Queen's Gambit: A Novel of Katherine Parr (27 page)

‘Do you ever wonder, Anne, if it was
worth it?’

‘I believe it
was
, Kit. Truly
I do.’

Katherine sometimes envies her
sister’s certainty about things. ‘Even the horror?’

‘Yes, even that. For without that our
new world would not be born. And you, Kit, surely you don’t doubt it, after all
you went through at the hands of the Catholic rebels.’

‘It is not doubt I feel. No, it is
more like a …’ She struggles to find the right word. ‘A
sadness.’

There is a shriek of laughter and Elizabeth
runs across the minstrels’ gallery with Robert Dudley in pursuit.

‘That girl is nothing but
trouble,’ spits Anne. ‘Have you seen how she winds Robert up like a
spindle?’

‘She has a wild streak, it is true.
But she is good at heart. You are too hard on her, Anne.’

‘She has you around her finger, too,
then. She’s trouble, I tell you.’

‘She’s misunderstood.’

‘And what about Meg? Elizabeth took
that boy from under her nose. He was meant for Meg but he can’t see beyond that
little minx.’

‘Meg didn’t like him.’
Katherine, her annoyance rising, objects to Anne’s choice of words.
‘Besides, Meg is unwell, that is all. She hasn’t been able –’

She is interrupted by the entrance of page
who hands Anne a letter.

Anne makes a little noise of excitement as
she tears open the seal, scans the words. ‘Kit, this is news indeed.’ She
screws
up the paper, throwing it on the fire and watching it burn,
then takes the poker and pushes an escaped fragment back into the flames. Leaning in
close, she says quietly, ‘The astrologer is to visit this very evening.’

It needs no explaining. They have been
planning it for weeks; Anne Askew, who has abandoned her husband to preach the new
gospel, is coming here to Eltham. Just the thought of this woman sends a thrill through
Katherine – a woman of such courage. She has sent monies, anonymously, to fund her
gospelling. Anne Askew’s name is whispered in reverence among the reformers; she
is known for her sermons refuting transubstantiation, and has distributed forbidden
books. She is everything a woman shouldn’t be, and Katherine so admires her for
it.

Gardiner has talked of her in a recent
council meeting. ‘That cursed heretic,’ he has called her. ‘This is
the outcome of the education of women. I will have her burned if it is the last thing I
do.’

But Anne Askew has slipped through his
fingers. She has powerful friends, and one of them is the Duchess of Suffolk. Cat has
organized the visit in utmost secrecy, taking the greatest risk on her own shoulders,
careful to keep all but the basic facts from Katherine. She is to be brought here to
Eltham in the guise of an astrologer. No one must know, just Katherine, Cat and Sister
Anne. Even Huicke has been kept in the dark, lest it somehow slip out to his
loose-mouthed lover. The Queen cannot be seen to be involved with such heresy. Everyone,
even the servants, must think she is consulting an astrologer, for the good of the
country, to see if more victories will follow for England, or to see if she will
conceive a son. Let them think what they like, as long as it is not the truth.

‘Anne,’ she whispers. ‘It is
really happening.’

The secret throbs inside her, the danger of
it making her feel alive, closer to God.

Katherine is in the hall with Cat Brandon
when she hears her brother’s voice.

‘Make way for the Queen’s
astrologer.’

She had not known that Will was to accompany
Anne Askew. Cat had told her next to nothing, said it was better that way. She hears
hooves clattering into the yard. She rushes towards the doors to greet him but Cat grabs
her arm, holding her back.

‘Someone will notice your excitement.
It is written all over your face. You need to better accustom yourself to
subterfuge,’ says Cat, leading her away to her privy chamber.

She is right, Katherine is buzzing with it
all.

Cat hustles everyone out. ‘The Queen
will consult her astrologer alone,’ she announces.

The women leave their needlework and their
books and wander out to sit near the fire in the hall. Will strides in then, with a tall
figure beside him, tall as a man, enshrouded in a cloak so even the face is in shadow.
When the cloak is thrown off Anne Askew stands before them in man’s boots,
man’s hose, man’s doublet, man’s cap – and quite a convincing fellow
she is. But she drops into a deep woman’s curtsy. Her face is open, her wide-set
eyes warm.

‘I am glad, Highness, to have this
opportunity to show my gratitude for your support,’ she says quietly.

Will steps forward and pulls both his
sisters to him in a double embrace, and for an instant she is not Queen any more but
just one of Will Parr’s sisters.

His eyes are ablaze. ‘You’ve
told no one?’

‘No one,’ Katherine confirms.

He produces a large astrological chart,
unrolling it across the table. ‘Just in case,’ he says.

God only knows where he found such a
thing.

‘I shall guard the door,’ he
adds. ‘That other door, where does it lead?’

‘Only to my bedchamber,’
Katherine replies.

‘And there is no other entry to your
bedchamber?’

She shakes her head, the danger of it all
suddenly rubbing up against her excitement; they could burn for this. The three of them
– Sister Anne, Cat and herself – gather on the hearth cushions to listen.

Anne Askew pulls a Bible out from beneath
her doublet and taps it, saying, ‘This is it. This is the word of God. We need
nothing more … no unwritten verities to govern the Church.’

Katherine watches her as she speaks. She
says nothing new but it is the way in which she says it, her fervour, her belief, that
crystallizes it. How could anyone listen to her and not know in their heart that she
speaks the truth?

She talks of the mass. ‘How can man
say he makes God? Nowhere in the Bible does it say that man can make God. It is the
baker that makes the bread and they would have us believe that that baker makes God? It
is a nonsense. If that same bread was left a month it would turn to mould. There is the
proof that it is nothing more than bread. It is all here.’ She takes
Katherine’s hand in hers. ‘I have been chosen by God to spread this gospel
and I am blessed to be here imparting God’s word to the Queen.’

‘It is I who am blessed, Mistress
Askew.’

The woman shuffles through the pages of her
plain Bible, seeking a passage, finding it with an ‘ah’. She quotes a line,
running her finger beneath it, ‘ “Behold the lamb of
God.” If the Catholics do not believe that Christ is indeed a lamb, then why do
they insist on such literal translation of “this is my body”?’ She
taps her Bible again, her eyes shining. ‘This book is the light that will lead us,
this alone.’

When her whispered sermon is done, Katherine
hands her a purse.

‘There will be more, if you so need
it. Continue your most excellent work, Mistress Askew.’

They murmur together, ‘Scripture
alone, faith alone, grace alone, Christ alone, glory to God alone.’

And then she is gone, whisked away by Will,
shrouded in her cloak.

‘What said your star-gazer?’
asks Mary later. ‘Are you to bear a son for England?’

‘Oh, you know these people,’
Katherine replies. ‘They talk in riddles – full of ambiguity. But I hope, Mary, I
hope for an heir.’ She is surprised at the ease with which she finds she can lie,
doesn’t like it. ‘And I pray for it,’ she adds.

She is working on Mary, chipping away at her
faith, hoping to convert her. Perhaps some of Elizabeth’s belief will rub off on
her. They seem to become closer daily. Mary is intelligent enough but she hasn’t
the spark of Elizabeth with her formidable mix of the frivolous and the sanguine. In her
heart Katherine believes that, of the three, Elizabeth is the one who would make the
best monarch, though none would agree with her. Edward is so very stiff, while Mary is
overly governed by her emotions, more volatile than her sister, and never seems able to
shake off her whiff of tragedy.

Katherine does her best to draw Mary into
the theological talk that often goes on well into the night when her company
huddles in about the hearth, wondering aloud about things, but
Mary’s faith will not be questioned. For her things are as they are and always
have been. She has an intractable streak that will not be moved. It is as if she is
rooted to the old beliefs in memory of her mother, as if it would be a betrayal to
entertain anything else. Her loyalty is blind and Katherine sometimes wonders whether
that will end up being her salvation or her downfall. In the elevated place they inhabit
the notion of downfall is always skulking in the shadows.

But Katherine’s new-found evangelical
tenacity, spurred on by Anne Askew’s visit, is a match for Mary’s mulish
nature and she eventually persuades her to help with a new project. It is a translation
into English of Erasmus’s
Paraphrases
. Erasmus is not forbidden, after
all. But in English … Udall had given her the idea. If Katherine is really
honest with herself, it had appealed to her vanity, to publish something. It had seemed
not enough to be just another childless Queen, not when there have been so many of them,
and most barely remembered. She thinks often of Copernicus and the solar eclipse,
symbols of the great changes taking place, seeing God’s hand in these things, and
she wants to leave something behind on this earth, a legacy, to be seen by history as
one of the torch-bearers for the new religion. The thought of Anne Askew drives her on.
She
will be remembered for her gospelling. Katherine, then, will be
remembered for bringing the great writings, the new ideas, to people in their own
language. One day she will write other books, her own ideas. But she scarcely even
allows herself to think of this, it is so very unwomanly, so very upside down. So
instead she tells herself that it is her obligation as Queen and as an educated woman to
use her learning for the greater good.

This is what she tells Mary too, appealing
to the girl’s sense
of duty, reminding her of the high and
unwavering esteem her father has for Erasmus. And Mary has her vanity too, wants to be
seen for her depth.

‘Only
you
have the subtlety
of mind to take on a work such as this,’ Katherine says, watching Mary’s
fingers worrying at the rosary that hangs from her girdle, which was once her
mother’s. She has her father’s hands and Katherine sees what a curse it is
for a girl to be forever held up to her sister when that sister is Elizabeth, who has
hands like pretty finches and who has inherited the unassailable magnetism of her
father. Mary has to make do with the worst of him – his stubby fingers and volatile
temper, and those unsettling eyes. What Katherine is really saying to her is, I’m
choosing
you
and not Elizabeth for this task.

‘I will keep the Book of John for you.
It is the best of them and will suit the intricacies of your mind, Mary.’

Mary’s head slowly moves from side to
side, and all Katherine can hear is the September rain pelting at the window. But then
she looks up with her father’s eyes – like beads – and says, ‘I will do
it.’

Katherine has the feeling at last of
gathering the lost soul of her eldest stepdaughter in. She knows that in time Mary will
come round, and that this translation will work its way into her, that it will be a
release for her from the tortured memories of her mother, from the grip of Rome. The
Book of John will be her tabula rasa.

Katherine and the children have made paper
boats and are floating them on the moat to see which one stays up the longest,
contriving always that Edward’s should be the winner. He is learning from an early
age that the world conspires magically to favour him. After all, he will be King one day
and that is the way of things for kings. The month has worn on,
and after days of relentless rain it is at last one of those bright cold autumn days
that seems to make the colour of everything all the more intense. They are well wrapped
against the chill, in furs that Katherine has had sent from London. She dispatched her
letters to the council early this morning. There has been nothing important to decide
since news came of the King’s victory, and she can feel her grip on things
slipping away as Henry’s return becomes imminent.

She prepares herself for a reunion with her
husband. Months away at war will have left him brimming with desire. She tries not to
think of it – performing her wifely duties. It makes her feel sick to the stomach.
Perhaps the effort of campaigning will have left him exhausted and incapable. She
notices Meg sitting apart on a stone bench, white as a statue, reading. Huicke has been
delayed but she seems a little better in any case.

It is Meg who first hears the horses.
‘A herald approaches,’ she calls, and they all stand to watch the moat
bridge, seeing the group of riders with the King’s banner flying above them.

So this is it, thinks Katherine. They are
here to announce the King’s return.

They pull up hard when they see that the
Queen stands there before them, and jump down from their horses, dropping on to their
knees. Formalities are exchanged and a letter is put into her hand. He wants to be
reunited at Otford. She will send the children away and take just Dot to serve her.
Otford is not a place she knows, but she thinks it once belonged to Cranmer, and is not,
she believes, one of the grand houses. It is a more modest place – more intimate, she
suspects – which is an indication of the King’s state of mind.

Katherine must gird herself once more and
become the
dutiful wife, must conjure up some counterfeit desire for
this husband of hers. Sometimes she feels little better than a Southwark jade with all
the acrobatics she must contrive to excite her husband – only
her
actions are
sanctioned by God.