Sisters of Treason (10 page)

“I see no reason why we should not simply pay her a visit,” I say to Cousin Margaret.

“No reason?” she replies, horrified. “The Queen has forbidden it, Katherine.”

“Are you scared?” I say, in full knowledge that Margaret cannot bear to be thought lacking in mettle.

“Of course not,” she replies with a toss of her head.

“So then you will accompany me.”

Margaret dithers a little; clearly she is having second thoughts, but she is pushed into a corner and cannot get out of it. “Certainly,” she says with a look on her that is not at all certain.

So I take her hand and lead her to the western corridor, where Elizabeth’s chambers are. There are a couple of guards at the door and happily one I know a little, as he was a page to my father at Bradgate for a while.

“Humphrey?” I say, offering him my best smile.

“My lady,” he replies, with a flush rising through his cheeks, like wine soaking into linen, indicating that my smile has had the desired effect. I momentarily place my hand on his sleeve. His blush deepens. His companion seems even more embarrassed than he; these men are used to being invisible to girls such as we, and Cousin Margaret, acting on my instructions, has had her eyes on him for longer than is correct.

“Can you keep a secret, Humphrey?” I ask.

“If it is your secret, my lady, then it is safe with me.”

“Good,” I say. “Then you will admit us to see Lady Elizabeth and you will say nothing of it.”

“But, my lady . . .” he begins.

“Humphrey,” I say in mock admonition, with a little flicker of my lashes, “I hope you are not going to disappoint me.”

“I would rather die than disappoint you, my lady.” I have the feeling that there might be a grain of truth in what he says. “But,” he continues, “Lady Elizabeth has visitors.”

As the words leave his mouth there is a hard rap at the door.
Cousin Margaret and I skitter off to an embrasure. I, suppressing my giggles, throw open the window and look out, as if quite absorbed in the view of the home paddock where the pregnant mares are grazing on the spring grass.

The door swings open and from the side of my eye I watch Bishop Gardiner and my uncle Arundel stride out with a couple of others, whom I have seen but whose names I can’t remember. They are all members of the council, that much I do know.

“. . . impossible creature,” I hear Uncle Arundel saying. I suppose he is talking of Elizabeth. They approach, so we pull ourselves back in from the window and drop into polite curtsies.

“Ah, a brace of nieces,” says Arundel, turning to one of the men, whom I think I recognize, now he is in the light, as Shrewsbury. “What would you say the collective term for female relatives was?”

“If it were wives, I’d say a yoke,” he quips. “But since these two are so pretty, then they are probably a duet.” They both laugh at this. Gardiner and the other fellow are fidgeting impatiently as if they have better things to do than pass the time of day with a couple of girls.

“And what are you doing in this part of the palace, ladies?” asks Arundel.

I fear Margaret will give us away with the guilty look she has on her, so I quickly say, “We are looking at the Queen’s palfrey that has just foaled. This is the only window in the palace with a good view on the paddock.”

The two men lean out, and I point to where there is indeed a mare, that could as well as any of them be the Queen’s, with a very young foal wobbling about beside her on stick legs.

“Charming,” says Shrewsbury.

“Indeed,” says Arundel. “Let us hope Her Majesty will foal before long.”

We are all hoping that will happen, for the baby is so very late and the Queen’s temper quite foul over the discomfort and the waiting. The midwives say the dates are wrong—who knows; I
don’t know anything at all about birthing, though I do know a little now about how to get yourself with child, or rather how not to, for the older maids whisper about such things at night.

Gardiner clears his throat impatiently, and they take their leave. I pull Cousin Margaret by the sleeve back to the door where the pliant Humphrey awaits. All that is needed is another smile and the door is opened just enough for us to slide in.

We enter so very quietly that none of the group of women across the room notices we are there. I do not recognize any of them except for Elizabeth herself. Her dress is black and quite plain, such a contrast to the Queen’s overdone outfits. Two of her ladies are untying her sleeves and slipping them down her wrists, another unlaces her gown, pulling it away from her shoulders, leaving her in just her scarlet kirtle, which sets off the luminous white of her skin. Like that, with her dark eyes flashing, her hood still on, and a haughty tilt to her chin, she has the look of a helmeted Athena from the myths. Her ladies, even the beauties, are all diminished beside her.

“. . . they think me foolish enough to confess to a part in Wyatt’s rebellion,” she is saying. “It is they who are the fools if they think me so stupid. I will not go the way of my cousin Jane Grey.”

I gasp to hear my sister’s name on her lips, and the whole gaggle turns to face us. I swallow, for even I am intimidated in the face of such a company; they are all older by a decade, and looking at us with such a threatening aspect I am tempted to turn tail. Cousin Margaret is clasping my hand so tight I fear she will stop the blood flow. But I find my courage and drop to my knee, glad of the fact that I have my newest gown on and Maman’s pearls.

Elizabeth doesn’t seem to recognize me, so I say, “My lady, we are your cousins. I am Katherine Grey and this is Margaret Clifford, lately become Lady Strange. We are come to welcome you to Hampton Court.”

My smile seems to have no effect whatsoever on any of them and least of all on Elizabeth, who bluntly asks, “Did my sister send you?”

“We are come of our own accord, my lady.” We are still on our knees, and she makes no indication for us to stand.

“I don’t know why you think I would have any interest in seeing you,” she says, sitting down and picking up a book.

I rack my brains to think of a reply, but truth be told I am quite out of my depth with this cousin of mine. She has started to thrum at the book with impatient fingernails and her women are still staring at us like gorgons.

“You come from a family of traitors, Katherine Grey.” Thrum, thrum, thrum. “Your father and sister were lately executed for treason. Why do you think I would seek to consort with you?”

“He who has a glass head should beware of stones.” It slips from my mouth like a fat, ugly toad plopping onto the oak boards before me; I try to stop it, but it is too late.

“Get out!” This is not said by Elizabeth, but by one of her gorgons who marches towards us, pulling us both to our feet and giving us an unceremonious shove towards the door. Elizabeth has turned back to her book as if nothing at all has occurred.

As we skulk out I hear her say, “Those Greys think they will have the throne one day. They will not, I shall see to that.” Which is nonsense really, for it is the half-Spanish infant the Queen is cooking who will have the throne. Besides, I do not want the throne. But then nor did Jane.

It shames me to say, I am thoroughly intimidated by Elizabeth. But I cannot help admiring her spirit, and there is a part of me that wants to rise to the challenge of winning her over, though I know in my heart it would be an impossibility, for she is more formidable by far even than the Queen. But my heart sinks when I realize that in truth I have managed to make an enemy of her before we are even acquainted. I am hoping she will be sent away again, back to Woodstock, and not be brought into the Queen’s fold, or better still that she will be sent off far away to marry the Duke of Savoy.

“She’s right, you know,” says Cousin Margaret, as we get to the long gallery. I am only half listening, for most of what Cousin
Margaret says is nonsense. “Your family have forfeited their right to the succession.”

I feel the anger gather in me, thinking of my murdered father and my poor sister Jane, her life cut short. It is forming a great clog in my throat so I cannot say what it is I want to say, which is to put stupid Cousin Margaret down and defend my family.

“Due to that, it is
I
who comes after Elizabeth in line,” she continues talking, will not stop, and I can’t help myself as I grab her arm with my left hand and with my right I strike her across the cheek.

She squeals like a stuck pig, which is overdoing it because for a start she is a great lump of a girl and I am barely half her size. The damage one of my tiny hands could do to her ham of a cheek is negligible. There isn’t even the slightest mark upon her face, but as usual I have gone and put myself on the side of wrong, for when the story gets out, I shall be the one who seems the monster. Cousin Margaret, who is fleeing down the gallery, still squealing as if pursued by a bear, will be fussed and cooed over and I shall be blamed.

God knows what will happen to me; I have managed to make adversaries of both Elizabeth and Cousin Margaret in the space of a single hour, and I wish, more than anything, that Maman and Mary had not left for Beaumanor, for I do get myself into a muddle when I am left alone in this place. Such a thing would never have happened to Jane and I wish for once that I was more like her: inclined to think more of God and less of myself.

July 1555

Beaumanor

Mary

I have one end of a daisy chain in my hand; Peggy Willoughby has the other, and we are sitting on the grassy bank beside the lake. There is a swan we have named Aphrodite, who has laid claim to
this stretch of the water. She has half a dozen late-hatched cygnets, and Peggy and I have taken to coming out daily after our lessons to assure ourselves that none of them has been taken by a fox overnight.

Today is the first dry day in weeks. The weather has been so bad the farmers fear the harvest will be destroyed and the villagers are worried that come winter they will not be able to feed their families. Many blame the Queen for dragging us back to the old faith—they say God is angry. Each week we hear of new arrests. The servants talk about it all the time. It will not stop at the clergy, Maman says. They will soon find a reason to start taking laymen too. Even here at Beaumanor, in the middle of nowhere, surrounded only by friends, we must mind to hear our prayers in Latin and raise our eyes to the host.

“There she is,” cries Peggy, pointing towards Aphrodite as she glides into sight. She carries three of her little ones on her back, gray fluffy heads just visible above her wing, with two more in the water behind her tail. “One is missing,” says Peggy, reflecting my thoughts, but as the words leave her mouth the straggler comes into view beyond the reeds. We get up and walk along beside them, with Aphrodite pivoting her head to observe us from the side of her eye, assessing whether we might be a threat. Farther along, where the weeping willow tumbles down to the water and the reeds are thicker, she clambers up out of the lake, all her elegance lost as she makes her ungainly waddle over to her nesting place, chicks trotting in her wake.

We lie down under the tree, gazing up at the leafy dome arching over us like a cathedral. The light filters through the leaves, falling in silvery dapples on the damp loam, and casting a greenish glow over Peggy’s face. She starts singing the song we have been learning all morning with the music master.

Alas! What shall I do for love?

For love, alas! What shall I do?

I find myself plucking out the notes with my fingers on an imaginary lute, all the time thinking how content I am to be here at Beaumanor and not at court waiting for the Queen’s baby to come. An announcement was made a few days ago that a boy had been born; the church bells were rung for a four-hour stretch, but whoever proclaimed it was mistaken. The bells stopped ringing and the waiting continued.

Sith now so kin,

I do you find,

To keep you me unto. Alas!

“Why do you think it is when the poets talk of love,” Peggy muses, “they always seem so miserable?”

“Perhaps it is the artistic temperament,” I reply. “Maman is clearly in love with Stokes and the pair of them are not miserable.” This is true; Stokes dotes on her in a way I never saw with Father. I do not think I have ever seen Maman so content, though the other day I caught her gazing upon me with a smudgy look about the eyes, and when I asked what ailed her she said, “From certain angles you have the look of your sister Jane about you.”

“I am glad to be here with you, Mary, away from court.” Peggy rolls over onto her front to look at me with her bright eyes and cloven smile.

“And I too,” I say.

We are two days’ hard riding from Hampton Court, but Maman has two brace of messengers riding back and forth so we are party to all the news. Though we are a sizeable household here at Beaumanor, it is nothing like the hurly-burly of palace life and for that I am very glad. “I should like to always live this quiet kind of life.”

“Hmm,” she replies, lost in her own thoughts.

I imagine Katherine at Hampton Court. She has rooms of her own now. I can picture them, a chaos of discarded clothes, her pets creating havoc, the poor servants rushing about after them,
and Katherine there playing hostess to a gaggle of girls, all in her thrall. It is quite an honor to be assigned her own quarters and not be with Mistress Poyntz and the other maids of the chamber. She will be pleased about that.

Were it me, I would be asking myself why I deserved such an honor, what it would cost me. But Katherine is not suspicious, as I am. She sends letters, carelessly scrawled, full of gossip. She tells of how the King has an eye for the ladies, that he got Magdalen Dacre in a corner and Magdalen was all in a knot about it. (I secretly like the thought of Magdalen in a bother.) She also said she managed to catch a glimpse of Harry Herbert the other day riding in the tiltyard. But mostly Katherine talks of the Queen, how after ten and a half months, even Frideswide Sturley, who is one of her closest ladies, believes she is mistaken and is not with child at all. Katherine says the Queen sits curled, her knees tucked up to her chin, rocking back and forth miserably for most of the day in a darkened room. Everyone has remarked that a woman in her condition wouldn’t be able to sit in that way, and those who are not joking of it don’t know what to think. I remember how desperately the Queen wanted that infant, the way she would talk of it to me.