Mistress of Mourning (6 page)

Mistress Varina Westcott

The next morn, just after dawn, I was surprised to see that only Nick Sutton awaited me outside—with one horse. He was dressed more plainly too, in scuffed riding boots and a wool jerkin and short cape. Had something changed? Was I not to go today? I darted out with my leather satchel crammed with carving and smoothing tools. A copper kettle and coals to heat it would be my first request, for Her Majesty said I could have anything I needed.

I felt myself flush at that thought, for I needed someone like Nick Sutton. Strong, handsome, daring, like Lancelot in the Arthurian tales, I fancied. At least in my wildest, most foolish dreams, I wanted someone like Nick Sutton to be courting me, not Christopher Gage.

We bade each other good morning. He explained straightaway that Sibil was indisposed and Her Majesty wanted no one else to know where to find me either at the palace or in the city, so he alone would be fetching me from now on. I saw he simply assumed that the queen’s word—and his—was to be obeyed, but then, I understood her need for secrecy. Was she keeping her passion for a privy
memorial to her children and her brothers even from the king? I did see, though, that I would have to give my family, mayhap my friends too, a better story of why I was riding off each day with a handsome man of obviously good breeding, however he had dressed today.

Nick stowed my goods in his saddle pack and boosted me up to ride behind him. I was a bit shy to hold on to him as I mounted behind him and he said with a deep voice, “Let’s away!” Strangely, in that small moment, I didn’t give a fig whether Christopher saw us, for I’d thought of a story to cover the truth, though I’d probably pay the piper one way or the other. But, truly, riding close behind this man, my thighs tight to his rear in the slanted saddle as we bounced along, I was not only content but thrilled.

“You know the truth of why I’ve been summoned?” I asked as we turned toward the river.

“I do, for I’m to lead you in and out of your work chamber the back way and guard you. I’ll try not to distract you while you work.”

Was he jesting? Surely he did not know how he affected me. Or perhaps he just knew how he moved women in general, for indeed he must. I wondered whether he was wed, if not to Sibil Wynn then to some other woman. Deciding to change the subject, I said, “You are dressed far different today.”

“Attire borrowed from a royal stable groom. Depending on the task for Their Majesties, I dress up, I dress down, I ride to the country or stay in town.” He chuckled and I felt his ribs lift, then fall.

“You serve them both and not just the queen?” Though I
spoke to his broad back and the street hubbub was increasing, he seemed to hear me well enough.

“Mostly the queen, though it is His Majesty’s goodwill I admit I covet. But that is a long story.”

At the Steelyard water stairs, he helped me onto the same barge as before, though now stripped of its fringe.

“You are young to be so skilled,” he said, turning toward me as we set out on the river. His perusal was so intense that I almost missed speaking to his back. But if I blushed the more, he might think it was from the sharp autumn wind.

“I learned much of chandlery and wax sculpture arts from my parents, especially my father. Do you have a family?” I blurted, before I could stop myself.

“To put it plain, Mistress Westcott—”

“You may call me Varina, for you said I should call you Nick.”

“So I did. My family was on the wrong side in two battles against the king. My father and uncle died at the Battle of Bosworth Field. I was only thirteen at the time and so was summoned to court as a mere page, perhaps as surety of my family’s future good behavior toward the Tudors. But I have learned well and served loyally.”

“And have risen far?”

“Not far enough by far,” he said, looking quite serious despite his wordplay. “I hope to earn my way in this Tudor world, for, however His Grace came by the throne, I believe he unifies the past warring factions and makes England stronger. This coming marriage of our Prince of Wales with Catherine of Aragon will help shore up the realm and show
France we have the powerful kingdom of Spain as friends. Of course, the Tudor throne yet has internal enemies of whom we must be wary—disgruntled Yorkists, fervent loyalists to King Richard, however dead he lies in his grave.”

“And you are a fervent Tudor loyalist?”

“I admire a man who can pull himself up by his own bootstraps, as did our king, and it seems to me God’s guiding hand is on him. So, for now, I am guard and guide for the wax woman, as the queen has called you. But you look fair flesh and blood to me.”

I knew not whether he meant that as a tease, a compliment, or just more wordplay, but by the saints, that mere turn of phrase pleased me more than had all of Christopher’s pretty endearments and vows of love.

I labored long that first day at the palace.
Tempus fugit
, as my father used to say. I was ever aware of Nick’s presence and his gaze upon me. Though he made it clear the queen had asked him not to speak while I worked, it surely helped me to have him there, to keep the walls from closing in. But when I began to carve the first face, that of the princess Elizabeth, I became lost in the shaping and smoothing. As I worked, sometimes he watched me; other times he hunkered under the array of candles that gave me good light, and wrote letters, to whom I knew not, mayhap his lady love. His presence there—our physical closeness—felt both reassuring and awkward.

As though he were the tavern keeper of Westminster, Nick disappeared only to bring us both food and drink or to leave me if I needed to use the chamber pot in the corner of
the room. We spoke briefly as we ate, but he took that time to go out and tell the queen how things were progressing, so I was soon back to work.

Her Majesty came in but once, for Nick said she was busy being apprised of the final preparations for the entry of her future daughter-in-law to London for the royal wedding. “Oh, yes, you have the shape of the head there,” Her Majesty told me with a tremulous smile. She was beautifully gowned and bejeweled, so did she dress that way every day? “Nick will have the kettle and coal fire for you to melt wax on the morrow. And I have not forgotten that you shall have your glimpse of my younger children, so that you can copy noses and chins. I know I am asking a great deal of you when you begin to carve my brothers, of whom I have no portrait to show you, have no remembrance of them to share.…”

Her words drifted off; her clear gaze misted over under her furrowed brow. Suddenly she was not here, but in some distant memory or imagining, until she shook her head and stroked the cheek of her deceased daughter that I had carved, however yet roughly hewn and uncolored.

“I shall see you are paid each week, and I do understand you have another life and your own child, your Arthur,” she said.

“Yes, Your Majesty—about that. When my family and fellow chandlers discover I am to be sent for on many days, I fear they will ferret out to where, and the false tale of Nick and his wife having lost a child will be found out. May I not say you admired the angel candle and are asking that I carve wedding gift candles for the Spanish bride’s household—flowers, birds, and such?”

“Yes, perhaps a better idea, and the fact that it is a royal request will help protect you too. Tell them you are carving the roses of York and Lancaster and the pomegranate of Spain, for it is Catherine of Aragon’s emblem and the symbol of fertility. New princes and princesses for the nursery soon, I pray,” she added with a glance again at the blocks of wax. “Nicholas, you take good care of her for me,” she threw over her shoulder as she departed as quickly and quietly as she had come.

“I shall, Your Grace,” he said, though we were then alone, momentarily frozen in a bow and curtsy that seemed, suddenly, only for each other.

I soon had the dressing-down I had been dreading. I had delighted Arthur, Maud, and Gil with my story of carving candles at the palace, but Christopher came storming in at the shop’s usual closing time that afternoon. I was on edge already. My back and neck hurt from reaching and bending, and my right hand was numb from handling knives, spoons, and spatulas. Indeed, I hated myself for lying to my son and kin, although the truth would have been even more remarkable than my fabrication. And if gossip flew about that the queen was yet tormented for the loss of her brothers, who had more right to the throne than the last and present king, I could be completely undone. Yet I managed to walk calmly around the counter to put it between Christopher and me and leaned against it to steady my knees.

He dared to lock the shop door behind him. He was red in the face, as if he had run miles. “By the rood, a little bird tells me you were not here when our artist
Signor
Firenze
came by to set up the time for your first sitting!” Facing me across the counter, from his left hand he took the large ruby ring he had offered me twice for a betrothal and dropped it on one side of our large scales. The balance trays bounced slightly askew. “And,” he added, “you rode off with a man. I’ll not have you looking like a common woman, a doxy, not the woman I wish to wed! Others know I favor you, and they will think you have rejected me.”

“I did ride to the palace this morn with a courtier and royal guard, and now have permission from the queen to explain why.”

He gaped at me like a beached fish. “The queen. The queen? Leave off!”

“It is true. Yesterday she sent one of her ladies with that courtier to fetch me and asked me to carve candles for the new Spanish princess’s wedding gifts. She desires to have them carved at the palace, a special, secret gift.”

“Angel candles?”

“No, but finely decorated ones. I assured her that though I am, as a woman, not permitted to be a member of the Worshipful Guild of Wax Chandlers, they would understand and support my efforts, and I knew when I told one of the governors of the guild, who was my friend, that he—you—would respect her privacy in this matter.”

He had not yet blinked. May the Lord forgive me—for I was already deep in lies, but I decided to push my great good luck even more. Not to request admittance to the guild, for I knew full well that only a few guilds, such as weavers, broiderers, and brewers, permitted female members. Besides, that
plea would give Christopher another reason to insist how much he could do for me in wedlock.

But how I had yearned to be permitted to donate votives for the guild’s secret, prestigious religious fraternity that worshiped in the crypt of St. Paul’s Cathedral, below the very site of the mass to follow the royal wedding. Everyone knew a bounty of blessing befell anyone who contributed to the Guild of the Holy Name of Jesus. Christopher had been holding it over my head that if I would but accept the betrothal ring that weighed down my scales right before my nose, I could, through him, donate alms and benevolences in support of the rites of that guild.

“I’m afraid,” I said to him, “that I told Her Majesty a bit of a lie. In speaking to her about the wedding at St. Paul’s—and, of course, she knew our—your—guild is furnishing candles for that—I implied that I also made candles and gave alms for the Holy Name guild that met in the crypt there.”

“Oh…ah, yes. I could care for that—you could be included. And why not suggest to her that the guild provide more candles for the prince and princess’s gifts? I hear they will go to live at Ludlow Castle in Wales, where he had been before as Prince of Wales. Rainy, dreary, I hear—much light needed. Tell her—or I could go with you to suggest it—we could contribute candles for their Welsh castle. And, yes, yes, I repeat, I will see to it that your chandlery can donate to the secret rites of the Holy Name.”

“She has given me a room in which to work at the palace, but she is very busy and I see her seldom. I can
promise, though, to speak to her on the guild’s behalf. I’m to come alone to the palace, though. And word about my carving there is not to go beyond the guild’s governors.”

“God as my judge, I can see to that. But the wax for it. Do you have enough good wax for the extra candles? Can I be of help there?”

“I do not know her source, but she has provided
cera bianca
for me. If it is not too much to ask, could you donate a bit of the vermilion you use to color sealing wax?”

“Red candles? Perhaps a Spanish custom, eh? Of course. You’ll need a bit of Venice turpentine for the mix too. It’s my chandlery’s secret yellow-green resinous extract from larch trees. It’s precious, but then so is this task you have been given—and so are you to me.”

He picked up the ruby ring, and the scales bounced back to their balanced position. For once, I felt a bit of power over him. I was not so in thrall to his wishes.

“A partnership in all ways, my love?” he asked, extending the ring to me across the counter.

“I cannot promise that now,” I said, no doubt a bit too hastily. Then, mayhap because all this had gone to my head, I added, “I hope the guild has decided on the distribution and pricing of the angel candles, since the queen owns and values one that brought me to her attention.”

“Ah—oh, yes. But now that we can tell buyers that the queen quite favors that candle, I’m sure the guild’s governors have set the price too low, so I will let you know of that soon. At close range, is our queen as beautiful as she looks from afar?”

“Beautiful and kind. A noble woman with deep loyalties beneath the crown and gowns and trappings of her power.”

“I want you to wear this ring to the palace,” he insisted, when I had hoped he was going to put it back on his own hand. “Not a betrothal ring then, but a promise of partnership.”

“I can promise only that I will try to make you and the guild proud. And if you send
Signor
Firenze to me at this time on the morrow, I will be pleased to either sit for him or set a time to do so.”

“I’ve arranged for him to paint you at my house, before that fine new oriole window for which I paid a pretty penny—lots of late-afternoon sun. As for angel candles, your angelic face, and our new motto of ‘Truth Is Light’
—
how blessed I am to be a part of all this and in your life!”