Sisters of Treason (7 page)

“Rather
that
burn than you.”

“No!” She can’t quite believe he has suggested it. “It is God’s word.”

“Yes,” he says. “And surely God would forgive that. The reason is good enough.”

“You go too far, George.”

“Then give it me and I shall hide it somewhere outside the house. Bury it safely.”

“Has it truly come to this?” she asks.

“Not yet, but it will.”

She takes her Bible from the wooden chest, kissing it before handing it to him, surprised to feel lighter for it. She is protected by her husband’s cautiousness, understanding how George, Marcus, and she are stronger together than the parts of them. She thinks of Frances on her own, trapped in the dissembling world of the court, trying to keep her girls out of harm’s way. It is no surprise she seeks to wed her groom.

“I am so very fond of you, George,” she says.

“I know,” he replies.

November 1554

Whitehall

Mary

The Queen’s hand is a claw. It clasps at my shoulder, and it is all I can do to stop myself from shrugging it off. Her other hand is cradling her belly, stroking it in a circular motion, lest anyone forget that she is with child. She is radiant with it, blissful, gazing goggle-eyed at her husband.

My loathing for her is a demon squatting behind my smile. I am still her pet monkey, at her beck and call, to rub her aching arms, to read to her, to fetch and carry. It seems as if she has forgotten she murdered my sister. I wonder about her conscience; how she can live with what she has done. She thinks she has pleased God. I will not believe in her God who is pleased with such things. But I click my rosary between my fingers when we are at prayer—Mary Grey, good as gold.

Her Spaniard is beside her, stiff and awkward, leaning away, as people do when they are seated next to
me
—I of all people know what distaste looks like. She touches his sleeve and he flinches. I can see how she disappoints him, and how little she is aware of it. Felipe wears the look Katherine has when she is offered a gift
that doesn’t please her, but she must pretend. People seem content enough with the Spaniard now he is here all splendid and haughty; he has the look of a king. People are greatly swayed by appearance; I should know that.

We are in the stand at the Whitehall tiltyard, all here to watch the visitors show us some kind of Spanish fighting game. I have watched the English these last months, doing their very best not to be impressed by anything about the Spaniards, and today is no different. A few of the minor foreign nobles are skipping about on the field enacting a mock battle, waving their rapiers about, but no one is taking much notice. The sky is heavy with cloud, and the air is cold and damp with a mizzle that threatens to turn into rain. We are wrapped in furs and under the canopy, protected from the weather, but the men on the field droop miserably and must be wishing themselves back home in the sun.

They do not like England, and complain constantly about the weather and the food and the maids. They say we are strangely dressed, too vivacious, and plain. That doesn’t stop them leering like hungry dogs at my sister and Jane Dormer. Feria, who is closest to the King and the most gentle-mannered of them, seems to have taken a shine to Jane Dormer. Katherine says she would make a good wife for a man like him because she is so good and meek and kind. I know it is obedience that makes a good wife, or so Mistress Poyntz is always saying, though not to me, for everyone knows I will never be a wife. I must strive to be docile anyway, to make up for my shortcomings. But I wonder what that means for Katherine, who hasn’t an obedient bone in her body.

Felipe whispers something to the Queen, so close that even I, though I am still seated upon her lap, cannot hear. As he speaks his eyes drift towards me, and I can see clearly the disgust in the set of his mouth.

“Mary, dear, our knee is aching. Would you get down and sit beside us.” There is an apology in the Queen’s voice. She cannot be aware of how little I enjoy all the lap sitting, nor how much I detest
her. She asks Jane Dormer to shuffle down and make space for me at her side, but her husband intervenes with another whisper. Jane Dormer is moved back beside the Queen, and I am shunted down to sit on Jane’s other side, next to Magdalen Dacre—where the Spaniard can pretend I don’t exist. Magdalen makes a face and, turning a shoulder to me, slides herself away as far as she can, muttering something to Cousin Margaret, who makes a snort of laughter. I pretend I do not care. I am used to it, but I do care; I just cannot let myself think of it.

I look across the stand to where my sister should be, but she has slipped away. I scan the field and spy her scarlet gown peeping out from behind the big yew hedge of the physic garden. She is likely canoodling with the Herbert boy. Half a dozen mounted Spaniards, Feria among them, thunder onto the field to a great cheer from the waiting crowd. The King stands, clapping his hands together above his head. The rest of us follow suit but the applause is hollow. The riders are dressed as if for battle in breastplates and boots, with odd-shaped plumed caps and voluminous black capes. Each of them makes a great deal of flicking the ends of his cape over his opposite shoulder. Instead of lances they carry long canes. Someone shouts, “That’s not much of a weapon!” which gets the crowd laughing, though I am not entirely sure what is so funny. Their weapons may be lacking, but their horses are beautifully turned out, shining like polished wood, their necks curved, nostrils flared, skirts swaying, bridles and bits as complicated as the Queen’s jewels.

The horses trot in formation, weaving in and out, lifting their forelegs high and flicking their tails, while their riders toss their canes one to the other, catching them deftly in midair.

“Is that the best you can do?” comes a cry from the crowd.

“I’m not familiar with this dance,” comes another, his voice pitched to a squeak in imitation of a woman, raising a laugh.

Felipe’s jaw tightens. He is tapping the arm of his seat with the nail of his first finger. We are all silent. There are a few more
jeers and heckles. Tap, tap, tap. The Queen takes her husband’s hand. He snatches it back. She mumbles something about it being a spectacular display. He snorts in response, turning away from her. The Queen’s closest ladies, Susan Clarencieux and Frideswide Sturley, behind us, have begun to clap in pretend eagerness. The King turns and throws them a look that stills their hands. The Queen rubs her belly. One of the horses, a bay gelding, bucks, almost unseating his rider, whose cap flies off.

Even the King laughs at this, until someone calls out, “Has the lady lost her hat?” causing his jaw to clench once more and his eyes to simmer in anger.

But I have stopped watching whatever it is the Spaniards are doing on the field. My eyes are on a scene in the distance, over by the physic garden, involving my sister. Harry Herbert’s father, who is Earl of Pembroke, has his son by the scruff of the neck. Katherine is beside them; she looks so very small next to Pembroke, like a doll, and I can see by the tilt of her head that she is pleading with him. I am silently willing her to hold her tongue, because I know only too well that Katherine is someone who speaks first and thinks after, but she seems unable to stop herself.

Pembroke then, still gripping his son’s collar, takes a stride towards her and slaps her smartly across the face with his free hand. She collapses to the grass, her scarlet skirts spreading out around her. I can barely believe what I have seen, that giant of a man, who is now marching his son away, striking my sister like that. He will say she asked for it, but there is no excuse for such a thing.

What would Jane have done, I ask myself, knowing the answer before the question is out. I beg the Queen to excuse me, and clamber down from the stand without alerting Maman, for to draw attention to the incident might make the whole thing worse. My sister’s reputation teeters on the brink as it is.

The mizzle has turned to a steady rain, and my gown is damp and heavy by the time I reach her. She is still seated on the grass,
the red of her dress is dark where it is soaked through, and she is shivering and sobbing uncontrollably.

“Come, Kitty,” I say, trying to sound older than I feel, trying to imagine what Jane would say to her. “Let us get you inside and out of those wet clothes, before you catch your death.” Her hood has tipped back and some loose strands of yellow hair have plastered themselves to her face. There is a red mark on her cheek in the shape of that man’s hand. She still sobs, her shoulders heaving, and only now do I notice that her lacings are undone, and that she is having to hold her gown in place to keep it from falling to the ground.

She allows me to fasten her up and then lead her in silence towards Maman’s chambers, which are quite a distance from the tiltyard. My clothes are so heavy with wet it is hard to walk, and by the time we get there we are completely bedraggled. Two of Katherine’s dogs greet us in a frenzy; she crouches down cooing at them, for a moment seeming to have forgotten her grief.

“Stan, Stim, where are the others?”

“Maman left them with one of the grooms. The puppies were chewing the hangings.”

“And Hercules too?”

“Yes, your monkey too.” I nod. My sister’s pets bring out an abundant tenderness in her. Sometimes I think she is so overflowing with love that she doesn’t know what to do with it all, and the animals lap it up for her. I wonder what it might be like to spill over with feeling. I clutch onto my emotions so tightly. It is not to say I do not feel things, though.

I call one of the scullions, who arrives with a bucket of hot coals to get the fire going. Soon we have peeled off our wet layers and are sitting by the hearth, Katherine wearing Maman’s best silk nightgown and her fine shawl while I am folded in a woolen blanket. We share a hot toddy, passing it between us, taking tiny sips for fear of burning our mouths.

“You must leave him be,” I say.

“But he is my husband,” she sniffs.

“He is
not
, Kitty. You will never win.” I know that Katherine’s marriage was part of Northumberland’s scheming, for Jane was wed to Guildford Dudley on the same day.

“But we are in love.”

“That doesn’t make any difference,” I say. Her face is scrunched with tears.

“Pembroke said I am tainted by the treason of my father and sister, and he will not have his son sullied by it.”

I don’t know how to respond, but another part of my family’s story is coming clear. Pembroke must have changed sides to save his skin when the Queen ousted Jane and that is why he wants no ties to the Greys—we are proof of his own disloyalty.

“At least Father had the courage to die for his beliefs,” she adds, wiping a string of mucus from her nose with her sleeve.

I am not so sure that our father was the man Katherine thinks him. He joined the rebels against the crown and was caught running away, that is what Maman has said. But I will not prick my sister’s bubble by repeating it, for Katherine idolized Father. I remember something else Maman said, something about the taint of treason being the one thing that might prevent Katherine from finding herself pushed onto the throne.

“The Queen’s position is fragile,
chérie
,” she said. “And there are many reformers who would see her brought down.”

But Katherine is not thinking about the throne, nor the danger that presses silently around us. She is filled to the brim with the idea of being in love, and there is no space in her for anything else. I suppose we all have our own way of forgetting, of not looking truth in the eye.

Maman seeks a way out with her marriage. “It will put us out of harm’s way,” she tells us. But there will be no marriage just yet, for it is too soon, and besides, the Queen barely lets us out of her sight. She has hidden Elizabeth away at Woodstock, in the hope that everyone will forget her. But Elizabeth is unforgettable: everyone
whispers about her, and that is a good thing for us, because as long as the reformers are busy not forgetting Elizabeth, us Greys can merge into the background, or so Maman says.

“Come, Kitty, we must dress, for they will all be back soon.” I am trying to take her mind off things. “What will you wear? Your blue dress? It is so very becoming.”

We help each other into our clean linens and kirtles, lacing one another up, tying on our sleeves, plaiting our hair and tucking it up into our coifs. I like it when Katherine helps me into my clothes, for she is accustomed to my odd shape and touches me as little as possible. Even sweet Peggy Willoughby, when she helps me dress, cannot hide her curiosity, and I can sense the effort she makes not to stare at my strange shape.

“
And
Cousin Margaret is to marry,” Katherine announces, as if she is thinking out loud. I had heard of Margaret Clifford’s betrothal, but hadn’t wanted to say anything for fear of upsetting my sister. “Henry Stanley, Lord Strange—a strange match indeed,” she huffs. “That boy can’t keep his hands to himself. She’s welcome to him.”

I say nothing; there is nothing to say when Katherine has a bee in her bonnet.

“And Maman!”
She bangs a fist to her knee, and the remains of the toddy tip onto the floor so that Stan and Stim clamor to get their tongues to it. “What could she
possibly
see in Stokes? Who
is
he, anyway?”

“He is a kind man,” I say, regretting it instantly for it pricks her further.

“Kind,”
she says, as if the word tastes bitter. “He is not even . . .” She doesn’t bother to finish.

“I wish you could accept it, Kitty, for it will happen whether you rail against it or not. And besides, Maman seems happier these days, do you not think?”

“Pah!” she exclaims, pulling Stan up onto her lap, holding his
face to hers, saying in a baby voice, “You don’t like it either, do you, Stannie?”

I stand and go to the window. “The rain has stopped.” I make a squiggle with my finger on the misted glass.

“
And
,” Katherine continues her griping, “that Feria, you’ve seen him, Mouse, the Spaniard . . . the comely one . . . He has his eye on Jane Dormer. Not that
she’d
notice . . . They
all
want to wed Jane Dormer. Thomas Howard moons at her constantly.” She shrugs off her gown, letting it fall to the floor, and chooses another, slipping it on, smoothing it down. Then she picks up one of Maman’s necklaces, clipping it at her throat, taking the glass and inspecting herself in it, turning her head this way and that and pursing her lips, then says with a sigh, “All the Queen’s maids will be wed and I shall be left alone on the shelf.”