I gave her Cakes and I gave her Ale,
I gave her Sack and Sherry;
I kist her once and I kist her twice,
And we were wondrous merry!
I gave her Beads and Bracelets fine,
I gave her Gold down derry.
I thought she was afear’d till she stroked my Beard
And we were wondrous merry!
Merry my Heart, merry my Cock,
Merry my Spright.
Merry my hey down derry.
I kist her once and I kist her twice,
And we were wondrous merry!
True to form, he was carrying a flagon of ale and a basket of honey cakes. When the scent of honey reached my nostrils the memory of what had happened the last time he served me cakes and ale felt like a slap across my face.
I bolted upright in my bath and snatched the linen sheet Kat had left for me to dry myself with, but Tom just laughed as he yanked it from my grasp and made some silly jest about chaste Diana being surprised by Actaeon in her bath.
“Come now, dear one, I’ve seen you before. I’ve seen
all
of you before. Remember your devoted gardener who used to come to you early each morning to tend your rosy buds? And how well they have blossomed!” he said ardently, his gaze and voice full of admiration as he bent to teasingly tweak one rosy nipple.
He knelt behind me and draped a string of pearls about my throat and whispered, his lips grazing my ear, “For the life of me, I cannot tell which is fairer—your skin or these pearls!”
My whole body tensed and I shut my eyes and willed my heart to stay shut, for the locks and bolts I had placed upon it to hold fast. “Do not go back, Bess,” the voice of reason whispered urgently inside my head, “do
not
go back!”
He took my hand, tugging my fingers from their tight, trembling grip on the tub’s rim, and kissed it before he slipped the garnet and ruby heart ring back onto my finger again.
“Here is your betrothal ring, my bonny Bess, my soon-to-be bride!” he declared, kissing my hand again. “But I would dive for an even more precious pearl—a pink one!” And, careless of his fine, gold-embellished black velvet sleeve, he plunged his arm into my bath, his determined fingers avidly seeking the pink pearl of flesh between my thighs even as I backed away and shoved at him, all the time ordering him to get out.
“I do not want you here or your ring on my finger!” I insisted.
Ignoring me, Tom began to dream aloud; he was a man ever in love with his own voice.
As his fingers deftly stroked that sensitive little nub, making my own body betray me, I squirmed and sighed, even as I gripped the sides of the copper tub so hard, my knuckles trembled and stood out white, and gritted my teeth, willing myself to resist. He talked about what our life together as husband and wife would be like—“passion and bedsport galore!” But then his touch changed, growing harder, as if there were anger behind it, and there was a strange faraway look in his eyes, as if he had forgotten where he was and what he was doing. Ambition, his guiding star—I saw it light a fire in his eyes.
He was so lost in his dreams that he did not hear my pleas that he was hurting me. As I squirmed, trying to free myself, my hair tumbled down into the water, and his other arm rose up to circle round my throat so that my chin rested in the crook of his elbow—it was almost as if he meant to strangle me!—as the pressure of his finger on that most private and vulnerable part of me increased.
His finger digging in, hurting me, pressing hard, as if it would rub that tender pink bud red and raw, he spoke of vengeance, of casting his brother “the high and mighty Lord Protector of the Realm” “down onto the dung-heap.” He would make him pay for denying him a place upon the Council, “hogging all the power for himself like a greedy hog at trough!” He would snatch the reins of power from the Regency Council and rule alone, Tom swore, as his finger continued to dig in cruelly, even as I squirmed and gasped and tried to push his hand away. “I will be king in all but name!” he declared, and revealed that he planned to marry Edward to Lady Jane Grey. And, being frail, Edward might not live to adulthood, which would leave Jane alone on the throne. Jane’s own parents dominated her with physical brutality, with harsh words, slaps, and pinches, and by lashing her bare buttocks with a riding crop to make her docile and malleable. “But I,” Tom boasted, “I can control her with kindness; she will be so grateful to me that she will do
anything
I ask. I can even make her fall in love with me if I have to.” Then he spoke of the dynasty we would found, my regal Tudor blood blending with his in a powerful mix of ambition and strength. Or things might work out so that I sat upon the throne as England’s Queen, with Tom at my side, of course. And, failing that, one of our sons was certain to be king someday, and he would be there, the power behind the throne, putting words in his mouth, and guiding his every move. “All England shall be my chessboard and I alone shall maneuver the pieces!”
As my mind absorbed his words like a sponge, my horror rising like vomit in my throat, the very last morsels of desire I felt for him shriveled up and died, like grapes left too long upon the vine. I knew then that Tom, in spite of his words, had never really loved me, only my rank as royal princess, my place in the succession; I was only a stepping stone along the path to power and England’s throne where Tom aimed to either sit or lurk behind, either openly or stealthily, wielding
all
the power. Oh no, I vowed, I will not be your, or any other man’s, stepping stone!
Somehow I found the strength to pull his arm away from my throat, and I stood up and tore the string of pearls from my neck, letting them fall into the bath and onto the floor as I leapt from the tub. I wrenched that accursed ring from my finger again and flung it too into the bathwater and ran, naked and dripping, into my bedchamber.
Tom ran after me and, just as I was about to cross the threshold, he caught hold of me.
“Bess, listen to me! I know you are upset, aye, Kate’s loss shook me too, but I must tell you . . . Listen to me!” He shook me hard and slapped my cheek to stun me into silence. “
Listen!
I
never
loved Katherine!” he insisted as I stood there clutching my smarting cheek and reeling. “I only married her because I couldn’t have you. I asked the Council for your hand, but they just laughed at me, damn and pox them all, so I did the next best thing, I married her to be near you, because I knew you would come to live with her after your father died.”
“Liar!”
I screamed. “I know how you courted Kate before she married my father! You courted her with cakes and ale and braided wildflowers into her hair!”
“Elizabeth! You wound me!” he cried, slapping a hand over his heart. “I thought you a young woman of passion and intelligence far beyond your actual years, but now you behave as a child and reason like one still in the nursery and not out of leading strings! Don’t you know I have been in love with you ever since the day you kicked Ned’s shin at your brother’s christening? For years I have been as one standing still, patiently enduring the ebb and flow of Time, trying to make do as best I could, while I waited for you to grow up. Aye, I dallied with Kate—I am a man after all and that is what men do. When I met her she was a widow, twice married to toothless old dotards. She had never known a
real
man, lusty, young, and vigorous between her thighs, and I gave her that. I was doing her a favor! She was ripe for it,
begging
for it, hot as a bitch in heat! And what man could resist that? But she took it for more than it was; she fell in love with me. I suppose it was only natural that she should; what woman wouldn’t fall in love with me? If I were a woman I would fall in love with me! But I swear to you, Bess, I swear to you on Kate’s grave, I was only dallying, waiting for you to grow up!”
Over his shoulder, in the steam rising from my abandoned bath, I thought I saw Kate’s ghost take shape, mournfully mouthing these words of wisdom and warning: “Never give your heart lest it be betrayed!” It was the memory of the woman who had knelt at my feet and bared her heart and soul to me, telling me how after three times marrying for duty she was, at long last, free to follow her heart and marry for love, speaking to me from beyond the grave. She thought God had blessed her, and never realized until it was too late that the love she believed true was in fact false. Cupid had played my clever Kate for a fool and felled her with his dart fired by proxy from Tom Seymour’s cock to impregnate her and steal her life away even as she gave birth to the child she had always longed for. Kate had died. Whether it was childbed fever or poison that had ultimately taken her life, the result was the same: Kate died, but I was alive and determined to survive. I would
not
let Tom Seymour, by cock or concoction, be the instrument of my demise!
He
will
not
destroy me! I swore.
“She loved you; I saw it in her face every time she looked at you!” I reminded him as shame flooded my heart. I had seen Kate’s heart upon her face but I had chosen to be heartless and ignore it.
“As did you!” Tom reminded me. “I saw your love for me in your face, plain as the light of day!”
I nodded, for I could not deny it. “And that is a cross I shall carry for the rest of my life. She loved me like a daughter, and I, to my everlasting shame, betrayed her.”
Summoning forth all my strength, I shoved him away from me, and slammed and bolted the door in his face.
Tom began at once to pound and demand entry. And when I ignored him, he once again resorted to poetry, thinking with the romance of Tom Wyatt’s words that he could blind me to the truth and bring me back into his arms again.
And wilt thou leave me thus?
Say nay, say nay, for shame,
To save thee from the blame
Of all my grief and grame;
And wilt thou leave me thus?
Say nay, say nay!
And wilt thou leave me thus,
That hath loved thee so long
In wealth and woe among?
And is thy heart so strong
As for to leave me thus?
Say nay, say nay!
And wilt thou leave me thus,
That hath given thee my heart
Never for to depart,
Nother for pain nor smart;
And wilt thou leave me thus?
Say nay, say nay!
And wilt thou leave me thus
And have no more pity
Of him that loveth thee?
Hélas, thy cruelty!
And wilt thou leave me thus?
Say nay, say nay!
I ran to my bed, shivering, and feeling as if the water still running in rivulets over my naked skin, and plastering my hair down my back, were turning into ice. I tore the covers back and dove onto the feather mattress, tarrying only long enough to blow out the candles on the table by the bed that I had meant to read by, before I tugged the covers up over my head, curled my body into a ball, and burrowed down, to fall asleep to the tune of my teeth chattering and the feel of the hot tears turning to ice upon my cheeks, as I ignored the passion-infused poetry that Tom Seymour lingered to recite outside my bolted door.
The castle in the clouds which lust masquerading as love, like a wolf in sheep’s clothing, had built out of the bricks of a young girl’s dreams and illusions, had now, once and for all, been demolished, wrecked to ruins forevermore, never to rise again. I was free of Love’s chains; the truth and Tom Seymour’s shallowness, callousness, and lies had set me free.