Sisters of Treason (12 page)

Katherine arrives and on seeing me says, “What is wrong, Mouse? You look white as a ghost. Are you ailing?”

I try to explain what happened, the words spilling out of me in a muddle. She hooks her littlest finger into mine, soothing, “Never mind, never mind, little one,” as if I am a baby.

“But this is important, Kitty,” I say, pulling my hand away. “We are in danger. They are burning men close to our family.”

“Vex not,” she replies, suppressing a yawn. “Those men will burn as martyrs for their faith. They will not convert. They have chosen it, Mary.”

“As Jane did?” I snap, and watch the look of pain cross Katherine’s face. “They would not have to look so hard at us to see we are pretending in matters of faith. You know, as well as I, of the things people will do to make you tell the truth.”

“Oh Mouse.” She gives her head a little toss as if to shake my words out of it. “Just as long as we go to Mass, and all of that. But take Jane’s book to Beaumanor, if you want. If it makes you feel better.” A splinter of satisfaction finds its way to me in the idea that Jane’s precious book will be in my hands now, as if it is mine. But that thought is engulfed by the feeling that my head is in a tightening vise.

“Have you anything else among your things that might incriminate us?” I ask.

“I don’t know. I shouldn’t think so.”

“But—” I stop, there is no point trying to describe the look I
saw in the Queen’s eyes, nor the force of her words. I am angry at Katherine’s carelessness; I don’t want her to “think so” I want her to
know
so. I want her to say she will help me look through every last possession we have, just to be sure. But I don’t say anything more, for there is no changing my sister.

One of my earliest memories of Katherine, and I have the image clearly in my mind, is of her with her fingers in her ears, eyes tight shut, spilling tears, humming loudly, while the head groom at Bradgate, red-eyed himself, tells her of the death of her favorite pony.

“It is best not to think about it,” she says.

II

Forget-Me-Not

January 1558

Ludgate

Levina

“V-V-Veena.” George’s eyes droop like a bloodhound’s. “See reason!” This is more a plea than the order Levina supposes her husband means it to be.

She screws up a fold of paper in both hands, compressing it into a tight ball. It is a pamphlet warning of one of Bishop Bonner’s book scourges. When it is not books being burned, it is people—the number is near on two and a half hundred souls gone up in flames these last couple of years, since England was returned to Rome. The whole country is choked with the stench of roast pork. It started with the clerics; she remembers when she first heard that Latimer and Ridley were to go to the stake. When she thinks of it, her throat feels clogged with grief, even after so much time.

She had known Latimer when she first went to Bradgate to paint the Greys. It must have been five years ago; time has slipped by without warning. She had been quite seduced by the subtlety of his mind and he had a tenderness of spirit that she found entirely disarming. They had talked much of Calvin—that was in the reign of the young King Edward, when Calvin and Luther, Zwingli even, were openly discussed, and thought of as visionaries rather than heretics. How different it is now. She can feel still the tingle of excitement such ideas had generated in her: justification by faith alone, the symbolic nature of the sacraments, a sense of personal spiritual discovery as if she were Christopher Columbus discovering the New World.

She had experienced her encounter with Latimer as one might an unexpected attraction, the feelings it conjured up, a true fascination with the man and his ideas. When she thinks about Latimer, even now, she feels something physical, a frisson of sorts, though the episode had been entirely chaste. She flings the ball of paper onto the fire, watching it, imagining what it must be like to burn alive. It is impossible to conjure up the feeling. She has the urge to press her finger against one of the bright embers and hold it there, to experience in a small way the exact nature of the sensation.

“V-V-Veena, say something.” George touches her arm; she looks at the delta of thick blue veins running towards his fingers, a liver spot that she has not noticed before. Her husband will be an old man in a few years. She is struck by the hard fact that Hugh Latimer’s dotage, a time of quiet and contemplation, was so brutally brought to a close, and it makes her eyes smart with sadness.

“Marcus could go to your parents in Bruges,” she says, but she is still thinking of Hugh Latimer, remembering the words he is said to have spoken as the faggots were lit:
We shall this day light such a candle as I trust will never be put out
. Such faith, such courage—the man was a true believer. She wishes her own faith were half as strong, but she is filled with doubt and a desire for self-preservation. Though she
has
done her bit to keep that candle bright, has sent documents to Geneva, witness accounts, to be published for all to see what monstrous acts are rife in the reign of Catholic Mary Tudor. She has made ink drawings to go with them, one in particular of the Manx woman who birthed a child on the stake. Levina has never been to the Isle of Manx, had never even heard of it before, but she has seen burnings enough lately to imagine up the scene: the crowd encircling the fire, the flames licking at the poor woman’s legs, her mouth set in a howl; it horrifies her to think of it, and the church official throwing the baby back onto the pyre to burn with its mother. The ink ran with her tears and she had to start her drawing again, more than once.

“Where
is
Marcus?” asks George in a matter-of-fact way, as if
he has forgotten that they are in the middle of a dispute. But then they always seem to be in a dispute of one kind or other these days.

“He went to court the Carruth girl. Took her flowers.” A tender spot opens up in her at the thought of Marcus courting. She still finds it hard to believe her son is a man now, of nineteen years—old enough for most things, old enough to be drafted to fight in the King’s war against the French. She has an image of a battlefield scattered with bodies twitching and writhing, faces riven in agony; it is like a scene from Bosch. Yes, she thinks, Marcus will be better off in Bruges, out of the way. She wonders though if even Bruges is safe. After all, it is under imperial rule. But no place could be as bad as this one.

“He could do worse than Alice Carruth,” George replies and then, as if he suddenly remembers what it is they are really discussing, adds, “And us, Veena? We could go with him to my parents.” It is a conversation they have had over and over again.

“No,” is all she says. She cannot shake the monstrous scenes from her head. But it is not only on the battlefield that the innocent fall. Nowhere is safe. Things have never been so bad in England. Even in the last years of the eighth Henry’s reign when the court tiptoed about in fear, when no one knew what they were supposed to believe, it was not as it is now. Even the slightest breath of suspicion is enough to get you burned these days. Even dear friends cannot be trusted. And God forbid you should have an altercation with a neighbor, for all they need do is make a suggestion that you are not attending Mass or that you read the Bible in English. Petty disputes, trifles, end on the stake these days, for all know, if there is a finger pointed, where it will lead. More than two years of horror. George is right, they
would
be better off away from this place.

“I am your husband,” he says. “You are bound to do my bidding.” But his tone betrays his diffidence.

“I made a promise.”

“Yes, yes, I know about your promise. B-b-but think about it, Veena. The mother lives. Cannot she take care of her own?”
He talks of Frances and her girls, her vow to keep them out of harm’s way.

Levina shakes her head silently, unable to explain how attached she has become to the Greys, how fond of those girls and their mother, or the way Jane’s execution—the fact she was there—has created an unassailable bond between them. She cannot leave them; she has the sense that she is holding them back from the brink, particularly Katherine. Dear, wild Katherine, who is eighteen now, and ripe for picking; she counts back in her head, realizing that Mary must be thirteen. It is some time since she has had the chance to visit Beaumanor and see Mary and Frances.

Levina had witnessed the Queen questioning Katherine the other day, over a miniature of Jane. Sly Susan Clarencieux had discovered it among Katherine’s things—poking her nose where it wasn’t wanted.

“But it is nothing more than a memento of my sister,” Katherine had pleaded, while Levina stood on, willing the girl to hold her tongue.

“Your sister was a traitor,” snapped Susan Clarencieux.

“We will
not
be reminded of that,” said the Queen loudly. “Burn it, Susan.”

Thank the Lord Katherine had the wherewithal to remain silent then, to keep her eyes to the floor when her sister’s portrait was thrown into the flames. It was a likeness Levina herself had made. On that occasion the Queen’s suspicion waned once the flames had done their work, but the Queen is becoming increasingly unpredictable, and there is no way of knowing, with Katherine, if she will blurt the wrong thing out of turn.

“Are you listening, Veena?” She is jolted out of her thoughts by her husband’s question. “Frances Grey or Stokes, whatever it is she calls herself these days . . .” He is unable to hide the petulant edge in his voice. “She has the Queen’s favor. She is the Queen’s cousin.”

“That never saved anyone,” Levina says harshly. “If you’d been
there to see that girl on the scaffold as I was . . . If you could see the knife-edge her sister walks on at court.”

He looks chastened.

“Anyway,” she adds, “I am one of the Queen’s ladies-in-waiting now and am not at liberty—”

“Poisoned chalice,” mutters George, but a sharp knock at the door startles them both into silence; Hero, by the hearth, lifts his head, alert. George moves to open the door, sliding out into the courtyard, pushing it ajar so all she can see is the shadow of a man and a pair of gesticulating hands, recognizing suddenly, with a lurch of her gut, the ornate garnet ring that belongs to the sacristan from St. Martin’s—Bonner’s man.

One of her preliminary tear-blotched sketches of the Manx burning lies on the big table at the center of the hall, and she curses herself inwardly for being so remiss as to leave it on display like that. Reaching for it, she prays that George has the wherewithal to keep Bonner’s man on the other side of the door for as long as possible. They are talking, but Levina can make out only the odd word above the rushing of blood in her ears. She slips the paper into the hearth, watching it blaze and curl, reminding her of that portrait of Jane that had gone the same way. Finally, there is nothing left of it but flakes floating prettily up the chimney, like black butterflies.

The door swings fully open and Bonner’s man stands in the entrance, his features obscured by the light behind him. Hero raises his hackles.

She makes her greeting, “Such a pleasure,” her voice more loud than is normal, as if she is performing in a masque, but she cannot remember his name and fears insulting him by not using it. He takes her outstretched hand, gripping it tightly, too tightly, in both of his and then raises it to his lips, planting a wet kiss on her knuckles. His eyes meet hers, and he gives her a disarming smile that reveals a row of small, even teeth. She has seen him often in
church. With his black robes and slender hands, he reminds her of a jackdaw, but she has never seen that smile before. George hovers. She sees beyond the door that the sacristan has not come alone and feels her throat restricting, imagining herself taken, bundled into a cart and then onto the Fleet Prison. If they search the house, they will find a roll of papers hidden behind the hangings in the bedchamber, written accounts of the atrocities to be sent to Geneva with her drawings. That would see them all burn. Her breath is shallow and she is afraid that she wears her fear in the heave of her chest and in the beads of sweat she can feel accumulating on her brow.

“Byrne has come to talk to us, Levina dearest,” says George. She is impressed at his calmness and thankful he has remembered the man’s name. Byrne, how could she have forgotten? There is not even the vaguest residue of George’s stutter, and she feels reassured, remembers, as if a fist is squeezing her heart, that she loves him and why. “Get the boy to bring some chilled ale, would you?”

In the passage she leans against the cold wall for a second to take a breath, thankful for this moment to collect her poise. She tucks the stray wisps of hair into her coif before calling the serving lad and returning to the hall, where George and Byrne are seated on the chairs either side of the hearth. Hero watches like a hawk with its eye on a hare. Byrne’s man, whom he has not bothered to introduce and who, by the look of his clothes, is a henchman or servant of some kind, loiters in the gloom, rocking from one foot to the other. Levina sits on the low stool next to her husband, busying herself, smoothing her skirts, adjusting her sleeves, anything to avoid meeting Byrne’s gaze.

“I trust your loved ones have not been touched by the influenza,” she says, by way of making polite conversation. It is what everyone talks of these days, the influenza that is wending its way through the country, taking souls in droves.

“God’s revenge for heresy,” Byrne states. “Thank you, yes, my family have been spared.”

“God has spared us too,” says George, making the sign of the cross.

Byrne watches, sly-eyed. “I believe you are familiar with the Carruth family,” he says, his voice smooth and reasonable, as if merely passing the time of day, chatting about friends in common. But there is something beneath it, a threat or an accusation.

“Our neighbors,” says George. “We know them a little. Have they been afflicted?”

The serving lad passes Byrne a cup of ale, which he sniffs at before taking a gulp and slapping his lips. “Good stuff, this, Teerlinc. You brew it here or buy it in?”