“King Henry?” I ask.
“No,
our
Henry! He seized the necklace from the ground and went running with it. I chased after him and tried to stop him, but he just kept saying, âIt's mine! Mine at last!' and then put it on! I tried to unclasp it, but something was holding me back, great invisible hands too powerful for me to fight against. Henry stared at me a long moment till his eyes grew most round. His face turned white as a dove and he clasped his throatâwhen he removed his hand, it was covered with blood! And then . . . then, oh, my Lord, he fainted, too! He lay beside the pretty ladies and nothing I could do could rouse them. I reached down to touch the necklace, wondering what power this evil thing held, but in my hand it was nothing but a collar of rubies. . . . Oh, Da!” Here she commences to sob with abandon, so much so that she clutches her belly and begins to cough.
“Mary, now that's quite enough,” I command, disturbed by her detailed dream and annoyed at myself for asking her to share it. “Stop this crying at once before you make yourself ill.” I add in gentler tones, “Come now, it was only a dream. You've heard too many tales in the nursery of strange and terrible things that your little head can't grapple with. It was just a queer dream, that's all.”
With effort the little girl tries to modulate her breathing. She wipes her face on my doublet and crawls onto my lap. As annoyed as I am, the childish gesture is endearing. I wrap my arms about her, my throat tight as I try to stay relaxed.
“You won't ever let anything bad happen to Henry, will you, Da?” she asks me, pulling away, her tearstained face solemn.
“Of course not,” I vow. “Never ever.”
“I knew I was right coming here,” she says, burying her head in my neck. “I knew you would make it betterâyou're the greatest duke in the land, the greatest man who ever lived. You will protect us and keep us safe from all harm.”
Her flattering words of innocent adulation touch me and I kiss her silky hair. “Of course I will. You know me well, little Mary. I am the head of the greatest house in England; I am the premier duke in the realm and you must always trust me to know what is best for our family. I will always keep those who are dear to me safe.”
“I don't ever want to own rubies, not ever!” she cries with sudden vehemence.
I begin to laugh. “I will make certain that you never shall, my love,” I assure her. “I will encircle your pretty little throat with emeralds to match your eyes. And you shall be the most prized girl at court.” I pull away, cupping her cheek in one hand, my breath catching in my throat. I am rendered helpless by her innocent beauty. “I will find you a husband who will elevate you to greatness,” I say then.
She does not seem to care so much for this vein and nuzzles back against my chest. “Da, will you tell me a story?”
Confounded by the request, I try to summon to mind something that doesn't involve blood and dragons and battles, stories that Henry and Little Thomas would thrive on, but not this delicate girl.
“Tell me about the faery folk,” she prompts.
I swallow an immediate onset of tears. I stroke her hair a long moment, then reach over to pull the throw blanket strewn over the arm of the settle atop us. In this little nest I hold her close and commence to tell my tale.
“I met a faery once, you know,” I say in husky tones.
“You did?” She tilts her face toward me. “A real live faery?”
“Yes,” I confirm. “A real live faery.” At once all discomfort at her closeness melts away as I draw her near. I cannot seem to hold her close enough, tight enough. My heart is filled with emotions I cannot wrangle with or understand, but it does not matter. She is the closest thing to Heaven I will ever see. I must hold her while I am allowed.
“She was very beautiful,” I begin. “She had hair the color of autumn leaves and her eyes were like the twilit sky on the eve of a stormâa sort of honeyed green. She was very tall and long limbed and I loved her, oh, how I loved her from the very first moment I set eyes on her. . . .”
“What happened to her?” she asks me in her soft, lilting voice.
At once I am drawn from my reverie; for a moment I had forgotten that I was speaking out loud. I clear my throat. “Sheâdanced with me a while. She took me to her gardens and there she showed me how to sing and play and . . . and just be.”
“And then?”
“And then . . .” Tears again clutch my throat. “Then she was called back to the faery country, a place mortals cannot go. I watched her disappear behind the mist . . . and IâI could not follow. . . . She was gone.”
“D'you think she'll return someday?” Mary asks.
I recall the day of Mary's birth, the blinding light, the vision in the corner of the room. . . . I am transported to another time, another world. My princess stands before me that first day we plight our troth at Westminster. I am sliding the ring on her slim finger. . . . I see her on her deathbed, devastated by the consumption . . . the blood. . . . Oh, God . . . And then this child again, this child in my arms, in my heart, in my blood . . . more blood . . . I do not understand. . . .
“She did return,” I tell her, cupping her face between my hands. My voice is taut with urgency. Tears obscure my vision. “She is with me now but, oh, why like this?” I utter in a tortured whisper. “I do not understand! Help me understand! It isn't fair! God, it isn't fair!”
“What isn't fair?” The question assaults me like a whip across the back. I am drawn from my bizarre fancy and can only stare at her, her little head cocked to the side, her eyes wide with bewildered fear.
I drop my hands, rendered helpless and confused and impatient by this whole interlude. “Mary.” Yes, this child is Mary. She is just Mary. There is nothing more to her than that. “Mary, you'd best get to bed now,” I tell her, collecting myself. My voice is calm, clear, and cool. “You are too old to be fretting over nightmares and far too old for these demonstrations.”
Mary regards me a long moment, her face fraught with such profound sadness that I am forced to avert my head. She slides off my lap, backing away from me. “Yes, my lord. Sorry, my lord.” She bows her head. “Good night, Your Grace.”
I cannot speak.
Long after she departs I sit on the settle, curled under the blanket, dreaming of the faery country and a time long gone.
That spring, Elizabeth and I take to Norfolk House in London to fulfill our duties at court. The children are left behind at Kenninghall because a new outbreak of the dreaded sweating sickness is ravaging the country.
Bess trembles when I leave her.
“Oh, my lord, should one of the children take ill, I shall die! What's to be done should the sickness come to Kenninghall?” she asks me in her little-girl voice.
“All that can be done,” I tell her. “We've a competent physician about,” I add, then shudder as I recall the “competence” of the physician who bled my other children . . . but they are no more. It does no good to think of them. “There's no use fretting,” I go on. “What is meant to be will happen despite any worrying on our part.”
Bess blinks back tears. “I'm so frightened, Your Grace. So many have been lost. This dreaded sickness hits anyone . . . oh, Your Grace,” she wraps her arms about my middle, burying her head in my chest. “Do take care.”
I stroke her abundant curls. “Do not worry, my Bess. Don't worry,” I soothe, touched by her concern. I pull away, cupping her face between my hands. Her wide brown eyes are the picture of innocence. “I can survive anything.”
Bess leans into my hand and smiles. “I think you can,” she says, her little voice registering a sort of awe as she turns her head to kiss my palm.
I draw her forward, bestowing a fierce kiss upon her perfect mouth as though to remind her of who owns her, then turn on my heel and, without looking back, quit her chambers.
It is best not to think of Bess when I am away from her.
Keeping a place for everything, and everything in its place. That is the key.
In London my ability to survive anything is put to the test, for almost immediately upon my arrival I am taken with the sickness. I do not realize it at first. Always riddled with leg pain, I did not think it odd when the pain traveled up my body, assaulting my shoulders, arms, and belly with a churning ache that set me into such a state of nausea, I was constantly swallowing the bitter bile rising in my throat.
Every day, there is news of someone else being taken by the dreaded sweat. Sir Edward Poyntz, my nephew William Carey, and Sir William Compton of the king's privy chamber perish one and all. My niece and current jewel of the family, Anne, took ill with her father, my idiot brother-in-law Thomas Boleyn, but the king's physician, Dr. William Butts, tended them and they recover at Hever.
The little duke of Richmond is sent farther north for his protection while Princess Mary seeks a safe haven at my former residence of Hunsdon.
While this torrent of sickness rains upon us, I think of the offices vacated by the dead that can be filled by able-bodied Howards.
“You are soulless,” Elizabeth tells me one night when I am reviewing the options aloud.
“Not soulless, my dear, just practical,” I return, annoyed at her summation of my character.
As it is, my plans for arranging the lives of my family members are put on hold. While making my way to my apartments that evening I am seized by a pain so fierce that it takes hold of my body like a great hand, squeezing me till I moan in agony. I am burning, searing hot. My shirt is soaked through with sweat and I cling to a tapestry hanging on the hall, drawing in shuddering breaths, determined to make it to my rooms awake.
I stagger down the hall, leaning on the wall for support. Everything is a blur. My thoughts come to me sluggish and jumbled.
“Your Grace . . .” A voice. Somewhere . . . a voice.
I turn my stiff and aching neck to its source. My stepmother stands before me, her face wrought with concern.
“Your Grace, you are ill. We must get you to your rooms,” she says. “Come now.” She wraps her arm about my waist. “Lean on me.”
“You are my mother?” I ask in a small voice as I allow my weight to fall upon this strong-shouldered woman. She half drags me down the hall to my rooms.
“Now, wouldn't that be a trick, considering I am younger than you are,” she laughs as she helps me into bed. “Come!” she is calling to some unknown presence. “Fetch blankets for His Grace! He must sweat this out!”
A darkness is creeping in. I want to yield to it, oh, how I want to! It is warm and soft there. I do not have to think or plot or plan. I can just sleep.
“Don't you dare go to sleep, Thomas Howard.” Another voice. Ah, yes. How could I fail to recognize Elizabeth's uncompromising tone? I feel a slight slap on my cheek. “You stay awake, you hear me? You stay here.”
My eyes flutter open and try to fix on my wife's face. I cannot focus. She is a blur obstructed by blazing white light.
“That's it, Lady Elizabeth,” my stepmother is saying. “Keep him awake. That is the only way to outlive this thing. If they can stay awake for the first twenty-four hours, they will survive.”
“I can survive,” I mumble.
“Of course you can,” Elizabeth says. “Isn't that the Howard motto? Besides, you are far too stubborn to leave this earth a moment before you are ready. Don't close your eyes, Thomas! Stay awake!”
I start at her voice. The pain is unbearable and the heat, oh, this intolerable heat.
“So many are dying,” a gentle male voice is saying. I recognize it to be the king's physician, Dr. Butts, the same man who treated my niece Anne. “And the duke is not a young man.”
“I am in finer form than most men half my age!” I cry. I begin to writhe under the oppressive blankets. I want to tear them off me. I am so bloody hot!
“Yes, you are,” the doctor agrees with a chuckle. “And God willing it is that fine form that carries you through this.”
“God willing,” my stepmother chimes in.
The darkness seeps in again. My head lolls to the side and I begin to drift off. Somewhere, there is singing. Is it the faeries? Are they calling me? Princess? Oh, Princess, have you come to take me to your strange country? A form in the mist.
“Is it you?” I murmur, reaching out, hoping to part the mist that forever separates us and feel her slender hand in mine once more.
Elizabeth squeezes my hand. “Stay awake, damn you!” she cries.
“We shall give him some treacle and setwell,” my stepmother is saying. “And if he makes it through this first day, I've found it best for the victims to fast sixteen hours and lie abed at least twenty-four. But of course we should not think too far beyond these first crucial hours.”
There she is again! She stands in the corner of the room, her arms outstretched, a trace of a smile curving her lips upward. . . . I sit up, throwing the blankets aside. I cannot speak. I reach out. Find me! I am here! Find me!