Free Innocent Traitor by Alison Weir

Katherine up the stairs.
    Mrs. Ellen closes the toy chest, smooths her apron, seats herself in her chair by the fire, and takes up her mending.
    “You must not dwell on what has happened to the Queen, Jane,” she tells me.
    “It’s horrible.”
    “Horrible, but necessary, I daresay. She had been very silly and very wicked. She must have known the risks she was taking.”
    “But what had she done wrong?”
    Mrs. Ellen folds Katherine’s tiny smock, the tear in it hardly visible now. Her stitches are so minute you can hardly see them.
    “Come here, child, and stand at my knee.” She beckons, and I go to her, resting my hands on the soft holland cloth of her apron.
    “Mrs. Ellen, how did they cut off the Queen’s head?” I am bursting to know, yet fearful of the answer.
    “With an ax, Jane.”
    “Like the ax Perkin cuts the logs with?”
    “Like that, but bigger and sharper.”
    “Did it hurt?”
    “I’m sure she didn’t know anything about it. It’s a very quick death.”
    I pause. I want to ask another question, but I know it’s not polite to talk about naked people.
    “Why was the Queen in bed with her cousin?” I venture at last.
    “I expect because she considered herself to be his wife. Married people are allowed to sleep in the same bed.”
    “But she was married to the King. You can’t be married to two people at once, can you?”
    “No. But I have heard that Dereham said she had promised in front of others to marry him, and people consider that to be as good as a marriage itself. The Queen insisted she had never done so, but she must have been lying, for folk heard Dereham call her ‘wife,’ while she called him ‘husband.’”
    There is still something I do not understand.
    “But why did they go to bed together”—I feel my cheeks going red—“without any clothes on?”
    Mrs. Ellen does not answer at once. She thinks for a bit, then says, “Listen, child, God decrees that, when a man and woman marry, one of their duties is to have children. It is a sin to have children outside marriage, so marriage has been ordained by God so that children can be born and brought up in a godly manner and have a father and mother. Do you understand?”
    I nod.
    “Good. The Scriptures tell us that God made men and women differently. Their bodies are different. The husband plants a seed from his body inside his wife. Inside the tiny seed is a complete person, and it grows inside its mother’s womb, which is in her tummy. It stays there for nine months, then it is born. Now, to plant that seed, the husband and wife have to take their clothes off, otherwise it would be difficult.”
    “Don’t they mind?” I ask, my face afire.
    “Not at all. God has made it a pleasant business, although He has ordained that it be lawful only in holy wedlock. Now the Queen was unfaithful to the King because she received seed from other men. Thus she committed a terrible crime. She endangered the blood royal. That is treason, and the punishment is always death.”
    I remember something.
    “Did Anne Boleyn have her head chopped off too?”
    “Mercy me, how sharp you are!” cries Mrs. Ellen. “Yes, she did, my dear, and for much the same thing, but it must not be spoken of. It was a dreadful business, and a matter of too great grief to His Majesty and your parents.”
    “But who was Anne Boleyn?”
    “She was the King’s second wife, the mother of the Lady Elizabeth, your cousin.”
    I have heard a lot about my cousin Elizabeth. She is four years older than me and lives in her own palace with a lot of servants. She hardly ever goes to court because she is busy at her lessons. She is an uncommonly clever girl, my mother says.
    “The Lady Elizabeth must be very sad about her mother’s head being cut off,” I say. “Is the King a kind father to her?”
    Mrs. Ellen pats my hand. “At first, I heard, he could not bear the sight of her. She was only two when her mother died, and she was left in the care of her