Finally the door swung open and Pembroke came in accompanied by the most bizarre creature I had ever seen. I sat up and blinked and rubbed my eyes, but I was not dreaming. Standing at the foot of the bed staring at us with gold-lidded evil eyes was a filthy hag arrayed in even filthier finery, made of hundreds of colorful and glittery scraps of rich materials haphazardly stitched and patched together to form a jagged, ragged rainbow motley. Her face was painted like a harlot’s, bold scarlet outlining a mouth filled with blackened stumps. She wore her dingy, dirty, graying hair trailing down her back in a gay messy tangle of little braids plaited with silken ribbons every color of the rainbow, gold and silver tassels, and even tiny bells. Golden hoops drooped from her ears, and stacks of clanking gold bangles adorned her wrists and ankles. The nails on her bare feet were long and yellow with sharp tips like daggers—did she file them to create those sharp points? I marveled that walking unshod on the earth or stone floors hadn’t blunted or broken them. Even before Pembroke introduced her as Kate’s “old friend, Madame Astarte” I knew who she was; I recognized her from Kate’s description. But how did
he
know? Both Kate and I started and exchanged puzzled looks. Had he had Kate followed?
But there wasn’t time to ponder it. From amidst the filthy folds of her skirt of many colors, Madame Astarte drew a bottle that looked to be filled with black bile.
With a swift movement, she grasped Kate’s head, forcing it back, and put the bottle to her lips. “Open or I’ll break those pretty pearly teeth!” she threatened.
With a shriek, I launched myself across the bed at that wicked Circe, clawing and biting with all my might.
“Run, Kate, run!” I cried, but Pembroke barked an order to the men outside the door to stop her as he pulled me off the witch and threw me contemptuously into the corner. I heard Kate scream my name, and she started to run to me, but Pembroke caught her, and she kicked and flailed as he bore her back to the bed and held her as he shouted for Madame Astarte to do her business fast.
My head had struck the wall, and for a moment or minutes, I sat there dazed and stunned watching through a starry dazzle as, with sharp scarlet-painted nails digging into Kate’s chin, drawing pinpricks of blood, Madame Astarte forced my sister to drain the evil bottle to the dregs.
“Drink this, my pretty,” she cackled as Kate thrashed and kicked, helpless against the two of them. “It will void your womb if there is anything in it. If not, I pity you the more for the cramps it will make claw and grip you from within until you wish you are dead.”
And then it was over. They were gone. The door was shut, locked from without, and we were alone again. Kate ran to me and knelt beside me, clasping my face, urgently imploring me to speak to her. I groaned and sat up straight, assuring her I was fine, even as I noted the fierce ache in my spine where my hunched back had struck the wall.
“Can you stand?” Kate asked, helping me to slowly rise, but then she gave a great gasp and doubled over, clutching her stomach. “Hurry, the chamber pot, Mary!” she cried as the pain brought her to her knees.
The agony my Kate endured! She was not with child, and there was little within her bowels to expel, and once it was all gone the cramps continued, sharp as knives, making her gasp and cry out, and all I could do was hold her, bathe her face, and be there for her. I sang and told her stories, trying to help her mind rise above the pain that gripped her tight like an iron-gloved hand squeezing inside her, determined to wring her dry. I wanted to undress her to make her more comfortable, but she slapped my hands away, even as the beautiful embers and ashes gown grew heavy and soaked with sweat, wrinkled and twisted by the agonized jerking and writhing of her limbs. No, she said, she wanted nothing to delay our departure, she wanted to be ready the very instant we were able to go.
The sun set, and the stars came out to twinkle then faded away. With the first light of dawn, Kate took a deep breath, sat up, cried out, and doubled over again. I scrambled across the bed and tried to make her lie down again, but Kate shoved my hand away. Slowly she straightened her spine and, taking a deep breath again, tried to stand. She failed and fell down beside the bed, yet she would not stop; determinedly she dragged herself across the floor and hammered on the door.
She was kneeling there, hunched and shivering, when Pembroke appeared. She said not a word, but her eyes bored into his, burning with hatred. The silence was answer enough to suit him, and he stepped aside, gesturing that we were free to go. I ran to help Kate as, using the doorjamb, she pulled herself up. I let her lean on me, to give her what support I could, praying that my frail, crooked body did not buckle beneath her weight. I was terrified that she would fall down the stairs, hindered by the heavy, damp, bedraggled skirts and petticoats that tangled about her limbs. I wanted to turn back, swallow my pride and implore Pembroke to be kind and carry her down, or summon a servant to assist her, but Kate hissed at me through her pain-clenched teeth,
“Don’t you dare!”
Gripping tight the banister, she made her way slowly down and stumbled out the front door, which led out to the street; better that than risk the damp, slick stone of the water stairs. I left her sitting on the front steps, gasping, hugging her knees, gritting her teeth against the pain, and rocking back and forth, while I ran to hire a coach to take us to our parents’ London house. The coachman was kind, and seeing Kate’s distress, he came down from his box and carried her and set her gently inside his battered old coach that stank of urine and sour wine. But Kate was so grateful for his kindness that when we reached Suffolk House and he had carried her inside, where Henny waited to cluck over her, she pulled the wedding ring from her finger and laid it in his coarse, leathery palm with a fervent
“Thank you!”
Of course a coin would have sufficed, but such an extravagant gesture was typical of Kate. “My shining golden moment of proud defeat!” she said with a bitter, biting flippancy as she took one last look at the gold ring before she fell fainting at our feet.
Shortly afterward we received a document attesting to the fact that Kate’s marriage had been formally dissolved. The same would soon happen to me, and I would find myself shunned and set aside, for not even Lord Wilton, the great war hero who had survived the Battle of Pinkie Cleugh, was brave enough to marry a traitor’s daughter. Our betrothal, never publicly announced, was swiftly dissolved, and many never even knew of it until it was all over. They would shake their heads and sigh, and some would even presume to pat my shoulder and condole with me over my lost opportunity. But the truth was I didn’t care; there was no love lost for me to lament over. I had never been one to wear my heart on my sleeve as ripe pluckings for any handsome gallant, much less a hideously disfigured braggart old enough to be my father living on his laurels and gory glory. I would sooner not marry at all than have a man who patted me on the head like a faithful spaniel when I fetched his slippers and plumped the pillows behind his back as he sat by the fire, growing ever more cantankerous and whiny, and endlessly reliving his old campaigns until I wanted to scream and seize one of his swords off the wall and run him through myself.
“Though we never met, we are well rid of each other,” I said, and everyone commended me for putting on a brave face to cover my supposed disappointment.
7
O
ur lady-mother would not allow us to be tainted by Jane’s disgrace. “When a fox is caught in a trap sometimes it chews off its own leg to save its life,” she said savagely as she shouted to Father, complaining of boredom in his bedchamber across the hall, to stay in bed. “
Feign
fearing for your life, Hal, if you haven’t the wit to do it in truth! And enjoy that soft, comfortable bed while you can, for tomorrow you may be in the Tower if I cannot persuade the Queen to clemency!” She added this as she elbowed Henny aside and gave Kate’s corset laces a vicious yank that made my sister, standing there clinging to the bedpost as though for dear life, wince and cry out, while I, in my new blue black velvet, sat and watched in silence, nervously fingering the sapphire and diamond crucifix our lady-mother had herself fastened about my neck while Hetty braided my hair with ropes of pearls.
But though I sat mute and pliant, inside my heart was
raging.
It was all so unfair! We were going to court to plead for our family’s fortune and Father’s life, but when I asked our lady-mother what about Jane, she sternly rebuked me and cautioned me not to mention my sister’s name or refer to her at all even with the most subtle hint before our cousin, the Queen. It wasn’t right! Jane was to be sacrificed, when she had done naught but obey our parents and her father-in-law. She had never wanted the Crown; she had been all along the pawn of ambitious, greedy, power hungry men, all of whom had turned tail and run to our royal cousin and saved themselves, and now Jane was a prisoner with no one to speak on her behalf. It wasn’t fair! She amongst them all, even our beloved father, was the one most deserving of mercy!
“Pinch your cheeks to give them color!” our lady-mother hissed in Kate’s ear as she gave the laces another sharp tug that I feared would snap Kate in half then knotted them tight. “Remember to smile, albeit demurely; you must subdue your sparkle,” she counseled, though somehow, looking at Kate’s pale and sickly face, I didn’t think that would be a problem. “Anything more risks appearing unsuitably brazen given your current circumstances.”
My sister teetered and seemed on the verge of fainting as she clung even tighter to the gilded bedpost. Yet she whispered softly, obediently, “Yes, my lady-mother.” My poor Kate, all the fight and spirit seemed to have been wrung out of her by that vile black potion; she was so quiet now, so listless and pale, so caught up in her own woes that I feared she too had forgotten about Jane.
But our lady-mother didn’t care how weak and wobbly Kate was, that she was loathe to go to court and appear before the all-appraising eyes as a divorced and disgraced woman, and even perchance see her former husband and father-in-law basking in the Queen’s favor while we knelt before her as rosary-clutching, crucifix-wearing penitents.
“Too pale! You’re whiter than a bedsheet, my girl; that will
never
do!” Our lady-mother sighed and stormed out to fetch her own rouge pot, pausing to shout again at Father, who was now whining petulantly for sugared almonds, while Kate, now arrayed in gold-flowered brocade the color of dried blood, sank down onto the foot of the bed and let Henny fasten a diamond crucifix about her throat and brush her beautiful hair, adorning it with diamond and pearl flowered combs, but otherwise leaving it unbound like a virgin’s—our lady-mother’s way of advertising the fact that Kate was again available and still a good and, most important of all, an
unsullied
catch—not just barely used and like a virgin but a virgin indeed.
“Remember who you are!”
our lady-mother said fiercely as she gripped Kate’s chin hard and began to paint her lips and cheeks. “Queen Mary is seven years past thirty. Her womb has been the bane of her existence, bringing her great pain every month since she first began to bleed—‘strangulation of the womb’ the doctors call it—and even if she should overcome her old maid’s timidity and marry, until she bears a son,
you
are heiress to the throne! She cannot abide Elizabeth! So stop moping and hold your head up high, and I
promise
you, a day
will
come, when that weak, sniveling boy will
beg
you to take
him
back, and you can gaze at him with
withering
scorn and say,
Nay!
You shall have better, my love, far better than the Earl of Pembroke’s puny son! The boy’s character is as weak as his knees, and the same is probably true of his cock too! You married a jelly, but trust me, my Kate, you are well rid of him!
I know—
I married a jelly too, that ninny lying across the hall braying like an ass for sugared almonds when his very life is at stake, but
I
made it work for me. Take that lesson to heart, Kate, though the Lord and Law teach us that the husband rules and it is the wife’s duty to obey his every wish and whim, I as your mother tell you that you, as a wife,
must always
find a way to gain the upper hand; you will be lost and miserable if you don’t! Now smile!” she commanded and held up the mermaid hand mirror.
“Look at yourself! Such beauty should never even know what sorrow means! Your beauty is your fortune, my love; you can make men bleed and beg for you and use them as you will and never lift a finger even if they think that
you
are
their
pretty plaything; learn from this misfortune, my daughter, and use your power well while you can; beauty does not last forever, and one day you’ll wake up and discover that without your beauty you are
nothing!
”
“Yes, my lady-mother.” Kate nodded, staring straight ahead, her eyes blind and unseeing, and I was certain she had not heard a word. Thankfully, our lady-mother, already primping before the looking glass in her garish salmon velvet spangled with gold beads and diamonds, and trimmed with red fox fur, wasn’t paying attention; she was preoccupied with stuffing a stray strand of Tudor red hair back into the golden net, fluffing the orange, pink, and white plumes on her velvet hat, and slathering yet more rouge on her cheeks, so Kate’s docile answer was enough to content her.
I don’t know how we did it. I don’t know how we found the strength to walk into the presence chamber, a parade of penitents in finery instead of sackcloth and ashes, with censorious eyes glaring at us from all sides, and kneel humbly before our royal cousin. Kate faltered and almost fainted when we passed the Earl of Pembroke, who stared straight ahead and through her like glass, and watery-eyed Berry, whose doughy belly made him look like a blueberry in his blue velvet doublet, but at least he had the decency to blush and hang his head in shame. But I held Kate’s hand tight, letting her feel the bite of my nails, willing her to feel my own strength flowing into her and stay on her feet. She squeezed back and gave me a grateful little smile, and we continued our slow, torturous progress, following our lady-mother up to the gilded throne upon the crimson-carpeted dais where our royal cousin sat gowned in regal purple beneath the gold-fringed canopy of estate, squinting her shortsighted eyes at us.
It all passed in a blur that, when we discussed it later, neither Kate nor I could recall clearly except in a few sharp fragments like shards of glass picked up from the muddy river silt. I remember kneeling several paces behind our lady-mother and staring entranced at her gold-spurred bloodred Spanish leather boots as she knelt laboriously, with creaking, protesting stays that made those standing nearest snigger, before our royal cousin. Kate recalled our lady-mother’s sausage-fat pink fingers twisting and tugging at the numerous chains of diamonds and ropes of pearls that encircled her thick, florid neck, pointedly caressing the most prominent jewel of all—a great diamond crucifix as large as a man’s hand, while her other hand clutched the pink coral rosary at her waist. She
swore
we had seen the error of our ways and embraced the
true
faith and pleaded for Father’s life, claiming that Northumberland had secretly administered a slow-acting poison, to influence Father’s behavior and put him in fear of his life; compelling him to bend his will to his own if he hoped to attain the antidote and live. And our poor father yet languished, our lady-mother said, an ailing and befuddled invalid uncertain of his life, with a priest’s comforting presence keeping vigil at his bedside, aiding in his prayers, which he uttered fervently every waking moment, imploring God to spare him and that Her Majesty Queen Mary find it in her heart to be merciful to her loyal and loving kinsman who, though he had never wavered in his love for her, had been led most grievously astray by the Devil’s henchman Northumberland.
“My husband, as Your Majesty well knows,” our lady-mother said apologetically, “is a weak and foolish man, and, alas, he fell into the power of Satan’s emissary—the evil Northumberland. I tried, with a wife’s gentle persuasions to dissuade him, but alas”—she sighed—“it is a wife’s duty to obey her husband and be guided by him, not to counsel him or try to usurp his power.”
I choked on my laughter and had to quickly feign a sneeze when she turned and glared furiously at me.
I remember our proud lady-mother, sweating and red-faced, crawling laboriously on her fat knees up the stairs of the dais to kiss the hem of Cousin Mary’s purple velvet gown and then receive her embrace and a kiss on each cheek. Then Kate and I were there, in our cousin’s arms, feeling her soft velvet sleeves enfolding us like a pair of purple wings, and the hot yet dry caress of her lips brushing our cheeks and the overpowering odor of her musky perfume mingling with her sweat on that hot July day.
“We are family,” the new queen magnanimously declared, “and all is forgiven!” Though all, I would later discover, didn’t include Jane; she had been conveniently forgotten, like dust a lazy servant had swept under the grand Turkey carpet.
I gazed up into our royal cousin’s pale, pinched, and lined face, half blinded by the rainbow of jewels bordering the purple velvet hood that crowned her faded hair as the sun poured in through the high arched windows and struck them, and prayed God that she could read my mind as I gripped her hands and silently beseeched her to be kind and merciful to Jane.
But Cousin Mary merely smiled and bent down to pat my cheek as she whispered, “You need not be in awe of me now that I am queen, little cousin; you are still as dear to me as ever.” Then Kate was in her arms, as Cousin Mary crooned over her and caressed her face—“so pale, my pretty Kate!”—and condoled with her over the loss of her husband and, taking the pearl rosary that hung from Kate’s waist and wrapping it comfortingly around her pale, bloodless fingers, promised that God would provide a balm for her wounds if she asked Him to. “
Pray,
Cousin Kate,
pray,
and in God’s love you will find a
greater
consolation than in the arms of Pembroke’s lad.”
Kate nodded blankly and answered softly with a dazed, “Yes, Your Majesty.” She looked ready to fall over in a faint, and I quickly moved to help guide her down the dais as we retreated, backward, curtsying thrice as royal etiquette demanded.
Cousin Mary said more, but neither Kate nor I remembered. We felt as if we were watching it all from under water and the babbling current muffled our ears; it all seemed so foreign and far away as though it were happening to someone else and the scene was being played out in a foreign language that neither of us could comprehend. And then it was all over, and we were home again, back at Suffolk House, and our lady-mother was calling in the dressmakers again, to outfit Kate and me for court, where we were to go and live and serve our gracious queen as ladies of the bedchamber, and at the same time sternly shaking a finger at Father, who had padded in in his velvet slippers with his comfit box in hand and his valet in tow bearing a gilded tray groaning with fruit and cream-filled pastries and pretty marzipan cakes. He sat pale and shivering by the fire in a cinnamon and white, swirled, brocade dressing gown, listing to our lady-mother insisting that he must, when questioned, say that he did not remember, that he had been ill, and in fear—
deadly
fear—for his life, and that he must lay
all
the blame upon Northumberland and say that he had given him poison that had made him follow docile as a dog wherever he led, even unto the folly of committing high treason.
“Yes, dear.” Father nodded distractedly as he nibbled on a piece of marzipan.
“But what about Jane?”
I asked.
“Shut up, Mary!”
our lady-mother hissed as she swung around and dealt me such a slap that I, sitting on the foot of Kate’s bed, fell backward, my legs actually flying up over my head, in a somersault that would have been comic had it all not been so very tragic.
Seeing our woebegone, tear-streaked faces, Father came and sat down between us. He gave us each a sugar roll and put his arms around us.
“There, there”—he patted our shoulders—“it’s not so bad; think of all the wonderful pastries and sweetmeats you shall have to eat at court! Cakes filled with berries in wine and slathered with rich cream, honeyed pear tarts in flaky golden crusts, marzipan cakes with gilded frosting—mmmm . . .
edible gold!
—bitter oranges and tart lemons made sweet with shimmering coatings of sugar crystals, tangy candied figs and apricots, candied cherries bright and fine as rubies, red jewels to delight the tongue, sugarplums, almonds hidden inside shells of colored sugar, mincemeat pies, moist golden cakes sodden with cinnamon syrup, and the subtleties—just think of the subtleties, my dears!”
As our lady-mother rolled her eyes, he mused rapturously about these wonderful works of edible art, wrought from spun sugar and marzipan, in marvelous, miraculous, and magnificent designs, confectionary art and architecture, made especially for the Queen’s table, by confectioners who deserved to stand shoulder to shoulder with the world’s most brilliant architects. “I’ve never understood it! Why are the greatest architects remembered but the best pastry cooks forgotten? Where are their memorials? I’ll tell you—melted like sugar in the rain! Oh the fickleness of humanity! It makes me want to weep!” he cried and reached into his comfit box and shoved another handful of sugared almonds into his mouth.