Sisters of Treason (20 page)

“Immodestly familiar,” mumbles the bearded man. Perhaps he would like the old Queen back. Judging by the jubilant throng, no one else would. Among the crowds and hubbub I have never felt so lonely, and I wish Mary were with me, for at least with Mary I feel less sorry for myself.

“To the Lord Mayor, she said that she would gladly spill her own blood for the safety of us all,” someone calls out from in front.

“I never thought to see the day.” It is Lady Something-or-other, who is now dabbing at her eyes with a square of lawn. Her daughter, who is seated on my other side, looks at her hands or out at the crowds, anywhere but towards her mother.

I am barely aware of it all, for I am trying to see if I can catch sight of Hertford somewhere in the melee. He had found me yesterday, in Juno’s chambers, which is where I have been sleeping, for I no longer have my own rooms at court.

“I have been granted back my title,” he announced. “I am truly Earl of Hertford once more, Kitty.” He was bursting with it and I wanted to be happy, but somehow I felt that his rise was dependent on my fall, and that he would soon tire of me since I had lost my position. What use is even a thousand pints of Tudor blood if you are not admitted farther than the public chambers at the palace?

“I am happy for you.” I tried to fix a smile on my face, but then he said that “our
thing
”—yes that is what he called it, not “our
love,” not even “our fondness for each other,” but “our
thing
”—must be kept secret from Elizabeth.

“It was hardly a ‘
thing
,’ ” I had replied. “That makes it sound so . . . so much more than it was.” I was using all my strength to feign nonchalance, deliberately using the past tense for something that was so very urgently, burningly, present. I was churning with the fact that since I had become a nobody—just the out-of-favor daughter of an executed traitor—he had lost interest. All he had wanted was to hitch himself to a girl brimming with royal blood and improve his position—but now that girl has lost her luster.

As we trundle at the back of the snow-blown procession, I allow myself to think of the moments Hertford and I had last summer. We had trysts in the garden pavilion at Hanworth and the orchard at Whitehall or the occasional hour in my rooms at court when the servants were at Mass, when I would lie in his arms and listen to him whisper, “I know what it is, Kitty, to lose a beloved father so brutally. I understand you more than anyone ever could, for I have lived what you have lived. We are like one person.” And then we would kiss away the pain of it. “You and I, Kitty, we were meant to be.” Half a year for love to bloom and now it is nothing but a “
thing
,” its petals all dropped.

Most likely he knows he can climb the court ladder better without me. Perhaps all those words of his were empty. Perhaps he thought me loose enough to be charmed into giving him a free tumble. I have begun to wonder if Juno has told him of the things she and I have done to each other under the covers at night—no, not Juno, she would never say. But then I think of something I have not considered before, that Juno might be jealous—that what had seemed like a good idea to her in the first place had perhaps turned out a source of regret.

“It was really nothing more than a passing fancy,” I had said, as careless as you like. I thought I saw a little stab of sorrow in his eyes, which had been the intention. But then I couldn’t bear it and pressed my lips full to his, slipping my tongue in, pushing and sliding
until I felt the belly fizz of desire. But as he responded I shoved him away, saying, “Harry Herbert sent me a rose. Look, isn’t it a beauty. It is silk, of course, for even a magician couldn’t get their hands on a real rose in January.”

It is true—Harry Herbert did send me a silk rose. It was in reply to my letter in which I told him that it was impossible for us to be together. He replied with a poem about a thorned rose, enclosing the flower with it. And though I love him not, I have it pinned to my stomacher in the place where I would put a jewel or a silk flower from Hertford, if he had chosen to give me one, which he did not. So it is not a “
thing
” after all—it is a “
nothing
,” and I am a “
nobody
.” But still, even brought so low as I am, I cannot bring myself to go to Sheen Priory down the Thames, where Maman and Mary are installed.

One of the horses in the procession up ahead is lame, and we are asked to squeeze up to accommodate its rider in our chariot. I am already tightly packed in between Lady Something-or-other and her daughter and have a headache from the constant squeals of pleasure at each and every ribbon that has been hung out, and each and every jongleur that so much as tosses a ball in the air, and my feet are wet and frozen. But to my delight I find Jane Dormer climbing into our conveyance—at last a familiar face. Lady Something-or-other’s daughter is shunted to the seat opposite and Jane crams in next to me. The last time I saw Jane was in the abbey at the Queen’s funeral Mass; since then she has married Feria.

“Must I call you Countess now?” I ask, teasing her, thankful for a moment’s respite from my brooding. “So, what is he like? What is
it
like?” I am so full of questions for my newly wed friend I can barely contain myself.

Jane blushes, shushing me with an embarrassed smile and saying under her breath, “He is nice.”

“Nice?” I say, and she nods, but it is clear she will not offer up the secrets of her marriage bed. I think of him, Feria, how safe
she must feel in his arms, for he is a proper man, not a pup like Hertford. “And Durham House?”

“It is a lively place indeed, Kitty. I am glad to be away from the palace now that . . .” She pauses. “You know.” I suppose she means now that the old Queen is gone, for Jane was like a daughter to her.

“And will you leave for Spain?”

“Not just yet. My husband”—she says the word with a further blush—“has to continue as envoy here. Though,” she drops her voice, “he likes not the new one.” By this I suppose she must mean Elizabeth. “But you, Katherine? Why are you not with everybody?”

“Since you have been under the plummet with your new husband,” I say this in a whisper, so as not to embarrass her further, “I have found myself demoted to the presence chamber. It would seem that ‘the new one’ likes not me.”

“But that is not possible, you are her highest-ranking cousin.” She stops to watch a pageant as we pass. “Oh no . . . That is . . .” A sorry-looking boy is sat upon a barren mound with a dead tree at its top, and beside him is a gorgeously dressed fellow in a lush green landscape with a cluster of pretty shepherdesses about him who are reciting something that we cannot hear above the crowd.

“The implication is clear,” she says. I have rarely heard Jane Dormer so angry, but I’m not quite sure what she means. I suppose it is a metaphor for something. “Pastures green.” She is furious. “It is not fair to depict the old Queen’s reign thus. It lacks respect.”

Now I understand the meaning of the dumb show, I think there may be some truth in it—these last years have been so full of fear and famine, it is no wonder people are hoping for something better. It is said that Elizabeth intends not to condemn anyone for their faith, and that must surely be a good thing. I don’t say what I am thinking, for it would upset Jane, given her closeness to the old Queen. I suppose if you are very fond of someone, you may be too close to see their flaws.

“But, Katherine,” Jane continues, when we have passed the Cheapside pageant, “what will you do? Will you remain at court?”

“I suppose so. Juno Seymour will let me share her lodgings.”

“But . . .” she begins, then stops, and we sit in silence, with the roar of the crowd all about us, and Lady Something-or-other still whooping with delight—“See how the people love our new Queen”—at every turn.

Eventually we arrive at Westminster and are discharged from our chariot into the courtyard to join the crowd. Jane disappears to find her husband, and I am unsure where to put myself, so used am I to being told where to be and what to do; I almost miss bossy Mistress Poyntz barking orders at me. I wonder if I have a chance of finding Levina, who would happily take me under her wing, but she has been busy preparing scenes for a masque and must be somewhere overseeing things. The mass of courtiers is now in a dither of excitement, for the great doors have swung open. I am heaved along with the throng that is trying to get a glimpse of the new Queen and her bejeweled entourage. I manage to break away and weave a path towards the western arch, near the stables.

As I enter the gloom of the archway, glad to be alone at last, a hand grabs my wrist. I gasp, my heart pounding like a smith’s hammer, imagining myself ravaged by some drunken wastrel that tags along with the court, or worse.

“Kitty,” says a breathy voice, which I can only assume is attached to the hand.

My heart slows; my legs lose their strength. “Hertford,” I whisper.

His lips are on mine in the dark; he is pressing me up against the wall, holding both my wrists above my head, one leg thrust between mine, pushing at me until I lose all sense of myself. My head is spinning; all I want to do is take him to Juno’s rooms and offer up every last iota of myself to him. But then I remember the “
thing
,” and I am gripped by the thought that he has come for his free tumble with his loose Kitty.

Twisting my face away from his, I say, “Off me, Hertford.” His grip loosens, and I duck away, out of his hold.

“But Kitty!” He follows me a few paces, but I am running away
from him in my wet slippers. Pieces of my heart are breaking off and fall in my wake.

“Leave me be,” I call back into the darkness.

“But . . .”

I am out of breath when I get to Juno’s chambers and collapse onto the floor beside the fire. Then the tears come and I curse myself for being such a baby, but the truth is I am frightened of the feelings Hertford has aroused in me. I fear I cannot control them, and if I cannot control them then God alone knows to what depths I might be dragged. Then it strikes me that this, this terrible sensation, this feeling of being about to fall, this precipice edge, must be love itself, and that what I felt for Harry Herbert, the pale cousin of it, must have been something else. I would give anything for that warm, safe feeling back, and not to be in the thrall of this other uncontrollable thing.

I stab at the dying fire with the poker and throw on a log, watching the blaze catch, spitting blue from the bark, sending little sparks up the chimney. Only now do I feel my exhaustion, and, pulling a cushion off the bed, I let my head sink into it, too tired even to remove my damp cloak. I allow myself to drift off in the warmth, but, much as I try to banish them, thoughts of Hertford seep in at the edges of my awareness, disturbing my dreams.

•  •  •

Fingers stroke my cheek; a soft voice whispers, “Kitty.” I half open my eyes. It is he. I shake myself out of sleep, sit up abruptly to see that it is not Hertford at all but Juno, who is lighting candles in the wall sconces with the long taper, infusing the room with a yellow glow. “What are you doing sleeping in your cape on the floor?” she is saying.

“I was so tired, Juno, and . . .” I am unsure of how to explain the confusion of feelings that churns in me.

“Come, let’s get you into the bed.” She helps me up and starts to undress me, unlacing my sleeves and my kirtle so I can slide out of
them and into a clean shift. She too wriggles out of her overgown. “Here, can you unknot this? It is too tightly tied.” She is struggling to reach her own laces. I tease the knot loose with my fingers, and she heaves a sigh of relief as I lift the stiff garment away from her. She pulls her hood off her head, wincing as a few hairs catch themselves in one of the jewels. The wires have left marks on her temples. Her beauty surprises me suddenly, as if I am seeing her for the first time.

“Let me do your hair,” I say, starting to unravel her plaits. Then I take up the comb and draw it slowly through her pale tresses, carefully, so as not to pull at the knots.

We are silent for some time, but she breaks it saying, “Kitty, I have missed you.”

I drop my forehead onto her waterfall of hair. “I too,” I whisper. “I cannot bear things the way they are. I never see you and then when I do, you are too tired to . . . Are you jealous, Juno? Is that why?”

“Jealous, of what?” Her voice is so gentle, so reassuring, so lacking in guile.

“Of my, my . . .” I don’t know what to call it, so I use Hertford’s cursed word. “My
thing
with your brother.”

“Oh, Kitty, that.” She turns round to face me and seems on the brink of laughter. “How could I be jealous of
that
? I never imagined I could keep you for myself, and my brother is the next best thing.” How I envy Juno her clarity, the way she makes sense of the world. We may be alike on the outside, but beneath the skin we are fish and fowl, Juno and I. “Anyway, you appear to have lost interest in him.”

“Mmmm,” I murmur, unable to express my turmoil, for if I put it into words I fear it will have an even greater power over me.

“Did you see her today?”

“The Queen? Barely more than a glimpse. I was too far back.”

“Poor Kitty,” she strokes my cheek. “She will come round, I’m sure. I can tell you this, I have never seen such a dress.” She makes
shapes in the air with her hands in an attempt to describe it. “More than twenty yards of gold and silver cloth, overlaid with gilded lace and trimmed with ermine.”

“Not the old Queen’s robe?”

“No, that is for tomorrow—the coronation.”

“The coronation,” I echo, feeling that my humiliation will be endless, that I will be stuck in some far corner of the abbey, out of sight, and I cannot bear it—the idea of being so invisible—just want to forget it all.

“I don’t think I could stand it here, Juno, if it weren’t for you, and . . .” I pause as the truth of my feelings strikes me. “I am afraid, Juno. What if she finds some reason to clap me in the Tower like . . . Like my sister?”

“No!” says Juno, but we both know that anyone as close to the throne as I, who find themselves out of favor, can just as easily then find themselves going downriver accompanied by an armed guard. “You could go, after the festivities. Join your mother and sister. They are at Sheen Priory now, are they not?”