In the doorway behind Mary, a little woman with a vacant expression on her face was visible, while behind Elizabeth stood a short man with a hunched back, a monkey in doublet and cap on his shoulder. I stood for a second, enraptured by the magnificence of the painting, then Cecil touched my arm and I turned to follow him.
The next chamber, too, contained a fair number of richly dressed young men, standing around or sitting on chests. There seemed no end of them. One was arguing with a guard who stood before the only inner door. ‘There will be trouble, sir,’ he said hotly, ‘if I do not get to see Lord Lisle’s steward today. He wishes to see me.’
The guard looked back impassively. ‘If he does, we’ll be told. Till then, you can stop cluttering up the King’s Guard Chamber.’
We approached. The guard turned to us with relief. Cecil spoke quietly: ‘Lord Parr awaits us within.’
‘I’ve been told.’ The guard studied me briefly. ‘No weapons?’ he asked. ‘No dagger?’
‘Certainly not,’ I replied. I often carried a dagger, but I knew weapons were forbidden within the royal palaces. Without another word, the big man opened the door just wide enough for us to pass through.
AHEAD OF US WAS A broad flight of stairs, covered with thick rush matting that deadened the sound of our footsteps as we ascended. I marvelled at the decorations on the walls; everything a riot of colour and intricate detail. There were brightly painted shields displaying the Tudor arms and heraldic beasts, intertwined leaves of plants painted on the walls between, and areas of linenfold panelling – wood intricately carved to resemble folded cloth – painted in various colours. More Gentlemen Pensioners stood guard at intervals on the stairs, staring impassively ahead. I knew we were approaching the Royal Apartments on the first floor. We had passed out of the ordinary world.
At the top of the stairs a man stood waiting for us, alone. He was elderly, broad-shouldered, and carried a staff. He wore a black robe bearing the Queen’s badge and there was a gold chain of unusual magnificence round his neck. The hair beneath his jewelled cap was white, as was his little beard. His face was pale and lined. Cecil bowed deeply and I followed. Cecil introduced us. ‘Serjeant Shardlake: the Queen’s Lord Chancellor, her uncle Lord Parr of Horton.’
Lord Parr nodded to Cecil. ‘Thank you, William.’ Despite his age, his voice was deep and clear. Cecil bowed again and walked back down the stairs, a trim little figure amidst all the magnificence. A servant passed us, hurrying silently down the steps after him.
Lord Parr looked at me with sharp blue eyes. I knew that when the Queen’s father died young, this man, his brother, had been a mainstay of support to his bereaved wife and children; he had been an associate of the King in his young days and had helped advance the Parr family at court. He must be near seventy now.
‘Well,’ he said at length. ‘So you are the lawyer my niece praises so highly.’
‘Her majesty is kind.’
‘I know the great service you did her before she became Queen.’ He looked at me seriously. ‘Now she asks another,’ he added. ‘Has she your complete and unquestioning loyalty?’
‘Total and entire,’ I said.
‘I warn you now, this is a dirty, secret and dangerous matter.’ Lord Parr took a deep breath. ‘You will learn things it is potentially fatal to know. The Queen has told me you prefer life as a private man, so let us have that out in the open now.’ He looked at me for a long moment. ‘Knowing that, will you still help her?’
My answer came immediately, without thought or hesitation. ‘I will.’
‘Why?’ he asked. ‘I know you are no man of religion, though you were once.’ His voice became stern. ‘You are, like so many in these days, a Laodicean, one who dissembles on matters of faith to keep quiet and safe.’
I took a deep breath. ‘I will aid the Queen because she is the most good and honourable lady I have ever met, and has done naught but good to all.’
‘Has she?’ Lord Parr, unexpectedly, gave a sardonic smile. He looked at me for a long moment, then nodded decisively. ‘Then let us go on, to the Queen’s apartments.’
He led me down a narrow corridor, past a magnificent Venetian vase on a table covered with a red turkey-cloth. ‘We must pass through the King’s Presence Chamber, then the Queen’s. There will be more young courtiers waiting to see the great ones of the realm,’ he added wearily. Then, suddenly, he paused and raised a hand. We were by a small, narrow mullioned window, open against the heat of the day. Lord Parr looked quickly round to see if anyone was in the offing, then laid a hand on my arm and spoke, quietly and urgently. ‘Now, quick, while we have the chance. You should see this, if you are to understand all that has happened. Look through the window from the side, he does not care to be seen thus. Quick now!’
I looked out and saw a little courtyard covered with flagstones. Two of the sturdy, black-robed Gentlemen Pensioners were helping an immense figure, clad in a billowing yellow silk caftan with a collar of light fur, to walk along, supporting him under the arms. I saw with a shock that it was the King. I had seen him close to twice before – during his Great Progress to York in 1541, when he had been a magnificent-looking figure; and again on his entry to Portsmouth last year. I had been shocked then at his deterioration; he had become hugely fat, and had looked worn with pain. But the man I saw now was the very wreck of a human being. His huge legs, made larger still by swathes of bandages, were splayed out like a gigantic child’s as he took each slow and painful step. Every movement sent his immense body wobbling and juddering beneath the caftan. His face was a great mass of fat, the little mouth and tiny eyes almost hidden in its folds, the once beaky nose full and fleshy. He was bare-headed and, I saw, almost bald; his remaining hair, like his sparse beard, was quite grey. His face, though, was brick-red and sweating from the effort of walking round the little courtyard. As I watched, the King suddenly thrust up his arms in an impatient gesture, making me jump back instinctively. Lord Parr frowned and put a finger to his lips. I glanced out again as the King spoke, in that strangely squeaky voice I remembered from York: ‘Let me go! I can make my own way to the door, God rot you!’ The guards stepped aside and the King took a few clumsy steps. Then he stopped, exclaiming, ‘My leg! My ulcer! Hold me, you clods!’ His face had gone ashen with pain. He gasped with relief as the men once again took him under the arms, supporting him.
Lord Parr stepped aside, gesturing me to follow. Quietly, in a strangely toneless voice, he said, ‘There he is. The great Henry. I never thought the day would come when I would pity him.’
‘Cannot he walk unaided at all?’ I whispered.
‘A mere few paces. A little more on a good day. His legs are a mass of ulcers and swollen veins. He rots as he goes. He has to be carried round the palace in a wheeled chair sometimes.’
‘What do his doctors say?’ I spoke nervously, remembering it was treason to foretell the death of the King.
‘He was very ill in March, the doctors thought he would die, and yet, somehow, he survived. But they say another fever, or the closing of his large ulcer – ’ Lord Parr looked round. ‘The King is dying. His doctors know it. So does everyone at court. And so does he. Though of course he will not admit it.’
‘Dear God.’
‘He is in near-constant pain, his eyes are bad, and he will not moderate his appetite; he says he is always hungry. Eating is the only pleasure he has left.’ He gave me a direct look. ‘The only pleasure,’ he repeated. ‘It has been for some time. Apart from a little riding, and that grows more difficult.’ Still speaking softly, and watching lest someone come, he said, ‘And Prince Edward is not yet nine. The council think of only one thing – who will have the rule when the time comes? The kites are circling, Serjeant Shardlake. That you should know. Now come, before someone sees us by this window.’
He led me on, round a little bend to another guarded door. A low hubbub of voices could be heard from within. From behind, through that open window, I heard a little cry of pain.
Chapter Five
THE GUARD ON DUTY recognized Lord Parr and opened the door for him. I knew that the Royal Apartments were organized on the same principle in each palace: a series of chambers, with access to each more and more restricted as one approached the King’s and Queen’s personal rooms at the heart. The King’s Presence Chamber was the most colourfully extravagant room yet in its decoration; one wall was covered with a tapestry of the Annunciation of the Virgin, in which all the figures were dressed in Roman costume, the colours so bright they almost hurt my eyes.
The room was full of young courtiers, as Parr had predicted. They stood talking in groups, leaning against the walls; some even sat at a trestle table playing cards. Having got this far through bribery or connections, they would probably stay all day. They looked up at us, their satin sleeves shimmering in the bright light from the windows. A little man dressed in a green hooded gown entered behind me and crossed the room. Small, sad-faced, and hunchbacked like me, I recognized the King’s fool, Will Somers, from the painting in the Guard Chamber. His little monkey sat on his shoulder, picking nits from its master’s brown hair. The courtiers watched as he walked confidently across to one of two inner doors and was allowed through.
‘Sent for to cheer the King with his jests when he returns from that painful walk, no doubt,’ Lord Parr said sadly. ‘We go through the other door, to the Queen’s Presence Chamber.’
One of the young men detached himself from the wall and approached us, removing his cap and bowing deeply. ‘My Lord Parr, I am related to the Queen’s cousins, the Throckmortons. I wondered if there may be a place for my sister as a maid of honour—’
‘Not now.’ Lord Parr waved him away brusquely, as we approached the door to the Queen’s Presence Chamber. Again the guard allowed us through with a bow.
We were in another, slightly smaller version of the Presence Chamber, a group of tapestries representing the birth of Christ decorating the walls. There were only a few young would-be courtiers here, and several Yeomen of the Guard, all wearing the Queen’s badge. The supplicants turned eagerly when Lord Parr came in, but he frowned and shook his head.
He led me to a group of half a dozen richly dressed ladies playing cards at a table in a large window-bay, and we bowed to them. All were expensively made-up, their faces white with ceruse, red spots on their cheeks. All wore silken farthingales, the fronts open to show the brightly embroidered foreparts and huge detachable sleeves, richly embroidered in contrasting colours. Each gown would have cost hundreds of pounds in labour and material, and I considered how uncomfortable such attire must be on a hot summer’s day. A spaniel wandered around, hoping for scraps from the dishes of sweetmeats on tables beside them as they conversed. I sensed tension in the air.
‘Sir Thomas Seymour was at Whitehall th
e other day,’ one of the ladies said. ‘He looks more handsome than ever.’
‘Did you hear how he routed those pirates in the Channel in May?’ another asked.
A small, pretty woman in her thirties tapped the table to gain the dog’s attention. ‘Heel, Gardiner,’ she called. It trotted over, panting at her expectantly. She looked at the other women and smiled roguishly. ‘Now, little Gardiner, nothing for you today. Lie down and be quiet.’ The dog was named for Bishop Gardiner, I realized; an act of mockery. The other women did not laugh, but rather looked anxious. One, older than the others, shook her head. ‘Duchess Frances, is it meet to mock a man of the cloth so?’
‘If he deserves it, Lady Carew.’ I looked at the older woman. This must be the wife of Admiral Carew, who had died with so many others on the Mary Rose. She had seen the ship go down while standing on shore with the King.
‘But is it safe?’ I saw the speaker was the Queen’s cousin, Lady Lane, whom Cecil had pointed out to me in the courtyard.
‘Well asked, daughter,’ Lord Parr said brusquely.
One of the other ladies gave me a haughty look. She turned to Lord Parr. ‘Is the Queen to have her own hunchback fool now, like his majesty? I thought she was content with Jane. Is this why we ladies have been sent out of the Privy Chamber?’
‘Now, my Lady Hertford,’ Lord Parr chided. He bowed to the ladies and led me towards the door the servant had passed through. ‘Malaperts,’ he muttered. ‘Were it not for the loose tongues of the Queen’s ladies we might not be in this trouble.’ The guard stood to attention. Parr spoke to him in a low voice. ‘No one else in the Queen’s Privy Chamber till we finish our business.’ The man bowed, opened the door and Lord Parr ushered me in.