Raven Queen (15 page)

Why had she not released me?

John Dudley climbed Tower Hill wearily, pausing at the scaffold to speak; but the people mocked him and screamed for his death. I had never felt such a tangle of emotion. It was wrong to kill, I still believed that. That is why I had saved Ned from the gallows without knowing what crime he might have committed. That was why I had derided Dudley at Christmastide.

I will not make an exception now, I told myself. I will not.

I knelt down to pray for Dudley’s soul.

But as the roar of the crowd rolled around the hills like a summer storm, I got to my feet and rushed to the window. The axe glinted as it rose once, then twice, and the axeman held up the head.

Dudley’s eyes would never dart up and down my body again. His nose would never sniff out power again. And his lips would never tell me again what to do.

My fingers gripped the edge of the windowsill. “He has caused great misery to me and my family through his ambition,” I cried. “His life is odious to me. It was full of hypocrisy and so was his death for he gave up the new faith with his dying lips so that he might live another day.”

Ellie scolded me.

“Why should I not condemn my enemy?” I asked.

“Walls have ears,” she whispered, “even if they are covered in tapestries.”

My relief did not last long. Dismal thoughts came to plague me: Ned is with his Catholic Queen, drinking blood and eating flesh, and it repels me. He will no longer want me. His faith will plump out his feathers and he will preen and strut as they do.

“Ned’s a faithful person!” Ellie said.

“But you never liked him.”

“Yes, I did, although I did not think your friendship was wise because of your father. But look where that’s brought you! And has your mother pleaded for you as she has pleaded for your father? No! I wash my hands of them all.”

“Why does Ned not come to me?”

“You’re a prisoner, my little one. Ned can’t ask for special favours. Have you forgotten what it is like out there? Tittle-tattle, plotting and power games, just as it was when Edward was King, and when you were Queen. Only the players have changed. Not the game.”

I
must
see her.

When we arrived in London, I was foolish enough to think that the Queen would let me see Jane. I did not allow myself to think that she had a husband, also in the Tower.

Not only was I foolish, but I was naïve. I had forgotten that Mary was now the Queen of England. And soon she was no longer a bastard child. I was too young to remember the time when Henry the Eighth had divorced Mary’s mother to marry Anne Boleyn. But my father often spoke of Mary: how her parents’ marriage had been annulled; how she had been declared a bastard. Immediately after her coronation, soon after our arrival in London, Queen Mary’s first Parliament declared her parents’ marriage legal again.

I am living at Whitehall Palace under the guidance of a man called John Feckenham. He is now the Dean of St. Paul’s and he will decide whether I am suited to the priesthood. I like him. He has a sensitive face, and his skin is grey around his neatly clipped beard – the skin of a man who has been shut away from the sun.

The day we came by barge to Whitehall, the beauty of the palace took my breath away.

“Whitehall Palace is not just a royal home, Ned,” Doctor Feckenham explained. “It is also the seat of government. It is like a small town. Anybody can walk in the public rooms and the gardens if they are well dressed and well behaved. But you must remember one thing: the Queen has to protect her privacy. The Lord Chamberlain has drawn up a strict list of rules. Anybody found in the wrong part of the palace will be punished.”

Was he warning me? Was he reminding me not to ask for any favours?

“Where does the Queen live?”

“In rooms called ‘the secret places’. I can go there. You cannot.”

The luxury of my life from that day on astounds me. Sometimes, as I lie on my bed gazing at the painted ceiling, the thought comes to me,
Why did King Edward need to ruin my home when he had all this?
Then I close my eyes and see my childhood bedchamber once more: the carved mantelpiece, the statue of the Virgin Mary to the right of it. I can smell the candle that always burned there.

I am protected from the dirt and din of the London streets, although the smell of the Thames is always there to remind me that every stream that flows through the city brings its own share of filth. I rarely leave the palace, except to go to Mass at St. Paul’s Cathedral.

Faith consoles me. As John Feckenham takes me under his wing, my passion for the priesthood returns and he sees it. I pour out my story to him. “I was born in a forest,” he says with a smile. “Feckenham Forest, in the county of Worcestershire. I am the last Catholic priest to be named after the place they were born.”

I lose myself in the rapture of the Catholic Mass again and again. The pleasure of seeing the bread raised at the altar as Christ’s flesh is like water to a thirsty man wandering in the desert; the pleasure of my first confession for many years like being reborn.

But underneath, there is a restlessness which I cannot contain.

I
must
see her.

Autumn fills me with gloom. It has blown in on a gale, stripping all the leaves. It is unbearable in London. No wood smoke scents the air, only the foul stench of coal watering my eyes, prickling my nose.

We are walking in the gardens, John and I, the ones made of coloured gravel divided by green and white railings – the Tudor colours – and posts topped by heraldic beasts. Beyond, across the road called King Street, I can see men playing tennis.

Feckenham walks me quickly, until we are alone. Then, for the first time, he asks me about Jane. Sometimes, as I talk, he places his hand on my arm and says, “It is not so terrible in the Tower. I hear that her gaoler is called Master Partridge and he and his wife care for her well.”

I smile at the name. “It is the thought of her fear that I cannot bear,” I reply. “She does not know whether she will live or die. And she is afraid of a botched death. I wish I could see her.”

“Do you love her more than God, Ned? Or do I have a future priest in front of me?”

“I do not know,” I whisper. “It is more than six months since I saw her. Only two miles separate us, but we are in different worlds. And she is married – I keep forgetting.”

He glances around and lowers his voice. “The Queen allows me to visit her. She hopes that Jane will turn back to the old faith.”

“You are wasting your time, John.”

“Perhaps, but we have become good friends. She is lonely and has enjoyed our discussions…”

“…which are all about the bread and the wine!” I cut in.

He nods. “Would you like to see her, Ned?”

Happiness rises inside me, but I am suspicious. “Why would you risk such a thing for me? You are supposed to be persuading me to the priesthood!”

“You have to be sure of your feelings.” He hesitates. “Be up early before dawn, Ned, and wait for me at the water steps. Cover yourself.”

I lie awake all that night. I see Jane riding beside me, the wind showing the shape of her body; I see her glorious hair streaming behind her, her slender face alive with flashing eyes.

Barges are already jostling for space on the river as dawn is breaking. I do not notice the journey, only that my hands are trembling so violently that I have to hide them under my cloak. I peer into the water, shocked by the look in my eyes. It matches the look I used to see in Jane’s.

We reach the Tower. Under its walls lies an archway dripping water – Traitors’ Gate – where ravens blacken the sky above the rotting heads spiked there. The ravens always gather at the Gate to feast. They peck the soft parts first – the eyes and the lips. Then the nose. And soon the head is no longer human, just a grinning skull.

One day my life might hang by a thread.
For the first time, I truly realize the danger that Jane is in.

She did not know that I was coming. She sits huddled by the window, dressed in dark grey, her shoulders slumped in a way I have never seen them. I notice that her thin cheek still bears the imprint of the leaded glass. Fine lines mark the corners of her eyes. She looks older, but not prettier. Her face is pinched by sadness.

Her book slides to the floor as she sees me. She waits for me to speak, but I cannot find the words. I just sit at her feet and our shadows flicker and we could have been talking in the forest twilight. It gives me the courage to speak. “I have missed you.”

It is enough. She holds me. “Where have you been?” She does not wait for my answer. “They have all deserted me, Ned. My mother, my father, Catherine, Ulmis, Bullinger. It is a strange thing, but all the Protestants I have known lately have shown themselves to be cruel. That is the hardest thing of all.” She stops suddenly, her eyes resting on my crucifix. “I am sorry. What my father did was wrong.”

“It does not matter now.”

“Your faith suits you, Ned. Look at me, all skin and bone and you...!” Her eyes fill with tears. “You will not want me now! I do not know what will happen to me, Ned. It is better that you forget me and become a priest.”

I shake my head. “The Queen will not allow you to die, Jane. She is your cousin. And when you are free, we shall leave England.”

“You need people of your own faith, Ned. I can feel your faith still burning like a fire inside you. Accept it as I accept mine. Do not deny God. He will not deny you.”

“I am used to lying low in the shadows. I can do it again.”

She leans forward and kisses me, a kiss like leaves fluttering against my skin. I kiss her back. “None of it matters, Jane, except my love for you. Statues, incense, prayer books, Bibles…they are all made by man.”

The silence that follows is broken only by the sound of Ellie weeping quietly.

Fear, deep and dark, engulfed me. Only Ellie’s arms stopped me from fainting to the floor.

I am to stand trial for treason – with Guildford and his brothers. Not my father. He has already been pardoned and fined twenty thousand pounds.

Following tradition, Guildford and I walked from the Tower to the Guildhall, he a few steps in front of me and in front of him, four hundred guards carrying halberds, that most cruel of weapons: half sword, half axe. So many men, and just for us. Ellie was not allowed to go with me and it was like leaving my shadow behind.

I could not look ahead, for the Gentleman Warden of the Tower walked in front of us, his blade turned away from us in a symbolic gesture. And I could not look to the side, for people jeered and shook their fists and called out, “Traitors!” So I read from the Bible at my belt, but Guildford stumbled so often that he fell into line with me. He was almost crying.

“This is my father’s fault,” he said.

“And my father’s too!” I replied. I pushed him away from me. “Do not shame me by crying in public.”

We pleaded guilty. We had no choice. After all, I had worn the crown of England, although against my will.

Guildford gasped as the sentence was given. Hung, drawn and quartered.

I stood still. Burning or beheading, whichever the Queen decides.

As we walked back to the Tower, the executioner’s blade is turned towards us. When will it be? Today? Tomorrow? Next year? It will hang over me until… I shiver. A wind was blowing across the river catching the last leaves and they lay on the ground like pools of shining blood.