Watch the Lady (5 page)

“We shall invite him to court for the tilt,” said the Queen. “Now where is your own boy, Burghley?”

“He is here, madam.” A boy moved forward. He must have been about Penelope's age but was smaller by far than her in stature, with one shoulder substantially higher than the other and a bulbous body set upon legs so thin it was a miracle they could hold him up. He reminded her, with his odd bird-boy shape, of a painting of the devil she once saw in a forbidden book, and she felt a twinge of the old fear that image had planted in her.

Where the father's face was long, the boy's was longer to the brink of ugliness, with a great domed forehead and his hair sticking up above it like bristles on a hearth brush. Both men were clad head to toe in black, each with a stiff snowy ruff; but in spite of their plainness there was a luxury about them that didn't pass Penelope by.

The odd boy gawped her way and she, finding sympathy for one cursed with such a crooked form, smiled at him. He didn't return it, but continued gawping and blushing hotly. His father gave him a tap on the shoulder, which seemed to jolt him from his trance. He dropped sharply onto his knees before the Queen, fixing his eyes on her shoes.

“Getting on here at Whitehall, Cecil?” said the Queen. “Your father showing you the ropes?” Turning to Penelope, she added, “Cecil arrived at court just a few days ago, didn't you, boy?”

Cecil mumbled out a response, but Penelope was not listening for she had just spotted, beyond him, with a tightening about her heart, the face that was inscribed on her memory.

“Collect your things together, Penelope. You are to take Anne Vavasour's place in the maids' chamber.” The countess uttered the girl's name under her breath as if it might have been a sin to say it aloud.

“I am to be a maid of honor?” Penelope's breath caught in her throat at the idea of escaping the strict rule of the countess, imagining herself in her new clothes—a flower garden of embroidery—at the heart of things rather than hovering about the edges, as she had been those last three weeks at court.

“You are.” Her mouth was a tight line. “But don't let it go to your head. And mind yourself, Penelope. The maids' chamber is not what it was in my day; now it is a hotbed of debauchery. Just look at what happened to that girl.” She shakes her head. “That is the result when maids are allowed to gad about.”

Penelope had heard Anne Vavasour's cries all the way from the countess's chambers, terrible bellows echoing through the corridors of the palace. Her guardian was asleep beside her, mouth open, snoring, so she slipped from the bed and out of the room, following the dreadful sounds to their source. Her mind conjured images of all the kinds of horror she might find: a bludgeoning; a stabbing; shattered bones. But when she slid unseen into the maids' chamber, it was a bewildering scene; Anne, barely visible at the center of a circle of women, appeared to be in the throes of some kind of fit. Someone thrust a wad of wool into her mouth, muffling those hollow screams for a moment, but she grabbed it with a fist and flung it away. It landed at Penelope's feet.

“It's crowning,” said one of the women. Penelope couldn't understand why she sounded so calm, when Anne's life was clearly in danger. “Push!”

Then something happened, Anne's cries died and the place was awash with gore. Penelope couldn't move, just stood horror-struck by the door.

“A boy,” said someone. Then came the unmistakable wail of a baby and Penelope understood. She later discovered that it was the married Earl of Oxford's infant whom Anne had birthed there in the maids' chamber.

“That wicked girl is in the Tower with her baby, where she belongs, as is the father.” The countess's expression was puckered with disapproval.

“The Tower?” Just the name of the place struck fear into her, for everyone knew that people who entered the Tower often never left it.

“Let her disgrace be a lesson to you. She has sinned in the eyes of God, she will be damned for it in the next life, and in this life she has to suffer the Queen's wrath.” Penelope wondered which was worse, for she had soon learned the Queen could be truly terrifying. “That girl is not the first. We all know what happened to Katherine Grey. She was committed to the Tower, when she found herself with child, and was never seen again, starved herself to death with the shame of it . . .” She seemed unable to stop listing the terrible fates of girls who had lost their virtue, was counting them off on her fingers “. . . I remember the Queen breaking Mary Shelton's finger with a hairbrush when she wed without permission, and as for your mother . . .”

Penelope wanted to ask about her mother and all those other women whose names were never to be mentioned in earshot of the Queen, wanted to understand the depths of despair that might have led Katherine Grey to starve herself to death. “My mother—”

“Was a fool,” the countess interrupted. “Imagine the idiocy of marrying the Queen's favorite like that. She lost everything. She was the Queen's darling and she lost it all . . . lives in perpetual purgatory . . . no influence . . .”

Penelope wanted to make her stop, to shove a wad of wool into her guardian's mouth like the one Anne Vavasour had spat out.

“. . . So mind you behave, young lady. You will have to prove to the Queen that you are not your mother's daughter in character. I am telling you this: if you incur the Queen's wrath, you visit disaster on yourself and your family.”

Penelope managed to hold her tongue while the tirade continued as they made their way to the maids' rooms. All she wanted to think about was at last being freed from the harsh reign of her guardian, but all this talk was unsettling her, as if a single, small slipup might end in disaster. The countess had reminded her often enough of her wayward streak that needed taming. It was all so perplexing, for she had felt liked all the more by the Queen for it. But then a wager at cards was not an unsanctioned marriage—or, God forbid, a little bastard on the way.

Before they entered, the countess pulled her back. “Remember this: romantic intrigue is one thing but political intrigue is quite another. People will approach you as a means to achieve the Queen's ear. Take care to make no enemies but do not forget that no one is truly a friend either, when you are close to the Queen. It is only family you can be sure of.”

So it was with a sinking heart that Penelope entered the maids' chamber. A row of inquisitive faces confronted her and she wished her sister were by her side, lending courage. She missed Dorothy; they were barely a year apart, so alike people often mistook them for twins, and had rarely been separated until they were prised apart so Penelope could make her debut at court. She recognized Peg Carey, a cousin she barely knew, who was running a pair of bright-bead eyes over her as if she were a mare at auction.

“I am Martha Howard,” said a small, sweet-faced girl. “I shall make room for your things. Would you like to take the truckle tonight? It is so hot, squeezed into the tester.” She pointed towards the large bed that dominated the chamber.

“Yes, take the truckle,” said Moll Hastings, a young woman Penelope already knew as she was close kin to the countess. “You will be comfortable there.”

Peg Carey was still looking at her without a word. One of the servants arrived with her trunk and the countess took her leave. Wanting to busy herself, she opened the lid and began to pull out a few things, placing her worn felt rabbit on the pillow of the tester.

“Aren't you a bit old for playthings?” said Peg.

“We are not all made of stone like you, Peg,” said Moll with a laugh. “Here, Penelope, would you like help undoing your dress?”

Once they were all in their nightclothes and the servants had gone, they huddled on the tester bed with the hangings pulled tight about them, passing round a small flask of what Moll called “water of life,” which she had acquired “one way or another.” Penelope had never drunk such a thing, though didn't let on, and, taking a sip, felt it would strip the skin from her throat. It made her cough and the girls laughed but it didn't matter because her head was swimming, pushing any cares she might have had to the margins.

“I am so glad to be away from the countess.”

“I should think so,” said Martha with a gleam in her eye. “She is quite the harridan. You will find things different with us.”

“Just don't get on the wrong side of the Queen,” advised Moll.

“There's not much chance of that. The Queen is
besotted
with her,” sneered Peg, talking as if Penelope were absent.

“Peg!” admonished Martha. “Penelope does not court attention from the Queen; besides, Leicester is her stepfather, so it is no wonder she is shown a little favor.”

Penelope thought it best to remain silent on that point, supposing they were all aware of the circumstances of her disgraced mother. It occurred to her, in that moment, that the Queen's favor might be some kind of revenge on Lettice, to steal her daughter away. Well, I am not so green as to be unable to play at that game, she thought, taking another sip from the flask, feeling the warm fuzz spread through her head.

“So do we know what this Anjou is like?” she asked, to change the subject, talking of the Queen's suitor who would soon arrive in England to win her hand.

“He is half her age and so horribly disfigured by the smallpox no one else in the whole of Europe will have him,” Moll said, which Penelope doubted, given he was the King of France's brother. But they all laughed. Penelope was beginning to like Moll's humor. There was something appealingly wild about her and she was older than the rest, knew the ropes at court. Martha was naturally warm, and sour Peg she would win over; she was a cousin, after all. Penelope imagined herself as a butterfly emerging from its chrysalis, flying on jewel-bright wings into the world of the court with its myriad possibilities. She pushed the countess's unsettling catechism to the edges of her mind, allowing herself to be deliciously enmeshed in the gossip and intrigue.

“Tell me about Anne Vavasour and the Earl of Oxford,” she said.

“Poor Anne, that is the worst thing that can become of a maid. She is in the Tower, you know”— Martha said “the Tower” as one might say “purgatory.”

“With her
bastard
,” continued Peg. “Anne Vavasour is too headstrong for her own good. I do not have much sympathy. Who gives themselves to a married man like that?”

“Wait till it happens to you,” laughed Moll.

“It will not happen to me. I would not be so stupid.”

“You never know. When love grabs you by the waist, you are at its mercy.” Moll clasped Peg's midriff, tickling until she had squeezed a laugh out of her.

“Just think,” said Moll. “
I
might have wed Oxford. He was to pick between my sister and me. But another arrangement was made.”

“Lucky escape,” said Martha. “Though Oxford
is
from an ancient lineage and his estates bring in near on four thousand a year.”

“Since when did you start totting up such things, Martha?” Moll said.

“That man is dangerous,” said Peg in a voice shot through with doom. “He killed a boy once. And look what became of Anne.”

The countess's words crept back into Penelope's mind:
She has sinned in the eyes of God, she will be damned for it in the next life, and in this life she has to suffer the Queen's wrath.

“
You
have a brother, don't you, Penelope?” asked Martha.

“I have two, and a sister, Dorothy. But my youngest brother, Wat, is still a child, and even Robert is not yet sixteen.”

“So only a year less than me. When will he come to court?” asked Martha.

“When he has done with his studies at Cambridge, I suppose.” Penelope felt adrift, in that moment, far from her siblings.

“What does he look like? I mean, does he look like you?” Martha seemed to come alive at the idea of the young Earl of Essex.

“He is a little like me. But he is dark and already very tall with a fine figure.” It could have been a description of anyone. She saw him so rarely she wondered if perhaps his skin had burst out in pimples or he had grown fat.

“Essex is the poorest earl in the country,” said Peg.

“Well if you are after riches, then he won't be for you.” She held Peg Carey's cold gaze, aware of the importance of standing up to her. “But I fancy he will want a bride a little more . . .” Penelope stopped then, deliberately, leaving her adversary hanging.

“A little more what?”

“Oh, I don't know,” said Penelope with a shrug.

“Thomas Howard,” interrupted Moll. “He is newly bereaved. He must be seeking a wife.”

“But his titles were stripped and his father executed for treason,” said Peg. “He was deemed too high a risk, due to that.”

“He may have them reinstated,” added Martha.

“Perhaps you'd like Cecil instead,” said Moll, turning on Peg. “He is the son of the most influential man in England and you would never want for anything; their wealth is unimaginable.” She drew out the word
unimaginable,
articulating each syllable.

“That creature—he is small, crookbacked, and not even knighted.” Peg's derision was carved into the downward curve of her mouth, robbing her of any prettiness. “They say he was dropped by his wet nurse as a baby and that is why he is all misaligned.”

Penelope, watching Peg's shadowy hands describe Cecil's shape, felt a little sorry for the poor boy, remembering when she first met him and how he had blushed as if he'd never encountered a young woman in his life before and certainly never had one smile his way. “He will need his wits if he is to survive at court,” she said.