Sisters of Treason (4 page)

“What, then?” Harry Herbert is whispering something into Magdalen’s ear, and I am bristling at the sight of it.

“She intends to marry.”

Now he has handed her to the doggish Spaniard and is partnering Cousin Margaret. Then it dawns on me, what Mary has just said. “Maman, marry! No. It’s just gossip, Mouse.”

“But Kitty, it came from her very lips.” How is it that Maman tells Mary everything first? Her chestnut eyes seem weaselly now, and I feel a surge of the old jealousy I used to have for Jane. I try and remind myself that this is crooked little Mary and she means me no harm. “She said to me that she has the mind to wed Mr. Stokes.”

“Adrian Stokes? That can’t be right. He is her
groom
 . . . no more than a servant. Besides, the Queen would never allow—”

“She has permission,” cuts in Mary.

“Did she say that?” My mind is whirring and I can feel the anger bubbling up in me when I think of my magnificent father, and then of that nobody who looks after the horses. “How could she?” The way I miss Father is like a knife to the gut. I was Father’s favorite; he couldn’t disguise it.

“I think,” says Mary in a small voice, “that she has had enough. She said that married to a low-born man she could retire from court, that we could go with her, that we would be safe.”

“Safe!” I snap.

“And she loves him, Kitty.”

“That,” I reply, “is not possible. Her mother was King Henry’s sister, who was Queen Consort of France. Besides, even if it were possible, ladies such as Maman do
not
make love matches with their grooms.” But I, of all people, should know that love can alight in any surprising place, and moreover when you are in its thrall you are entirely beyond reason.

I cannot bear the thought of Maman no longer at court, living like a country housewife, Duchess of Suffolk no more, just plain Mistress Stokes—the thought of it gets under my skin like an itch. I know in my heart that I should want her happiness, but I cannot help myself. “And will you go with her from court?”

“I don’t know, Kitty. Perhaps the Queen will not allow it; after all, I am her pet monkey.” This is said with uncharacteristic bitterness.

“Mouse.” I feel now a surge of love for my little sister. The resentment
for her affinity with Maman drops away when I remember the reality of Mary’s existence. “Come, I shall sneak you out of here and to bed. No one will know.”

“Look,” she says, lifting the bottom of my skirts. “Your foot is bleeding. I blame those shoes. I will bind it for you.”

I am full of good intentions, but as we stand he is there, Harry Herbert, warm, smelling of almonds, slipping his hand about my waist, whispering in my ear, “Come with me, outside. No one is watching.”

I know I should refuse, tell him that I must see my sister to bed, that we have important things to talk about; but I am sucked into his world, I cannot help myself.

“I will be just a moment,” I say to Mary, and I allow myself to be led away, my bloodied foot forgotten—everything forgotten.

Outside it is warm and there is a fat moon casting slivers of silver light over the courtyard.

“Here,” Harry says, passing me a flask. I put it to my lips and gulp back the liquid it contains. It burns my throat and makes me cough. I laugh then and so does he.

“Harry Herbert,” I say. “Harry Herbert; is it really you?”

“It is really me, my pretty Kitty Grey.”

I pull his cap from his head and run my fingers through his hair.

We find ourselves in a little walled garden off the court, with yew hedges and a carpet of grass. We collapse onto it and he is at my laces with his fingers. I taste the flesh of his neck, salty. His hand is inside my shift.

“We are husband and wife still,” he says.

“So this is not a sin,” I laugh. “What a shame.”

“Naughty Kitty. My father would whip me, were he to find us.”

I shrug off my overgown and pull my hood away, letting my hair splay out on the damp grass, spreading my arms out wide. He is over me, smiling, silver with moonlight.

“I have wanted you, Kitty, so badly,” he murmurs, his hot breath caressing my skin, bringing his lips onto mine. I am alive at last.

Mary

I have waited an age for Katherine. I suppose she is not coming back. A worry niggles at the back of my mind, that this Harry Herbert will visit trouble on her. I watch his father, Pembroke, searching for him among the dancers. I think I see Katherine’s pale-gold hair in a crowd near the door but I am mistaken, for when the girl appears fully she doesn’t have my sister’s bright eyes nor her bud lips; it is just some girl who looks a little like her. I am conspicuous sitting all alone and can sense curious eyes flitting over me. I feel scrutinized for my ugliness as my sister must feel gazed upon for her beauty. My dress pinches at me and my back aches in its brace; I think about slipping away to the maids’ quarters alone, but I will never reach the laces at the back of my gown without help, and Peggy is bound to be fast asleep by now. Maman is busy waiting on the Queen. I even consider seeking out Mistress Poyntz but am daunted at the idea of her sharpness.

I decide to wait a bit longer and watch the Queen gazing at her new husband. She has opened like a flower, but he cannot hide his disappointment and I wonder what he had expected of her. Had he been sent a portrait that flattered a little too much, like the one of me that Maman keeps, which makes me appear perfectly formed? The more I watch the new couple, the more I can feel my hatred for them both take hold. His dissatisfaction makes a mockery of the price that was paid for this wedding—my sister’s life.

I shall never forget when I discovered the truth behind this Spanish union. It was last winter, in the aftermath of a failed reformist rebellion to snatch the throne. The court’s ladies, and I with them, had sat up all night, crammed into the women’s chambers at St. James’s, petrified, awaiting the rebel army. Father was
out there somewhere with them, though I did not know it then. I overheard Maman whispering to Levina that it would be a “bloodbath” if the insurgents made it to the palace. It was quite beyond my comprehension then, but I have learned something of the world these last months. Maman said too that we must all secretly pray that the uprising succeed, for if the Queen were ousted Jane would be released from the Tower, but that we must not whisper a word of it to anyone, save God. There is so much of all this I still do not fully understand, and try as I might I cannot put the pieces of it together. People do not tell me things; they suppose me too young. But I know more than they think.

It was in the aftermath of that night that I came upon a terrible truth. The Queen was resting in her closet; I was on her lap, as she likes it, kneading at her birdy arm. She is constantly beset with all manner of aches and pains.

“Harder, Mary.”

“Harder, Mary,” rasped Forget-me-not, strumming the bars of his cage with his beak.

I feared to snap the Queen’s wrist beneath my fingers; there is no flesh on her. She hummed a fragment of tune under her breath, repeating it over and over again, while she fingered a miniature of her husband-to-be. She gazed at it, making a sigh, as if she was either very happy or very sad. That is love, I suppose. I know, from watching Katherine, that love lacks logic.

“Now like a feather, Mary,” she said. I began to stroke her lightly with the very tips of my fingers, barely touching the dark growth of hair that runs up to her elbow. She is quite hairy, the Queen; her legs are covered in a thick dark tangle. When I asked Katherine about it, she said that no, it was not normal, revealing her own fine-shaped lower leg that is smooth as butter. “It is because she is half Spanish and the Spaniards are known to all be hairy as bears.”

I heard something then—not more than a tiny tap of sound, like the creak of a beam. The Queen stopped her humming, pricking her ears, and there it was again. Tap, a pebble against glass.

“Tie our sleeve, Mary,” the Queen said, holding her arm out for me.

Forget-me-not rapped at his bars. “Tie our sleeve, Mary.”

I fumbled with the tapes, feeling the impatience bubbling in her, making my fingers all thumbs. She shoved me off her lap. “Hood! Gown!” I fetched them and helped her into them, thankful that the gown, a stiff thing made of gold cloth, covered my untidy bows. She grabbed a candle and moved to the window, stopping there a brief moment before arranging herself back in her chair. Then she asked for her Bible and rosary and indicated that I sit on a cushion at her feet. She sat straight with her chin up, as if she were playing a queen in a masque and I were a favorite pet on the floor beside her.

I heard a scuffling coming from the far wall, and a figure wrapped in a cloak appeared through the paneling like a specter. I must have been gawping, for the Queen cuffed me on the shoulder with, “Catching flies, Mary.”

The figure strode to the center of the chamber and bowed, throwing off his hood and flinging his cloak to the corner of the room. I recognized Renard, the imperial ambassador, standing before us. I felt the Queen come to life, like a spark in tinder. I had seen him often about the palace with his entourage, watched how refined his manners were, how perfectly turned out he always was, everything in its place, which makes you wonder what he is hiding.

“Have you something for us from our betrothed?” The Queen’s voice was breathless, as if she had been running.

“I do.” He pulled a pouch from beneath his doublet.

The age dropped from the Queen’s face, and suddenly she was a child tempted by a sweetmeat. She took it a little more eagerly than is quite correct, pulling its neck open and tipping a ring out into her palm with a delighted sigh, then holding it up to the candle.

“An emerald, our favorite of all the stones,” she said, sliding it on, holding her hand up to admire it. “I feel he knows me already.”

It was enormous, far too big for her tiny finger.

I remember feeling sure I had seen this ring before, on the
smallest finger of Renard himself. I have always been one to notice things that others don’t.

The Queen was blushing and cooing like a bride. “Look how it catches the light,” she said. “Is it Felipe’s own, has his finger sat here where ours is? What is this engraved here? SR. What is that, Renard, is it some secret message of love?”

“Semper regalis.”
The words spilled out of his mouth, too fast.

“Ever regal,” she echoed.

“Semper regalis!”
cried Forget-me-not, making Renard titter politely and offer some flattery about how only
she
could have a bird that learned Latin so quickly.

I was wondering how it was possible that the woman who faced down a rebel army only the night before, a woman so greatly educated as Mary, Queen of England, had not suspected that SR might also stand for Simon Renard. I am only nine—though it is true I am not typical for my age—and it seemed clear as day to me. This was not a love token from her husband to be, but something Renard had hastily conjured up, knowing she would expect a gift from the Spanish prince.

The ring was a deceit, like when people say to me, “You are not
so
small, Mary, and your back is only a little crooked; it will straighten out as you grow.” It is said to make me feel better about my deformities, but I would rather the truth. The Queen, though, seemed happy with Renard’s lie. I have noticed people will believe what they want to believe.

“The Emperor has asked that I congratulate you on your fortitude in quelling the heretic rebels. ‘A finer match for his son,’ he said, ‘could not be found upon this earth. A formidable queen.’ ”

“Indeed.” She looked like a finch fluffing its feathers.

“And, ‘pious.’ ” The Queen slowly closed and then reopened her eyes, as a small smile flickered about her mouth. “But,” continued Renard, clearing his throat with a little cough.

“But?”

“But the girl . . . She cannot be allowed to live.”

The Queen then expelled a small groan. “She is our family.”

“The Emperor is adamant on this point. With so much unrest, so much dissidence about—reformists, heresy.” He paused. “She is simply too great a risk to your crown.”

I supposed they were talking of the Queen’s sister, Elizabeth. The rebels would have put
her
on the throne with their uprising.

“She is so very young.” All the joy seemed to drain from the Queen then, and she began wringing her hands, rubbing and rubbing, as if washing ink from them. “She spent many happy days with us at Beaulieu.”

I remember thinking,
I
know Beaulieu well; we used to go there often to visit Mary before she was queen. I remember her greeting us always as “My most favorite cousins.” I remember Jane refusing to curtsy before the sacrament in the chapel there. “She will grow out of it,” they said.

We all must take the greatest care to appear as Catholics, now Mary is queen, so Maman says all the time.

“Renard.” The Queen’s voice was twisted out of its normal shape. “We cannot.” She stood then, her Bible and rosary slipping to the floor with a clatter. “You do not understand. We love the girl. We cannot see her executed.”

The Queen dithered back and forth, turning one way and another, while Renard followed her with his eyes. They seemed to forget I was there. “The husband’s execution we can stomach. Those Dudleys are traitors to the core. But
she
 . . . She is our cousin, our
child
cousin.”

It was only then that understanding came to me, like a shadow in the side of my eye. It wasn’t Elizabeth they were talking of; it was my sister Jane and her husband, Guildford Dudley. A gasp escaped my mouth. The Queen and Renard turned to me together; her face was smudged with despair, Renard’s with . . . What was it; was it shame? I hope it was shame.

“
Her
sister,” hissed the Queen, pointing towards me. “
Her
sister.”
She crumpled into her chair, dropping her face into her hands. “We cannot.”

“
Her
sister,” repeated Forget-me-not.