Sisters of Treason (18 page)

“But I told her I would make my own opinion.”

“Did you now?” I look him directly in the eye with no hint of a smile. I want to ask him what other slanders the Duchess has heaped upon me. “And don’t you think you should take your mother’s advice seriously?” I am doing my best to seem nonchalant, not to let it show that my heart is hammering. But all I can think about is what those bow-shaped lips, so akin to Juno’s, might feel like pressed against mine.

“A mother’s advice has its place, but . . .” he says, leaning towards me as if to take my hand. There is a little residue of dirt beneath his fingernails that raises an ineffable tender feeling in me, but I ignore his gesture, turning away, rising and moving towards the window. It has started raining and I watch the drops chase each other down the panes. I can feel him move up behind me. “Trouble is not necessarily a
bad
thing.”

He has me with that; it is the sort of thing that I myself might have said.

“And who are you to say what a bad thing is or is not?” I reply, still not turning round to him.

“Touché!” I can see, reflected in the glass, that he makes a little stabbing gesture with his finger and steps minutely closer. “Were you . . . are you not Harry Herbert’s girl?” he murmurs. I can smell
soap but cannot help thinking of him so filthy earlier, carrying the stench of sweat and horse. I want to lean back into him, allow him to take me in his arms, but I step away.

“We
were
married,” I say without any explanation. After all, everyone at court knows the story of my annulment; he would have had to have been hidden under a stone not to have heard about it.

“I am not fond of the Herberts,” he says with a scowl, seeming to forget altogether that he is wooing. “I begged Pembroke’s help when Northumberland was trying to oust my father. He was the only one with enough power to have done anything. He refused me, the b—” He slaps a fist hard against his thigh, to prevent himself uttering an oath in front of a lady, I suppose, and looks away out of the window.

“I know what it is like to lose a father on the block,” I say, for I can see plainly, in the rigid set of his shoulders, that the pain of the memory still haunts him, as mine does me. He turns, looking towards me with a puzzled expression, as if he’d forgotten momentarily that I was here.

“Yes,” he says, then his posture relaxes once more and he smiles. “So!” he then adds, hesitating, moving a step closer to me. “Do you still love him?” As he speaks, the mirror I had balanced on the windowsill earlier slides and falls to the floor, shattering.

We both drop on our knees to gather the pieces, carefully placing them on the sill. A smear of red appears on the floor and, opening my hand, I see that my finger is cut. We both stare as the berry of red swells, then slips down to my palm. I do not feel it. Hertford then lifts my finger to his mouth and sucks the blood away. An unbidden gasp escapes me, and I snatch my hand back. He looks at the floor, as if ashamed, and holds out a handkerchief, still not looking at me. I take it, binding my finger tightly.

“Do you still love him?” he repeats.

I collect myself. “You are forgetting your manners, sir, in asking such an intimate question of me.” I hold his eyes with mine, and I think I can see that something is ignited in them—he is a fish on a
hook, my fish. My finger has begun to throb. Sir Edward Seymour, Ned, Somerset, Hertford, whatever it is he wants to call himself, will be mine. As I think of it, the place between my legs feels hot with longing, but I quash the thought. “You had better leave.” I say firmly. “It is not correct for us to go unchaperoned.”

“Very well,” he says, turning and meeting my eye as he exits. “But will you stay at Hanworth awhile?”

“The Queen will want me back soon. There is no doubt of that. And now Juno is mended . . .”

“Stay a little. You can always find an excuse.”

“Perhaps I like it at court,” I say, but I know I shall stay a few days at least.

November 1558

Beaumanor

Mary

I wake disorientated to a loud banging. The maid sits upright on the truckle with a little cry of “Lady Mary, what is it?”

I climb down from the bed and fumble in the darkness for a candle, finding the nub of last night’s and lighting it from the embers that are still alive in the fire.

I can hear the girl’s teeth chattering, though whether from fear or cold I cannot say. “Wrap yourself,” I tell her, throwing her a gown. The banging starts up once more. It is someone at the door.

We tiptoe to the head of the stairs and watch the steward, drunk with sleep and brandishing a torch, shuffle towards the entrance.

“Have patience, whoever you may be!” he calls.

Maman appears beside us, bleary-eyed, saying, “It can only be bad news at this time of night.” Stokes takes the stairs two at a time, brushing past the grumbling steward.

“It is I, Katherine,” comes a voice from beyond the door. “I am
with Levina and Juno. Let us in.” We all rush down as Stokes draws back the vast bolt and it swings open.

“
Chérie
!” cries Maman, drawing my sister to her. “What has happened to bring you here at this hour?”

“The Queen . . .” begins Levina.

“She is gone?” says Maman. Katherine and Juno slump, exhausted, onto the settle.

“No, but I think it will not be long,” replies Levina.

“She collapsed in the watching chamber. Her fingernails were purple. Susan Clarencieux was beside herself, wailing and moaning.” Katherine’s voice has an urgency to it and her face is hollowed by exhaustion. They must have ridden hard to get here.

“The council didn’t know whether they were coming or going, and half the court has left for Hatfield,” says Juno.

“To Elizabeth?” I ask.

“Yes, Mouse, to Elizabeth. And let us hope to Heaven she is named. Given the exodus in her direction, it seems to be what most desire.” Maman has begun to help the girls out of their cloaks, and I am thinking once more of the dreadful possibility of history repeating itself. The whole country is beloved of Elizabeth; God forbid that Katherine be named, for it would cause the lid to fly off Pandora’s box. We must all be thinking it, for the tension in the room could be pierced through with an arrow.

“You are frozen,” Maman says to Katherine, rubbing her hands to warm them.

“We left without permission,” says Levina. “I feared for this one’s safety.” She places a firm arm about my sister’s shoulders.

“You did right, Veena. It is a risk should she rally, but who knows what chaos might ensue if she goes without naming an heir. Kitty would be . . .” She doesn’t finish her sentence but asks, “Has she named anyone?”

Stokes has found a few flames in the great hearth and tipped on some kindling. It flares up, throwing warmth and light into the
room. I had not thought of the possibility of the Queen not naming
anyone
.

“She had not when we left.” I can’t help the feeling that is surging through me—it is not exactly happiness, it is much more complicated than that, and is mixed with fear for my sister, but I am glad if the Queen is dying. It feels something like revenge, I suppose. “She was repeating over and over,” continues Levina, “ ‘No boys, not a single boy, if there were a boy, I would name him. All I have to choose from are girls.’ ”

“Did she hint at anything?” Stokes asks.

“Not really. And I thought it best to get Katherine away rather than wait and see.”

“You did right,” says Maman again. We are silent for what seems like an age until Maman says, “Up to bed, girls.”

“The cart is following on with our things,” says Katherine. “My dogs.” She looks so young in this moment, asking for her pets, as if barely out of infanthood. “Will you let them in with us when they are here?”

We mount the stairs slowly, leaving Maman, Stokes, and Levina by the fire. There must be things they want to discuss without our hearing. Once in our chamber Peggy and I help my sister and Juno out of their clothes, which I only now see are filthy from the journey. The maid takes the truckle and the three of us clamber into the tester, but I am beyond sleep, so I sit up for a while watching Katherine and Juno slumbering in each other’s arms in a way that is so natural, so comfortable. I, who can hardly even bear to hold hands for longer than a moment, cannot imagine such proximity.

The thoughts whirring about my head are keeping me wide awake, so I slip from the chamber and crouch on the landing to listen to the talk downstairs.

Levina is speaking of some man Byrne and how he has been “closing in” on her. I wonder if it has anything to do with the drawings I found that day. Terrible images of people being burned alive, so vivid I could almost hear their screams. I sat through Mass with the
paper next to my skin, as if they were love letters, their rough touch reminding me of how much I loathed the faith that would sanction such things. Levina came with me later to the river. We wrapped them around stones, flung them in, and watched them sink.

“Do you think Katherine in such great danger?” It is Stokes who asks this.

“I think it unlikely. Things are changed,” says Levina. “It is not like—”

“Remember Jane,” says Maman.

I am trying to remember a time when we were not afraid. I think back, far back to Bradgate, and remember the summer when I learned to milk a cow—my small fingers on the warm, bulging udder. If I close my eyes, I can get a sense of the joy of that first thin spurt of warm milk. How old was I then—seven, eight? I am not sure, but those days are like my Paradise before the Fall.

•  •  •

Katherine has been here for several days now, and she is not herself. She sits with her feet tucked up, hands wrapped across her body, staring blankly out of the window. She will not leave Juno’s side, clinging to her as if she were the sole piece of floating wood in a stormy ocean. Juno flicks through a book of woodcuts, trying her best to distract Katherine, pointing out images of mythological beasts, to no avail.

“Where is your brother?” Katherine whispers to her. “Why does he not come?”

“He cannot, Kitty. He must remain at court for the good of our family, and for Mother. You know that,” she replies.

It is early morning and we are gathered in Maman’s rooms—a collection of wan faces and dark-ringed eyes: none of us has slept much these last days. Maman and Levina sit huddled together close to the hearth, talking in low voices.

“You never know what happens when a monarch passes,” Maman keeps repeating.

I remember when my cousin, the young King Edward, died and our whole family was in a state of excited frenzy, for Jane was to be made queen. I was left at Bradgate alone with my nurse, trying to understand why it had never been mentioned when we were growing up that Jane would one day succeed. I did not understand then the significance of the threads of blood attaching families together—that a measure of Tudor blood can put you on the throne, whether you want it or not. I know more now.

I move to the window seat, next to my sister, looking out; the park is a shimmering landscape of frost, the leaves all encased in icy fronds, the lawns crisply furred. Beyond is the lake, shrouded in mist, and the sky behind as white as the ground. It will be advent soon, and we will be eating salted fish for weeks. A grave Christmas it will be this year. A lone deer scrapes at the hard ground with a hoof, sniffing the place to see if there is anything edible there. It is the only live thing in the whole landscape, though there is a trail of tiny, three-pronged footprints along the outside sill, evidence of at least a single bird. I remind myself to scatter some seed.

I feel Katherine tense slightly beside me, kneeling up a little, like a dog pricking its ears. I follow her gaze and can see a vague shadow moving slowly towards the house through the morning fog. It is a lone rider.

“Someone is here,” I say. “One of the messengers, perhaps, or a visitor.” And Maman sends out the steward to greet him. We gather at the window to watch the man dismount, trying to catch a glimpse of his face.

“Hertford,” whispers Katherine, and I see a little glimmer of her old self.

The man is wrapped in a voluminous cape and has his back to us; it is impossible to tell who he is.

“I don’t think so, Kitty,” says Juno. “I would recognize the horse.”

I feel Katherine droop once more, and we watch as the steward greets him, seeing then that it is one of the messengers.

“News,” says Maman as we watch the steward walk slowly back
towards the door with a paper in his hands. We sit in silence listening to the bang as the great door shuts and the rasp of the bolt being thrust back into place; the steward’s footsteps echo on the stairs as he mounts them, seeming to take an age; the door to the chamber complains with a creak as he enters.

Maman takes the letter from him, inspects the seal, saying, “The palace,” before turning away from us all as she tears it open, scattering red shards of wax and unfolding the thick parchment, holding it to the light. “She has named Elizabeth.” She sighs deeply, as if to expel a month’s worth of breath. “Thank God.”

Then with a burst of laughter she tugs her rosary from her girdle so hard she breaks the string, scattering the beads. They sound like heavy rain as they fall onto the floorboards.

“We won’t be needing those.” She grabs both Levina’s hands, and they spin together in a circle; Juno is clapping and laughing too and Kitty’s dogs are caught up in it all, scampering about and barking, adding to the din.

I have never met Elizabeth, but she is someone people talk of often, so I am aware of her intelligence; she is well known for it. Though Maman always said Jane was better learned than she, and I hear that she is not a beauty, but is striking in such a way that you think her so: this is what Katherine has said of her, anyway. Peggy has told me snippets in her letters, and I remember the comment she made:
a force of nature
. Is that a good thing, I wonder, but judging by Maman’s response to the news, it surely is. And Maman knew Elizabeth as a girl, so she should know.