Free Cor Rotto: A novel of Catherine Carey by Adrienne Dillard Page B

taking full advantage of its beauty.
    Nan shook her head. “I cannot fathom. I have heard rumours that they were friends while Katherine was at the dowager duchess’s home. Maybe we should ask Mistress Bulmer, she lived with her at Lambeth. Though I suppose I would worry more about the amount of time she spends with Thomas Culpeper.”
    Stunned, I gave her a surprised look.
    “Oh Catherine,” she said. “Don’t act so surprised. We have all noticed the frequency of Master Culpeper’s visits and the coy way in which Katherine speaks to him. We are not blind. She flaunts it. I believe she thinks that she is safe because the king loves her so much. Let her believe that and sign her own execution warrant.”
    “Nan, are you not worried about being sent from Court? Lord Lisle is still in the Tower and your mother and sisters under house-arrest. Where will you go?”
    She smiled and patted me on the hand. “I have served my third queen in only my fifth year at Court. As long as we stay above reproach, there will be yet another queen to serve.”
    Then she guffawed. “If only the king had married me after Queen Jane. He would never have found himself in this mess.”
    “Nan, you would have made an excellent queen,” I said. I sincerely meant it.

London, Hampton Court:
November 1541 – February 1542
    The queen had been found out without my intervention. Archbishop Cranmer courageously presented the king with the evidence laid against his wife after a service in the chapel. The roar of anger escaping His Majesty could be heard throughout the palace. After a week of being locked up with his councillors, the king made haste down the Thames to Westminster so he would not have to look his queen in the face again. That was his way. No goodbye, no raging, no cold looks. He left Katherine just as he left her cousin that May morning five years ago, with no warning of what was about to befall her. He passed me in the corridor on his way to the river and I could see the red rims around his eyes. I felt pity for him. For once he was the victim. I wondered if he believed that this time God truly did punish him because he had spent so much time accusing the Lord of doing just that in his last marriages.
    Whatever love the king had for Katherine was gone now and she was treated accordingly. The yeoman guards set up outside her bedchamber and she became a virtual prisoner. The only ladies allowed to serve her were Lady Rochford, Mistress Tylney and Lady Rutland. I suspected that Lady Rutland and Mistress Tylney were there to spy on Jane and Katherine once I learned they had both already testified against her. As we shuffled out of Katherine’s rooms, the muffled sounds coming from the bedchamber grew from quiet murmurs to sobs and then wailing. The keening sound of Katherine’s cries echoed in my ears long after that night.
    I spent much of the next weeks pacing. Katherine had been sent to Syon Abbey to await her trial and Lady Rochford, Culpeper and Dereham had been dragged to the Tower. Dereham had taken Katherine’s maidenhead and believed they had been pre-contracted. It must have been quite the shock for him to come back to England and find that the woman he believed to be his wife was now married to the king, and he could not help promoting himself when the chance arose.
    The terror on Jane’s face as she marched out of the palace with the guards set me on edge. I sobbed when word came from the Tower that she had gone mad. I wanted desperately to visit her but Francis forbade me. As much as I wanted to comfort my aunt, I knew he was right. I was ashamed that after railing about the Howard and Boleyn families’ abandonment of Anne for so many years, I was now abandoning Jane. I was just as guilty as they were.
    Katherine was finally moved to the Tower after the expected pronunciation of guilt. In December, Dereham and Culpeper were taken to Tyburn to die. At the last moment, Culpeper’s sentence was commuted to beheading