Sisters of Treason (14 page)

It has been a miserable place indeed, the court, these recent months. Since the King returned last year the Queen has sunk into the depths of despair. He was accompanied by the Duchess of Lorraine, his mistress—though nobody actually called her such, but it was plain as day, the way he looked at her as a dog drools over a bone. It has not been helped by the fact of the Duchess being such a splendid creature. If you saw the two women side by side, anyone who did not know them would think the Duchess the Queen, with her fine jewels and regal bearing, and the Queen herself, with her long face and small, cowed shape, just a sad lady-in-waiting or some such.

Anyway, the Duchess left months ago when the King departed
to fight his war, taking every single young man in the land, or so it seemed. He left only ancient doddering fellows like the Cardinal hobbling about the place, and no one to dance with, not that there have been any entertainments lately. Though since Calais fell the men have returned in droves, save for those who lost their lives, of course. My mind turns often to the boys I used to dance with, who are no more. For a full month last year, after the battle of St. Quentin, we were beset with wave after wave of terrible news: this person is wounded and will likely never walk again, that person is taken by the French, so-and-so is not accounted for.

I cannot forget how I felt when Cousin Margaret came running up to me in the knot garden, back then, crying out: “Harry is killed!”

It was as if someone had taken hold of my heart and carved it up like a joint of meat. An animal moan came out of me, a sound I have never heard before, and I had to lean on Margaret for fear of collapsing to the ground.

“I don’t know why you feel the need to make such a fuss,” she said. “You hardly knew him. He was
my
friend.”

“But my husband!” I moaned, unable to contain myself, feeling uprooted, the world spinning away from me.

“Not Harry
Herbert
, you ninny. Harry Dudley,” she said.

“
Not
Harry Herbert?” Only then did the world begin to settle back into something recognizable.

“That is what I said, Cousin.” Her face was set in a kind of triumphant moue, which made me realize she had deliberately set out to confuse me.

“I knew him not,” I said, composing myself. “Though his brother Guildford was married to my sister Jane.”

In my head I was making the calculation that Harry Dudley was just a year older than me. It pierced me right through with sadness, thinking of myself, barely out of girlhood, and he cold and beneath the ground, like my sister Jane, who was only seventeen when she died.

“Less said about those traitors the better,” muttered Margaret. “Besides, Harry Herbert is not your husband.” As she said this she twirled her own wedding ring about her finger, smug as a pig in its own filth. “Harry Dudley spent a summer with us at Skipton once,” she added, pulling a handkerchief from her sleeve and dabbing at her eyes. I didn’t say it, but I knew the Cliffords hadn’t been to Skipton since Margaret was an infant.

Jane Dormer’s voice is pure as a clear pool of water. Time ekes by and it seems as if we will never finish stitching these gilt decorations—there seem to be acres of sleeve still uncovered, so when no one is watching I tip the remains of the discs into my purse. Jane nudges me with a little smirk as I tuck it under my gown, where I can feel the stiff crunch of paper. It is a letter from Harry Herbert that arrived in the bag from the Low Countries this morning.

My own dearest Kitty

I leave these blasted shores for England in a month and shall return to court where I will at last be able to rest my eyes upon my own sweet love. I have seen much here on the field of battle; base horrors that make me fear more than anything (more than my father’s wrath, more than God’s wrath even) wasting a single moment of precious life away from my beloved Kitty. I am determined that on my return we shall live as man and wife once more. In my mind’s eye, Kitty, we are as two cherries and meant to hang together from the bough of life. Please write me a note, my sweet, that I may keep it close to my heart until we are once more united . . .

When I read it first, I felt that I might spill over with longing but I found I could not make a picture of Harry Herbert in my mind—his image had become blurred and merged with others, the mouth of Thomas Howard, the hands of Robert Dudley, the eyes . . . The eyes were always Harry’s, jade green, feline, smiling, but the voice was not his; the voice had the Leicestershire burr of a page I once liked. An unsettling thought has crept over me
these last hours, while sitting beside the Queen with little to do but think and sew. It would seem, despite the fact I still carry that gray fragment of ribbon buried in my undergarments, and I still read his letters over and over again, my fondness for Harry Herbert is no longer the burning passion it once was. When I think of him, I am no longer stirred to the core. There is affection, certainly, but perhaps it is more the habit of love than love itself. After all, I have barely laid eyes upon his person for a full three years, unless you count the glimpse I had of him in the tiltyard last summer, in the final days before he left to fight.

Frideswide Sturley looks over at me, her brow raised, and mouths, “Not sewing?”

I pick up the carton and tip it upside down to show that we have run out of discs. She shrugs; then the Queen, all of a sudden, sits upright as if she has woken from a nightmare.

“Get rid of it!” she shouts, seeming to stare directly at me. My stomach drops as I wonder what it is I have done. I rack my brains to think if I have said anything incriminating, remembering a joke I told recently about the Pope, which even had Frideswide Sturley reaching for kerchief to dab her eyes. Perhaps someone has told the Queen of it.

“I cannot bear to have him staring down at me,” the Queen continues, pointing to the large picture of her husband in full battle armor that hangs on the wall at my back.

I exhale, letting my shoulders drop.

“Get rid of it,” mimics the parakeet.

“Your Highness,” says Frideswide quietly. “Do not vex yourself.”

I turn to look at the painted King; he is watching me. And before I have time to realize what is happening, the Queen has jumped from her chair, snatched up my embroidery scissors, and is stabbing at the painting until great pieces of it are gouged right away. We all watch aghast except Frideswide, who grabs her wrist and prizes the scissors from her fingers, handing them to me. The Queen sinks into her arms, weeping and wheezing and spluttering,
while Susan Clarencieux and Jane Dormer fuss about. Levina has the wherewithal to tell one of the pages to make arrangements for the picture’s removal. As the Queen is led out towards her bedchamber, I glance over at Juno; she is pale as bone and leaning against the wall.

“Juno,” I say. “What is it?” Her eyes are glazed and there is a damp sheen over her skin. I touch her forehead. She is burning.

“I have to lie down,” she murmurs.

I loosen her gown and pull her arm over my shoulders, taking her weight, so as to maneuver her to the window seat. Levina places a pillow beneath her head and calls an usher, instructing him to get word to Jane’s mother at Hanworth. My eyes fall on Levina’s discarded drawing. It is not of the Queen as I had thought; it is of Juno and me. She has caught us in a moment of suppressed laughter, heads together, carefree, brimming with possibility. But when I look closer, there is a brightness in Juno’s eyes that hints at fever, and though my right hand is soft and fluttering aloft, my left, half hidden in the folds of my skirts, is fisted tight as a new bud that would break apart were you to prize it open. I don’t know why, but the sight of that makes my heart feel like a dead weight.

March 1558

Hanworth Manor

Katherine

“Influenza,” announces the physician. “Without a doubt.”

He barely looked at Juno before he made his diagnosis. He didn’t need to, for we knew it already. He may as well have stayed at home for all the good he can do, though he is mixing a tincture and giving instructions for its administration.

I can hardly make sense of what he is saying, so distressed am I
at the thought of losing my ray of sunshine. If Juno goes, it will be as if I have lost a part of myself. Sometimes I feel I love her more than I have ever loved any lad. We have slept wound together at night, so tightly I have lost sight of where I begin and she ends. I have felt her breath on my cheek and the heat of her body against mine, touching the core of me with an inexplicable desire. But there will be no intertwined nights now, for Juno lies there fighting for her life.

I nod and the physician seems satisfied with that, as he hands me a vial of green liquid. Above a thousand souls have been struck down with the influenza lately; some are saying it is a worse killer even than the sweating sickness and that there is no remedy against it. Juno’s skin is a dull shade of gray and her eyes are hollow, as if she is dead already. I would cry but I notice Juno’s mother, the Duchess, is stock-still and speechless, with her hands clamped over her mouth and a terrified look in her eye. One of us must hold things together, and though I am usually the one to fall apart, the Duchess appears to have given me little choice.

The doctor leaves us with the whispered words, “She has reached the crisis. If she survives the night, all will be well.”

I try not to think too much on it and busy myself straightening the bedcovers. I ask the maid to stoke the fire, strew fresh herbs, and call for a broth from the kitchens. Juno has fallen into an uneasy sleep; her breath is a shallow wheeze. I wipe a cool cloth over her brow; I must make myself busy to keep the thoughts at bay.

Turning to the Duchess, who has barely moved, I say, bossy as a nursery maid, “You need sleep, my lady. I shall stay up with Juno tonight.”

She is amenable as a lamb when her maidservant leads her out by the arm—which is surprising, given she has a reputation for being quite the harridan. I suppose it must be grief that has reduced her to this.

As she leaves she turns to me, face aghast, and asks, “Why is it bad things happen to good people?”

I shrug, without a word. I do not know what to say. My sister Jane would have said something like:
We cannot know the Lord’s plan for us; think of Job
, and my sister Mary might have answered:
Good and bad things happen to all, it does not bear scrutiny
. But what do I think? I know not why bad things happen to good people. I have never thought about it.

I turn back to Juno and find her deathly pallid and shivering. She must be dreaming, for she murmurs unintelligibly and there is a smile that moves briefly over her lips, which makes me think that perhaps, at least, they are happy dreams. I wonder if I am in them. I touch her forehead; her skin is damp and cold and I cannot help but think that this is how a corpse must feel. I shake that thought away and pull the plummet up and around her. She looks so fragile lying there, like a fallen leaf. I am twisted up inside with the dread that I may never see Juno awake again, and filled with a longing that is more deep and more sad and more lacking in hope than seems possible. I search the remote pockets of myself for my usual optimism, but it is nowhere to be found.

I lie on the bed, careful not to wake her, and listen to her breathing, making my breath take on the same rhythm to feel closer to her, and find I am accosted with memories. The day Juno arrived at court and Susan Clarencieux, who is as myopic as the Queen, mistook her for me, berating her for one of my misdemeanors: I watched from afar as Susan wagged her finger, barking, “Katherine Grey, one of your dogs has done its business in the Queen’s privy chamber. I shall have those infernal creatures banished if you can’t keep control of them.”

Juno, rather than pointing out Susan’s mistake, apologized profusely, promising it would never happen again, that the dogs would be kept strictly away from the Queen’s rooms, until Susan seemed satisfied. Juno then sought me out.

“You are Lady Katherine Grey, are you not?” she said, meeting my eye in a disarmingly bold fashion.

“I am. And you?” I replied, expecting trouble.

“I am Lady Jane Seymour, and
you
are indebted to me.” She said this with a wide grin, continuing, “I feel there is potential for friendship between us, Katherine Grey. We have much in common.” She paused, taking a step closer to whisper. “Our fathers both were executed for treason, and we are both close cousins to royalty.” She paused and I remember being entirely captivated by the liveliness in her eyes and the delicacy of her features. “And I believe your mother, like mine, is a duchess who has wed beneath her.”

“She married her groom,” I said, smiling, surprising myself, for I hated to be reminded of this fact.

“My stepfather was once our steward.” Juno laughed at this as if there was not a care in the world that could touch her, and I felt a churn in my belly, akin to that when a lad you like comes courting. “Indeed, our lives are so alike it would be almost impossible for us not to become either the greatest of friends or the greatest of enemies. And,” she added, pressing her mouth right to my ear, “I believe the happy accident of our physical similarity might give rise to some pleasurable mischief.”

I was instantly enchanted—to find a soul equally driven by mischief as myself was indeed a stimulating thought. I held out my hand then, but instead of taking it in the usual way she grabbed my wrist, lifting my palm up to hers, and pressing them together, matching up the tips of our fingers, saying, “Look, identical!”

“Identical,” I repeated, as if I had no words of my own.

“My friends call me Juno.”

“And your enemies?”

“I know not, and nor do I care,” was her answer. And so our friendship was sealed.

Now that hand lies limp against the rumpled linen bedclothes
and I am devastated by the thought that the other me, my perfect double, may not last this night.