Sisters of Treason (36 page)

I am tempted to wake them and rub their noses in my misery, but they look so very peaceful and angelic, and it would serve no purpose, so I make my way to the maids’ room. There I find Mistress St. Low in a flap, attempting to get everyone up and into their riding habits. All the gossip is of Dudley and his public humiliation—of what it might mean. I have come to see that favor shifts on the Queen’s whim in this place and that it is impossible to anticipate the way the wind will blow even tomorrow.

“There was a scuffle over it,” says someone.

“Hardly surprising, putting him in his place in front of everyone like that,” says another.

“How will he ever be able to hold his head high?”

“Less of the tittle-tattle,” says Mistress St. Low. “It is none of our business.”

“Shows you can never count on the Queen’s favor,” says Frances Meautas under her breath, clearly aiming her comment at me.

I ignore her, allowing the chatter to slide over me as I hastily shove the things I will need into my chest before the porters come to take the luggage.

“Why are
you
coming, anyway?” Frances asks me. “I thought you didn’t hunt.”

“The Queen likes her company,” says Lettice.

“The Queen likes her company,” mimics Frances.

“Better than a dullard like you.”

“What’ll she do when you are wed, and not here to defend her?” says Frances, talking to Lettice but looking at me with narrowed eyes.

“I can look after myself perfectly well, Frances.”

“Yes, you are good with a needle, aren’t you, Mary?” adds Lettice, with a wink, which sends Frances striding off to the other side of the room in a sulk.

Lettice and I help lace each other into our outfits.

“What of your sister?” she says. She is the only one to ask.

“She will live.”

“Was she feigning?”

“Let us say it is not as bad as it first appeared and the physician has worked his magic.”

Once down in the courtyard we find our mounts. Even bundled up in my fur-lined habit, I can feel the bite of the December wind. I maneuver Sygnet into a place that is sheltered, to wait for the Queen, feeling my fingers already burning with cold and wondering how I will bear the journey. When she eventually arrives, she is hand-in-hand with Dudley, sharing a joke, as if nothing ever occurred. Everyone stares agog as he helps her up on to her horse, hands lingering about her waist, adjusting her girth strap, lifting her skirts aside to better get at it. I watch the whispers circulate; nobody seems to know what to make of this happy scene. There is no sign of Cecil, but then he never joins the hunting parties, though there are a few of his men and one I recognize from yesterday when the trouble occurred. They are scrutinizing the scene, their eyes flitting between Dudley, the Queen, and each other.

I am asking myself how a man such as Dudley has managed to swallow his pride, and it occurs to me that perhaps he is truly fond of the Queen. They were childhood friends, after all, and he knows her well enough to be aware of her games, of whether she is testing him. If he does truly care for her, he would be the only one. All the rest feign fondness to garner a little power for themselves. There is much I do not understand when it comes to what goes on between a man and a woman, but I like to think I have a nose for genuine sentiment. Watching them I am reminded, as I often am, of Plato’s divided beings, seeking the other part of themselves, and it strikes me that it must be lonely being Queen.

“Lady Mary.”

I turn to find Keyes standing beside me. “Sergeant Porter,” I
say. He has hold of Sygnet’s bridle and is feeding him a nub of carrot from the flat of his palm. “How does your wife; is she better?”

“She sent word to me of your kindness, my lady. Says the physic has eased her greatly.”

“I am glad of that.” I can see from the corner of my eye a few of the maids sneering. They wonder, I suppose, why I give a man so low-ranking the time of day. Let them wonder; he is worth a dozen of them.

“I don’t know how I shall ever thank you for your kindness.”

“I do not seek thanks,” I say. “Your friendship is all I ask.” He begins to speak, but I continue. “And do not mention rank. I care not for that.”

“It would be an honor to call you my friend.” He smiles then. It is the first time I have seen him do so, and he is quite transformed by it.

“Send my best wishes to your wife for a swift recovery.”

Dudley then vaults nimbly onto his mare; she fusses, rearing up, spinning about. He calms her with an impressive demonstration of horsemanship, while the Queen looks on approvingly. They then set off together, heading the train, looking for all the world as close as brother and sister.

December 1560

Whitehall

Katherine

“Kitty, wake up. Kitty.”

I open my eyes to a death’s head looming; screaming in terror, no sound comes out of me. Then I am jerked awake, truly this time, emitting a sharp gasp, to find Juno leaning over me, gently shaking my shoulder.

“Don’t fret, Kitty, it is nothing but a dream.”

My arm is tender and I open it up to find a bruise running from
my inner forearm to the crook of my elbow, a flowering of purple and ochre, recalling in my confusion that I was bled yesterday. “That physician was a butcher,” I say, only then remembering what day it is. Juno is breathless and effervescent, as if it is her own wedding day and not mine.

“Brave Kitty,” she is saying, placing a careful kiss upon the blemish.

I can’t help but think of the blood drip, drip, dripping into the bowl, how bright it was. Captivated by the sight of it, I imagined that the bleeding was some kind of purification ritual for my wedding. It reminded me of how Jane Dormer liked to talk at length about Christ, in the way most girls talk of love. Her stories of nuns, young women who were visited nightly by Christ and fed off the blood from his wounds, were so vividly told they have stayed with me. I have that image of Katherine of Siena, all skin and bone and beatific smile, from the chapel at Durham House, seared on my memory. I thought of those nuns as I watched my own blood drip out of me. Our ruse had worked a little too well; Juno had sat me by the fire tightly swaddled like an infant, where I drank a toddy so hot it burned my tongue. By the time the physician arrived I was flushed with what convincingly appeared to be a fever.

“That is Tudor blood,” Juno had said, quite as fascinated by it as I, and then had leaned in close so the physician couldn’t hear her whisper, “When you wed my brother and make a child, it will mingle your Tudor blood and my Seymour blood.” Hearing her say it—“make a child”—allowed the idea to take shape in my mind, and I imagined holding an infant in my arms, making me go soft inside. “We shall be sisters at last,” she had added.

“Did you get word to him?” I ask, fully awake now and suddenly afraid that Hertford may not be prepared, that perhaps we had made the whole thing up.

“Vex not, Kitty, it is all arranged.”

“I want things to stay as they are between us,” I say, weaving my
fingers through hers, struck then with the fear that my wedding might irrevocably change our friendship, if that is what it is.

“Stop fretting.” She pulls back the hangings, adding, “Sister,” with a little smile. Beyond the window the sky is thick and white as if it has a mind to snow. I feel for the ring about my neck.

“Put it on your finger,” Juno says, reaching out to unclasp the chain. “Just for today.” And I am reminded that we will have to keep our wedding secret, which scrumples me up a little inside, spoiling my excitement.

“Do you think the Queen will disapprove?” My voice is small.

“I believe that when the time is right you shall tell her and she will be delighted. See how she favors you these days? And she has been worried that those Spaniards will wed you to one of theirs. She has intimated so, more than once. Anyway, you know all that.”

I push my fears down. It is true, Elizabeth has drawn me into the fold. Everyone supposes she means to name me as her successor, but I prefer not to think of that. “I shall be Countess of Hertford by this afternoon,” I say.

And Juno grabs both my shoulders looking into my eyes, laughing, “I know!” Her laughter brings on a coughing fit. “I can’t seem to shake it off,” she splutters between bouts.

“Wrap up warmly, Juno. I won’t have you risk your health on my account.”

We help each other dress. I change my gown three times, unable to decide which one to wear. I keep thinking of my other wedding, the borrowed gowns that were hastily adjusted, and my sister, nearly seven years gone, but I must not think of Jane now.

“He will not care what gown you have on, only how easily it comes off,” Juno says, teasing a laugh out of me. And then she makes me eat a slice of marchpane, though I have no appetite at all, and passes me a big black velvet cloak with a hood that covers me from head to toe, standing back to appraise me. “You look like a mad monk,” she giggles.

I rummage among my things, finding Maman’s best fox-lined
cloak, draping it over her, and tying it tightly about her throat. “This will keep the cold off you.”

She smiles and slowly strokes my cheek with a faraway look that gives me an unexpected moment of sadness.

“Where are the animals?” I ask, only now realizing that they are not here.

“I gave them to Mr. Glynne. Said you were ailing and needed quiet.”

It seems Juno has thought of everything. I wonder if this wedding would take place at all if it weren’t for her.

Whitehall is hushed as a cathedral as we wind our way to the narrow staircase of the orchard entrance. Outside, our breath billows in the cold, and the wet grass soaks through our shoes and up our hems before we even reach the orchard wall. The espaliered fruit trees are lined up there, leafless, like lace against the white-gray sky. In the spring this place is a paradise of wildflowers but now it is dank and high with the rotten remains of autumn’s windfalls and the mulch of dead leaves. At the far end is a little gate shrouded in overhanging evergreens; I reach it first and try the latch but it is locked. I look at Juno, feeling the first sensations of defeat, thinking momentarily that all this has been nothing but an extravagant game for our amusement, that there will be no wedding; perhaps Hertford isn’t even aware of today’s plan. She is shuffling about beneath her cloak, finally producing a key, whipping it out from her stomacher as if drawing a sword, and my disappointment dissolves.

“Juno!” I exclaim. “How?”

“Don’t ask,” she says, tapping the side of her nose, her eyes flashing, and my heart is back in my mouth once more.

The steps are dark with overgrown vegetation, narrow and perilously slippery. I cling on to the metal balustrade, which is so cold it burns my skin. In the rush I have forgotten my gloves. But my fear of falling is greater than my fear of frostbite, and besides, all my senses are dulled in the face of the anticipation that simmers
in me. And then we are down and out on the river beach, a vast expanse of murky sand, punctuated here and there with some mysterious mound or other left exposed by the receding river. The breeze blows bitterly off the water and the damp hems of our skirts become heavily encrusted with filth and sand. I clutch the flapping edges of my cloak tightly about me, holding my hood to keep it from blowing off. Several boats pass but none seems to notice or care that we are there, two shapeless bundled figures picking their way along the bank. We could be anyone at a distance—picking cockles, searching for coins, taking the short cut to market—and there is certainly nothing of our outward appearance that might suggest that I am the Queen of England’s close cousin heading for my secret wedding.

December 1560

Ludgate

Levina

Levina watches Nicholas work with the single-hair brush. He has made a copy of her limning of Katherine and has captured precisely her air of lightness, as if she might blow away in the wind like a dandelion clock. He has an uncommon gift for drawing eyes, makes them look directly out, like a challenge to the viewer. Katherine’s eyes are cornflower blue, and he has juxtaposed the weightless air of her with a solid directness of gaze that describes her perfectly. It is as if he knows her well, though he has seen her only the once; Levina remarked at the time how his eyes followed her. She has that effect on men, even older ones who should know better.

Nicholas strokes a minuscule touch of lead white onto each of her tiny black pupils, barely discernible, and then adds a flick to a frond of her hair, creating the impression of movement, making the whole thing come to life. The boy is developing a distinctive
style, quite different from Levina’s. Where she likes to create an impression, using exaggeration to emphasize a point and a blurring of edges, a softness, Nicholas’s lines are defined to the finest detail with a precision that is almost mathematical. She imagines one day he might be a far more celebrated artist than she, for such verisimilitude and detail are becoming fashionable and are entirely lacking in her own work. She wonders if she is envious—perhaps. His style is certainly striking; there is no doubt of that.

She brings her focus back to her work, tipping out a measure each of russet and ochre, mixing them, stroking a little of the color onto an offcut of vellum, holding it up to the light and trying to conjure in her mind’s eye the exact hue of the Queen’s hair, a kind of burnished copper. She shakes her head, not happy with the mixture, going back to the facial features. Levina has deliberately made the tiny queen appear young, quite innocent and wide-eyed, but she has given her, too, a hardness in the set of her jaw to suggest something of her strength of personality. There is no doubt Elizabeth is a fine-looking woman, handsome rather than pretty. Levina recalls her first encounter with Elizabeth on her arrival in Katherine Parr’s household; King Henry was on the throne and Elizabeth was barely older than Nicholas is now. She always had that air of supreme resilience, even as a girl. No one back then ever truly imagined that she, the younger daughter of a disgraced Queen, would one day be Queen herself.