The Fallen Queen Part 11

Kate sat down and patted the bed beside her. I joined her there, the two of us gazing down at the pretty auburn-haired marzipan mermaid that was all that remained inside it.

Gently, Kate lifted it out and let the bare-breasted sea siren lie upon her palm as reverently as though it were a consecrated wafer.

"Shall we?" she asked tentatively.

"For Father." I nodded.

Kate hesitated for a moment, and then she quickly lifted the mermaid and snapped her in half at the waist.

I took the green scaled tail from her and quickly popped it in my mouth, while Kate did the same with the remaining half.

Then I put my arm around her waist, and she did the same, and we leaned against each other. "Poor Father!" we sighed and savoured his memory along with the last sweetmeat he would ever give to us.

11.

Father's foolish head was stuck on London Bridge as a warning to other would-be traitors, but bits of his beard still billowed in the breeze, and the ravens had yet to pick it clean when we received a most curious summons from our lady-mother bidding us to put on something pastel and pretty, "to bring a burst of spring to these dreary winter days," and come at once to Suffolk House for a "celebration of sweet delight."

"Whatever can it mean?" Kate wondered as I stood at the foot of our bed in my gold applepatterned spring green brocade and laced her into a gown of pale rose damask figured with delicate silver roses. "How can it be a 'sweet celebration' so soon after Father and Jane are gone?"

"I cannot even imagine," I sighed. "Life will never be the same without them. I am so afraid nothing will ever be sweet again, Kate."

"Don't say that, Mary," Kate pleaded. "We have to be brave; life is for the living, so we must find things to look forward to, things worth going on for. Sweet times must come again! But, now ... it is too soon."

When we arrived at Suffolk House, we were ushered into the downstairs parlour where, in a blaze of what must have been a hundred candles, our lady-mother, thinking perhaps that the candlelight would be kind and flatter her, stood before the great marble fireplace. Her hair, now an alarming cherry red-she had obviously been overzealous in applying the henna-was flowing down her back, girlishly unbound, though she was galloping hard and fast toward forty. Upon it sat a lavish crown of gilded rosemary, lavender, meadowsweet, red and white roses to remind all of her Tudor heritage, deep purple violets, marigolds, and the white star-shaped blossoms known as love-in-a-mist. She was holding a large golden goblet and wearing a loose, flowing gown of creamy white damask beneath which her uncorseted body jiggled like five frightened piglets squirming and writhing in a vain attempt to free themselves from the sack they had been sewn into. When she took a step toward us, I heard the jingle of spurs, and glanced down to glimpse the sharp-pointed toes of black leather riding boots peeking from beneath her gown.

"Come, my daughters"-she held out a hand to us-"and embrace your stepfather!" With a sweeping gesture, she indicated the bashful, blus.h.i.+ng figure of our Master of the Horse, Adrian Stokes, who seemed to be trying to hide himself in the shadows as though he were afraid to face us. "Here, my love"-she pulled at his scarlet satin sleeve-"come and drink a loving cup with me!" She pressed the goblet into his hand.

"Pinch me, Mary!" Kate whispered, clutching hard at my hand. "Wake me now; I must be dreaming!"

"Methinks I am having the same nightmare," I whispered back as we stood and stared at the blus.h.i.+ng, bashful black-haired boy standing sheepishly beside our lady-mother in his garishly bright, scarlet satin doublet adorned with golden bugles all down the front and along the sleeves.

To his credit, Master Stokes seemed overcome with a burning hot shame and found it exceedingly hard to meet our gaze. Instead, he stared at the floor, studying his gold-slashed, scarlet shoes as though he could not quite believe that these were truly his feet.

"Well?" our lady-mother demanded, hands on hips. "What are you waiting for? Come, now, don't be shy-embrace him!"

"I would sooner hurl myself into the Thames!" Kate cried. "Mother, how could you? He's only twenty!"

Without daring to meet Kate's eyes, Master Stokes mumbled that he would be twenty-one on Tuesday.

"Yes, my love, and we shall have a party, a very grand party!" Our lady-mother smiled indulgently as she patted his arm and smacked a kiss onto his cheek and her hand stole mischievously behind to give a greedy and unsuspected squeeze to his b.u.t.tocks that made Master Stokes nearly start out of his skin.

"Mother!" Kate cried, shaking her head incredulously. "Father has not even been dead two weeks! Could you not have waited?" She turned away, her hand rising to try to hide her tears. "You didn't even wear widow's weeds for him!"

"Come, Kate." I caught hold of my sister's hand. "You're wasting your words and your breath! She's not even sorry Father is dead; she can't be ... to do this!" I waved a disgusted hand at Master Stokes. "He's young enough to be her son!"

"I-I-" Master Stokes began to stammer, looking first at our lady-mother as though, still accustomed to a role of servitude, he was awaiting her permission to speak. "Perhaps we did marry in haste. I-I-I always liked my lord of Suffolk and was greatly saddened by his death. When I first came to Bradgate, as a lad to work in the stables, he always had a smile and a treat from his comfit box for me. Truly, I mean no disrespect to his memory! If you like, we could drink a toast to him and light some candles 'neath his portrait."

"Sit down and shut up!" Our lady-mother shoved Master Stokes toward a chair and aimed a kick at the same b.u.t.tocks she had just been squeezing. "I didn't marry you for your conversation!" Then she swung around, her gown billowing out like a great white sail behind her, and grabbed Kate's wrist, twisting it roughly. "You stupid girl!" she hissed. "I thought you had more sense! I didn't have time to mourn, and your father is as dead as he'll ever be, so what's the difference when by my actions I could still save something? Or did you want to see it all lost because of your foolish father-Bradgate and Suffolk House and what lands and monies we have left, that he didn't gamble away? I had to save something, and by marrying beneath me, and forsaking my rank as d.u.c.h.ess of Suffolk, to show the Queen this family has no more royal pretensions, I have accomplished that! I did what I had to do, and you two ungrateful little girls should fall on your knees and thank me for it! Think you I liked giving up my t.i.tle to become plain Mistress Stokes, even if it did land me a l.u.s.ty young lad in my bed? Aye, I've saved the homes and money, but I've sacrificed my t.i.tle, and now wherever I go people will snicker behind my back, because I've married a boy young enough to be my son, as Mary so rightly says! But I have two daughters and their futures to think of!"

"And yourself!" Kate shouted.

"Yes, myself!" our lady-mother acquiesced. "I've done my duty all my life, and now I deserve a husband who will make me happy! I've more than earned it! Forget about your worthless father, that spineless lout with a brain as soft and doughy as his body! I am the daughter of a queen, and the niece of a king, and I deserved far better than Hal Grey!"

She paused to draw breath and fan her flushed face, then, with a defiant toss of her head, went to sit on the gilded arm of Master Stokes's chair, ignoring its ominous groan, and arranged herself as though she were posing for a portrait of a doting wife. She stroked his hair and bent to nibble on his ear, while he blushed and glanced away as her hand dipped down to rove inside his s.h.i.+rt and playfully tweak a nipple, hard enough to make him squirm, wince, and squeal.

"Jane and Guildford too," she continued as she s.n.a.t.c.hed the golden cup from Master Stokes's hand and drank greedily from it. "They're all dead and nothing can bring them back! Though I do regret poor Guildford; the dear boy wanted me to run away to Italy with him to manage his singing career. He paid me a great compliment when he said that even though I am a woman I was still the most formidable person he had ever known, and he felt confident that none of the theatre managers would ever dare to cheat or shortchange him if I were there minding such matters. He was right, of course. Poor Guildford!" She sighed. "G.o.d rest him!"

She daintily selected a sugarplum from the golden tray beside Master Stokes's chair and popped it into her mouth, was.h.i.+ng it down with a great gulp of wine. I watched disgustedly as a red rivulet dripped from the corner of her rouged mouth and trickled slowly down to stain the bodice of her white gown. It made me think of blood, and I had to close my eyes as my belly churned sickly inside.

"Come on, Mary!" Kate, swatting the tears from her eyes with her sleeve, seized my hand and dragged me toward the door. "We can't stay here!"

"I ... I think it's going to rain!" Master Stokes called after us.

"Then don't go outside and stare up at the sky with your mouth open else you might drown!" Kate shouted back at him as she slammed the door and pulled me out into the London night, forgetting our fur cloaks in her haste.

"You should be happy for me!" Our lady-mother thrust her head out the parlour window and shouted after us as the rain began to lightly fall. "Your father is as dead now as he will be in a year, and instead of hiding it and living secretly in sin, I am legally wedded and well and rightfully enjoying the black-haired boy G.o.d has sent me as a reward to console me and share my bed! By heaven, I deserve him! At least I had the decency, the honesty, not to pretend!"

"Oh go boil your head, Mother!" Kate shouted back at her and kept on walking, pulling me along after her, as the first bolt of lightning stabbed the darkened sky, and the boom of thunder drowned out our lady-mother's angry reply.

"Kate!" I tugged at her hand. "Surely we should get a coach or a barge? It's dark, and it's not safe for us to be abroad, alone, defenceless, and dressed as we are. The city is full of danger, and we are walking straight into it!"

But Kate wasn't listening. Even as I tugged one sleeve and the wind fiercely grabbed the other, Kate kept walking, fast and furious, and didn't stop until we stood staring up at London Bridge. The rain-slickened grey stone shone silver in the lightning's bright white flash, and the traitors' heads, in various states of decay, leered ghoulishly from the metal pikes their pitch-dipped necks were impaled upon. An eyeball dangled from the socket of one of the freshest, while others looked leathery and weather-beaten, their flesh stripped away to reveal the bones beneath.

Kate drew me to stand in a nearby doorway, and huddling back in a corner, her arms wrapped around herself for warmth, she slumped down. "Now we wait."

"Wait for what?" I asked, yet in my heart I already knew the answer. Kate was waiting for a later hour, for the traffic on the streets and bridge to disperse, for all to be in their beds so none would be abroad to witness the bold act she intended.

Kate's eyes were fixed on the bridge, staring at the heads-or one particular head-and she didn't bother to answer me. I knew it would be futile to tell her she could not have it, not without the Queen's consent. The heads were left on London Bridge until all the flesh was gone, then the bare skulls were tossed into the Thames to make room for more. It was part of the punishment-that they could never lie in their graves whole. Only if the Queen granted consent could their families take them down for decent burial. Jane and Guildford had fortunately been spared this fate, but not Father. I knew our lady-mother would not be asking for his head; all she wanted to do was forget, and to make the Queen forget too, and she would beat us if she knew we had dared revive memories she wanted to sink, like Father's clean-picked, wind-buffed, and rain-polished skull, to the muddy bottom of the Thames.

But she had underestimated Kate. Kate wouldn't have it. She would save him, and d.a.m.n the Queen's permission and our lady-mother, she would do it, daring all for love, just like she always did. All for love-that was my sister Kate; that is the epitaph that should adorn her grave, for there are no truer words to describe her than that motto she lived by all her life.

I must have fallen into a doze. I started awake as a flash of palest pink and silver flew past me. Kate was up and running; before I could reach out a hand to try and stop her, she was gone, running toward London Bridge as the rain lashed her, and the wind tugged and howled at her as though it were outraged by her audacity and determined to do what I couldn't-stop her.

Every time my heart beat I felt as though it would burst out of my chest and that I would look down and see it protruding, pulsing and dripping blood onto the golden apples that figured my beautiful green gown. I was too afraid to even pray as I watched Kate climb tenaciously to the top, fighting the wind all the way, and make her way along the bridge until she reached the grotesque cl.u.s.ter of weather-ravaged, raven-picked, and rotting heads. I wondered if wherever he was Father could see his rash and daring daughter, leaning far out over the rail, being pelted by silver needles of rain as she reached for the spike his head was impaled upon. Poor Father! His dull, dead eyes stared out blindly into the storm, the scarce tufts that were all that was left of his luxuriant auburn beard billowing, as the wind buffeted him like a parody of our lady-mother boxing his ears.

But she could not reach it, strain and strive as she might.

"Kate!" I ran out into the rain. "You'll never reach him! Please, come down before you fall!"

Kate straightened, wind-whipped and breast wildly heaving, and stared down defiantly at me. "Never say never to me!"

She hitched up her skirts and swung her leg out, straddling the rain-slickened rail, and s.h.i.+mmied along, as agile as one of her pet monkeys, even as the wind ripped the hood from her head and s.n.a.t.c.hed away the silver net and pearl-tipped pins, unleas.h.i.+ng a riot of waist-length copper ringlets to ride the wind like writhing red gold snakes, turning my sister into a beautiful Medusa lit by the blinding white flash of lightning. Was the boom of the thunder the great G.o.d Zeus laughing at this bold wench even as he desired her? Was the wind His way of trying to pull her into His embrace? Or would she slip and fall into the Thames, a beautiful sacrifice for His brother-G.o.d Neptune? Oh, Kate, Kate, come down, Kate! my heart cried as tears rolled down my face. Cease this folly! Forget the head! Father is dead, and you cannot save him now! No one can! The head is just a head, and not worth risking your life for!

Grasping the rail with one hand, Kate leaned far out and reached for Father's head. She started to slip, and I nearly died, sweating and burning despite the cold rain. She righted herself and sat for a long time, watching as her little pink shoe plummeted into the black water below. It sank without a sound, and any splash it made was swallowed up by the l.u.s.ty, gusty wind. In the blinding flash of lightning that followed, I saw the determination in her face, and I knew she would never stop until she had his head or fell to a watery grave.

She tried to push her hair back, but it came right back, slapping her in the face, plastering itself over her eyes, nose, and mouth like a tangle of orangey red seaweed. Undaunted, Kate reached down and fumbled beneath her skirts and tore off a pink silk garter, leaving her white stocking to fall and droop around her ankle. Squeezing her knees tight around the rail, she gathered her hair back, like a horse's tail, and tied it tightly with the garter. Then she was ready to try again. I wanted to turn away. I couldn't bear to look, and yet I had to. She really was fearless, my bold, brave Kate! I could not have done it!

She really should have been dressed all in black to appear less conspicuous, or even better as a boy for ease of movement, but Kate had not planned this, or if she had, she never told me. Yet, despite the danger and enc.u.mbrance her clothes presented, the artist in me would not have altered a single st.i.tch or shade. She was a glorious, terrifying sight to behold, there in the pouring rain, wind-whipped skirts of soft rose and silver and white petticoats flapping like the wings of terrified birds fighting to ride the wild, raging wind, to stay aloft and not be beaten down, illuminated by the silver-white, diamond-bright flash of lightning against the midnight sky. I wish I had been blessed with the talent to paint her, so the world could see her just like that instead of the insipid, pale, lifeless, black-and-white-gowned likenesses that are all that is left to show the world Lady Katherine Grey.

Then she had him, cradled safe against her breast. It was all over except for her descent, and surely G.o.d would not let her slip; if she was going to fail, if she was going to fall, surely it would not be now.

Carefully, most carefully, she s.h.i.+mmied back down. Wordlessly, she gave me Father's head to hold while she struggled to raise her heavy, waterlogged skirts and wiggle out of one of her petticoats.

Poor Father! I caressed his leathery, wind-burned cheeks. Most of his beard was gone, taken by the ravens or other birds to build their nests. I liked to think someday I might look up, at the nests in the trees in the parks and gardens of the Queen's palaces, and see auburn skeins from Father's beard woven into their nests.

Silently, Kate held her petticoat out to me, like a cradle, to lay Father's head in, but first I kissed his brow, and Kate did the same before she tenderly swaddled him in the sodden white linen.

I stood for a long moment and eyed my soaked and s.h.i.+vering sister with breathless wonder. I still couldn't believe that she had done it. The wind had yanked and stolen away the garter that bound her hair, like a lovesick swain playfully s.n.a.t.c.hing a ribbon from his sweetheart's hair to wear as a love token upon his hat or sleeve. She was minus one slipper, and I feared the frosty slush that covered the ground would be smitten by her fair toes or pretty little foot and take a token too. Her gown hung limp, hugging every curve, clinging to her limbs, so that she had to fight its waterlogged embrace for every step. The lightning flashed a vivid silvery white, and I saw frozen raindrops clinging to her hair like little diamonds. Her teeth were chattering, and there was a wild gleam in her eyes, a blue grey storm themselves, that spoke both of triumph and disbelief. She looked half drowned, a sorry, sodden sight, yet to my eyes she had never been more beautiful.

"Come on, Mary!" Clutching Father's head to her with one arm, she held out her hand to me and I took it.

Then off we went to the Church of St. Botolph's-Without-Aldgate, where I still visit Father every Sunday. Once there we gave Father into the care of the minister. He still keeps Father safe, locked inside the cupboard in his study, in a gla.s.s casket filled with sawdust that is regularly replenished-Father's leathery flesh soaks some vital nutrient from the wood shavings that keeps him tanned, as though he still rode to the hounds every day. Dr. Reynolds always receives me kindly, and together we share a cup of wine and drink a toast to Father, whom he remembers warmly as a f.e.c.kless man he occasionally counselled against his gambling, but always generous and kind.

As the church bells tolled midnight, Kate took my hand again and we disappeared into the dark and rainy night to sneak back into Greenwich Palace, now that Suffolk House, still celebrating a wedding that to my mind made a mockery of the sacrament of holy matrimony, seemed even less of a home to us than it ever had before. Our lady-mother I realized now was the bedrock, the firm and solid foundation our family was built upon, but Father-fun, silly, wild, reckless Father with all his schemes and dreams and his ever-present comfit box-had been the heart of it.

12.

Perhaps our royal cousin truly believed Kate's health had been broken by the series of cruel blows that had befallen our family-the loss of Jane and Guildford, followed fast by Father, and now our lady-mother's ludicrous and humiliating marriage to our former Master of the Horse-or maybe she just felt sorry for us. Not a word was ever spoken about the disappearance of Father's head from London Bridge. She kissed us each upon the cheek and gave us each an opal rosary and leave to retire from court. "Go home and grow strong; replenish your strength," she said as she bade us farewell.

Kate and I returned to Bradgate alone, with only a few servants to attend us. Our lady-mother remained in London, cavorting shamelessly, and most l.u.s.tily according to the servants' gossip, with her new husband. "In exchange for sacrificing my rank, G.o.d has given me a most diverting boy to amuse and console me!" she said in defiance of the ridicule and laughter, thumbing her nose at those who marvelled that she had married so far beneath her.

We reined our horses in at the foot of the long, winding drive lined with chestnut trees. We sat slumped wearily in our saddles and stared up at the house as the March winds tugged at our dust-caked riding habits and the feathers on our hats. It seemed a whole lifetime had pa.s.sed since we had last been here. When we rode away to London, to see Jane and Kate married, I didn't realize I would be so long away from the only place I had ever thought of as home. The great rosy-bricked rectangle that had started life as a hunting lodge sixty years ago stood in the centre of a sprawling, green deer park, flanked by silver streams and verdant forests so dense it was said one could wander twelve miles or more without ever glimpsing the sun, and beyond them, the slate hills towered in the distance. His pride swollen with the honour of having married a king's niece, Father had added two tall red-brick turrets with stained gla.s.s windows depicting hunting scenes to make the house look less like a big brick box. He had tried to fund their construction with his endeavours at the gambling tables but had garnered only greater debts. From the pointed red-tiled roof of each fluttered our family's proud banner of green, yellow, black, and white silk, and our parents were always vigilant for the least sign that the sun was beginning to fade them and had them replaced regularly; for this they kept a sewing woman in residence who did nothing but make new banners.

Without Jane and Father, Bradgate wouldn't be the same; it would be an empty sh.e.l.l of a house with its heart torn out. I would miss Jane's sullen seriousness, coming upon her curled in a window seat with a book in her lap and an apple in her hand, and Father, always with his comfit box, bringing us treats from London and coaxing the cook to "bake more goodies" so that the house always smelled of sugar, cinnamon, and marzipan, a plethora of spices and all the sweet fruits of summer.

There were some woodsmen working nearby, tr.i.m.m.i.n.g the trees, and they paused and respectfully knelt and doffed their caps to us, silently offering their condolences upon our two great losses. The man nearest us had left his axe-a new one by the look of it-leaning against the tree he was attending and the sun struck its blade. Rather than s.h.i.+eld her eyes, Kate stared straight into the blinding yellow glare. Before I could stop her, she sprang from the saddle and ran and seized the axe and began chopping madly. Clumsily, she staggered backward, tottering under its unwieldy, unaccustomed weight. But she persevered and swung the axe, again and again, all the while weeping wildly, sobbing for Jane and Father, crying hysterically that Jane and Father had lost their heads so the trees at Bradgate must too in remembrance of them.

"Take up your axes and 'head them! 'Head them like they did Jane and Father!" she commanded the woodsmen. So frighteningly persuasive was the crazed wildness in her eyes, that they quickly took up their axes and obeyed.

I stood silently by and didn't dare interfere until Kate dropped the axe and fell to her knees, panting and weeping, with bloodied blisters marring the beautiful white hands she held out to me, as though I could somehow heal the hurt. I gestured quickly for the woodsman to reclaim his axe and coaxed my sister back into the saddle and onward to the house. As we rode on, the air was filled with the sound of vigorous chopping, the whack of blades driven hard into wood and the grunts of strong, sweaty men pulling them free and swinging again, and again, until by day's end, when they went home with aching shoulders and backs and blistered hands, every one of the chestnuts that lined the approach to Bradgate stood a bare, ugly trunk, their leafy green heads lying toppled on the gra.s.s beside them to be cut into firewood and carted away on the morrow.

But by then Kate was already abed, having cried herself to sleep before the last lush green head fell, while I stood at the window and watched the destruction with tears in my eyes. So wasteful! I thought as I silently wept for Father, Jane, and Guildford, their lost and wasted lives, Kate's lost dream of love, so cruelly s.n.a.t.c.hed away, and the destruction of the beautiful chestnut trees we three sisters had sat and played in the shade of, climbed, and gathered blossoms and nuts from. They had always been there all our lives, already grown tall and glorious by the time Jane was born. Bradgate didn't seem the same without them either, and I shuddered to think of our lady-mother's wrath when she beheld the stark, ugly, naked trunks, crudely chopped at various heights, when she at last returned to Bradgate. At least we shall be well warned and ready to face her, I thought, for we shall surely hear her screaming from the road. I shuddered again and hugged myself as I pictured her red, angry face and her arm wildly swinging her riding crop, hearing the smarting swish as it slashed the air until it found flesh to strike. In my mind I already felt its sting, splitting flesh and welling blood. I would take the blame; Kate had suffered enough, and I could and would spare her this.

Behind me, on the bed, Kate stirred, sobbing in her sleep, but did not waken.

"I wish there were something I could do to make our world right again, to turn back the clock and bring them all back, but I cannot. I have no magic. I am only a little girl!" I whispered feebly. But my sister, twisting in her sorrow-racked slumber, did not hear me.

At least she was still alive. I went and stood by the bed and clasped my hands and prayed, "Please, don't ever leave me, Kate!"

Kate burbled a few more little whimpers-they were growing mercifully fewer and fainter-and rolled over in bed, and I let myself imagine that they were an answer, rea.s.suring me that she would never leave me alone, that she would be right there with me, in body as well as in spirit, until the day I died.

Dwarves with twisted bodies like mine rarely made old bones. Our bodies grew more contorted with age, which could squeeze and crush and damage our inner organs, our lungs were notoriously weak, and we were plagued by pains in our joints, like the grinding agony in my lower back and hips that sometimes left me prostrate, lying completely flat for days. All these ails only grew worse with age.

It was only cruel mischance that Jane, the firstborn, had also been the first to die at only sixteen. So surely Kate-sunny, vibrant, healthy Kate-who longed for life, not a glorious death and martyrdom, would be the last of us to die.

I gazed at my sister, her beautiful copper ringlets strewn across the pillows like a blazing, red gold banner s.h.i.+mmering in the sun, and pictured her many years from now as a grey-haired old grandmother dying peacefully in her bed with all her children and grandchildren cl.u.s.tered lovingly around her to see her tenderly into G.o.d's embrace. "That is the way it should be. G.o.d, please let it be so!" I fell on my aching little knees and prayed with all my heart and all the fervour of a frightened little girl who had just lost her eldest sister and father. "Please! Please!" I prayed until the words became an incoherent murmur and I fell into an exhausted slumber myself and lay upon the floor curled like a puppy beside Kate's bed.

13.

After we returned to court, we made a pact to put the past behind us, to only look forward, and never again look back. We would welcome and embrace the future wholeheartedly since we could do nothing to change the past. We had to let it go lest it drag our hearts down to sink like stones in the river to be mired in the mud forever. We had to break free of the anchors that weighed our hearts down and swim for sh.o.r.e where life, and maybe even love, waited, and not drown. We couldn't wear mourning for Jane and Father, and in order to survive and thrive at court, we had to cast the black velvet from our hearts as well, and Kate had to learn to love and wear red again without thinking of blood. After one last lingering look and one late night of tears and bittersweet memories, we packed our treasured mementos of those we had loved and lost away in boxes and hid them beneath our bed.

After that, time seemed to speed up, like we were racing through life, and we seemed to dance, fast and furious, through the years; they flew by so swift, like falcons flying after sparrows, intent upon the kill, and we too had to kill every moment lest it leave us free to do what we had promised never to do-to pause and ponder and look back upon the past.

But for my Kate, though she smiled, danced, and made merry, life at court was in truth sheer torment, and she cried into her pillow every night. She just could not bear having to see Berry every day, to brush his hand by happenstance in the course of a dance, or in obedience to the carefully laid ch.o.r.eography in a masque, to find herself sitting near him at a joust or picnic and see the attentions he paid to the other ladies, or to have their eyes meet across the banquet table and then to see him turn away and engage another in conversation. She had me make a beautiful soft orange and strawberry pink gown for her, the shades carefully chosen so they blended beautifully, but not so pallid and meek that the eye would pa.s.s them by. When she put it on, she would sashay past or linger near Lord Herbert in this beautiful dress that had been designed to cry out Notice me! Notice me! bouncing on her toes, with an eager expression like a dog begging for a bone, copper curls s.h.i.+mmering in the light of the candles or the sun as she twirled them idly around her fingers or tossed them over her shoulders.

But it was all in vain. Berry simply turned away and asked another lady to dance or walk in the garden with him, and Kate would be plunged back into despair, crying into her pillow every night and pus.h.i.+ng her plate away so that the flesh fell from her bones and our lady-mother would feel the need to grasp her chin tight, bruising the milk-pale skin with the brutal pressure of her meaty thumb and fingertips, and remind her, "Without your beauty, you are nothing!"

I used to pray every night that Kate's heart would heal and she would see that it was not really Berry the boy she was in love with, but Love, the idea of loving and being loved. Kate, unlike many men and women of our cla.s.s who married for convenience, practicality, and to obey parental dictates, took the pretty and sentimental words of the marriage service seriously, and when she spoke them, her heart was in every syllable. Let her find a new love, I implored the Lord, one who is truly worthy of her and will never forsake, hurt, or disappoint her, one who will be faithful and love her unto death like the great loves the minstrels sing of.

Cousin Mary, to her credit, always treated us well, as though she were, in some small way, trying to atone for taking Jane from us.

One day she drew me to sit beside her as she sat gazing with the most desperate yearning at t.i.tian's portrait of Prince Philip.

"I know you will understand, little cousin, being what you are," she said delicately. "Though I am not malformed like you, I too always thought the great loves the minstrels sang of would be denied me, that Love would always shun and pa.s.s me by. So you must understand, now that I have found him, I cannot ... I dare not ... let him go. I am not so much a fool as to think I could do better, and Love, who has deigned to look at me for once, may never do so again if I snub the great and precious gift he has given me."

In truth, I did understand, yet I could not forgive the taking of Jane's life. A part of me, in my child's anger and anguish, cursed Cousin Mary and hoped that she would find only misery with her Philip. But afterward, I fell on my knees and begged G.o.d to forgive me, for evil thoughts rashly uttered in anger, lest the misfortune I had wished upon another rebound upon me and the only sister I had left. Jane was gone, and whether Cousin Mary found joy or sorrow with her Spanish prince, it would not bring her back.

When Kate brushed the Queen's hair on her wedding day, Cousin Mary, with tears in her eyes, took Kate's hand. "You are young and beautiful. You've already had one chance, and you will have another. You will not be alone forever; women as beautiful as you never are. But this is my last chance. Philip is my last hope, and I must have him-for the True Faith, for England, so I may give birth to a son, a Catholic prince, to rule after I am gone, and for me," she admitted at last, lowering her eyes as though half-shamed by this admission. "I ask you to please understand." She drew Kate to stand beside her, before the big, silver looking gla.s.s. "Look"-she lifted the heavy ma.s.s of Kate's hair, like a nest of writhing copper snakes-"see how bright your hair is. See all the gold twining like true lovers embracing with the red. Now look at mine." She lifted a lifeless hank of her own dingy and lackl.u.s.tre yellowy orange grey hair. "They used to call me Princess Marigold, but all my gold has been spent in loneliness and sorrow."

That was the closest Cousin Mary ever came to apologizing for what had happened to Jane. The truth is l.u.s.t triumphed over cousinly love. Jane died to make an old maid's dreams of love come true, but she died in vain. Some would say I should find consolation, a sort of bitter victory, in that. But I don't. My sister died at only sixteen, the reasons don't really matter; none of them are good enough to justify it or heal the wound in my heart. In the end, all that really matters is that she died, not how it affected the grand scheme of things; I can't, and never could, think of the world as a giant chessboard and the people I love as p.a.w.ns upon it, won and lost in the game of life.

But our lady-mother was overjoyed by the favour our royal cousin showed us. She crowed and preened and strutted in private, vowing that Kate would be England's next queen. She went on, maddeningly repet.i.tious, her face glowing as she gloated about how she had known Queen Mary from girlhood and knew her womb to be "rotten fruit," "too moist for any seed to take root," and "unfertile ground unlikely to sustain a life" even if Prince Philip succeeded in planting one there. Gleefully she related how scores of physicians had been summoned to treat Mary for "strangulation of the womb," to bleed her from the sole of her foot to try and ease the painful retention of blood that caused her womb to swell and ache, and bring forth her monthly flow to relieve her. "Such women are poor breeders," our lady-mother said. "If they whelp at all, their babes are sickly and soon die, so we've nothing to fear from the rotten fruit of Mary's womb! A day will come when I will see my daughter crowned queen! This time, all shall be done right!"

Once, as a pointed snub to Princess Elizabeth, who balked at attending Ma.s.s and often made excuses, claiming to be unwell, even feigning to faint outside the royal chapel or loudly complaining of a bellyache, Queen Mary strode past her half sister to take Kate by the hand and bade her walk beside her, before Elizabeth, while loudly praising my sister as a "good Catholic maid." When our lady-mother heard she was delirious with joy. She celebrated by drinking and dancing all night with Master Stokes then dragging him off to bed at c.o.c.k's crow to service her until she fell into an exhausted sleep around noon.