The Taming of the Queen

I step closer so that we are mouth to ear. ‘This is treason, Nan. Even I know it. You’re mad to say such a thing to me, just before my wedding day.’

‘I’d be mad if I didn’t. Kateryn, I swear to you that he can’t make anything but miscarriages and stillbirths.’

I lean back to see her grave face. ‘This is bad,’ I say.

‘I know.’

‘You think I will miscarry?’

‘Or worse.’

‘What on earth could be worse?’

‘If you were to birth a child, it might be a monster.’

‘A what?’

She is as close as if we were confessing, her eyes on my face. ‘It’s the truth. We were told never to speak of it. It’s a deep secret. No-one who was there has ever spoken of it.’

‘You’d better speak now,’ I say grimly.

‘Queen Anne Boleyn – her death sentence was not the gossip and slander and lies they collected against her: all that nonsense about dozens of lovers. Anne Boleyn gave birth to her own fate. Her death sentence was the little monster.’

‘She had a little monster?’

‘She miscarried something malformed, and the midwives were hired spies.’

‘Spies?’

‘They went at once to the king with what they had seen, what had been birthed into their waiting hands. It was not a child born before its time, not a normal child. It was half fish, half beast. It was a monster with a face cleaved in two and a spine flayed open like something they might show pickled in a jar at a village fair.’

I tear my hands from hers and cover my ears. ‘My God, Nan . . . I don’t want to know. I don’t want to hear this.’

She pulls my hands away and shakes me. ‘As soon as they told the king, he took it as proof that she had used witchcraft to conceive, that she had lain with her brother to get a hell-born child.’

I look at her blankly.

‘And Cromwell got him the evidence to prove it,’ she said. ‘Cromwell could have proved that Our Lady was a drunk; that man had a sworn witness for anything. But he was commanded by the king. The king would not let anyone think that he could give a woman a monster.’ She looks at my horrified face and presses on: ‘So you think on this: if you miscarry, or if you give him a damaged babe, he will say the same about you, and send you to your death.’

‘He can’t say such a thing,’ I say flatly. ‘I’m not another Queen Anne. I’m not going to lie with my brother and dozens of others. We heard of her even in Richmondshire. We knew what she did. Nobody could say such a thing of me.’

‘He would rather believe that he was cuckolded ten times over than admit that there is anything wrong with him. What you heard in Richmondshire – the king’s cuckolding – was announced by the king himself. You knew it, because he made sure that everyone knew it. He made sure the country knew that she was at fault. You don’t understand, Kateryn. He has to be perfect, in every way. He cannot bear that anyone should think, even for a moment, that he is in the wrong. He cannot be seen as less than perfect. His wife has to be perfect too.’

I look as blank as I feel. ‘This is hogswill.’

‘It is true,’ Nan exclaims. ‘When Queen Katherine miscarried he blamed it on God and said it was a false marriage. When Queen Anne gave birth to the monster he blamed it on witchcraft. If Jane had lost her baby he would have blamed it on her, she knew it, we all knew it. And if you miscarry it will be your fault, not his. And you will be punished.’

‘But what can I do?’ I ask fiercely. ‘I don’t know what I can do? How can I possibly prevent it?’

In answer she brings a little purse from the pocket of her gown and shows it to me.

‘What’s that?’

‘This is fresh rue,’ she says. ‘You drink a tea made from it after he has had you. Every time. It prevents a child before it is even formed.’

I don’t take the little purse she holds out to me. I put out one finger and poke it.

‘This is a sin,’ I say uncertainly. ‘It must be a sin. This is the sort of rubbish that the old women peddle behind the hiring fair. It probably doesn’t even work.’

‘It’s a sin to walk knowingly towards your own destruction,’ she corrects me. ‘And you will do that if you don’t prevent a conception. If you give birth to a monster, as Queen Anne did, he will name you as a witch and kill you for it. His pride won’t allow him another dead baby. Everyone would know it was a fault in him if another wife, his sixth healthy wife, birthed a monster or lost a baby. Think! It would be his ninth loss.’

‘Eight dead babies?’ I can see a family of ghosts, a nursery of corpses.

She nods in silence and holds out the purse of rue. In silence, I take it.

‘They say it smells awful. We’ll get the maid to bring you a jug of hot water in the morning, and brew it ourselves, alone.’

‘This is terrible,’ I say quietly. ‘I’ve given up my own desires –’ I have a pulse like a stab of lust in the belly when I think of my own desires – ‘and now you – my own sister – give me poison to drink.’

She lays her warm cheek to mine. ‘You have to live,’ she says with quiet passion. ‘Sometimes, at court, a woman has to do anything to survive. Anything. You have to survive.’