The hall had been designed for the performance of masques. My father sat on the royal dais near one end, under a canopy, with Carr’s fair head close at his right side.
My mother had refused to attend. Gout, she had said by way of excuse. Her empty space sat beside my father, as vivid as a ghost.
I looked away from the other empty space where Henry should have sat.
Where was my beloved Hal? I still did not believe that he had gone. In my imagination, he had gone to the Americas with Tallie, to achieve his dream of being crowned in his other kingdom. He would have found a golden princess, a
dorada,
a golden girl. They would plight their troth as we did. The four of us, with Tallie in attendance, would…
I felt Frederick’s grip tighten on my hand. He was gazing at me with concern. I smiled and winked. I straightened my back.
We walked forwards. Frederick in purple velvet and a cloak lined in cloth-of-gold. I in my black satin, joining the field of black. All that black must taunt my father with his loss, though his grief did not show today. His fingers darted and probed. He shifted his weight as if sitting on sharp stones, frowning at the colonnades, turning his head sharply towards a sudden movement at the side of his eye.
You’ll soon be rid of us both, as you’ve always wished, I thought. You’re already rid of Henry.
It was a thought from the devil, but I could not stop it. A deep trembling lurked in my bones, though I believed that I felt only determination and the will to joy.
I curtsied. The white feathers in my hair fluttered softly at the top of my vision as I straightened, before they sprang stiffly upright again. I heard the rustling of Frederick’s clothing at my side as he, too, made a reverence. I saw Sir Francis Bacon and his mirthless courtier’s smile at my father’s other side.
I heard murmurs of admiration for my gown, my carriage, my jewels, my glowing youth. But I knew that many herewould praise me even if I were a whey-faced ninny, just because I was the king’s daughter.
I also heard unguarded surprise that Frederick presented such a brave appearance. The story of his fright at the gun salute from the Tower on his way upriver would not die. Nor would tales of my mother’s snub and her ‘Goody Palsgrave’ shop-keeper jibes. Even my rescue of him when he arrived. None showed him in a brave light. I revelled now in the response to his splendour and dignity.
‘Not tall, but a fine figure nonetheless
…’
‘Oh, yes! And able to amuse the king.’
I was still braced for a coarse jest from my father, or a shout announcing that he had been toying with us and would not permit the betrothal after all. That Spain had made him a better offer at the final moment.
He kissed us both and gave us his blessing.
Hand in hand, Frederick and I walked to the middle of the vast Turkey carpet in the centre of the hall where the Archbishop waited with Sir Thomas Lake. We stopped.
Sir Thomas raised the parchment he held and began to read in a sonorous voice.
‘Chairs bee-in aymays,’
he began.
I frowned, then exchanged glances with Frederick. What language was the man speaking? Frederick widened his eyes in bewilderment.
Then I realised. It was Lake’s mangled rendering of ‘Dearly beloved…’
‘Chères bien-aimés…’
the man had been trying to say.
The Archbishop had not warned me that Sir Thomas Lake had undertaken to translate the betrothal vows into French, as a compliment to Frederick, and meant also to read them himself.
I hid my smile. Frederick gave my hand a tiny squeeze. How had this man come to read our vows when so many at court spoke perfect French?
‘Desire charnel
… ’ Sir Thomas was saying, struggling with his French translation of ‘carnal lust'.
In the edge of my glance, I saw smiles being suppressed among the crowd. The trembling in my bones grew more intense. I could not see my father without turning my head. Was it possible that he had arranged this travesty to humiliate me? Cecil would never have allowed it. He would have seen the risks, on all sides.
Sir Thomas now entered into mortal combat with the causes for which matrimony was ordained. He survived the Frenchifying of ‘procreation of children’ but was unhorsed by ‘avoidance of fornication'.
I snatched a breath, not quite a snort, closed my eyes and tried to control myself. I could see my black satin sleeve trembling with suppressed mirth.
Sweet Lord, help me through this, I begged. Help us both. How much more? I raised my eyes to the gilded festoons and spread-winged angels high above my head. What are we to do when we must repeat his words?
Sir Thomas now addressed himself to Frederick’s repetition of his vows.
‘Jew view prends,’
read Sir Thomas, landing heavily on the ‘d'.
Frederick gave me a wild look. What is he saying?
Je vous prends,
I mouthed. I take you…
‘Jew view prends,’
prompted Lake, a little more loudly and slowly.
Frederick inhaled.
If he corrected the man’s execrable French, it would be insulting. And by nature, Frederick was civil. If he repeated exactly what Lake had said, I would explode into laughter. It might also discredit the ceremony.
Frederick’s purple velvet sleeve was trembling like my black satin one. The Archbishop seemed to study the carpet.
Then Frederick spoke his part in faultless French.
I heard a faint rustle as looks were exchanged among the spectators.
‘Voter feem est oon raisin soor la vigny…’
Sir Thomas battled on. ‘Your wife is a grape on the vine…'.
Poor fruit of the vine, I thought. Reduced by this mangling voice to a single wee grape. A wee grape in jewelled mourning. I had never before been called a grape. Nor a ‘feem'. I could no longer control myself. I snorted.
Sir Thomas faltered. He frowned at my odd behaviour and resumed with resolution.
‘…
oon raisin,’
he repeated.
Grape again. I gave a tiny squeak.
I gasped. I sucked in my lips and clamped down hard. It was no use. The demon laughter had possessed me just as weeping had possessed me after losing Belle. I fought it until tears came to my eyes. I tried not to breathe. I gasped again and heard the sound of a giggle escape. And another.
Then Frederick giggled. He tried to hold his breath, then giggled again. Then Anne snorted and ducked her head to hide her face. The silver lace on my dress now quivered visibly with the force of my held-in laughter. I could hear the mirth spreading, a contagion of giggles and suppressed snorts. At any moment, the entire crowd would explode into laughter.
My father sat rigid, fingers clamped onto the arms of his chair. He stared at us with frozen fury.
Lord help us! I thought. Lake is not his doing after all. He will stand up and stop the ceremony. He will cut off the contract to punish us!
But my terror only made the suppressed laughter worse.
‘Voolay voo posseday cet feem…?
The sonorous mangling continued. Will you possess this woman…?
Make the man stop! I begged.
The Archbishop was giving me a stern look.
But I felt a relief like the letting-go of a long held-in piss.
I remembered the last time I had wet myself as a child. Helpless. Shamed, but also relieved. I had held on too long, to too many things.
I’m a grape! I thought giddily. I’m a ‘feem'.
If I stopped giggling, I would burst into uncontrolled sobs again.
Frederick’s grip threatened to crack the bones of my hand. His arm shook. Mirth raced between us, still building.
The Archbishop gave us another stern look. I gazed back beseechingly.
Help us! I begged. I saw disaster.
The Archbishop stepped forwards. He cut across Sir Thomas, raised his hands and began the Benediction, far too soon.
‘God be merciful unto us.’ His stern voice beat down the last words from Sir Thomas, sounding so like my own thoughts that I was confused for a moment.
‘And shew us the light of His countenance,’ the Archbishop went on smoothly.
His oration still unfinished, Sir Thomas lowered his parchment and stepped back with dignity.
‘Your feathers,’ Anne later murmured in my ear. ‘I could contain myself until I saw your feathers – how they quivered! By tomorrow, there won’t be a white feather left in the markets. Every woman in Whitehall will be wearing them.’
I smiled. But I did not mean to marry and leave England as an amusing story whispered out of the hearing of the king. I had seen my father watching Frederick and me after the betrothal, with his lower lip stuck out, pulling on it absently. I remembered Bacon’s over-obsequious bow as I left.
I must not let our first progress unravel.
Then Lucy told me that Robert Carr had approved the choice of Sir Thomas Lake. And Sir Francis Bacon had agreed.
The thought of a possible alliance between Bacon and Carr set a heavy stone in my belly. Even now, I feared that one or the other of them, or, indeed, my mother, had clerks hard at work sniffing out lost proof that Frederick and I were kin and forbidden to marry by the laws of affinity. Or else that someone would unearth a law against laughter, decreeing that any religious ceremonies thus interrupted were void.
We must not let it happen again. The wedding itself must defy any who might ever challenge it.
Frederick and I practised the English Wedding ceremony every moment we could snatch. After breakfast, seated before the fire in my chamber, while Anne prompted. And after dinner. And after supper.
Sometimes we worked wrapped up warmly in the privy garden, while our attendants and chaperones cursed us at a distance in clouds of frosty breath.
‘Ordnunce…’ Frederick twisted his tongue around the foreign English word, laying it on the air like a careful egg. He rolled his beautiful eyes, held up his hand to ward off my correction.
My eyes traced the lines of his ungloved fingers. Delicate but still male, not feminine like Cecil’s.
‘Je sais!’
I know! He tried again without prompting. ‘God’s holy ord-i-nance…’
‘You still speak in your nose like a Frenchman,’ I said. ‘Too much “awhh"’
We laughed for the pure pleasure of laughing, making little dragon puffs in the cold air.
‘I think you’re meant to hold right hands here,’ said Anne. ‘No! Wait.’ She fumbled at the prayer book. ‘Back here, it alsosays…’ She moved her finger back to an earlier section and frowned as she read.
‘I’m certain that I had never let go,’ said Frederick. ‘Nothing in Heaven or earth could have persuaded me to let go.’ With a glance at my ladies and his two gentlemen, he reached out. I gave him my hand. The only parts of us that were free to touch. We both fell silent, taking note of the astonishing contact of our two skins. His cold fingers tightened on mine.
‘I shall ask the Countess of Bedford how it was done when she was married,’ Anne said.
Lucy presented herself at my lodgings before she could be asked. She brought disturbing news.
‘I’ve had a letter from my father, your former guardian,’ she said. ‘I believe that he meant for you to see it as well.’
‘I
have lately received the disturbing news that customs officials of the Cinque Ports have confiscated a number of arms smuggled into England by rebel Catholics. It is thought that they meant to make an assassination attempt on the Elector, who is the chief Protestant prince of Europe. I have, of course, alerted the king and Privy Council to this possible danger, but feel certain that her grace, the princess, would wish to use every endeavour to keep her future husband safe. There have so far been no arrests…’
Nevertheless, the report was taken seriously enough by the Privy Council for my father to order extra men-at-arms to be put on guard in Whitehall and St James’s. Everywhere we went, Frederick and I were now followed by armed men. In effect, Frederick became a prisoner, unable even to cross the park to visit me without an escort of soldiers.
The king meanwhile grew visibly stouter from the wearing of a second padded doublet. He no longer strolled on the roof-top walk of the river gallery, and a groom reported thathe took care never to stand in line with a window, for fear that someone might shoot at him from a boat.
I gave Frederick my hand again when we practised, walking in the tiltyard gallery after supper with our attendants twenty paces behind and men-at-arms at the door behind us and on the sand below. The shadows of the gallery created the illusion of privacy.
‘With my body, I thee worship…’ murmured Frederick in English. ‘I thee worship,’ he repeated. ‘If words were the action, we’re already married twenty times over.’
My whole body went hot though my breath clouded the cold air. Yet my humour that night was dark. My thoughts still scattered when I tried to think of my wedding night. I kept seeing Frederick in the place of the mark in the brothel and wondered how much he knew of what we must do together. I imagined myself forced to carry out those cold, obscene manipulations I had seen through the spy hole. I could not imagine how our pleasure in each other would survive.
Grooms had run ahead of us to plant torches along the gallery walls when I said we wished to walk there. The juddering orange and yellow light unsettled me. Rather than illuminate, the spots of brightness blinded my eyes to the details of the shadows.
‘The marriage of Thames and Rhine.’ The phrase now rolled off tongues everywhere, a proud new possession. Poets and ballad-makers waxed geographical.
England and the Palatine. A kingdom and a princedom. The weighty words pulled at me. They named us, yet seemed to have nothing to do with the two of us here in the creaking, shadowed gallery, with our young bodies, red noses, cloaks brushing against each other and urgent need to touch.
‘Thames and Rhine'. Thud, thud. ‘England and The Palatine'.
The weighty words thudded at our sides, heavy-footed beasts that would never leave us. To the rest of the world, they were more real than the girl and boy who clutched each other’s hands in the cold semi-darkness.