Sisters of Treason (21 page)

“They are. Elizabeth shoved out the prior and gave it to Maman. Seems she will do anything for Maman, save reinstate me. I think Maman wanted to be closer to me. Beaumanor is so far.”

“Sheen is just a short way upriver.”

“Even so.” How can I go there and leave Hertford here? My heart would break. “I did see
him
though. Dudley,” I say to change the subject.

“How could you not, he is larger than life,” giggles Juno. She brings her face close to mine. “Do you think they are doing it?”

“Have you heard such a thing?” The air is suddenly thick with gossip.

“No,” she says. “But when you see them together, it seems inevitable.”

“Maybe they are,” I say. “Maybe they sneak off out riding and . . .”

“Perhaps they use her nether place, that she may remain a virgin.”

“Juno! Such filth, out of so pretty a mouth.” But when I look at
her mouth, I see Hertford’s. “Here,” I say, pulling her down onto the bed. Her hair falls across my face; it smells of rosewater. I take a strand of it, hold it next to mine and cannot tell them apart. I nuzzle into her neck, breathing her in, then I face her and bring my eye to hers and we allow our butterfly lashes to touch and flutter together.

March 1559

Whitehall

Levina

Levina stands in a window alcove scrutinizing the planes of the Queen’s face. The Queen is seated in the best of the light, leafing through a sheaf of papers. They are from Foxe in Geneva, printed copies of Levina’s drawings—images of the burnings. How things have changed. But then, everything is different, Bonner and Byrne have melted away and the palace is transformed. Gone are the solemn silent chambers; now the place echoes with music and mirth, as all the new favorites dance about the young Queen. And the fear—well, that is always lurking somewhere at court, but for the time being no one is sure what exactly to be afraid of.

The place is full of new faces: Elizabeth’s old companion Kat Astley, whom they say is like a mother to her, is by the hearth. Beside her are Lady Knollys, Dorothy Stafford, and Blanche Parry, sewing and talking quietly among themselves. At the far end of the room, lined up before the new Italian dance master, are the maids of the chamber. Little hare-lipped Peggy Willoughby and plain Frances Meautas are like two daisies among a display of lilies. Juno stands beside Lettice Knollys, a brace of beauties, and next to them a pair of pretty Howard girls. The new Queen has surrounded herself with old friends and cousins—the Howards and the Knollys are cousins on her mother’s side.

They watch the dance master demonstrate the steps to the accompaniment of a fey boy, with long hair and cow-eyes, on the lute. Katherine should be in that lineup—of course she should be, by rights she is Elizabeth’s heir. But Elizabeth, it would seem, has held on to the vindictiveness she had as a girl, for poor Katherine has no longer the right to go beyond the presence chamber. Clearly the Queen doesn’t want competition from a girl who exceeds her in beauty and, according to some, has an equal claim to the throne.

Levina fears for Katherine. The girl has a hollow look about her and seems on the brink of decline. She refuses to go and join her mother and sister at Sheen, despite its proximity. Levina has started a painting of her, as a reason to keep her close. But much of her time is taken up with crafting miniatures for Elizabeth’s favorites, who all want little likenesses of themselves to give to each other and hang from their girdles, or slip beneath their pillows. There is a great fashion for such things these days, and more’s the better for Levina, for it is her living, and today she is painting the Queen herself.

Her brush is poised, but she has not yet made a mark on the card. It is the ace of hearts. Elizabeth had asked for that one in particular, and Levina wondered, as she carefully adhered the thin skin of vellum to the reverse, whose pillow it would end up under—very likely Dudley’s. She had primed it with a dun pink, very pale, and she has chosen well, for the Queen’s skin seems, in this light at least, to match it. She has a high, slightly feverish, rosy flush to her cheeks, which Levina suspects may not be naturally hers.

Levina wants to convey that look Elizabeth has, as if she has seen everything and become immune. She wants, too, to show that her turbulent history has not etched itself on the smooth lines of her face—but it is there in the wide-set eyes, which, if you look hard enough, reveal a profound sadness beneath their surface.

The Queen calls over a cupbearer with an almost imperceptible twitch of her hand.

“We are thirsty,” she says to the boy, who has a hot blush rising
up his neck and onto his face. “Mistress Teerlinc, will you drink with us? Bring us something cool. Anything will suffice, as long as it is cool.”

Levina finds herself now looking at the Queen’s hands. They are fine and long-fingered—musician’s hands. A memory pops into her head of Elizabeth playing the virginals as a girl, full of zest, wanting to be better than everyone else. She always was. Hero stretches at Levina’s feet, yawning and turning in a circle before resettling in a puddle of sun.

“I remember your dog. He was a puppy when you painted me last. He took a disliking to me.” Elizabeth leans down to him, her hand outstretched. He emits a low grumble and swivels his eyes to watch her. She laughs. “You never did like me, did you, boy?” Ignoring his bared fangs, she begins to ruffle his ears as if he is an amenable little spaniel. Hero, entirely seduced, gazes at her like a lovesick youth. “Do you remember how he used to growl at me?”

“Indeed I do, madam,” Levina replies, remarking how she slips easily between the singular and plural of the personal pronoun. Not like her sister, who insisted on the plural even among her closest ladies, as if clinging on to her status for dear God. “It is many years since I painted Your Majesty. Much has happened since.”

“Mmmm,” says the Queen, with pursed lips that hint of disapproval, or perhaps suggest they have stumbled into conversational territory that is off limits. Levina wonders if she too is remembering the affair with Thomas Seymour, a decade ago, that nearly brought her down. Most women wouldn’t have survived the scandal—he was Katherine Parr’s husband, her own stepfather, or as good as. But Elizabeth manages to shake off infamy as water runs off grease. Seymour lost his head and took the secret of it to his grave. Perhaps it is best Elizabeth doesn’t remember that Levina was there at the time.

Elizabeth holds out her palm for Hero to lick the salt taste from it, saying, “All the ones who seem the most fierce are soft as you like underneath. It’s the others one must beware of.”

Levina asks herself if she means anything by it.

“They all want me wed,” she says out of the blue. “Look at Cecil.” She rhymes Cecil with thistle. “He is desperate to come and display his stack of little portraits to me. All my suitors . . .” She nudges her head towards Cecil, who, it is true, is hovering, itching to approach. But the Queen doesn’t meet his eye and whispers, with a little smirk, “I shall pretend I have not noticed he waits.”

“I imagine it is hard, with so many suitors,” says Levina.

“Wed one, and upset another. Look how my sister fared with her marriage. She lost the love of her people. And she lost Calais fighting her husband’s war; that was the worst of it. Us women . . .” she begins, pausing to look about her. “You are wed, Mistress Teerlinc, and you are a woman of the world—a woman with her own life. How does the institution suit you?”

Levina is thinking of George. He has been so distant since his return and his resentment of her work continues to bubble beneath the surface of him. “It has its complications.”

“Yes. But then not to feel what it is to birth a child.” She seems to drift off, the sadness in her eyes intensifying. Levina begins to paint, now seeing the image form as if it is not the product of her own hand, but guided by some other invisible ministration over which she has no control.

“It is a powerful lure, a share in the throne of England.”

“Indeed, madam.”

Elizabeth drops her eyes back to the drawings in her lap and after some time says, “This one, it is Jane Grey, is it not?”

Levina glances over, assaulted suddenly with the image of the girl blindly seeking the block, the crimson spurt of blood. It is so vivid it makes her flinch. “It is, yes,” she replies, careful to keep her tone neutral. It wouldn’t do to make a display of her affiliations.

“Awful business. I knew her quite well. Pious girl.” Levina is trying to see from her expression what she means by this, but she is opaque. “You are close to her mother, I believe.”

“I am. We are old friends.” Levina wonders where this is going.

“I am fond of Frances, too. She is my cousin. But that daughter, Katherine.” Her mouth turns down momentarily in distaste. “So like her father. He was the real traitor in that family. They were all colored by him. A weak man, Henry Grey.” She involuntarily places a hand on her neck. “And the other sister, the crookback, what is she like?”

“Mary, she is uncommonly clever, madam, and quiet—quite biddable.”

“Biddable, well she would have to be, I suppose. If she is as deformed as they say, then she will have to work all the more hard to be good, if only to convince everyone she is not the Devil’s work.” She lets out a little huff of laughter that Levina interprets as ironic. “But if she is clever, then she will know that, won’t she?”

“Lady Katherine is biddable too, in her own way.” Levina thinks it worth at least an attempt to change the Queen’s opinion of Katherine.

“I’d not call her that; she is nothing but trouble—trouble of the worst kind.” She waves for Cecil to approach now. “I’m afraid I must deal with this, Mistress Teerlinc.”

Levina begins to clear her things, asking herself what Elizabeth meant by “the worst kind” and watching as Cecil begins to produce miniatures that are cached about his person, like a conjurer. “This,” he is saying, waving one under Elizabeth’s nose, “is the Archduke Karl.”

“The Habsburg, Cecil?” she scowls. “You think to counter that Scottish cousin of ours, who seeks to claim
our
throne for the French, by matching us with a Habsburg?”

“She means the Scottish Queen Mary who is wed to the French Dauphin,” whispers Mistress St. Low, who has seated herself beside Levina.

“It is true, France would fight to put that Scottish girl on the English throne,” Levina replies. She imagines Europe as a great game of chess with two queens still in play.

“Erik of Sweden.” Cecil is proffering another portrait.

Elizabeth snatches it and seems on the brink of laughter. “He is a little more comely, this one.”

“I think, Your Highness, with all respect . . .” Cecil begins.

But Elizabeth interrupts. “We are jesting, Cecil, jesting.” Cecil can barely conceal his impatience. “Saxony and Holstein both have made suits,” he says.

“Show me,” she demands, holding out a hand.

“There are no portraits as yet.” Cecil is clearly at the edge of exasperation.

“You cannot expect us to make a match without so much as a likeness. Perhaps we shall have none of them.”

Cecil titters politely as if she has made a joke. Levina thinks it is less of a joke than it appears, though it
is
unthinkable that a queen would rule without a king. Though less unthinkable perhaps with this particular queen, muses Levina—unprecedented certainly.

There is a commotion at the far end of the chamber, the doors are flung open and an usher steps forward with a bow. “Lord Robert Dudley,” he announces. The Queen lights up like a firework and Levina notices Cecil’s lips purse in disapproval. How she would like to paint
this
scene—two men on the rise, pulling themselves up on the skirts of their Queen. Cecil circles his eyes, like a frog watching a fly. His domed forehead gives him the look of a scholar and the russet beard falls to two points—a look that was fashionable a few years ago. Levina wonders if it is deliberately done in order to make him seem as if he cares not for shallow things like fashion. But who couldn’t notice the fine fabric of his gown, expensively black, so black it swallows the light, and the gilded aiglets that sprout from the seams, or the crisp white furls of linen at his throat, or the delicate tooling on his shoes—all so very discreet.

But the whole room watches the other man.

Mistress St. Low leans in to murmur, “This is the one she
wants
to wed.”

“He is wed already,” Levina replies.

Dudley, in contrast to Cecil, bathes in conspicuous splendor;
there is nothing discreet about
him
. His doublet is fashioned from cloth of silver, slashed and notched and jeweled and laid over white satin, with a high collar in the Spanish style. His cape, which is scarlet and short, and edged with gold braiding, swings from one shoulder as he swaggers across the chamber on long legs clad in inky stockings. He wears a slight smirk on his handsome face. Levina remembers him not so long ago in a doublet that once belonged to his father, restyled—it was full of mended rents—and hose worn so thin at the heels his skin was visible in places. Robert Dudley has been spending his new salary as Master of Horse, a thousand marks, it is said, and that is before the perquisites.

He has asked that Levina paint him, but she has heard rumors that, despite the thousand marks, he is one of those who pays his dues only when absolutely necessary, and suspects that he will make some excuse: it pleases him not; the likeness is not good; the colors are wrong. So she has bought some time by saying she must first paint the Queen.

He bows before Elizabeth, removing his cap, allowing his curls to swing forward, then flicking them back to expose his eyes—an affectation, surely, for his hair is quite magnificent, dark with highlights of red ochre, falling in ripples. His eyes are an unusual shade of indigo, not unlike that which Holbein favored as a background for some of his portraits. This is a man who is clearly aware of his best features.

“Your Majesty,” he says, raising his eyebrows, as if she is a servant maid he has been bedding.