The Fallen Queen Part 12

Through it all, Kate kept silent, never daring to tell our lady-mother that she did not want to be queen and prayed every day that G.o.d would bless our royal cousin with a child of her own and thus spare her. Indeed, what good would it have done if she had spoken up? It would have only led to more angry words and blows. "I shall wait and hope this cup shall pa.s.s me by," Kate told me in the privacy of our room, "and that I shall not be made to drink from it, for I've no desire to; I find it a vile and bitter brew, more poisonous than pleasurable, and sometimes it even kills. I would rather be queen of my husband's heart, to rule our household, with our children, pets, and servants as my loyal and loving subjects, than be empress of all the world." But our lady-mother would only have laughed and called Kate a fool and boxed her ears while deploring her daughter's lack of ambition.

While Kate had all the praise and glory, I found that I was subjected to less mockery after the courtiers saw how greatly our royal cousin favoured us. It was wonderful beyond words to be spared the jibes and insults, even though it meant I was more or less ignored. No one thought I would ever be queen like Kate, so there was no need to try to curry favour and make a fuss over me. So I kept silent and watched. Many young men flirted with Kate, and young women sought her friends.h.i.+p. We had gone, almost overnight, from being reviled as turncoats to being revered as royal princesses, at court, though not by the people in the streets. Some even detested us as Elizabeth's rivals, though we never saw ourselves as such.

But people see what they want to see and are often blind to the truth. They feared we would usurp the succession as our sister had. Elizabeth did not love or even like us and was more to be feared than Mary. Elizabeth would be swift to punish any who dared come between her and her one true love-England. She would never forgive or be merciful and pa.s.sive. No, Kate and I agreed; better to die outright than be regarded as Elizabeth's enemy.

So many people longed for Elizabeth, including the lascivious golden-bearded Philip who was now the Queen's husband-palace gossip said he had peepholes drilled in the wall so he could watch Elizabeth undress and bathe. And to most of the common people, Elizabeth was England and their last link with their beloved Henry VIII. Loving Philip had cost Cousin Mary most of her people's love, and many thought she cared more for Spain than she ever did for England. The people's love affair with the last true Tudor princess, the vibrant, flame-haired Elizabeth, only grew more pa.s.sionate as England erupted in a blaze of persecution that sought to burn out every trace of the Reformed Religion. People went to the stake praying with their dying breath for Elizabeth's ascension, for her to come to the throne and deliver England from this evil.

It was an exciting and frightening time to be alive. In gowns of silver tinsel and Our Lady's blue satin, with crowns of silvered rosemary and blue ribbons on our unbound hair, we were there when Mary finally married her prince, and Kate was amongst the maids chosen to dance with Prince Philip at the wedding feast. She laughed and told me afterward that when he lowered her after the high lift in the volta, his tongue had flickered out like a snake's to lick and delve inside her ear and his hand had cupped her breast and compared its size and sweetness to the oranges in the garden of his father's palace.

We were there, in close and daily attendance, the two tragic times our royal cousin's womb bore phantom fruit. We knelt and prayed with her in her private chapel and took it in turns with the other ladies to read her prayers, psalms, and saints' lives, and sat for hours sewing and embroidering baby clothes. How Cousin Mary praised the rows of pretty roses I embroidered around the hems of those little white gowns! She would trust no one but me with this delicate task, declaring, "Our little cousin Mary's roses are the prettiest!" Soon many ladies of the court were vying to have me embroider roses on the hems of their petticoats, to peek out whenever they lifted their skirts. For us girls who wore the Queen's russet and black livery by day, to emphasize the grandeur of the royal garb, for our wary cousin feared any who might outs.h.i.+ne her, it was a fun and harmless way for us to add a little colour and uniqueness to our bland attire. Eventually I was st.i.tching not just roses but all manner of flowers, in both becoming and unusual combinations-like pinks mated with marigolds; periwinkles coupled with yellow primroses; country daisies and the pet.i.te yellow b.u.t.tons of tansy; chamomile blossoms and scarlet poppies nestled amongst golden wheat; bluebells and b.u.t.tercups; festive red-berried and th.o.r.n.y-leaved holly alongside mistletoe with a profusion of white berries to tempt a lover's kiss; deadly poisonous but pretty purple monk's hood and jaunty yellow Turk's cap; purple-pink thistles amidst spires of lavender; purple-kissed blue forget-me-nots and pure white lily of the valley; or those great sweet-scented s...o...b..a.l.l.s of heavenly white blossoms known as guelder-roses that bloomed in May but bore poisonous red berries in autumn, and in my embroidery I could show both incarnations side by side.

Some ladies even craved garden vegetables, healing herbs, bountiful branches laden with dangling fruit, or beds of ripe berries encircling their hems. Even in the evening, when they might wear their own splendid attire, they still wanted to wear the floral bordered petticoats I made for them, often in colours brightly contrasting their gowns. At any moment as the ladies danced past, one might catch a beguiling glimpse of vibrant yellow daffodils beneath a purple velvet gown, bright pink peonies peeping out from underneath a brazen scarlet skirt, blueberries bursting ripe with flavour beneath a luscious pear silk, or even globe artichokes spreading their leaves beneath sunset orange satin. One might even catch a quick glimpse of the vibrant pink of the apothecary's rose hiding beneath a matron's modest mouse grey velvet, or spy the pink-speckled white bugles of foxglove, or even a row of flamboyant heart's ease pansies blooming beneath a widow's black weeds.

For the more daring and coquettish ladies, the ones who liked to lift their skirts especially high during the dance, I embroidered flights of beautiful rainbow-winged b.u.t.terflies or fat black and yellow bees fluttering up their stockings from ankle to knee. Even Cousin Elizabeth, then still at court under the Queen's wary, watchful eye, had me do a sumptuous silver and gold border of roses dotted with pearls on a cream taffeta petticoat to wear with the new silver and gold brocade gown Prince Philip had given her, ostensibly to satisfy his wife's complaint that Elizabeth dressed too plainly, seeing it as a secret message encoded in her clothes to show the Protestants that she was with them and only paid lip service to the Catholic creed. But it was all great fun, and for the first and only time in my life, I knew what it was like to be popular and sought after. It felt good to be important, even if it was for such a frivolous, flighty thing.

As each of the Queen's phantom pregnancies progressed, we were there to cater to her cravings for great bowls br.i.m.m.i.n.g full of mixed peppers, orange slices, olives, and goat cheese, and afterward to pat her hands, hold her head when she bent retching over the basin, and nurse and comfort her through the agonizing attacks of heartburn that inevitably followed these repasts.

As her suspicion, jealousy, and hatred of Elizabeth increased, we obediently sat and listened to her zealously recounting the lurid tale about how Elizabeth's mother, "the great wh.o.r.e Anne Boleyn," used to have the lowborn lute player Mark Smeaton concealed inside a cupboard in her bedchamber, to come out and pleasure her whenever she lay down naked and opened her arms and legs and called for "something sweet." She would pace back and forth, tear at her thin hair with her clawlike hands, and rant and rage about Elizabeth, insisting that she did not deserve the people's love, and was a b.a.s.t.a.r.d with not a drop of Tudor blood in her, though one only had to look at Elizabeth to know this was a mad delusion; none of the children King Henry sired ever resembled him more. But it sorely rankled our royal cousin to know that Elizabeth held the people's heart in the palm of her hand and had youth and patience on her side. She was shrewd enough to know that her chance would come; she had only to wait for it and the crown would be handed to her on a purple velvet cus.h.i.+on. There was no need for her to embroil herself in the dangerous schemes her sister imagined; Elizabeth was no fool. But every time a new conspiracy was uncovered or whispered of, Queen Mary was convinced Elizabeth was at the heart of it, and no one could persuade her otherwise.

Then, all of a sudden, Time tired of this frantic pace, dug in its heels, and slowed to the gait of a lazy, old snail. I remember exactly when it happened-the morning I awoke to my first monthly blood. I was thirteen then and fearing that I would never bleed; both my sisters had shed their first woman's blood early in their twelfth year; for them it had been like a belated New Year's gift. I remember Kate's courses started for the first time on St. Valentine's Day, and she saw heart shapes in the red stains on her sheets and declared it a sign that she would be lucky in love, but Jane thought it was all a confounded nuisance and went on to preach a ponderous sermon about Eve in the Garden of Eden.

How excited I was when I awoke and found the rusty red roses of womanhood blooming on my sheets. I bolted from my bed and rushed to the looking gla.s.s, hoping to see some change, praying as I ran that G.o.d had worked a miracle, and I would find that overnight "the beastly little one" had been transformed, like a b.u.t.terfly emerging from its coc.o.o.n, into a beautiful, shapely, and slender young lady just like Kate. Yet one glance told me that during the night, when I had pa.s.sed obliviously in my slumber from child to woman, neither Father Time nor Mother Nature had left a gift for me to mark the occasion. I was still no taller than a child of five, a crouch-backed little gargoyle, and I knew that no corset, no matter how rigorously laced, would ever sculpt my stocky, tree-trunk torso into an exquisite hourgla.s.s like Kate's. And if I were to ever dare tread a public measure, the movements of my short, thick, vein-rippled, bowed little legs, fortunately hidden by my skirts, would occasion mockery, giggles, and glee instead of compliments on my nonexistent grace. When I raised my night s.h.i.+ft with my still stubby fingers and walked back and forth before the icy cruel, silvered gla.s.s, I saw that I still had the same waddle-wobble walk. Nothing had changed, and I knew it never would; I would be stuck inside this ugly, ungainly, squat little goblin's body until the day I died and G.o.d set my soul free.

"Mayhap in Heaven I shall be a raving beauty," I sighed and said to the sad, ugly face staring back at me from the looking gla.s.s. Then the tears came. So suddenly they took me by surprise. I wept as though great stones of sorrow had been suddenly set down upon my shoulders and chest, threatening to crush me with this painful grief. I wanted my sister; I wanted Kate. But we no longer shared a room; that privilege had been taken from me and given to another, and I was left to sleep alone. No one wanted to share a bed with "Lady Mary Gargoyle." I wanted to run howling down the corridor and pound on her door in my bloodstained s.h.i.+ft and throw myself into Kate's arms, but womanly dignity and pride won out over a child's rage against unfairness. I would keep my blood a secret, for in truth, what did it matter that I was now a woman? There would never be a husband, a man, to love me. My body might as well be dry and barren, yet my heart, I knew, would always weep tears of blood for the carnal comforts and fleshly pleasures that would ever be denied me because of what I was. Unfortunately there were no n.o.bly born dwarf lads at court who could be mated with me, only the lowborn tumblers and fools in jingle bells and motley who came to entertain, and to them I was of too high an estate to ever be trifled with. Instead of desire in their eyes, I saw scorn and envy; unlike them, I did not have to make silly faces and cut capers to put food on my table; I was a duke's daughter with royal blood in my veins, born to live and die in comfort and ease. If Fate ever decreed that I should hold a sceptre it would not be tipped with jingle bells to be waggled at a laughing crowd while I rolled my eyes and stuck my tongue out.

The young Lady Jane Seymour, the late Lord Protector's daughter named in honour of his sister, "the third time's the charm queen" who had died giving Henry VIII the son he desired above all things, was now Kate's best friend and bedmate. This Lady Jane was a.s.suredly one of the most delicate, gentle-hearted creatures G.o.d ever created, so sweet that indeed it hurt my heart to hate her. She had made a point of befriending Kate in the dark days just after Jane's death, when most of the court hypocritically shunned her as the sister of a traitor and a turncoat who had renounced the Reformed Faith to save her life and family fortune when many of them had done exactly the same thing, and a divorcee at only fourteen whose much-envied beauty and the flirtatious wiles she had boldly exhibited in the company of her former husband and father-in-law made her virtue suspect. But pale, ethereal Lady Jane in her gowns of her favourite heavenly blue reminiscent of the Holy Virgin's robes had no patience for such things. Perhaps it was because she knew she was not long for this world? Her lungs were weak; fever often brightened her cheeks and pallid, blue-violet eyes, making them glow with a watery luminosity that only made her more beautiful, especially since she had not had the misfortune to inherit the Seymours' prominent and beaky nose that usually marred their women's otherwise fine features. Her hair was the fairest I had ever seen, a s.h.i.+mmering silvery blond that always made me think of angel wings, but she often bemoaned was too limp to hold even a vestige of a curl. No matter how long her maid laboured twining it around the hot irons, it would fall flat, hanging straight to her waist, slick as silk, defying all pins, before the irons even had a chance to cool or for Lady Jane to make her way downstairs to whatever celebration she was preparing to attend in the Great Hall.

I didn't lose my sister all at once. The change happened gradually. Though I didn't begrudge her a friend, I could not help but resent anyone who came between us. My sister was in truth my only friend and I had great need of her. But the five years that separated us, though they had always seemed so inconsequential before, and I had always been old for my years, now seemed of a sudden so very great. I wanted to stop it, and the polite, bland smiles that Kate now favoured me with as though I were a stranger, or a mere acquaintance at most, instead of the sister who knew and loved her best. But I couldn't. When I tried to talk to her about it, she dismissed it as nonsense, jealousy, or just my imagination.

In truth maybe there were elements of all three tossed into the brew of emotion bubbling inside of me. I only know that whenever she was with Jane Seymour I felt as though a pane of thick gla.s.s divided us and I was always on the outside looking in, futilely trying to get her attention, trying to gain back the time Kate no longer had for me. It only made things worse when Lady Jane, with kindness in her forget-me-not eyes, would smile shyly and hold out her hand and invite me to join them, for I knew that if I did that pane of gla.s.s her gesture had banished would soon come back again, and I would feel an outsider, an intruder, an eavesdropper spying on them. So I schooled myself to proudly decline, turn my back, and thrust my nose up high, and walk away from that outstretched hand.

Even if my cold rebuffs hurt that gentle lady, I had to protect myself since no one else would. I knew that being with them, seeing the happiness they shared, would hurt me because I could never be a part of it. Knowing that it had once been mine made the pain even worse.

At court all the maidens who served Her Majesty slept two to a bed; it was deemed a special privilege or a sign of great disfavour for any to have a room all to herself. But this Lady Jane was often troubled by coughs and fevers, so few relished sleeping in the same bed with her lest they catch some vile contagion or her coughing and feverish tossing deprive them of a restful sleep. At first, Kate would only occasionally creep down the corridor in her s.h.i.+ft and bare feet to pa.s.s a night giggling and gossiping with her friend, but then a day came when, with the Queen's permission, she packed her things and moved them to Lady Jane's room. Every night thereafter I would lie awake, wis.h.i.+ng and hoping that Kate would come creeping down the corridor to spend a night with me, but she never did. I would picture the two of them, braided and frilled night-capped heads together, gossiping and giggling long into the night, just like Kate and I used to do, and weep into my pillow and wonder if G.o.d would ever see fit to send me someone to ease my loneliness. Kate said G.o.d had given her Lady Jane as a replacement for our own Jane, the sister He had taken home to Him, but who, if any, I wondered, would He give me to take Kate's place?

But at least Kate was getting better. Her heart was healing, or so I thought. I remember seeing her one night, with a handsome dark-haired boy in gold-piped crimson velvet. I watched with a glad heart as he manoeuvred her into a corner to steal a kiss after she had danced, the most beautiful damsel of all, in a masque, draped in a gold lace mantle over a green and purple gown embroidered with golden pearl-dotted vines and festooned with bunches of purple and green wax grapes, and beneath it, I noted with pleasure, the petticoat I had embroidered for her with bouquets of scarlet roses bound with golden bows and cl.u.s.ters of grapes. He caressed her bright hair, as he pressed forward, and so dazzled and smitten was he by her radiant beauty and charm as they bantered softly and smiled into each other's eyes that he absently plucked grapes from the cl.u.s.ters in her hair and had already eaten three before Kate laughingly inquired if he was aware that they were made of wax. Kate let him steal another kiss, and he caressed the side of her neck with hands that looked so soft and tender they made me long to be in her shoes.

When his hand travelled down to gently cup her breast, Kate let it linger there for a moment while she savoured his kiss before she laughed and danced away from him and ran to grab the hand of one of the court greybeards and, his potbelly jiggling, pulled him out to join the other dancers in a lively gavotte. I watched with a sad and happy heart, knowing that it would be Lady Jane Seymour, not I, who would laugh about it in bed with her that night. How I missed her and those sweet, sisterly confidences whispered against our pillows while all around us the palace slept.

I stood in the shadows and waited for her. As she and Jane Seymour walked past, heads together, giggling, on the way to their room, I boldly reached out and caught her skirt. Kate paused and stared down at me, and I saw the flash of impatience, and annoyance, in her eyes. When I did not speak and glanced meaningfully past her at Lady Jane, unable to keep the reproachful glare from my eyes, she demurely lowered her head and murmured that she was rather tired and would await Kate upstairs.

"Well, what is it, Mary?" Kate turned back to me, arms folded across her b.r.e.a.s.t.s.

Still I persisted. I had to know. "Do you love him?" I asked hopefully.

"Who?" Kate asked irritably, as though she had no idea what I was talking about.

"The dark-haired boy in crimson. I saw you kiss him, and you let him touch your breast. He's very handsome, Kate, and he has kind eyes."

With a flippant, world-weary laugh and a toss of her flame-bright curls, Kate said, "It was only a kiss, Mary! It meant nothing! I was just having fun; isn't that what I'm here to do? Love is a snare." She said this suddenly, with a brittle vengeance filled with unshed tears that threatened to seep through the cracks. "I made the mistake of getting caught in it. But don't let it get you, Mary. Don't you make the same mistake! If you do, you'll never be free! It bites deep, holds tight, tears you when you try to pull free, and even if you do get away, it always leaves you marked with a scar so that you can never forget it, no matter how much you dance and laugh and let pretty boys kiss and fondle you."

She laughed again, as though she were trying to pretend it was all a jest, and twirled away from me, dancing down the corridor with an obviously feigned gaiety, on her way to join Jane Seymour.

"I don't believe you!" I called after her. "Your words are a s.h.i.+eld; you're just trying to protect your heart because you don't want to be hurt again!"

Kate froze, then whirled around and stormed back to challenge me. "What do you think that you know about love?" she demanded.

"More than you think," I answered boldly. "Those who have never had it, who have had to learn to live without it, knowing it is something they can never realistically hope to have, but still nonetheless yearn and dream of it, know its worth far better than those who have had it given to them free and gratis all their lives, and will go on to love and love again, just as you will! Losing Berry isn't the end, Kate. You will find love again, or it will find you, I haven't a doubt of it!"

b.r.e.a.s.t.s heaving, Kate stood and stared at me as though I were her enemy, and, for a moment, I feared I had gone too far, that she hated me, there was such anger in her eyes. But then, abruptly, she gave a great sigh, briefly shut her eyes, then turned and walked away.

"I'm tired. Good night, Mary." She tossed the words back coolly over her shoulder along with the hot blaze of her curls, but I thought I detected a quiver of tears hovering just beneath the words. As her steps quickened as she neared the stairs, I knew that this would be another night when she cried herself to sleep. Only it would be Jane Seymour, and not I, who would be there to hold and comfort her.

The next afternoon Queen Mary sent for me. She had sensed my unhappiness, I think, after Kate deserted me. When I entered her quiet, darkened chamber, where all the curtains were drawn tight against the sun that so cruelly hurt her poor, tear-swollen eyes, she was alone, bereft and grieving for her golden Spanish prince who had sailed away, never to return, leaving her alone with another phantom baby filling her belly with false hope. She sat on the floor, trailing black veils like a widow and straggling, dirty, matted hair that was now entirely grey but for a few pale yellowy orange streaks. It shall have to be cut off, I thought with a pang of alarm, knowing how sensitive Cousin Mary was about her hair, for not even Kate will have the patience to comb the tangles out.

She squinted hard at me, then her lips spread in a wide smile, showing swollen gums and the ugly black and yellow stumps of her few remaining teeth. She held up two dolls-a pair of little ladies arrayed in exquisite gowns she had made. There was a small chest nearby overflowing with more. Tiny gowns, kirtles, cloaks, petticoats, slippers, and headdresses spilled out onto the floor, and her sewing basket beside it, surrounded by sc.r.a.ps of gorgeous fabric and skeins of gilt thread, her silver sewing scissors, and a pincus.h.i.+on speared with pearl-tipped pins and shaped like a pomegranate that was a precious relic of her mother. She handed me one of the dolls, a little raven-haired lady in lemon velvet crisscrossed with gold piping and pearls, and bade me sit beside her whilst she cradled a honey-haired damsel in tawny rose brocade.

I was thirteen and fancied myself too old for dolls, so I felt a trifle foolish, and embarra.s.sed for her as well as for myself, but I didn't dare disobey nor could I bear to disappoint someone who had been so kind to me, one I knew to be in such pain, mayhap even dying if the whispers gliding like serpents through the palace corridors were true.

The hours dragged slowly past as we dressed and undressed the dolls and enacted little dramas with them. Suddenly she turned and rummaged in the chest and brought out two more dolls-a replica of herself in her sumptuous black velvet wedding gown, so densely embroidered with gold you could barely see the black beneath, and a male doll, golden-haired, with a little golden dagger of a beard decorating his chin, clad in gold-embellished white velvet and a bloodred cloak embroidered with pearls and golden thistles. She started to give him to me, but then, with a horrified gasp, as though she could not believe what she had almost done, s.n.a.t.c.hed him back and hugged him possessively against her breast and glared at me with crazed eyes that dared me to try and take him from her. I didn't know what to do. Thankfully the moment pa.s.sed, and she realized that I was no threat. With tears rolling down her face, she thrust the doll fas.h.i.+oned in her own likeness at me. Then, though she was crying so hard she could scarcely see, we reenacted the couple's nuptials until Queen Mary collapsed weeping on the floor and her two most devoted ladies-in-waiting, Jane Dormer and Susan Clarencieux, emerged silently from the shadows to help her back to bed.

"Go away, little gargoyle," Susan said over her shoulder as they led their weeping mistress away. "This is no place for you."

As I closed the door behind me, I heard Cousin Mary's sobs grow into keening wails as she cried for her Philip.

Soon she was dead. We were bathing her corpse and dressing her for the last time in the blue velvet and ermine gown she had worn on her coronation day, carefully pinning it to conceal how loose it hung upon her emaciated frame. Kate's clever fingers worked wonders with the dirty, matted hair, snaring it in a golden net beneath a coronet of spring flowers formed of precious gems.

As we worked silently over her corpse, outside the bells tolled and the people sang and danced in the streets, and wept with joy, to welcome the young woman they called "Our Elizabeth." She was the phoenix that had risen from the ashes of all the Protestants "b.l.o.o.d.y Mary" had burned to cinders along with her popularity, throwing her people's love onto the pyre and eradicating all memory of the once-beloved "Merciful Mary" and the even more dimly remembered "Princess Marigold." Now her death was cause for jubilation, a national holiday that would be celebrated for many years to come.

As Kate rubbed rouge onto the gaunt cheeks that were like yellow wax in the candlelight, our eyes met over that poor, pathetic body and we silently wondered, now that Elizabeth was queen, what would become of us. Elizabeth, unlike Mary, had never favoured or befriended us, but neither had she been cruel, only coolly indifferent; to Elizabeth we were just there, like pieces of furniture. I hadn't told Kate, but I had already set to work embroidering a petticoat with red and white Tudor roses and the crowned golden initials ER, "Elizabeth Regina," as a gift for her, to show that we had no royal pretensions, we weren't pretenders to the throne, and we wanted only peace, not to be embroiled in conspiracies and schemes. I prayed Elizabeth would read correctly the message embroidered in those royal roses of red and white petals that symbolized the union of the houses of York and Lancaster. Our very survival might depend on it.

14.

With the advent of Elizabeth, Lady Jane Seymour's health began a sharp decline; her bad days now far outnumbered her good. The Queen didn't like having a fever-bright consumptive with a hacking cough too near about her and often gave her leave to retire from court to her family's country estate, Hanworth, in Middles.e.x. She sent Kate with her as "a remedy against loneliness for a young girl so accustomed to the crowded life at court."

To our immense relief, Queen Mary's demise had not substantially altered our position, except we, like most of the court, were Protestants again. We rode once more in golden chariots clad in ermine-banded crimson as part of an even more splendid coronation procession, and wore again our red silk petticoats with the golden b.u.t.terflies in remembrance of our lost sister. We also retained our privileged posts as ladies-of-the-bedchamber.

But Elizabeth, though graciously cool and largely indifferent to me, was always very wary of Kate. Though Kate would have gladly gone on her knees and sworn that she didn't want to be queen, she wanted only to be happy, as a wife and mother, that a loving, happy household was the only kingdom she coveted, it wasn't enough. Elizabeth knew that as long as she remained the unmarried "Virgin Queen," which she seemed bound and determined to do despite the confusion and consternation it caused, Kate would be regarded as the heir presumptive; thus many would flock around and flatter her and even devise plots to bring her to the throne sooner rather than later.

There were many in the world who thought Elizabeth's claim to the throne tenuous at best. Those who refused to acknowledge the marriage of Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn said Elizabeth was a b.a.s.t.a.r.d born of an illicit and illegal union, and thus the Crown should go to someone more worthy and of unblemished pedigree, someone like my sister Kate, and her resemblance to the "Tudor Rose," Mary Tudor, "The French Queen," was often favourably cited. There were even whispers of a Spanish plot to abduct Kate and marry her by force to Philip's imbecilic son Don Carlos, a youth who took fiendish delight in torturing animals and servants. But Kate wanted no part of any of it, and certainly none of Don Carlos and his manias and madness. If anyone dared try to speak to her about her "royal destiny," she would stop her ears and flee their presence as fast as she could.

That was why, I thought, it pleased her so much to escape the court, to travel by a slow horse-drawn litter to Hanworth with her invalid friend. It was the only way Kate could know true peace, away from the maelstrom of plotting that was Elizabeth's court. "Deliver me from this viper's nest of intrigue!" she would always cry as she bolted down the steps into the courtyard and leapt, una.s.sisted, into the litter, impatient to be off and away from it all, looking forward, never back, not even to wave at me.

But there was more to these visits to Hanworth than I ever knew until much later. That was where she met Ned again. Edward Seymour the younger, the handsome Earl of Hertford, who had once, briefly, been our sister Jane's suitor.

As though Fate had decreed it, Kate told me when she finally bared her soul and confessed all, nigh two years after that fateful day, she had been wearing a robin's egg blue gown-the very same colour she had worn that long ago morning when they had first met on the stairs at Bradgate-when Ned Seymour, the sun making a golden blaze to burn out the brown of his hair, descended the sunken stone steps into the garden where Kate was busily gathering a pretty bouquet to brighten his sister's sickroom.

Gallantly, Ned insisted that he must help her. As he bent to pluck the blossoms, his hazel eyes gazing deeply into Kate's stormy blue grey ones, he let his fingers brush against hers as he handed them to her. He showed himself exceedingly well versed in the lore and secret language of flowers and recited what each blossom stood symbol for.

"Purple iris for a message," he began. "Like the one hidden in this bouquet. Scarlet poppies because everyone deserves one fantastic, extravagant folly in their life, like a foolish or impossible love"-he smiled knowingly at Kate-"even if the memory makes us cringe forever afterward."

His words conjured memories of Berry and made Kate blush. To give her a quiet, private moment to compose herself, Ned knelt over a patch of purple blue blossoms.

"Jacob's ladder," he announced. "To bid thee, fair maiden, come down to me like an angel from heaven and bless me with your love and favour."

Then he was down again, enthusiastically reaching for more.

"Goldenrod"-he twirled the feathery spire of golden flowers around by its stem before giving it to her-"for encouragement, for I would have that from you, just as I would give it. Snowdrops for consolation, that we might find comfort together, and be a balm to each other for the many sorrows and disappointments that have dotted our lives like a field of these dainty white flowers."

Both paused to ponder the many painful losses that had scarred their families and the day they knew would inevitably come when they would both lose a beloved sister and friend-the Lady Jane Seymour.

But Ned was quick to shrug off his sorrow.

"Daffodils!" With an excited grin he bent to gather some of the jaunty yellow flowers that could always coax a smile out of any who beheld them. "To herald a new beginning, and-dare I hope?-a new love." He paused and stared deep and hopefully into Kate's eyes before breaking away to s.n.a.t.c.h up some sunny yellow flowers. "Here! I know you like yellow, so we must have celandine-for the joys yet to come, for all that we have to look forward to!"

Like a man possessed, again and again Ned swooped down to gather more flowers, thrusting them into Kate's hands then darting back for more. "Like a seagull diving for fish," Kate would later laugh when she recalled this scene for me.

"Lilacs for the first stirrings of love; lily of the valley to welcome the return of happiness; larkspur so that your heart may be as light and gay as the lark's song; crocuses for joy and gladness; red roses for pa.s.sionate love, white for purity, and pink for your perfect grace-your movements are as beautiful as your face." He paused to take a breath and just to look at her, long and deep, like a parched and thirsty man who had just stumbled out of the desert drinking his fill from a welcome oasis. Kate would say afterward it felt like a whole lifetime pa.s.sed in that moment, before he resumed gathering flowers again.

"Honesty for honesty, of course, that most precious gift which lovers should always give to one another; periwinkles for tender memories to cherish, like the day I met a little girl in a robin's egg blue dress fraught with worry over her beloved cat. Pinks for love pure and true; ranunculus for one so radiant and charming it would be a grievous sin not to tell her so. And here"-he brandished a posy of fragrant little pink flowers-"sweet peas for the most delicate, delectable pleasures. Look at them, blus.h.i.+ng, bright pink, like the lips both above and below, visible and modestly hidden beneath your petticoats, that I long so much to kiss."

Then, as though fearing he had said too much, and that Kate might slap his face, he rushed on, s.n.a.t.c.hing up more flowers.

Yet he could not stop. He had dared be bold and still Kate lingered.

"Honeysuckle for lovers entwined in pa.s.sionate embraces who dream of each other whenever they are apart both by night and by day; vetch because I would cling to thee; gentian because you are so very dear to me; Canterbury bells for constancy." He added a generous spray of the swaying purple blue bells to Kate's already overflowing bouquet.

"Pink gillyflowers to remind us to always remember a love that should never be forgotten, yellow for fidelity and devotion, and white to tell you how sweet and lovely you are. And sweet-scented white stock, because you will always be beautiful to me even when your hair is white as snow and wrinkles web and crinkle your face. You will always be as beautiful to me just as you are now." His fingers caressed Kate's as he added these to her bouquet.

Then he was gathering a feathery and ticklish spray of leafy greenery.

"Ferns for sincerity," he explained. "To stand surety for the truth in every word I speak to you. Feverfew for warmth like the yellow sun at the heart of their white petals; wallflowers, red gold like your hair"-he dared twirl a curl around his finger-"for faithfulness in adversity. And lungwort because you are my life, like the air my lungs breathe; you, and hope of you, of someday calling you mine, keeps me alive. And these flamboyant beauties-heart's ease pansies-to remind you, my flamboyant beauty"-he gazed possessively at Kate-"to think of me, always and fondly. Peppermint for warm feelings because that is how I would have you think of me; rosemary for remembrance and a love that never forgets or dies; and forget-me-nots because I can never forget you and hope you never will me. Lastly, this pink cabbage rose"-he thrust it boldly into the centre of the by-then enormous bouquet-"as a confession of my love in case you have any doubt."

I remember every word and blossom. I would later weave them all into an intricate beribboned border, the most elaborate I had ever embroidered, around a petticoat for Kate.

Kate threw back her head and laughed. Had her hands not been br.i.m.m.i.n.g over with so many flowers it took both her hands to hold them, she would have applauded in sheer delight. She thought it all gallant flattery and was awed by the smooth and silky delivery, as polished as an actor in a play; he had never once faltered over the flowers or their meanings.

"These flowers were intended for your sister," she observed. "Should I really carry her such a bold and ardent bouquet? Truly, sir, it seems overly ... pa.s.sionate for an invalid."

"Nay"-Ned shook his head, his eyes never once leaving Kate's face-"they are all for you and none other, Mistress Kate. For Jane we shall have to pick another, with purple coneflowers for strength and health, and flowering hawthorn to express our deeply cherished hope that she will soon recover; she will like that. But the message in this bouquet is, as you say, too overwhelming for an invalid, though I daresay if she knew, it would gladden her heart immeasurably to know I had picked it for you, just as she picked you, the most beautiful rose in all of England, for me. She planned this, you know. She conspired with Fate, who first put you in my path many years ago when I was sent to woo your sister, and now my sister, by bringing you here, has done the same. Call it what you will, my Kate-for you are my Kate-G.o.d, Fate, or Jane, we were meant to be together."

"When I looked from my window"-he pointed up to it-"and saw you here in a gown bluer than the sky, the same robin's egg blue as I remembered, with your hair s.h.i.+ning in the sun, bright as a robin's red breast, in the midst of this garden, like a beautiful little blue egg in a nest, I knew I must put on my blue and red doublet too"-he touched his chest-"and come down to you, so that we two might be one as we were meant to be." Then, offering her his arm, he asked, "Now shall we add some ivy to finish this bouquet, for steadfastness, an attachment that ends only with life itself?"

That was the moment Kate decided that Berry was rotten and felt love for Ned Seymour ripen, full and beautiful, in her heart. Like Eve plucking the apple, then and there she gave her heart to him. I wasn't there to stop her, though 'tis folly to think I could have. Kate was ever one to follow her heart wherever it led, oblivious to any danger, pain, or obstacles that might lie in her path; even if it brought disaster cras.h.i.+ng down onto her own pretty head, she would race blindly ahead, her eyes always on the pretty prize, never glancing at the ground and the ruts and rocks that might trip her up, following Love as though it were a pretty golden b.u.t.terfly she must hold within her reverently clasped hands. "All for love," that was ever my Kate. It was her blessing, and her curse.

I saw so little of my sister over the next two years we were all but strangers. I rarely saw her except when she wanted some pretty embroidery for her petticoats or a new gown. Though I noticed, whenever I pa.s.sed her in the palace corridors or glimpsed her at some celebration, there was a new lightness in her step, she seemed to always be smiling, and I often caught s.n.a.t.c.hes of a song on her lips. Though her best friend was dying slowly, her bloom fading fast, Kate was dancing through the days just as she did the nights, until the schemers wore her nerves down to a shadow, and she and Jane Seymour must retreat back to Hanworth again.

Even our lady-mother's sudden death did not dampen Kate's newfound joy. We had been distant and cordial since her remarriage, but, like dutiful daughters, we donned mourning black and went to Suffolk House to wash and dress her body in preparation for the grand funeral Elizabeth had generously arranged to honour our lady-mother as she was the daughter of a queen. She was to be laid to rest amidst pomp and splendour and ill.u.s.trious ancestors in Westminster Abbey, conveniently forgetting the fact that she had lost her t.i.tle when she married so far beneath her. Kate and I shared the role of chief mourner. Though it should have been Kate's alone as the eldest, she insisted. As we led the ponderously slow procession, with black-clad maids behind us helping to bear the burden of our heavy black velvet trains, we stared straight ahead and tried to ignore the t.i.ttering in the pews about how our lady-mother had perished. In bed with Master Stokes, just as November 20 became the 21, she died with her boots on and smiling, seized by a sudden stroke.

"She went like that," our boyish young stepfather had informed us, snapping his fingers to ill.u.s.trate the swiftness. "I do not think she felt any pain though-she was greatly smiling and just afore that had given me every indication that she was well pleased." Indeed, the embalmers, mindful of the deceased's dignity, had used bands of linen and small weights to give our lady-mother's dead face a more appropriate expression for when she lay in state, for which Kate and I were most grateful.

Nor a year later, when the court reeled with scandal and my own heart grieved the loss of one I scarcely knew but remembered fondly, was Kate's glowing happiness the least bit diminished. The Lady Amy, Robert Dudley's wife, who was rumoured to be ailing with a cancer of the breast, had been discovered dead, with her neck broken, at the foot of a staircase, yet the hood remained straight upon her head, and her skirts were not disarrayed as one might expect after such a fall. Many cried "Murder!" and pointed at Lord Robert, and the Queen's reputation was also besmirched by the scandal. Gossip raged that they were lovers, and that Lord Robert, grown weary of waiting for G.o.d to take his unwanted wife home to Him, and fearing that Elizabeth might succ.u.mb to one of her many foreign suitors, had taken matters into his own hands and had Amy killed, thinking her demise would clear the way for their marriage and another coronation at Westminster Abbey from whence he would emerge crowned King Robert I of England.

But Elizabeth knew better-Robert Dudley wasn't worth a kingdom. Even when Lord Robert was sent away to await the inquest's verdict and the court was ordered to don mourning for Lady Dudley, Kate still smiled and sparkled and showed the world how beautiful she looked in black.

Eventually a day came, after Robert Dudley had been welcomed back at court, after the inquest had adjudged Amy's death an accident, and we were allowed to doff our mourning and don colours again, when Kate came dancing into my room. Spinning in her long maroon velvet cloak, with pink roses blooming in her cheeks, and her eyes bright as stars, a blue ostrich plume billowing gracefully on her hat, to match the border of blue roses I had embroidered on the petticoat peeking from beneath the hem of the elegant apricot satin gown embroidered with maroon roses and vines I had made for her, she came to rest, kneeling beside my chair. I was hard at work on the petticoat she had begged of me, the one I would come to know only after it was finished as "Ned's bouquet." She put her arms around me and kissed my cheek, and I giggled and pulled away as the feather on her hat tickled me.

"It's your own fault, you know," she laughed. "You chose the feather and fas.h.i.+oned the hat, and most becoming it is too," she added as she turned to admire herself in the looking gla.s.s. Then she told me that she must have a nightcap, "the most beautiful nightcap ever made, and I want you to make it for me, Mary," embroidered all over with deep purple violets and trimmed with silver-veined lace, with a purple satin bow to tie "just so" beneath her chin. "I must have it and soon," she insisted.

"All right," I sighed indulgently. "You shall have it." I gazed hard at my sister, then shook my head and sighed again. "If I didn't know better, I would think you were in love."

"Just in love with life, Mary," Kate said with a merry trill of laughter. "Just in love with life!" It wasn't exactly a lie. I just didn't know it then. But, to Kate, Ned Seymour was her life.

Before I could ask any more questions, she was gone; with a another quick kiss, and a song on her lips, she danced out my door again, glad-hearted, featherlight, and diamond bright.

I just smiled and shrugged it off, chuckled, and shook my head at Kate's latest caprice. It made my heart glad to see her so happy and light of step, always smiling, with pink roses blooming in her cheeks again. Mayhap it was stupid or naive of me, but I never thought it had aught to do with any man. Kate didn't seem to favour any particular gentleman; she danced and flirted with many, and sometimes even let them kiss her-in quiet corners, forest glades during hunting parties, velvet-curtained alcoves, and moonlit gardens. Twice or thrice, that I knew of, she even let their fingers delve inside her bodice or rove daringly beneath her petticoats. Best of all, she had forgotten all about Berry; she could now pa.s.s him by without a glance. She was done moping and weeping for what she had lost and could never have again, and I hoped she now realized that he was never worth it. But I never saw her single Ned Seymour out or show any sign that he was special; she treated him with the politeness due the brother of her best friend and nothing more. I don't even recall that I ever even saw them dance together or heard her mention his name. I saw them nod and smile in pa.s.sing and exchange polite greetings and comments on the weather and Jane Seymour's health, but that was all.

So I shrugged and went on with my sewing, foolishly surmising that flowered nightcaps were set to become the latest fancy, and soon other ladies would come knocking at my door with little velvet purses filled with coins or pretty trinkets and other gifts, prattling of ribbons, laces, and the flowers they favoured. G.o.d help me, I never thought it was anything more! I should have laid down my sewing and gone out and boldly confronted Kate, grabbed her arm, stared her down, and gotten to the heart of the matter, but I, to my everlasting regret, didn't. I sat and sewed and did nothing.

15.

On a bl.u.s.tery December morning, two years after Elizabeth had come to the throne, when Kate was twenty and I was sixteen, the Queen would hunt anyway despite the cold, cold weather. Elizabeth defiantly declared the air "bracing" and that she was not afraid of its bite. I heard that Kate was ailing and had sent Henny to beg that she might forgo the pleasure of the hunt and remain abed. Since I was never a good choice to follow the hunt, being too likely to get in the way and be trampled, Elizabeth readily gave me leave to stay behind and tend my sister. "Lady Jane Seymour is ill too," she tartly commented as I snipped a stray thread from the hem of her evergreen velvet riding habit, "though it would be more remarkable if she were well."

As soon as I could, I made my curtsy to the Queen, thanking her again, and rushed to the room Kate and Jane Seymour shared, expecting to find them both coughing and feverish.

I burst in without knocking. A startled cry greeted me, and I whirled around to see Kate standing before the looking gla.s.s as Lady Jane finished lacing her into the gown of b.u.t.ter yellow satin bordered with rich golden braid and embroidered all over with hundreds of dainty royal purple violets with gold-veined green leaves, that I had only put the final st.i.tches in the week before at Kate's anxious urging. I had thought to have more time with it; after all such a gown was better suited to springtime, so surely in the deep of winter there was no need to hurry, but Kate had wept and stormed, stamped her feet, and pleaded with me to make haste, insisting that she must have it and soon. But when I asked her why, she shrugged it off as merely "a fancy to be clothed in spring when outside the world is all snow and ice." She had come to my room to check its progress every day, sometimes twice or even thrice. Only when the last st.i.tch had been put in did this fearful, frantic impatience fall from her like a dead rose petal.

"What are you doing here?" Kate rounded on me angrily.

"I-I heard that you were ill," I stammered.

"Well, I'm not, but don't you dare tell anyone! My cloak-quickly!" Her rude snappishness, so unlike Kate, told me that she was very nervous about something.