Jane's brothers are less angry than she thought they would be, when they come to her after the news that the King has a son has travelled to them. Less angered than they were when they discovered she had lain with the King.
"He is still fond of Jane after all - and if she cannot be Queen then she can still do the family good as a mistress" is what Edward says. "That's if he does not throw her away and leave us with nothing" is what Thomas says and it hurts Jane, that her brothers do not ask after her. Not at all. She is merely the vehicle for their families advancement, not a sister who should be looked after.
Henry does not come to her. She had not expected him to, not those first few days but he does not come at all and the whispers of the courtiers are cruel but she tries not to weep. It is hard - Jane only wants to be a good and obedient daughter to her family. She never wanted to hurt anyone.
It pained her, how cruel Henry was to Queen Anne, even as he showered Jane with love. It pained her that her love meant anothers pain.
"That bitch nearly killed a Prince of England" a courtier whispers loud enough for her to hear and Jane wants to die of shame and misery. She had never, never in a thousand years wanted that.
Someone rips her bed linens to shreds and it's Mary Boleyn, now Stafford who happens to hear her tears. And Mary does not scorn her - Mary stays to help her.
"Why are you being so kind to me, of all people" she asks Mary, as they both clean up the mess of Jane's bed because, she doesn't understand at all. This is Queen Anne sister, after all. And Mary puts her arms around Jane and smiles, sadly.
"Because, because I was you, Jane, once upon a time. "
"But...but I nearly killed your sisters child"
"Jane, Jane no. " Mary says and the conviction in her voice shakes Jane because, how can it be. How can Mary say that. "It was the King who sought out a mistress. It was the King who was cruel to Anne. "
Mary shakes her head at Jane's protestations but she does it gently, softly. "Jane...I was a Kings mistress, in France. I fell in love - I would have done anything for him, anything for a smile and to make him happy. And there were cruel whispers, cruel words and yet...the Queen was kind to me. And a part of me hated her for that, I admit"
"I tried not to think about Her Majesty" Jane finds herself saying "I tell myself...I tell myself it cannot be a sin, not if the King wishes it. Not if the King loves me but, it pained me that Her Majesty was kind."
Marys arms are warm around her and for the first time in a long while Jane feels safe.
"Lady Jane, I have a proposal for you - I find I am in need of a lady in waiting for my household. Would you be that lady?"
Jane wants to say, surely I should ask His Majesty, surely he will want me to stay with him but she finds herself saying yes to Mary despite it all. At least she will have something that is hers, after all.
Edward knows that it is over long before the King tells Jane. He could see the King losing interest in his sister since the joust - he had kept Jane for longer than Edward would have thought after that but he could see that Henry was not as enamoured as he had been. And now, after the King has a son and seems to wish to return to being a loving husband to his wife? It is over and Jane is no longer needed. Edward is disappointed but he knows that he, at least, still has a seat on the privy council. It may have been as a result of the Kings love for his sister but he has retained it through his own skills and that is no small thing.
He might wish that Anne had lost her child and Jane could have become Queen. He might wish that Jane had kept the Kings love and thus more favours to her family could have occurred but it is not to be and Edward knows that there is no point wasting time on what might have been.
Thomas Seymour has a different view. He feels cheated of what he is owed, angry at the mockery of the court who might have bowed to the Seymour family and he is eager to avenge these slights. And so he looks for another way to power. He finds one soon enough, in an Earl newly returned to court.
August 1536
His nightmares remain with him, they always have, but they are silent ones now. His loves presence is a balm but not a cure. Thomas is just thankful that he no longer screams himself awake, as he once did for that is much harder to explain and...he cannot. He cannot bear the shame of it, of speaking the words out loud.
There was a man. As a child he only knew he was higher than he - as a grown man Thomas Cromwell can see he was a noble. All he knew then though was that his mother was dead and his father had given him over to the man. He had silk sheets and more than enough food to eat and he would rather be back in Putney, scrambling for bread.
There was another man. A scholar. A kind man. Too kind (Thomas had never told him about either his father or the noble - indeed he had hidden it for the scholar was old and frail and the thought of such a good man being hurt on his behalf had horrified his child self). He was Thomas' first tutor who had taught him more than the basics of reading and writing and numbers. He had given him Latin. Given him languages and history and books and so much more.
(Thomas Cromwell will remember Master Gregory his whole life - indeed he names his oldest son for the man who changed his life).
The man who bought him let him keep going to school because it amused him to have a 'beautiful gutter rut who can speak pretty Greek and Latin'
Thomas doesn't give the man a name in his thoughts because somehow, he feels like it might conjure him. The man walks from his nightmares and into his world regardless, as it turns out.
His name is John, now an Earl with the death of his older brother and newly returned to the court and for all that Thomas Cromwell is a peer of the realm, Lord Chancellor of England, beloved of the King and Queen suddenly he is a ten year old child again.
