Sisters of Treason (13 page)

“I get it from—”

But Byrne interrupts before George has a chance to answer: “Neighbors, you say?”

“That is right,” Levina says, trying to sound as if this is an ordinary conversation, trying not to look at Byrne’s small, perfectly aligned teeth, not to think—suddenly, inappropriately—of them biting her. “Our boy has taken a shine to one of their daughters.” Her mind is working, like the wheels of a mill, thinking that if the Carruths have been afflicted, then Marcus is at risk. A grain of dread drops in among her thoughts.

But Byrne doesn’t seem to be talking of the influenza any more. “Yes,” he says. “The Bishop is aware of that liaison.”

“It could hardly be called a liaison,” Levina says, trying to keep her voice level and not show the anxiety she feels at the turn the conversation has taken. “We have not encouraged it.” She exchanges a glance with George, who nods minutely.

“It
should
be encouraged,” announces Byrne. They wait for him to explain himself. “You see, the Bishop wants the Carruths watched. They seem to be . . .” He stops and twists his ring round his finger. “How can I put it? The Carruths seem to be behaving in a manner that has aroused the Bishop’s suspicion.” He lengthens the last word, stretching it out. “If your boy is courting one of the daughters, that would give a perfect vantage point from which to observe the family.”

“Unfortunately,” says George, “Marcus is to leave for Bruges imminently. His grandfather, my father, is ailing.” He genuflects again and places his hands one on top of the other in his lap. Levina fiddles with the rosary at her waist. “It is likely we will all be traveling there.”

“Bruges,” says Byrne slowly, as if trying to place Bruges on the map, eventually giving a slight nod of approval, and Levina is thankful that Bruges is under Catholic rule. “I am sorry to hear of your father’s ill health,” he adds, without sincerity, “but I am sure you shall find a means to keep the Bishop au courant.” And there is that smile again, sickeningly beguiling. He drains his cup of ale and stands in a swish of robes. “I doubt Bishop Bonner would be happy to lose you from his parish. The truly faithful are so few and far between.”

Levina is certain she can detect a layer of sarcasm beneath his lilting words and wonders whether Bonner is testing
their
faith as much as the Carruths’. The threat of the influenza seems nothing now and is replaced with something far more sinister. She knows the Carruths to be reformers; perhaps Byrne has also paid a similar visit to them—it is certainly possible. The man makes for the door and, with a bark of “Look sharp!” to his servant is gone.

She turns to George, who is watching her as if waiting for a pronouncement, but she avoids meeting his eye and begins to collect together the ale cups.

George grabs her wrist. “Leave that to the servant boy. It is why we pay him.”

Why
I
pay him, she wants to say, but doesn’t.

“Are you still so eager to stay?” he adds. There is nothing tender in his tone.

“We
cannot
leave now. It would arouse suspicion.”

“If you hadn’t—” He stops and drops his face into his hands. It is a gesture of despair that tugs horribly at her heart. “If you hadn’t insisted on sending all those papers, those drawings, to Geneva,” he mumbles, “we wouldn’t find ourselves under suspicion.”

She wants to shout at him, remind him of his own love of the new faith, call him disingenuous, but she holds her tongue. There is no point in railing at George, who loves her. He is frightened. She remarks the irony: that her guardsman husband is more afeared than she. “I love you, George,” she whispers. He doesn’t respond, and for the first time she asks herself if his love for her has waned, feeling a chasm open up at the heart of her.

“And what about Marcus?”

“I don’t know, George.”

“For the moment he must continue courting the girl, I suppose.”

“We can report to Byrne. Just innocuous things for the meantime and then perhaps find . . .” She can’t think of a way to make her son safe.

The door swings open and Marcus appears as if on cue. His jaw is clenched, suggesting he is holding something in check, anger or upset, and he pushes past his parents with a muttered greeting, heading for the stairs, but his father puts out an arm to stop him.

“What is it, Marcus?”

He simply shakes his head in response, and Levina can see that he’s afraid to speak in case his emotions overwhelm him; he is a dam on the brink of bursting. She knows every little crevice of her boy’s character, remembers him as a six-year-old coming a cropper to the bumps and scrapes of infancy, the way he would bite down on his trembling lower lip, his little body rigid with the effort of holding tears at bay. She knows not to try and comfort him, to allow him some distance. But George has him by the shoulders now. “What is wrong?”

“If you must know,” Marcus spits, “she has left.”

“The girl?” says George.

“No, not ‘the girl’ . . . Alice, Father; her name is Alice, and they have left—all the Carruths—for God alone knows where. She did not tell me.” He is shouting now; the tears have got the better of him and are trailing down his cheeks.

George looks at Levina as if to ask, What now? But Marcus
wrenches himself from his father’s grip and storms up the stairs, throwing a screw of paper to the floor. Levina picks it up, unfolding it, moving closer to the window for the light. It is a letter from Alice Carruth telling little more than Marcus has said: that her family have gone. She feels, by proxy, the painful twinge of her son’s first heartbreak.

“So?” says George.

“We are reprieved,” she replies, offering the paper to him. “You can take it to Byrne later. But wait until they have had a chance to get far enough away before Bonner sends out the hounds.” George nods, then lifts his eyes up to the rafters as if to acknowledge God’s hand in this. “That way,” Levina continues, “the Carruths will be safe and the Teerlincs will be seen to be doing as they have been asked.” George seems satisfied, but she knows it is only a matter of time before he begins to plead for their own departure once more.

There is a frenzy of shouting in the street outside, and from the window she can see a crowd gathering on the corner. “Oh Good Lord, not another burning!” she says.

“I passed through the market earlier,” says George, joining her at the window. “There was no stake built. I have heard nothing.” He has his arm round her and she tucks her head into the hollow of his shoulder, closing her eyes for a moment, trying to shut out the world. “I had better find out what’s going on.” He doesn’t move, though, and they stand there still, taking comfort from the proximity of each other.

“I shall come with you,” she says.

“Marcus?”

“Leave him be. Let him cry it out in private.”

They make for the door. She offers her hand, but he doesn’t take it as they step into the January chill. The street is like a Breughel, teeming with people, all rushing towards Smithfield to find out what it is that’s created such a commotion. A cart has been abandoned to one side, meaning the stream of humanity is forced into a bottleneck. Panic begins to spread in the crush, with men lifting
children onto their shoulders for safety and lads climbing out of the way onto nearby windowsills, scaling the tops of walls and over low roofs like cats. Levina can feel Hero close at heel as they are taken with the flow and eventually spat out into the market square, where there is a man on a crate shouting out to the crowd.

“What says he?” she asks a goodwife beside her.

“Calais is lost!”

Levina claps her hand to her mouth. “No!”

Word of the loss filters through the throng, and Levina’s head is full of images of all those young men, boys still really, whom she used to watch play fighting in the tiltyard; she sees their smooth faces distorted with pain, their bodies twitching and mangled. She thinks of their mothers, cannot imagine the grief of losing a son in someone else’s fruitless war. It is Felipe’s war and Calais, England’s last corner of hard-won ground on the Continent, is gone to the French. The crowd simmers. Someone presses a pamphlet into Levina’s hand. On it is an image of the Queen, wizened and ugly, and beneath it are the words . . .
an utter destroyer of her own subjects, a lover of strangers, and an unusual stepdame both to these and to thy mother England
.

There is a crash; a gang of youths has toppled a goods cart. A roar goes up. Someone has clambered onto the upturned wagon and is shouting angrily, punching a fist into the air. People begin to jostle and shove, and Levina feels her husband’s hand firmly clasped to her shoulder.

“Come,” he says. “Let’s get away from here.”

March 1558

Whitehall

Katherine

Forget-me-not is scratching about at the bottom of his cage making little tutting noises. My hands are blue with cold; I clasp
them together into a single fist and hold them to my mouth, huffing warm air into them. The weather is uncommonly bitter for March, and the horizon beyond the window is thick and white and empty. Even the birds don’t dare venture out for fear of freezing and dropping from the sky. That is what Juno says. Lady Jane Seymour (or Juno as everyone calls her, for court is filled to the rafters with Janes) arrived among us a year ago; and thank Heaven for her, as Cousin Margaret is poison these days and Jane Dormer can barely be prized away from the Queen. Besides, the latter shall be wed to Feria soon and will leave the country eventually to be a Spanish countess. It is a perfect match, given she is one of the true Catholics among us. Not like me or Juno; we truly couldn’t give a fig if there is or isn’t a purgatory, or if the host does or doesn’t transform into flesh at Mass, and we try not to think too much about what happens when we die; there is plenty of time for that when we are old, and so much else to think of in the meantime.

Juno and I are often mistaken one for the other. Anyone who took the time to look closely at us, though, would see that we are only superficially alike, in our coloring and size. Where my eyes are pale blue, hers are darker, my face is heart shaped but hers is oval, and her mouth takes the form of a bow, whereas mine is more budlike. But during the last year we have been so much together as to have picked up each other’s little quirks and tics of speech and deportment. This gives us all the advantages of being twins—the fascination of men, the appearance of being in two places at once, the ability to cause confusion—and none of the adversities, like not being unique and having to share everything.

The Queen, whose eyesight is fading, cannot tell us apart and sometimes we swap dresses, which creates havoc and gets po-faced Susan Clarencieux’s hackles up, causing us great amusement. Juno is my only ray of sunshine in this dismal place, where everyone wheels carefully around the Queen whispering about who will succeed her. But no one dares mention it out loud for fear of
upsetting her, when she is already as upset as a person can be. Besides, she believes herself to be with child again, though
she
is the only one to think so.

Some would have me as her successor, though more think it will be Elizabeth. I do imagine it sometimes, being Queen and all that goes with it—the jewels; the dresses; the splendid chambers; the men fawning, but even
I
am not silly enough to suppose it to be entirely pleasurable; I have watched the present Queen crushed by it until she is barely herself anymore. The idea of it is too big to fit comfortably with all the other thoughts in my head: thoughts of my sister Jane. So I try not to think about it. Besides, the Queen suspects my faith. I know this because I feel her eyes on me when we are at Mass, as if her own prayers are less important than ensuring there is not a heretic among her ladies. If she were witness to my thoughts, I would burn for it. Anyway, I have concluded that Elizabeth is better suited for the role of Queen. She is returning to court soon, and Maman has counselled me to repair my friendship with her—not such an easy task, I fear.

Jane Dormer is singing quietly. Juno and I are sewing small discs of gilt onto a pair of sleeves; it is dull work indeed. The Queen is slumped to one side in her chair, asleep. No one truly believes her to be with child, but it is Frideswide Sturley alone who voices her doubts. By all accounts the Queen has known Frideswide since they were girls, and she is the only one with the courage to say what she thinks. The rest of us, even Susan Clarencieux, humor her. But the Queen
is
ailing with something, for her gut is as swollen as a carnival bladder and painful too, judging by the fuss she makes when we dress her. We have all heard her retching in the morning and had to deal with the bright puddles of bile she brings up. As Jane Dormer’s song comes to an end the Queen shifts and snorts, waking herself with a shudder. Juno nudges me, smirking, and I hold my breath, pressing my lips together to suppress the giggles. Levina, who sits slightly apart from us with her greyhound at her feet, is sketching the scene. She looks towards us, raising an
eyebrow. In the absence of Maman Levina has been a reassuring presence indeed, always there to gather up the pieces.

“Goodness!” cries the Queen with a smile, not fully awake, as if she is still dreaming. “The sound of angels.” Perhaps she imagines herself dead and before her maker. Then the smile drops away and she looks suddenly ancient, as if the woes of the world are on her. “Calais,” she says, bringing the back of her hand up to her forehead. “When I am dead and opened, you shall find Felipe and Calais lying in my heart.” I notice Frideswide Sturley, who is sewing on the other side of the hearth, exchange a look with Susan Clarencieux next to her. They barely conceal their concern. It is true, the Queen talks too much of death lately.

“Calais, Calais, Calais,” squawks Forget-me-not, swinging on his perch.

Jane Dormer offers the Queen a posset, murmuring reassurances: “Fret not, Your Majesty, your husband will be back beside you before you know it. Your baby will be a cure . . .” The Queen’s hand goes to her belly, and a flicker of a smile plays on her mouth. It is her sole joy, the idea of her imaginary infant. She takes a few sips from the cup and whispers something to Jane Dormer, who begins to sing again. The Queen falls back to sleep almost as suddenly as she woke.