The Autobiography of Henry VIII_ With Notes by His Fool, Will Somers - Margaret George [156]
It was a fine day for hawking. Cromwell and I needed to confer, and what better excuse to betake ourselves deep into the countryside and leave the palace spies and eavesdroppers behind? Crum had long been eager to show me his birds, and I had been eager to see the creatures for whom he actually seemed to have warm feelings.
He kept both peregrine falcons and goshawks. By law, one must be at least an earl to fly peregrines. I intended to make Cromwell Earl of Essex—depending on how well he served me in what he judiciously refrained from calling the King’s Greater Matter.
He asked me which I preferred to fly today, and I chose the peregrine. He chose its smaller mate, the tiercel. We took them from the hawk-house, hooded, upon our gloved wrists, and rode west beyond Richmond, until we were in the open country near Hampton. All the while the falcons were quiet, but Crum chattered on, uncharacteristically, about them.
“Her name is Athena. I had a difficult time training her to the lure. But she’s strong. She even takes big old hares. Isn’t afraid of them!” He made sweet clucking noises to her.
“Mars, here”—he lifted his wrist—“enjoys rook-hawking best. He loves to plummet out of the sky and fall on a rook, break its neck, let it drop, in a shower of black feathers. It’s a lovely sight!” he sighed. “Mars can even take a jackdaw. I get particular pleasure out of watching that. The ’daw tries to outfly him, but can’t.” Crum frowned. “Now, now!”
I noticed that Mars was flexing his talons, and one tip had almost penetrated Crum’s leather hawking glove. “I love to see them kill,” he said simply. “They are spectacular in flight and fight.”
“Would that we could emulate them,” I agreed. “Our best methods are clumsy by comparison, and there’s no sport in our executions.”
“A subject that, alas, calls for our attention.”
We reined in and prepared to slip the falcons. There was a flored ly. I had been forced to reveal the truth about Anne—Black Nan!—so that he would understand the force he was working against.
“Of witchcraft? No, Your Majesty.”
The sleek, dark shapes of the falcons, climbing quickly above us, were breathtaking.
“But she is a witch! Why can you not find the evidence? Then—execution will be demanded.”
“I thought to discover it. I assumed there would be certain potions, powders, books. But all I found was ... adultery.” He looked apologetic. “Her serving-woman, Lady Wingfield, has told me a strange tale ... of men hidden inside closets in the Queen’s bedchamber, waiting for code-words bidding them to emerge and come to her bed. It is all ... bizarre.” He handed me a piece of parchment, long, stained, with many entries and inks. “Oh, look!”
The falcons had overtaken the rooks, and were now above them, singling out their targets. Then they would drop, perpendicular, wings folded close to the body, like smooth, dark stones of death.
“Yes, yes.” I had seen falcons kill before.
I glanced at the paper in my hands. I felt myself go weak, felt my hands tremble. I did not wish to see this, but at the same time I was compelled to read it.
It detailed that the musician Mark Smeaton and “others” had had regular sport in Anne’s bed.
A great thud in the sky, which carried to our ears: the falcons had hit the rooks, attacking straight from above. The rooks were dead, and plummeting. The falcons swooped yet again, catching them as they fell. A lazy swirl of black feathers followed them, like a funeral party.
My eyes were forced back to the paper. The details went on and on, relentlessly.
This list would be read out in court, to her shame.
She was even fouler than I had imagined. My hands were contaminated in touching this filthy compilation. “The Great Whore,” I murmured.
I raised my eyes.