Nine Days a Queen: The Short Life and Reign of Lady Jane Grey (6 page)

Needless to say, I worried for Sir Thomas. I knew he was reckless and foolish, and hoped he would not get into trouble with those pirates of his. Whoever they were.

Ah, but when he came home, all worries vanished.

He played with Elizabeth and me at quoits, chess, cards, ball in the gardens, or just plain running and teasing, with our dogs.

The tutor he had employed for us, Mr. Ascham, was patient, yet insistent. Elizabeth and I worked well together with him.

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Sir Thomas made me recite for him when he came home, listening with mock severity. He pronounced my Latin and Greek translations superb. But I think Elizabeth, who was brilliant, didn't have to work as hard as I did, and I envied her that. She also seemed to have years of experience behind her that I lacked. One day Sir Thomas told me, "She lost her mother at age three. Her father has mostly ignored her. She's had to exist on her wits alone."

I was near to tears. I could not bear that he took up for her.

Elizabeth and I put on masques for Katharine and Thomas. When company came, we were allowed to stay and visit and were not sent from the room. I adored Sir Thomas. I'd have done anything for him. I thought I'd died and gone to heaven living there.

Then one day in the winter, Katharine told us she was expecting a child.

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EIGHT

T

hat winter Sir Thomas was away. But for the most part, Katharine was well. And happy. Never had I seen her so happy. She told us how her first three husbands, both so much older than she, had had children and she'd been a mother to them, but she'd never had children of her own and always wanted them.

I longed to ask Katharine if the rumors were true about Sir Thomas, the pirates, and his raising an army because he was so angry at his brother, the Lord Protector. But I dared not. Could Sir Thomas be so foolish?

Why, even a schoolchild knew that part of the reason the King went on a summer Progress each year, traveling through the countryside, was

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to make sure none of his subjects had enough private retainers to be construed as a standing army. To have an army was treason. I worried about Sir Thomas.

We spent a lovely, cozy time at Chelsea Manor. Sometimes Katharine, Elizabeth, and I would walk together of an afternoon with our respective ladies. Other times we sat and sewed small garments for the new baby. Sometimes we just sat wrapped in warm cloaks and watched the small boats and swans on the Thames, or played music inside the house. I was never so contented.

I read to Katharine from some of her favorite new religious tracts when she became restless. I made her a sleeping posset with my own hands when she could not sleep. We readied the house with holly and greens for Christmas.

And then the Lord High Admiral came home. And of a sudden everything changed.

One morning I lay abed, wide awake, just listening to the sounds of the house coming alive, when I heard a scream from Elizabeth's chambers. I got up, put on a robe and went to see what was happening.

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I stood stock still in the doorway to see Sir Thomas in there in his long nightshirt, his feet bare, leaning over Elizabeth's bed and tickling her. I gasped. In the corner of the room were two of Elizabeth's ladies, but they acted as if they did not know what to do. One had her hand over her mouth. The other had her face half turned away.

"You lazybones, time you were out of bed," Sir Thomas was saying.

"Leave me be, you oaf," Elizabeth shot back.

But Sir Thomas would not leave her be. He continued, lifting a pillow and pretending to strike her with it, tickling her and once even slapping her on the buttocks when she turned over.

I knew I must do something, so I called his name. "Sir Thomas."

He stopped, a pillow midair. "Ah, you want some too, you little minx."

I backed off. "No, sir, I just thought--"

"Nobody asked you to think. You don't when you do your lessons from what I hear from your tutor. Anyway, I'll get to you if you wait long enough."

I ran from the room. Something was wrong with that scene I had just witnessed. It was more

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than passing strange. It had about it the movements of a ritual, some witchlike thing.

I spent the morning wondering just how much of the witch Elizabeth had in her. According to common gossip, her mother, Anne Boleyn, had been part witch. Her father had ended up fearing her. Hadn't Anne had a sixth finger on one hand that she hid with specially made long sleeves? Hadn't she all but bewitched the King? Hadn't he wanted her burned at the stake, then given in at the last minute and agreed to beheading?

Did Elizabeth, with her sudden womanlike appearance, her rich red hair, have part of the witch in her, too? Had she indeed bewitched Sir Thomas?

I knew right from wrong, certainly, but how could I lay any blame at Sir Thomas's feet? I looked up to him too much. I never mentioned the scene to anyone.

It became a habit.

Every morning Sir Thomas would sneak into Elizabeth's room, ostensibly to wake her.

Every morning came the shrieking from Elizabeth, the pillow fights, the tickling and

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slapping, the ladies clucking their tongues and rolling their eyes. And Sir Thomas flushed and enjoying himself.

Every morning I made it my business to go inside Elizabeth's chambers and stand there as a witness. Sir Thomas and she both ignored me and continued with their rough playing as if nobody were about. And when he quit, he'd pass by me and tweak my nose. "She's a lazybones. You're not. See to it that you don't become one, or you'll suffer the same." And he would walk out of the room.

Always he would throw off Elizabeth's covers before attacking her, to "wake" her. Always she would fight him.

"Why do you allow it?" I asked her one morning.

"Don't be a prude" was all she would say.

"It isn't right, Elizabeth. The two of you like that. Do you know what could happen? You're a princess, second now in line for the throne. You know your brother Edward has a terrible cough and isn't well. Sir Thomas once asked the Lord Protector for your hand, according to your lights, and now this? It could

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be construed as, as ..." My voice faltered.

"As what?" She glared at me.

"Nothing," I said.

She laughed. "Flirtation! He's wed. His wife expects a child in the summer."

"Exactly," I said.

"Don't speak to me of it! I won't hear sermons from the likes of you, a short little freckle-faced waif. You make your own flirtation with Sir Thomas." I never.

"I see the worshipful eyes you make at him. So does he, don't worry."

I fled the room.

I knew I must do something. The ladies-in-waiting talked if they did nothing else. There were no secrets when it had to do with royal personages. What to do? Whom to go to?

Christmas came and went. I looked to the tradition of it, the customs, the feasting, the company, the dances, the gift giving at New Year's, to erase the terrible knowledge from my mind. All the rest of the day, Elizabeth and Sir Thomas acted with decorum. It was as if I had dreamed this nightmare and it was all mine.

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The Thames froze over in January. Afternoons, we sat by the large sunfilled windows and watched the people playing games on its frozen surface. Some children had bones tied to the bottoms of their shoes and were skimming around on the ice. Others pushed stones around with sticks, making a game of it. I was supposed to be embroidering a new shirt for Sir Thomas, when Mrs. Tilney came upon me staring out the window.

"I would speak with you, Jane."

I followed her into my own chambers, knowing this was important. Mrs. Tilney never interfered in my life unless it was important.

Inside the door of my chambers, she turned to confront me. "What are you going to do about this business with Sir Thomas and Elizabeth?"

I set down the shirt I was embroidering for him. "What business?"

"Child, you are there every morning. Or so I've been told. You are a witness to this terrible behavior. Do you know the consequences, if they are found out?"

I shook my head no. Truth be told, I was a bit glad she now spoke of this.

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"Why, it's treason. She is now second in line for the throne and he makes bold with her. They could both go to the block if their foolishness is discovered."

A chill ran through me. "What can I do?"

"You must go to Katharine. And tell her. Before it goes any further."

"I? Why must I be the one to tell?" I felt the unfairness of it in my bones.

"Because of your love for Sir Thomas and Katharine. Because you owe them both. Because Katharine trusts you."

"But he'll be angry with me."

She scoffed. "For saving his life? For bringing him to his senses? I doubt it. Now you must do this, Jane. You know you must."

I bowed my head and said yes, I would do it. For I knew, indeed, that I must. But the unfairness of it still stung me, and I knew no good could come of my actions.

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NINE

I

told Katharine. And she was a true Queen Dowager. She acted like royalty, to be sure. She never betrayed herself, never let a tear fall or a lip tremble.

"Thank you, Jane," she said.

She was abed, though it was full light. I had intercepted the maid and brought Katharine her morning repast. She lay back against the pillows looking lovelier than ever, lovelier than Elizabeth of a morning, and near as young with her flowing hair and her silken gown.

Why was Sir Thomas not in here awakening his wife?

She answered the unspoken question for me. "Men have been known to do all kinds of erratic

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things when their wives are expecting a child," she told me. "I cannot accuse him of anything. I shall have to wait to see for myself."

If you got out of bed and went to Elizabeth's chambers you would see now,

I wanted to say.

For I heard her shrieking as I came this way.

But I kept a still tongue in my head. The whole affair was too onerous for me.

I turned to leave and stopped at the door. "You won't tell him I told?"

"No, of course I won't tell Sir Thomas you gave me this information. He would be most put out with you, though you have done the right thing, Jane, and I thank you."

I did not feel as if I had done

the

right thing. I felt prissy and proper and a tattletale, and I knew in my bones Sir Thomas would find out it was I. So would Elizabeth.

How can doing the right th

ing make someone feel so wrong? I wondered. And then I went to my tutor for my lessons.

The morning sessions went on, but with a strange twist. Now Katharine joined in, going to Elizabeth's bedroom with her husband and making a great to-do out of getting her out of bed.

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I stayed away, but I was told of it by a serving maid.

"They do the most odd things. They chase her around the room, and she, princess that she is, just eludes them always, and jumps on the bed, skirts flying."

So then, Katharine was partaking in the early morning romp so as to protect her husband. If there was any gossip outside the house, she could say she was there.

How she must love him,

I thought.

I will never wed,

I told myself, then knew that was impossible. I was a bargaining chip for my parents, mayhap even for Sir Thomas now that he had taken me under his care. All girls of royal blood were, princess or not. And you were lucky indeed, if you got yourself a patron such as Sir Thomas.