Sisters of Treason (38 page)

“Read the inscription,” he whispers.

I look over at the chaplain, wondering if he allows such a thing in the middle of his ceremony. He nods his assent and I read the tiny lettering engraved about the shank.

As circles five, by art compact, show but one ring in sight,

So trust unites faithful minds, with knot of secret might.

“Oh,” I sigh, giddy with love, and Hertford is sliding it onto my finger, next to the pointed diamond, while repeating the chaplain’s words.

And it is done. We are wed.

Hertford is suddenly businesslike, handing the man a purse and hustling him out of the door. He tells him he must leave by the rear of the building and that he is not to speak to a soul of what has occurred here this morning, which causes me to sink inside at the thought of what we have done. But that sinking feeling is no match for the other sensation that is gripping me as if I have sprouted wings and am flying through the air.

Once the chaplain has gone Hertford turns to me, pulling open his collar and flinging his cap aside so his hair escapes, tumbling about his face, and saying, “There is just one more thing. This marriage needs consummating, Countess.”

He swings me up into his arms with a laugh and makes for the door. Juno smiles as we pass her, but a fleeting thought blows
through me as I wonder if she doesn’t wish for a husband herself—though she has always said not. “I savor my freedom,” she has told me more than once.

I am carried through to the bedchamber and flung upon the bed. “Let us make an heir to the throne,” he murmurs, undoing the ribbons of my dress. But I do not want to hear that, so I listen only to the blood rushing in my ears and the urgent huffing and moaning we make. The smell of him, the proximity of him, the fact of him, is making me so light-headed I might float away.

March 1561

Whitehall

Mary

I almost bump right into Hertford as I arrive at Juno’s rooms.

“Lady Mary,” he says, politely enough, removing his cap and dipping into a perfunctory bow. His eyes are a little shifty, refusing to meet mine. “I was just leaving.”

“You are to be found here rather often, my lord,” I say.

“They
are
my sister’s rooms.”

“True enough.” It is not that I mind the man really—there are far worse. But Katherine is becoming careless about her assignations with him and people talk. I can’t help wondering if the Queen has got wind of their secret flirtations. Perhaps she doesn’t care much, such things carry on all the time at court, and besides she is most likely too preoccupied with Dudley to notice. “Is my sister inside?”

“She is.” He twists the cap as if he is squeezing water from it and we stand in silence for a moment; I do not know what to say to him, save to tell him to leave Katherine alone, and he clearly has nothing to say to me. He nods, mumbling an excuse, placing the cap, all bent out of shape, back on his head, then passes me to take the steps down to the courtyard.

As I enter, the dogs lift their heads and come to greet me, dancing
about my feet, tails waving. I rub Echo’s ears and, looking up, find Katherine lying on the bed with her hands folded over her chest, like a corpse. She is utterly motionless, doesn’t even react to the rumpus of the dogs’ greeting, nor the door closing behind me with a thud, nor my footsteps as I cross the room towards her. My sole thought is that Hertford has killed her. The fear wells up, filling my throat. But as I near, I see her lashes flicker, causing relief to wash through me. I throw myself onto the bed beside her, plastering her with kisses, saying, “Kitty, thank God!”

“Mouse! What are you doing?” She sits up, pushing me aside.

“I thought you were dead.”

“I wish I
were
dead,” she says, bringing both hands up to cover her face, like an infant who thinks it an effective way not to be seen.

“What has he done?” I know Hertford is the cause of this.

“Him? Nothing,” she says. “
Cecil
is sending him abroad—a tour of all the courts, state duties.” Her voice is bitter as pith. “So he can cavort with all the beauties Europe has to offer. I hear there are some fine French princesses, and that the Low Countries are packed full of noble fillies and as for the—”

I press my fingers over her mouth to stop her. “Kitty, what is this? So he will be gone a few months. Then he will return. It is not the end of the world.” I am thinking it is a good thing if he is to go.

“You don’t understand.” She looks away from me, at the embroidery on the hangings, then down at her hands and picks her nails. I wait in silence for her to explain. “Cecil is making him go. He has no choice.”

“That is not so remarkable, Kitty, and isn’t it an honor to be sent abroad on state business? We all must do as we are told. None of us has any choice, when it comes to—”

“But . . .” She grips my wrist as she adds in a low voice, “I fear Cecil will do away with him, send a poisoner, once he is out of sight.” She looks at me with liquid eyes: they are filled to the brim with the kind of fear and sadness I am unused to seeing in my optimistic sister.

“You worry out of hand,” I say, taking out my kerchief and dabbing at her tears. “I cannot think of a single reason as to why Cecil would want to do away with Hertford. It is part of a young man’s education, is it not, visiting the courts abroad? How else will he get on in the world?”

“You don’t understand.” She rips one of her fingernails down to the quick, drawing blood. “Cecil threatened him before.” I take her hand in mine, bringing it into my lap so she can do no further damage. She looks surprised. She is not used to my holding her hand like this.

“I’m sure your worries are unfounded. Cecil is more concerned with the Queen and Dudley to care about what you and Hertford are or aren’t up to. I’d wager that by the time he comes back you will have forgotten him anyway.” She snatches her hand back and I fear I have said the wrong thing, made it worse.

“He is my husband,” she utters. “Since December.”

“You are
wed
?” I am astonished at this news, not so much because it surprises me that Katherine has been foolhardy enough to make a secret marriage, not even because she failed to confide the fact of it to me, but because I didn’t notice something so momentous—I, who notice everything, missed all signs of my sister’s clandestine wedding for three whole months. And I am angry, too, remembering how people have talked of Hertford’s ambition, thinking his intentions can only have been to elevate himself; but then I have also witnessed some moments of real tenderness between them. For once, I do not know what to think, but one thing I do know is that the Queen will not be pleased. My stomach turns over at the thought. “Since December?”

She nods and her eyes spill over once more.

“Why?” I cannot bring myself to understand why she should put herself at such great risk. She may play the silly girl, but
I
know Katherine is not such a fool.

“I love him, Mouse.”

I go to speak, to ask what truly is love to her who has professed
it so often, but something in her expression forces understanding on me. Perhaps this is no transient passion like the others.

“And I had my slim chance of happiness, so I grasped it. Perhaps the Queen would never have given permission. I might have been forced to remain a maid in her service forever. Juno thinks it worse by far to defy a specific denial of permission than—” She stops, gulps in a lungful of air and dispels it in a great sigh. “He might have married another, Mouse.”

“Oh, Kitty,” I say. I don’t mean it to sound like an admonishment. But of course I am thinking of what happened to Jane when she fell foul of another queen.

“ ‘Oh, Kitty,’ ” she mimics. “How could you possibly ever know what it is like to feel what I feel?”

I am stung. Of course I will never know what it is like. It is my destiny to do just the thing she risks her life to avoid, to remain in service to the Queen, a maid forever.

“No possibility of love for deformed little Mary Grey.” I cannot hide my anger. “No path out of this for
me
.” She flinches as if I have slapped her across the face. “Has it not occurred to you that Hertford might be pursuing his own ends?”

“He is not. Don’t ask me to tell you how I know. I just do. He is terrified, terrified of Cecil, and yet still—”

“He has much to gain.”

“And much to lose!”

She is right, of course. “Who else knows of this?” I ask.

“Only Juno.”

There must have been a churchman.”

“Just some wandering cleric, who is long gone. Oh, Mouse.” Her voice has turned small and hollow. “What have I done?”

The blood from her fingernail has smudged on the satin of her dress. “You are not . . . ?” I glance at her stomach, my sympathy taking hold once more.

“No!” She seems unsure, though. “At least, I don’t think so. I
have bled of late but only sporadically.” She hesitates, turning her fingers around and about each other. “And lightly.”

“Well, that is because you are so thin.” I take her wrist, and even
my
tiny finger and thumb can circle it, their tips meeting easily. “Everybody knows if you do not eat properly your courses stop.” Katherine has never been a good eater—more goes to the dogs under the table than into her mouth.

“Yes,” she exhales, dropping her shoulders. “I hadn’t thought of that.”

“See,” I say, “it is not as bad as you think.” Neither of us is reassured much, though. I am thinking, and surely she is too, about what the Queen will do if she discovers this unsanctioned marriage—if, or when. She is fiddling with something hanging from a chain about her neck and catches me looking.

“Here,” she shows me a pair of rings, one a pointed diamond, the other five knotted links.

“From him?” I lean forward to inspect them. They are both beautifully crafted, not some hastily designed fripperies. I grudgingly accept that Hertford’s intentions are serious.

“You have been a fool,” I say. “You should have waited.” I am only thinking of myself, watching my dream, the hope of making a home together, being a family, disintegrate. “I am weary of your impetuosity, Kitty. You never think of what your actions might visit upon anyone else.” What I really mean is that she never thinks of me.

“But . . .” She seems completely forlorn, destroyed by my anger, and I feel bad now, for having shown it when she is so very vulnerable.

There is a noise below.

“The downstairs door,” she says, stuffing the rings back into her shift. We hear heavy footsteps mounting the stairs.

The door swings back and there is Hertford with Juno in his arms. She is more pale than I thought it was possible for a living human to be, and
his
face is utterly stricken. Katherine has leapt
from the bed and is pulling back the covers, clearing a space. I stand aside to let Hertford pass, and he places Juno’s limp body carefully down on the sheets. Katherine covers her with the plummet and then a fur, which she bundles up about her throat.

“She is cold, Hertford. Icy!” Katherine’s voice is thin as water.

“Stay with her,” he says. “I will fetch the physician.”

Juno is motionless apart from her eyes, which occasionally half open and roll about, before closing again; and her breath is shallow, up in her throat, rasping horribly as if she cannot get enough air into her lungs to keep herself alive. I throw another log on the fire and stoke it, taking up a warming stone with the tongs, dropping it among the embers, not knowing what else to do while we wait interminably for the physician. The heavens have opened outside and we sit there in limbo with just the sound of the rain thrumming against the window.

I take the warmed stone from the fire and drop it in the long-handled pan, closing its lid carefully and sliding it into the bottom of the bed. Then I light a candle and climb up beside the two of them, drawing the hangings around us to keep the draft out. Katherine is singing quietly, but she is struggling to hold the tune and I see her wet cheeks shining in the candlelight, as if strewn with fragments of gold leaf.

“She has been coughing for months,” she whispers. “I didn’t think . . . I didn’t think . . . I was too wrapped up in my own affairs. Oh God, Mouse. Perhaps if—”

I put my hand on her arm, interrupting her, “Nothing could have prevented this, Kitty. She will get better; just you wait.”

But my words are hollow and Katherine knows it as well as I. Juno will not recover. We have all seen plenty at death’s door; we know what death looks like.

“She was dancing yesterday.” Kitty’s voice is now invested with hope. “I partnered her for a pavane.”

I was there, watching them dance, and now I remember how weak Juno had looked, how exhausted and how she had had to
stop, because a fit of coughing racked her thin body so badly I feared she might be rent in two.

“She was dancing yesterday,” I repeat. Struck at the way, even now Katherine is twenty and I am still but fifteen, when it comes to a crisis it is I who assumes the lead. It has been thus ever since Jane was taken.

The physician arrives at last and I open the bed curtains a little. He is a large, lugubrious fellow clutching a vast, stiff leather bag to his chest. Hertford hovers at his shoulder, with the wild look of an unbroken pony.

“Now what seems to be the problem?” the physician says, jowls wobbling like aspic as he speaks.

I want to shake him and shout “Not what
seems to be
, what
is
!” But I just look on while he stands umming and ahhing over Juno’s motionless body.

I think I am the only one to notice the moment she stops breathing. Her final breath is like a small sigh.

Katherine has taken hold of the doctor’s sleeve and is begging him to save her friend, pleading desperately, and he is trying to shake her free. My heart is wrenched at the sight.

“Kitty,” I say putting one hand either side of her face, forcing her to look at me. “Kitty, she is gone.”

“No!” she cries. “NO!”