Sisters of Treason (23 page)

“I am glad to see that you have not abandoned the true faith,” she says, touching her index finger to my rosary, “as so many others have.”

I smile, glad she can’t tell that I wear it only out of politeness.

“It is an exodus,” she adds with a sigh.

“Who is that?” I ask, pointing to the image of the enraptured nun, thinking it best to talk of something else.

“It is Katherine of Siena. You must know her. God rendered her unable to eat anything but the sacrament, so she was purified entirely by the time she came to His side.”

“Oh yes,” I reply, as if I am remembering Katherine of Siena, when I have never heard of this woman who starved herself in the name of Christ. We did not learn of the saints in our household. “Katherine of Siena.”

“Perhaps she watches over you—you have her name, after all.”

“I think she must,” I say, although I know I am not named after this starved nun, but after Katherine Howard, who was Queen when I was born and lost her head soon after, for taking a lover. They say she haunts the long corridor at Hampton Court. I wonder which Katherine is watching me.

As we leave the chapel we find Feria in the hall, just back from court. He is pacing up and down with an angry furrow running between his brows. A page scurries behind him with a stack of papers.

“Esta mujer,”
he is saying,
“será mi muerte.”

“Mi estimable esposo,”
says Jane, and just as I am asking myself how I shall manage in this house without a word of Spanish, she adds, “In my tongue, please, my lord.”

“Excuse me,” he says in thickly accented English and appearing surprised, as if he has only just noticed my presence. “I am forgetting myself. Lady Katherine, you are the most welcome.” He takes
my hand and squeezes it, bringing it to his lips. “Most welcome. I apologize for—what in English, Jane,
genio
?”

“Your temper, my lord.”

“Yes, yes, my temper. I have been with the Queen.” He says “the Queen” as if it is some kind of jest, only one that is not supposed to be funny. “She refuse to consider the Archduke without to see him in the—” He seeks the word.

“The flesh?” says Jane.

“The flesh,” he repeats. “It is no possible that the Archduke display himself like, like horse at auction. It is not dignity.” Feria’s hands are both fisted, and his eyes are angry. “He is the son of the Emperor and she, she is . . .
Nada más que una bastarda
.” He starts to pace again. “And this Dudley. All say she wish to marry him when he is wed already, with wife no one has seen, who is sick, they say. Sick or, or . . .
Envenenada
.”

“Querido,”
whispers Jane softly, taking one of his clenched hands and unfurling the fingers one by one. It strikes me that they look more like father and daughter than husband and wife. “You must not say such things. Dudley may be”—she searches for the right word—“he may not be ideal. But he wouldn’t poison his wife with all of the court watching him.” She threads her fingers through his. “Gómez,
querido
, our baby was moving again today.”

It is as if he melts.
“Mi ángel.”
He places his hand on her belly, a smile breaking over him, Elizabeth forgotten entirely, me forgotten too; they are in their own private world.

I look on, imagining someone speaking to me with such tenderness, remembering the occasions when Hertford and I weren’t urgently tugging at each other’s clothes. Those moments when I rested my head in the crook of his arm and he whispered things like, “My own sweet darling, my precious jewel, there is nothing, no one, more dear to me than you, my love.” The feeling seeps through my body as if I am dipped in warm water, and with it a longing is dragged up from the root of me. But then I remember the “
thing
” and draw in a sharp cold breath to dispel those thoughts.

“We shall make a splendid match for you, my lady.” I am jogged back to the present, realizing that it is me whom Feria addresses. “Spanish royalty, we have some fine young men, full of good blood, Habsburg blood.”

“I am in your hands, my lord,” I paint on a smile and imagine for an instant a pair of Spanish hands about my person. His smell would be different, like the spices that are delivered in earthenware jars to the kitchens, and he will be a man like Feria, not a boy. His hair will be dark and his skin swarthy, his chin rough. But Hertford’s flaxen hair substitutes itself in my mind, his pale gold skin, his smooth hands, greedy for me. I hear his voice:
My own sweet darling, my precious jewel
.

“Promise it, my lady, you will consider no proposals of marriage without first to me consulting.” Feria’s face is hard to read but it is clear he means this, and I wonder for a moment why he should care so much whom I marry. But of course I am full of Tudor blood and he is the Emperor’s envoy, the confidant of Felipe of Spain. That is the reason—I may not be clever like my sisters, but I know my own worth in the marriage market. And why not marry Spanish royalty? I would have the protection of the greatest family in Europe, and I am not wanted here, not by Elizabeth and not by Hertford. I am glad now of my polite pretence at Catholicism, for it means these people will take me under their wing. The thought reassures me, makes me feel safe.

“Yes,” adds Jane, as if reading my mind. “We will take care of you now. You are in good hands, Katherine. We will see that you make an illustrious match.”

A memory flits through me of Father saying the very same thing, “I will find you an illustrious match, my pretty little Kitty; just you wait and see what fine specimens I shall line up for you to choose from.”

But when it came to it, there was no choice—not for me, nor Jane. I crush the thought of my sister and offer Feria a smile. “That would please me greatly, my lord.”

May 1559

Ludgate

Levina

“How many queens have you painted, Veena?” In one hand George holds an unfinished limning of Elizabeth and on his other he counts with his fingers. “Katherine Parr, Queen Mary, Queen Elizabeth, did you paint Katherine Howard too? Let’s not forget the kings, King Edward, you did paint a likeness of him, did you not? And how many duchesses?”

Levina cannot tell if he is praising her or criticizing her. “Enough,” she says. “We would not have so many fine things about us, no glass in the windows, were it not for—”

“I am proud of you, Veena, couldn’t be more proud.” But she can sense something in him. Since he returned from Bruges he has been different, more distant, distracted, as if he is just playing lip service to their marriage. He is holding up a sketch of Katherine Grey now. “This one is a vision.” He seems quite mesmerized by what is nothing more than a quick line drawing. Levina thinks it is probably Katherine’s beauty rather than her own talent as an artist that he is drawn to.

“You know who that is?”

It is airless in the room so she opens the window, allowing the hubbub of the street in: a slop bucket is emptied with a warning cry, then a splash; a dog barks; someone whistles a tune; snippets of conversation, all drift in with the breeze. She notices a cart off-loading trunks at the Carruths’ house. The shutters have been opened. They must have returned from abroad. Hero swings his slender forepaws up onto the sill to look out, barking back at the dog. “Shhh, boy,” she says, rubbing his cheek, noticing how his muzzle has become white with age and experiencing a brief moment of sadness at the thought that he won’t be with her always. “Down from there.” He obeys her and trots over to his bed, his claws clicking on the flagstones.

“Of course I know who she is. You have been drawing those Grey girls since they were children,” George says. “I know all about Lady Katherine Grey and her demotion.” He sounds prickly, and Levina can’t understand why he is talking about this. “You think we know nothing in the guards’ quarters, Veena?”

“But I didn’t say that. I don’t think you know nothing . . .”

He doesn’t let her finish. “The gossip reaches there too and besides, standing silently at the door with a halberd we often hear more than we should.”

She forgets that he is at court almost as much as she, his presence, in his guard’s uniform, is so discreet. She always likes to think that he is not infected, as she is, by the poisonous goings-on there, that he doesn’t know or care who anyone is.

Pulling off her coif and beginning to untie a plait that is pulled too tight, she starts to speak. “There is something . . .” she begins, but changes her mind, stopping. There
is
something, a piece of information, she is party to, that she doesn’t know what to do with; but George is annoyed with her, annoyed for being reminded of her link to the Greys—“the bane of his life,” or so he likes to call it. “Tell me what Marcus recounts in his letter,” she says to change the subject. Her son’s letter must have arrived while she was out at Durham House, for it lies on the table, the seal broken.

George picks it up, unfolding it. “He has been in Florence and was much impressed with the statue of David. You know the artist, Marcus doesn’t say. I forget his name.”

“Michelangelo, you mean.”

“Yes, him. And he has been studying with a man called Vasari, who has taken him on in his studio.”

“But that is wonderful news, George. Vasari. To think of it, our son studying with a great artist. Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I
am
telling you.”

“You are,” she laughs.

“And more lately he was in Rome; he says the Colosseum is like nothing he has seen before.”

“Let me look.” She snatches the letter, scanning down the page. The sight of her son’s hand makes her feel tender. “He says the food is so good he’s growing fat, and has had to have a tailor let out his doublets. He could do with a bit more meat on him.” When she thinks of her son, her boy, seeing the world, becoming a man, she feels she might burst with pride, but the piece of information she holds still prods at her. “We should think of a match for him, George.”

“I suppose we should. But let him live a little first.” He shuts the window. “It is not so warm, Veena.”

She realizes, with a shiver, he is right and pulls her shawl over her shoulders. He straightens it for her and kisses her on the top of her head, as if he is her father, saying, “What about a game of chess before we retire? It’s a long time since we played.”

Levina takes the board down from the shelf, blowing a layer of dust from its surface and tipping the pieces out from the cloth bag. She then begins to arrange them on the small table by the window to make the most of the evening light, while George fetches two chairs. She calls the servant girl to bring them some ale and a plate of sweetmeats, and they settle into their game in silence.

It is a familiar ritual, and each has an idea of what the other’s next move will be. Levina’s worry keeps on prodding at her, like a dog that wants something, but she is unsure whether she can discuss it with her husband. She trusts him, but isn’t sure whether he would understand. They play on, barely aware of the fading light, quietly shifting the wooden pieces about the board, but she is distracted and George is winning.

“I am concerned, George,” she says, finally feeling she must unburden herself whether he understands or not. But the maid comes in to light the candles just at that moment. She says nothing, watching the girl move slowly about the room with her taper. When she is done, she asks if she should light the fire.

“Yes,” says George.

“No,” says Levina simultaneously. Her worry is pressing up to
her and she can’t speak while the girl is here. “I shall see to it.” She gets up and begins to tie on an apron. “There’s no need for you to wait up for us.”

The girl leaves and Levina drags the creaking log basket towards her as she crouches by the fire. “We are running low on kindling.” She carefully sets the logs in a pyramid shape, stuffing the last of the kindling in the space beneath them, getting to work on the tinder.

“Send the servant out for a flame,” he says.

“This will be quicker.” She scuffs the flint over the fire steel to no avail. “I am worried about Katherine Grey,” she says, without looking up at him.

“Oh, Veena, n-n-not this again.”

“No, George.” Levina has not heard his stutter in weeks, can’t bear that she is visiting difficulty on him once more. “This time I need you to listen to me. It is serious.” She looks up at him now, meeting his eye directly.

There must be something he sees in her expression, for he says, “Go on; you have my ear.” He moves to crouch over the hearth next to her, taking the flint out of her hand, finding a spark almost immediately. The char cloth takes flame.

“I fear she may be unwittingly at the center of some kind of plot.” She is whispering now.

“What do you mean? What kind of plot? How do you know this?” The flame catches on the kindling, flaring up, reflecting brightly on their faces.

“I overheard something the Spanish ambassador was discussing with Feria when I visited Katherine at Durham House today.” Her mind conjures up an image of the place, palatial and ancient, with a vast and badly conceived painting of the Annunciation in the chapel. The perspective was wrong, making the Virgin seem ill proportioned and the angel awkward. The place was teeming with people, Catholic nobles mainly. Levina counted four Dormers,
three Jerninghams, Susan Clarencieux, and the prior recently turfed out of Sheen Priory to make way for Frances.

“What does
he
think of
you
being here?” she had whispered to Katherine, catching her alone for a moment.

“They all think me rejected by Maman for adhering to the old faith,” she had replied, with a small shrug. Given the conversation Levina had overheard earlier, this alarmed her all the more, and she had been about to warn Katherine, tell her she was in danger. But they were whisked off by a cluster of women to look at the gardens and never had even an instant alone thereafter. What would she have said, anyway?

“Why is the girl at Durham House and not at court or with her family?” asks George. She can feel his exasperation beneath the veneer of sympathy.