The Fallen Queen Part 13

But Lady Jane seemed to understand, and as she draped the heavy, fur-trimmed, forest green velvet cloak around Kate she paused to give her shoulder a comforting pat.

"Kate ..." I took a step forward and put out a hand to her, but she brushed me aside.

"Go away, Mary! I haven't time for you now!"

I thought I caught a flash of purple and white as Kate s.n.a.t.c.hed up her green velvet reticule and stuffed something inside. Then she was gone, out the door as though her life depended on it, leaving Lady Jane to flash me an apologetic smile as she quickly threw on a cloak of blue velvet edged with grey rabbit fur and hurried out after her, even though the rapid pace brought on a violent coughing fit.

I know I shouldn't have, but I followed them. Even though it was very difficult, as they chose to brave the busy London streets instead of taking a barge, and I was much jostled and even knocked down twice, I refused to stop. Soon I found myself standing in Cannon Row, watching as my sister and her friend hurried up the steps of Hertford House, Ned Seymour's fine redbrick London residence. As though he had been watching for them, Ned Seymour himself, in a brown velvet doublet richly worked with gold, opened the door and let them in. He came out onto the stoop and glanced swiftly left and right before he followed them inside and shut the door. How curious, I thought, to see a n.o.bleman open his own front door. The Seymours were wealthy and had many servants. Why had Kate and Jane come out unchaperoned when both had ladies' maids who might have accompanied them? Kate had always put great trust in Henny, who had been with her since birth, and was robust and strong-armed enough to make any man who might have dared accost the girls think twice. Something strange was happening, and I was determined to know what.

Boldly, I squared my shoulders and strode toward the door, only to nearly be knocked down by Lady Jane Seymour as she ran out in a swirl of blue velvet and grey fur. She caught me before I fell, and her face paled even more if that were possible, and the spots of red in her cheeks glowed even brighter. But she didn't try to stop me.

"It's not right to keep it from you. You're her sister, and you should be there," she murmured as she took her hand from my shoulder and hurried away, down the street, intent on some seemingly urgent errand.

I squared my shoulders and walked straight into Ned Seymour's house, unhindered and unannounced, and followed their voices into the oak-panelled parlour. Kate's green velvet cloak lay draped over the fireside settle, and they stood embracing before the hearth's bright warmth. They broke apart, gasping guiltily, at the sight of me. Ned murmured something about seeing to the refreshments and hurried out, leaving Kate alone to face me.

"What are you doing, Kate?" I asked wearily, for I was suddenly very tired of deceptions, secrets, and games. I wanted only to have the truth full plain even if it killed me.

"We're to be married, and you can't stop us!" Kate said hotly with a defiant toss of her curls, which I noticed now were crowned with a wreath of gilded rosemary, purple velvet violets, periwinkles, heart's ease pansies, and yellow gillyflowers: a bridal coronet, all fashioned from silk and velvet, to bring warm, bright, and beautiful spring into cold, wet, white, and grey winter.

Married! I staggered back, as though the word were a dread disease I would avoid. Only if Kate had told me she had the plague, I would never have drawn back. I would have stepped forward and done anything and everything I could to save her. Oh no, no, no, no! All of a sudden I felt faint and reached up to clasp my head, to make sure it didn't float away, it felt so dizzy, sick, and light. Now I understood. They were marrying in secret because it was the only way; Elizabeth would never give her consent to Kate, with her royal Tudor blood, marrying Ned Seymour, scion of a powerful family with Plantagenet blood, albeit a dilute strain, coursing through his veins. It was too dangerous and potent a combination to allow Elizabeth to sit easy on her throne, and heaven knew she already had cause to be vigilant and wary. As much as she was loved by her people, she was hated by many who had the power to finance a rebellion or pay an a.s.sa.s.sin.

And if Kate should conceive a son ...

If Kate gave birth to a boy, all who opposed the petticoat rule of Elizabeth would know exactly where to turn; they would think an infant male was better than any full-grown woman, even one as shrewd and savvy as Elizabeth. Some might even be tempted to usurp the throne in that child's name, even if Kate wanted no part of it. She and her son would become, like Jane, innocent p.a.w.ns in the game powerful men played, men who would not scruple to take Elizabeth's life, just so a Tudor crested instead of cloven betwixt the thighs, and untainted by talk of illegitimacy and debate about the validity of his parents' marriage, could sit upon England's throne.

"Kate, this is madness! Think what you are doing! You are defying the Queen! You know you cannot marry without her permission-neither of us can! Elizabeth is not Mary; she doesn't love us! Elizabeth's a tigress, fighting for her life and throne, kill or be killed, and she will not hesitate to kill you if she has to! She'll always put herself and England first because, to herself and most of her subjects, she is England!"

"Stop it!" Kate put her hands up to block her ears. "You're only trying to scare me, but I won't let you! I won't! It will not come to that; I won't let it!"

I crossed the room and took her hand, which I saw now wore a pale blue diamond, pointed at one end, like a great glimmering tear. "Kate," I sighed, "I am not your enemy; do not treat me as such! Talk to me, as your sister, and your friend, as you used to. Confide in me!"

With a great, heaving sigh, Kate sank down onto the settle and hung her head. I came and stood before her, taking both her hands in mine.

"Kate, look at me," I pleaded.

"I'm sorry I didn't tell you, Mary. My heart has been troubling me sorely, but I did what I did only to protect you. If you didn't know ... no one could blame or hurt you." She pulled one hand away from mine and caressed her yellow and purple skirt. "You made my wedding gown, even though you did not know that was what it was, with your love for me in every st.i.tch, as in every garment you have ever made for me. It's so beautiful! So how could I even think of shutting you out? On the happiest day of my life too!" She raised her head and gave me the full glory of her smile. "I love him, Mary! I have to follow my heart, even if it leads me into danger. We will keep our nuptials secret ... for now, but later ... someday ... when the time is right, I will go on my knees before the Queen and confess all and do whatever I must to a.s.sure her I harbour no royal ambitions, I make no claim, now or ever, for myself or any children I may, G.o.d willing, bear. I will sign or say whatever I must to renounce it all, permanently, and Ned and I will go away, to live quietly in the country. All I want-for myself and for my family-is love and to be happy."

It was a beautiful dream, but I couldn't quite believe it could ever come true. I hated myself for doubting, but I couldn't help it; to do otherwise would be willful blindness and self-deception. I hung my head, so that she would not see my tears.

"I don't want to lose another sister, Kate. I don't want to see you die a traitor's death or rot your life away in prison. No man is worth such a sacrifice."

She reached down and cupped my face between her soft hands and smiled at me. "That will never happen, Mary; G.o.d wouldn't let it. What I do, I do for love-all for love. All will be well in time; you will see. You're just scared and imagining the worst. But our union was meant to be, all signs point to it, and G.o.d will bless us. I know! And, even if it did-but it won't!-you're wrong, Mary! Ned is different from other men; he is worth any sacrifice Love demands of me. Sometimes the greatest loves come hand in hand with suffering and sorrow. If you would have music to dance to, you have to pay the players; 'tis only just and fair." She shrugged and smiled brightly, as though this were a trivial matter like doling out coins to a troupe of musicians instead of treason.

I wished with all my heart that I could believe and share her auspicious euphoria, but I couldn't keep the fear from clutching my heart like a hand of ice. It made me shiver and not even Kate's warm smile could melt the fear away; I was afraid it would never leave me.

I took a step forward and reached up and gripped my sister's shoulders and stared deep into her bright, joyful eyes that were blind and heedless to all danger. "Kate, for G.o.d's sake, listen to me and see reason. If you do this fool thing, if you marry Ned Seymour you are committing treason-high treason! You can be burned or beheaded at the Queen's pleasure or sent to rot in a prison cell!"

But Kate just smiled at me. "Don't worry, Mary; everything's going to be all right! But ... just in case ... you were never here, and if you say you were, I shall deny it and say you are lying to try to protect your sister's honour."

That she would say such a thing told me clouds of concern lurked behind that sunny smile. Kate wanted to believe everything would be all right, to think she could will into being the bright future she wanted so much, but doubt and worry would dog her steps like trainbearers she could never shake off or leave far behind her.

With a smile and a carefree laugh, she was up and dancing across the room as Ned came back in, smiling broadly over a great silver tray laden with heaping platters of sliced meats, a sampling of cheeses, fresh baked bread, festive piles of dried and candied fruits and nuts, sliced apples draped with melted cheese, gla.s.s bowls filled with sweet, syrupy berries stewed in wine, creamy custard, a compote of honeyed pears and another of peaches, candied violets arranged upon a pretty yellow plate to match Kate's wedding dress, and at the heart of it all, a pretty pink cake made with raspberries crowned with candied pink cabbage roses. "A sweet repast for my sweet," he said as he set it down on a table where goblets and bottles of wine were already arranged. Kate gave a delighted squeal and clasped her hands as she admired the cake, lamenting that Father was not here to enjoy it with us, he would have been so pleased. "He always loved raspberries and said pink was a heaven-sent colour for confections!"

"I am glad you are here, my soon to be sister Mary." Ned smiled as he knelt down to face me. It was very kind of him to do so; many enjoyed the lofty feeling of superiority they experienced when they towered high above and looked down on me. He had a very pleasant face, and a smile so charming and disarming, and there appeared to be genuine warmth in his hazel eyes. I had to stop myself from impulsively reaching out and brushing back the wing of sun-lightened brown hair that fell over his brow.

Looking at him, this great, smiling overgrown boy of twenty, I could almost believe he loved my sister as much as she loved him. But there was always something, I can't put it into words; I only know that it was always there, niggling at the back of my mind, never letting me truly trust Ned Seymour. Possibly my soul was too sullied from all the ambitious machinations I had witnessed almost from the cradle, power plays, coups, conspiracies, and court intrigues; perhaps it made me overly conscious of the royal lines that would be united with their marriage and what this could mean for their, and their children's, futures. Kate was, after all, the unacknowledged heir presumptive, and thus a splendid catch for any ambitious young man, and one with Plantagenet blood in his veins could make much of that if he were so inclined, and might even consider such a wife worth feigning love for. After all, many had pretended pa.s.sion for far less. How many men since time began had declared their love just to woo a maiden into bed? Maybe it was because this "great love" had blossomed so suddenly? To my suspicious mind it just seemed too ch.o.r.eographed, too much like a romantic stage play; those sweet dreams we want to believe but know rarely do come true. Or perhaps it was just that I was too cynical to believe in love at first sight? Or maybe Kate was right-I was scared and imagining the worst. I just don't know.

"I know it broke Kate's heart to think you wouldn't be here. And now you are here, and it all ends happily!" Ned's face brightened with a broad smile. Oh my, he was very comely! "It was meant to be," he declared, making so bold as to kiss my cheek, before he rose and went back to Kate. He led her to sit upon the settle and stood beside her, smiling down at her, as she gazed up at him, holding her hand, until the moment we heard the front door open again.

Her face terribly flushed and her shoulders shaking with a hacking cough, that by the looks of the handkerchief she tried to conceal, squashed tight in her fist, had brought up blood, and by its violence had shaken her fair hair from its pins, Lady Jane came in, tugging with all her fragile might at the hand of a big, black-gowned man with a long, tangled, greasy, and unkempt red beard.

"This way, Father, this way!" she cried between coughs, pulling hard at his hand and urging him toward Kate and Ned as he was apparently incapable of walking straight and finding the bridal couple himself. As he weaved his way across the floor, his unsteady gait aping the undulations of a slithering snake, he brought with him the fumes of the tavern, along with those of his own unwashed body, and his bleary, bloodshot eyes roamed the room as though the bride and groom might be hiding on the ceiling or concealed in a corner. As he stood, belching and swaying, before the bridal couple, I discreetly moved away; as I was shorter than the others, and thus nearer his nether regions, the stink of urine was unmistakable and undesirably near my nose.

Many burps and hiccups and fumbled words marred the marriage service he tried to read from the Book of Common Prayer he held upside down in hands like a pair of great pink bear paws, their backs thickly covered with coa.r.s.e red hair. But Kate and Ned never seemed to notice, their eyes rapt and adoring, never leaving each other. They smiled, clasped hands, and spoke their vows staring into each other's eyes. Kate, I know, spoke straight from her heart.

Then it was over. They were man and wife and kissing and clinging pa.s.sionately. A puzzle ring of five interlocking gold bands had joined the sky blue diamond on Kate's left hand.

Not daring to wear it openly at court, when she removed it to put it on a long golden chain so that she might wear it always hidden safely in the warm crevice between her b.r.e.a.s.t.s, Kate let me read the verse engraved on the five bands: As circles five, by art compact, show but one ring in sight, So trust unites faithful minds, with knot of secret might, Whose force to break but greedy Death, no one possess power As time and sequels well shall prove, my ring can say no more.

With joyous good humour, and more than a little relief, we all laughed as we bade the wine-sodden priest good-bye. He tottered out, pocketing the purse of gold Lady Jane gave him, and taking two bottles of wine from the table, one red and the other white, and raising them by turns to his mouth, suckling greedily as an infant from one and then the other as he made his way out onto the London streets, miraculously without walking into the wall or falling down the front steps. No one ever thought to ask his name. If he ever gave it, not a one of us recalled it. There was no paper; though I was a novice to such matters, I would learn later that there should have been a paper that we all signed-bride, groom, priest, and two witnesses. But no one thought of that. Kate had been married before, so she should have known, but she was just too happy to think. The priest, who should have known this business better than any, as Ned and Kate were not the first couple he had ever married, was too drunk to realize the omission. It was not, at first glance, all that serious; after all, a couple's agreement that they were wed was considered legally binding. It would only become a crucial issue in this case because of who the bride and groom were and their nearness to the throne.

Kate and Ned exchanged mischievous glances, nodded to one another, and whooped with joy as she flung her floral crown in the air and he did the same with his feathered cap. Then, seizing her hand, he bounded toward the stairs, calling back over his shoulder to his sister and me, "Eat, drink, and be merry, for my bride and I shall be!"

"A moment, my love!" Kate laughed and spun away from him. She embraced first Jane Seymour. "We really are sisters now!" Then, after pausing to retrieve her reticule from the settle and pull out the nightcap she had stuffed inside, she knelt before me and held it out, like a sacred offering, to me. "Will you put it on me, please?" she asked.

Tenderly, I brushed back the wealth of red gold curls and set the violet-embroidered white linen cap upon her head, tweaked the lacy frills, and drew the long purple satin ribbons around and beneath her chin to carefully tie a beautiful bow.

"There now." I nodded, smiling through my tears, which, Kate couldn't know, sprang from fear rather than joy. "Off you go!"

"Thank you, Mary!" She hugged me tight and kissed my cheek, then she was off, dancing across the room. At the foot of the stairs, she gaily announced, "I'll never be Queen of England, and that's fine with me. I don't want to be, not even in my dreams. All I want to be is queen of my husband's heart and our home. But every girl should feel like a queen on her wedding day, and I want to go to our marriage bed for the first time happy as a queen on her coronation day. That's why I asked you to embroider regal purple violets on my nightcap-for today this is my crown!"

As she twirled around and darted up the stairs, without a backward glance, her eyes upon the future, not the past, I saw embroidered beneath her skirts the intricate floral border of the bouquet Ned had picked for her. She was also, I noted, wearing purple woolen stockings, dyed to match the violets I had embroidered on her nightcap.

Lady Jane and I remained in the parlour, the silence broken only by her coughing and my footsteps as I paced restlessly back and forth. The refreshments sat on the table untouched. We knew better than to talk; we would only fall to quarrelling. Jane thought she had done a wonderful thing by bringing her brother and best friend together. She was like one looking through a stained gla.s.s rose seeing only love and romance, but I saw the shadow of the axe hovering above the neck of my sole remaining sister. I saw danger and treason. Beside that, to me at least, this great love they supposedly shared mattered very little. It wasn't worth Kate's life.

Two hours later they were bounding back down the stairs, ludicrously unkempt, neither of them being accustomed to dressing themselves without a.s.sistance. In spite of ourselves, Lady Jane and I laughed and rushed to help them set right the many clumsily, missed, or wrongly fastened b.u.t.tons, hooks, and laces, for we must all hasten back to court, before our absence was noted; for so many of us to be gone at the same time would never be dismissed as mere coincidence. We didn't dare take chances.

"But what of our banquet?" Kate asked. "It seems a shame to waste it, especially that beautiful cake! Father would weep in Heaven if he knew!"

"We shall take it with us and have our wedding feast in the barge," Ned declared. He then carefully picked up the tray and asked Kate, "Will you bring the wine, my love?"

"A movable feast! What a splendid idea!" Kate smiled as she s.n.a.t.c.hed the bottles up.

"I'll bring the cups," I volunteered, and carefully gathered the four golden goblets as best I could against my chest and hoped I would not drop them. But Lady Jane, to my immense relief, insisted on taking half my burden and relieving me of two. So it was settled, and we all followed Ned out to the water stairs where he whistled and hailed a barge to convey us back to the palace. We laughed and feasted all the way, gladly sharing our bounty with the bargemen, who were unaccustomed to such luxuries. Just before we pa.s.sed under London Bridge, where Father's head had been displayed, we each raised a piece of the beautiful pink raspberry cake up high, as though we were lifting our goblets in a toast, "to Henry Grey, Duke of Suffolk, G.o.d rest his soul!" Kate laughed and whisked the tears from her eyes and fed Ned a bite of cake, and he did the same, then they fell into each other's arms, kissing hungrily, long and deep, tasting sweet raspberries and cream upon the other's mouth.

We arrived just in time to race into the Great Hall and take our seats around the banquet table, though our bellies were already well stuffed; it would not do to miss dinner. No one suspected anything. As far as the Queen and court knew, Kate had recovered from the headache that had kept her abed, Lady Jane's cough was neither better nor worse, I had spent the day sewing and tending them, and Ned had been absent on business for his family.

As Kate, Ned, and Lady Jane exchanged smiles and triumphant glances, like children who had crept into the kitchen and stolen a tray of cherry tarts, revelling in the knowledge that they had gotten away with it, I knew it was only a matter of time before we were found out.

After dinner, when the dancing began, and for the first time Ned led Kate out to dance, I knew it was the beginning of the end; their love was too bold and blatant to be missed. That night, when Kate turned me out of my own room in my shift and bare feet, shoving me out without even a shawl to cover myself, to "go and sleep with Jane," so that her "Sweet Ned" might come and couple with her in my bed, I started counting the days, knowing that each one that pa.s.sed, though I might sigh with relief at its end, carried us ever closer to the inevitable discovery. Kate and Ned would give themselves away-of that there was no doubt.

16.

They were reckless. It was as though they wanted to get caught. Ned would tweak her coppery curls, steal a swift kiss, and call her "Countess Carrots." To which Kate, by wedded right the Countess of Hertford, would feign offence, lift up her nose, and haughtily declaim that her hair was red gold, or copper-hued, if you prefer, but certainly not orange like a common carrot. Sometimes he would pull her into a quiet corner and lift her skirts. As the court travelled from palace to palace, as each one required cleansing of the filth and stench, they made a game of coupling in every one of them, in any convenient nook and cranny, empty room, privy, alcove, quiet corridor, or garden bower, anywhere they could, and as often as they could. I grew weary of being turned out of my own room at night to sleep with the cough- and fever-racked Jane Seymour so they could roll about merrily in my bed. They were like little children playing, and when I tried to scold them, they hung their heads in mock-shame, glancing slyly aside at each other and stifling their sputtering giggles, as they nodded and mockingly answered, "Yes, Mother Mary," then went out and did exactly as they pleased.

Unbelievably, they cast all caution to the wind. Even I, a virgin of sixteen, knew that Ned should have withdrawn without spending his seed, and there were teas Kate could have drunk as a safeguard against conception, and even sheaths known as "Venus Gloves" sold discreetly beneath the counter in glove shops that I had heard the gentlemen of the court whisper about. I had even heard women confide in each other about their own techniques, speaking of wax pessaries and wads of cloth or little sponges soaked in lemon juice or vinegar they inserted before the carnal act.

But Kate acted as though she knew better. Whenever I tried to talk to her, she would toss her hair and thrust her nose into the air, and say that I should not talk about such matters; it was "immodest and unseemly for a girl of my youth, as yet unmarried, to know of such things and presume to speak of them." But secretly wed in a court with a thousand eyes and an ear at every wall and door was neither the time nor the place for them to chance a child. What were they thinking? Simply put, they were not and I could not, then or now, understand why.

Sir William Cecil, Her Majesty's shrewd secretary of state, must have suspected something. He arranged to have Ned, "the fine and upstanding young Earl of Hertford," accompany his worrisome, dissolute nineteen-year-old son Thomas on a tour of France and Italy. Cecil hoped a good dose of culture and a dash of diplomatic service might calm young Thomas's wild streak and, if not quite curb, at least refine his taste in wine, women, and where he spent his money and time. It was an honour Ned didn't dare refuse, and in truth, I could tell by the look in his eyes, that unmistakable ambitious gleam I had seen so many times lighting up our lady-mother's eyes, that he didn't want to. He was, after all, an up-and-coming young man from a prestigious family that had been tarnished by both his father's and his uncle's executions, and he was eager to restore, and enhance, if he could, the l.u.s.tre. "Such opportunities come but once in a lifetime," he said to Kate, trying to hold and kiss her as she raged and cried.

They quarrelled about his going one day, then kissed and made up in the royal orchard the next, with Ned hoisting Kate's skirts as showers of apple or cherry blossoms rained down upon them. They quarrelled again, perhaps only for the sake of the sweet reconciliation in the orchard that would follow on the morrow. Angry words, tears, slamming doors, furious footsteps retreating fast, then kisses, cries, sighs, and whispers in a shower of perfumed petals, for a whole month that was the pattern. Ned said he would go, then he would say nay, for Kate's sake he would stay; then Kate would say no, she was being selfish and he must go, 'twas a grand opportunity he must not squander for her sake, they were young and had their whole lives ahead of them; then Ned would agree and say he would go, then Kate would weep and rage, and they would inevitably end back in the orchard again, in the throes of tears and torrid pa.s.sion.

During one of those afternoons of love in the orchard Ned hung around her neck a golden chain from which a deep blue sapphire dripped like a great tear, emblematic in both shape and hue of his great sorrow in leaving her, he said. Yet more kisses, caresses, tears, quarrels, reconciliations, protestations, accusations, denials, avowals, and acceptance followed, day after day. The whole thing sorely vexed and wearied me, and many times I was tempted to shout at them to "decide and have done with it!"

One day I caught Kate crouched in a corner, greedily sucking limes, her face, neck, and fingers coated slick with the tart juice, and the drained flesh of at least a dozen discarded fruits and their torn and shredded peelings scattered on the floor around her. I knew she was in trouble, even as she denied it, shrugging it off as just a sudden craving, the way Father would sometimes wake in the night with a sudden insatiable urge for a quince and pomegranate pie. She fled from me, feigning lightheartedness and laughter, even as I shouted after her what we both knew, that she had never liked limes before. "You hate limes and you know it! You know what this means!" But Kate laughed and ignored me.

When she came to my room to try on the new gown I had been making, an elegant lemon damask with a quilted pearl-latticed petticoat of russet satin and matching under-sleeves, she complained that I had been stingy with the material and made it too small, that the waist pinched and needed to be let out and the bodice was too tight.

"That's because you're breeding! 'Tis no wonder," I said, "the way you and Ned have been going at it without precaution or care. You make rabbits look like models of decorum!"

Still Kate denied it, first accusing me of coveting the material to make something for myself and cutting it too small to try to save enough for me. "If you wanted it so much, Mary, you shouldn't have offered it to me!" Then, just as quickly, contradictorily, laughing, bending to hug me and kiss my cheek, craving my pardon, cajoling me to forgive her as her nerves were sorely jangled by the thought of parting from her "Sweet Ned." She stood, tossing her bright curls, and flippantly declaring that she was simply "growing fat and happy nourished by my Sweet Ned's love!" But I was not deceived. For the life of me, I could not tell why Kate was being willfully blind to such an obvious truth. I could see it and others would too in time.

I implored her to accompany me to London, to secretly consult a midwife, but she refused. She kept insisting that she was not pregnant and that she would not stoop to the "indignity of an examination to prove it."

"It's my body, Mary, and if I was with child, I think I would know it! Surely I, a twice-married woman of twenty, know more about these matters than you-a virgin of sixteen-do!"

Lady Jane Seymour was too busy dying to intervene. I was tempted to go and try to talk to her, in the hope that she could accomplish what I could not, but I hadn't the heart to trouble a soul I knew to be in the act of departing. On her deathbed, she clasped both Kate and Ned by the hand and told them to "be kind to each other and never forget how much you love each other." They each solemnly bowed their heads, kissed her fever-hot hands, and promised faithfully so the young woman who had brought them together and engineered their marriage could die in peace, believing that she had in her brief life, like a guardian angel or a good fairy, done the two people she loved most a great service and ensured their lifelong happiness.

So Ned sailed away with Thomas Cecil in May, still grieving for his sister, leaving Kate alone, carrying a child she still denied, to fend for herself at the Virgin Queen's court, while he enjoyed a lush, l.u.s.ty spring in luxurious, lascivious Paris and spent a wild, sultry summer in sunbaked Italy. Everywhere the two of them went they drank to excess, lost vast sums at the gambling tables, hunted, danced, and wh.o.r.ed, and spent money as if it were water. I heard Master Secretary Cecil complain that he had known men to live an entire year abroad on what the two of them spent in a single month.

Before he left, Ned did at least one sensible thing; he gave Kate a deed in which he acknowledged her as his wife and bequeathed her lands with an income of 1,000 per annum, thus providing her with some financial security, and even more importantly, legally binding, written proof that they were married. If only Kate hadn't promptly misplaced it! Then none could have said they were merely pretending after the fact, to try to save her honour and prevent their children from being branded b.a.s.t.a.r.ds. The date on that deed, drawn up and signed before Ned's departure, would have proved it was a truth, not a lie that came after Kate was found to be with child. Poor Kate, thinking only of love, not money, never realized the true import of that doc.u.ment, how it might have made all the difference in the world.

In a fit of tears and foot-stamping pique, Kate stopped letting me make her dresses, saying she could not abide my comments about her widening waist and "milk-swollen teats" and sought the services of another dressmaker instead, crying out before she slammed the door that she would not let me so much as sew up a hem for her if her life depended on it. But soon she was back, crying in my arms, now that Jane Seymour was gone, and there was no one else she could turn to. She had heard that Ned had sent baubles-some pretty enamelled bracelets-to some other ladies of the court, but nothing for her. Though Ned would later claim that he had sent the bracelets to Kat Ashley, the Queen's childhood governess and now the Mother of the Maids, charged with overseeing the welfare of all the unmarried girls who lived and served at court. He had done this, Ned said, so that Her Majesty might have first choice, then Mistress Ashley was to bring the rest to Kate and, after she had made her selection, let her, his "well-beloved wife," distribute them amongst the other ladies, but "the old grey Kat was now in her dotage and had obviously muddled it."

It was a neat excuse, tidy and pat, almost believable, especially knowing dear old Kat and how befuddled her mind was growing. But I didn't believe it. Though she refused to admit it, Kate clearly had her doubts. And where were all the letters he had promised? He had vowed to write every day so it would be as though she were right there experiencing all the wonders of foreign travel right alongside him. Thomas Cecil, young, drunken rakeh.e.l.l that he was, obviously found time to write; the badly spelled wine-blotched letters he sent back to his rowdy companions at court were filled with amusing anecdotes of Ned dragging the drunken lad out of a fancy Parisian brothel after he had made a complete a.s.s of himself by delivering an off-key serenade and proposal on bended knee to a probably poxy doxy, and tales of bawdy, balmy nights spent cavorting and frolicking nude with beautiful, buxom Italian peasant girls in olive groves by moonlight.

One letter pa.s.sed with great amus.e.m.e.nt around the court detailed a night when Thomas and Ned and their female companions had all spontaneously stripped off their clothes and leapt naked into a wooden vat to stomp the grapes with their bare feet, dancing upon them as the musicians played, then fell to making love, changing partners, then changing partners again. When they emerged from the vat, they were stained purple all over and had to take many baths and even resort to pumice stones and vinegar scrubs before they were clean enough to be presentable. Everyone at court had a good laugh over it, except Master Secretary Cecil and Kate, who each in their own way found these reports most distressing, only Kate must bear her pain in private.

Again I held my sister as she wept then tried in vain to convince herself that it didn't mean anything, Ned was a young man, after all, and young men were apt to do this sort of thing. She pointed the finger of blame at Thomas Cecil; he was clearly a bad influence and her "Poor Ned" had found it impossible to curtail him. Thomas might even have discovered the truth about their marriage and used this knowledge to blackmail Ned into doing as he willed. "My poor darling!" Kate cried, horrified by the thought of this cruel coercion, imagining her "Sweet Ned" making love to another woman in a vat of grapes to keep their secret safe.

Privately, I was convinced she was grasping at straws, but I didn't have the heart to tell her so. I knew Thomas Cecil; he had once traded his best horse to a peddler lurking outside a tavern for a jar of cream guaranteed to make his c.o.c.k "as big and hard as a battering ram," and another time, while visiting a London fair, he had given his fine Spanish leather boots in exchange for a recipe to turn his father's dairy cows' milk to wine. He had actually interrupted a Council meeting by running in barefoot brandishing the recipe, bursting with excitement to tell his father how he had just made his fortune. The idea of such a man blackmailing anyone into doing his bidding was absurd beyond words.

Soon there came a day when Kate could deny the truth no longer. She fainted while following the hunt. Only the quick intervention of the Queen's Master of the Horse, and some said lover, Robert Dudley, kept Kate from being trampled by the horses' hooves. She was carried in a sweaty swoon by litter back to the palace while the Queen, who could "not abide these weak and frail, fainting females," went on with the hunt.

I had stayed behind to do some sewing and I heard about Kate's fall from a pair of gossipy maids who had come in with fresh sheets to make up the Queen's bed.

I found Kate in her room, her crimson velvet riding habit and feathered hat cast aside, crouching, half kneeling, half lying on the floor, in her shift and red stockings, holding her belly and retching into the chamber pot. I ran to gather back her hair and found it soaking wet and reeking of sweat, and her skin was burning, oily and a-shimmer with it. I said not a word and stood patiently by until she was finished, then I gently helped her up. When she stood, I reached out and boldly laid my palm upon her belly. I felt life stir within it. Kate lowered her eyes to look at me, and I raised mine to meet hers. There was no use denying it anymore.

"Don't say it," Kate pleaded, soft and tremulously. "Please, Mary, don't say, 'I told you so.'"

"Come here." I opened my arms to her, and with a great sob, she dropped to her knees and came to me.

"Mary, what shall I do? I am so frightened! Ned hasn't answered my letters, though I dare not tell him. What am I to do? The Queen will think me wanton, when she finds out ..."

"Then we shall have to ensure that she does not find out," I said decisively. "We will have to withdraw from court when your time is near, and the child shall have to be farmed out with a wet nurse; none must know it is yours. Later, we can discreetly arrange its adoption by a respectable couple, nice people," I a.s.sured Kate, seeing her stricken expression, "who truly want a baby."

"No!" Kate cried, leaping away from me as though I had suddenly grown horns and a forked tail. "No! No! No! I will not give up my baby!"

"Would you rather give up your head?" I asked plainly.

"Oh!" Kate sighed, sitting on the floor, leaning back upon her palms. "What a mess I have made of it all!"

I agreed but chose not to rub salt in her wounds by saying so. Instead, I held out my hand, to help her rise, and said simply, "Come, we needn't think of these things right now. There is much to be done, and we must get started. We must conceal the truth as long as we can."

I brought out Kate's darkest dresses and set to work letting out the seams. I made Kate stand still and took her measurements, this time with neither of us commenting on the changes in her figure. I worked in silence. When I brought out the increasingly fashionable farthingale, I silently thanked G.o.d and the Spanish for this birdcagelike undergarment, belling out around Kate's hips and limbs; it would help us hide the truth even longer. I would buy canvas and cane, or whalebone, if it could be had, and create a new one in which the stiff circular bands, which gradually widened as they descended to the hem, grew subtly wider earlier in their descent. That coupled with the dark colours she would be wearing, and lacing her stays tight as I dared, would make Kate's waist seem smaller above her fuller skirts. And-another stroke of luck-the Queen, being very vain of her beautiful, long-fingered white hands, greatly favoured fans, great, graceful spreads of ostrich plumes, black or white, or dyed delicate or vivid hues. I instructed Kate to make a habit of holding her fan open, down low, near about her waist.

As a special gift, I bought a length of beautiful coal black velvet, lined it with charcoal grey satin, and made Kate a long, full, flowing, sleeveless surcoat to which I then added a narrow edging of white miniver. I st.i.tched a row of beautiful braided silk charcoal grey frogs down the front so that she might wear it open or closed as she pleased. She would later don it for the miniature Lavinia Teerlinc would paint of the young mother holding one son and expecting another that would later become one of my greatest treasures. As a peace offering, to put the past months of stormy scenes and secrecy behind us, I embroidered a new petticoat for her with a border of pomegranates, both whole and halved, replete with pearl seeds, and bunches of pretty purple violets tied with yellow ribbons to recall the colours of her wedding gown. When Kate saw it she hugged me and wept, she was so very grateful and pleased, and promised never to ever keep anything from me again.

We had to be careful and clever and watch every step. Any slip could send us skidding straight into the arms of disaster. There were a few close calls. One night, Kate, unthinkingly, sat down at a banquet and greedily devoured an entire gilded platter heaped high with gingered carrots. She was about to raise the empty platter to her lips and lick it clean, so ravenous was she for the gingery glaze, when I caught her. Another night she danced with a young gallant she had once allowed some intimate familiarity with her person. When he sought a repet.i.tion and groped her b.r.e.a.s.t.s he drew back, startled, insisting that they had grown larger. I feared all was lost for us. But Kate feigned indignation. She pouted and said he had either remembered wrong or confused her with another lady, and if that were the case, she could not have meant that much to him after all. With a playful slap of her fan to his arm, coupled with a carefree smile, she danced away.

'Twas then I decided that Kate must give up dancing. Even though she complained and cried, I was adamant. I knew that it would not be easy, for Kate loved dancing, and she was so lively, graceful, and light of step that she was one of the court's favourite dancing partners, and always a favourite with the Master of the Revels for prime roles in the masques. But the more vigorous dances might hurt her child or even bring on her labour prematurely-I had heard of such things happening-and in the intimacy of the dance her partner's hands might discover her precious secret. At last, I agreed to compromise and let Kate continue to dance the more sedate, slower measures, devoid of lifts and leaps, where couples walked instead of skipped and pranced, and naught but their hands touched, lest her total abstinence from the dance be remarked. But when it came to the more lively measures, I held firm, and Kate began to suffer a series of misfortunes-badly sprained ankles, toothaches, sudden headaches, a sole come off her shoe, and I had even been known to surrept.i.tiously b.u.mp someone from behind so that their wine or a plate of food spilled on Kate's gown so that she must quit the Great Hall and go change.

As though things were not complicated enough, just when we thought that part of our lives was well behind us, the duplicitous Earl of Pembroke and his whey-faced son came back, sniffing like hounds around Kate's petticoats, bearing gifts, and voicing hopes of a reconciliation, a remarriage, now that Kate was no longer in disgrace, and many thought, if the Queen died without issue, she would become England's next queen. All sly Pembroke wanted was the Crown for Berry, but, to our shared dismay, we might have to make use of this pair of weasels after all.

Though Kate waited "with an anxious heart" for Ned's return, her letters to him went unanswered. With tales of his frolics with French ladies and dalliances with buxom Italian peasant girls reaching our ears, and no word to allay Kate's fears, how could we not wonder if he had forgotten her? What if Ned, knowing full well that they could not reveal their marriage without braving the Queen's wrath, had decided it was not worth the trouble and just to pretend it had never happened at all? With Lady Jane dead, the deed lost, and the priest, Father Never-Known-Name, long gone, there was no one but me who could say it had happened at all. But as Kate's sister, and naturally loyal to her, and knowing my sister shamed and facing ruin, how much validity would my words truly carry? Ned might very well choose to save himself, but Kate, though she was not the first, and would not be the last, young woman at court to find herself with her belly full but a husband lacking, would be ruined. She would be forced to leave court and any hopes of another marriage would be dashed forever; she would be branded a light skirt, all her flirtatious ways recalled, and no respectable man would ever have her.

No, it could not be, I decided. Ned must look to himself, as I was certain he would anyway, but I must act fast to save my sister from certain ruin, even if it meant she must reunite with those who had hurt her so badly before. She could, if she would, use them to her own ends now.

Naturally Kate balked, not wanting to forsake her "Sweet Ned," or commit what she knew to be bigamy and adultery in her heart, but I was always more practical and pragmatic, and held firm to the only course I could see likely to have a fortuitous outcome.

"They hurt you once, now they can save you, so use them the way they used you!" I said. "What choice do you really have? You know better than to trust Elizabeth to be merciful! You are younger and fairer, and many men smile upon and favour you, and your legitimacy is undisputed; our parents were well and truly married long before you were born. If you are found out, you are handing Elizabeth the perfect excuse to get rid of you. Here are your options, Kate: at best, she, and all the world, will see you as a wanton with a full belly and no golden band on her hand and banish you to live out your life in the country. At worst, if she discovers you are indeed married, without royal consent, and to Ned Seymour, thus uniting your Tudor blood with his Plantagenet, you are both-you my sister and your 'Sweet Ned'-facing the Tower or even death-to be burned or beheaded at the Queen's pleasure. Or"-I paused pointedly-"you can do as I suggest, seduce Berry, let him have his way with you, and discover you are with child and quickly, confess to the Queen and secure her permission, marry him again, and we will find a midwife who harkens to the voice of gold rather than her conscience to a.s.sist us and arrange an 'accident' to fool Berry and his father into thinking that your labour has come on prematurely. Men are notoriously and blissfully ignorant of women's matters, and would rather not know the details. You can wrap Berry around your little finger and banish any doubts he might have if he has wit enough to have any, which I very much doubt."

Kate grasped her head and paced before me. "I don't know, Mary. I ... you must give me time, I must think ..."

I rushed and stood straight before her, boldly blocking her path, and when she tried to turn away from me, I grabbed her skirt and made her stay and look at me. "You haven't time, Kate! If you are going to do this, you must do it now; before you are showing too much for even a fool like Berry to be deceived. Any woman of experience, even one who has grown up accustomed to seeing her mother or older sisters and cousins breeding, could see the secret you carry if she saw you unclothed, but Berry, you can fool! A weak const.i.tution and a timid, fastidious nature have kept him from being as active in carnal pursuits as most young men his age, and he has no mother or sisters, so I'm willing to wager that he will find you only pleasingly plump. You're older now than when he knew you, you were only fourteen when you parted, so 'tis natural your body would have grown fuller and rounder. So what will it be, Kate-Elizabeth's fury leading to exile and ruination; trust that Ned will do the honourable thing and come back like a knight in shining armour on a white horse and rescue you just so you can brave the Queen's wrath together and rot in prison or die for your treasonous presumption; or marry Berry again and, as Father used to say, make marzipan out of the almonds that are given you? It's now or never, Kate! Make your choice!"

"Marzipan," Kate whispered through tremulous lips. "I shall endeavour to make marzipan out of the almonds." She nodded, and breathed deep and shakily. "Will you help me, Mary? Tell me what to do?" In that moment all traces of the worldly and sophisticated woman of twenty vanished. My sister stood before me, shaking and weeping, as scared and helpless as a little girl.

"You know I will," I answered.