The Fallen Queen Part 2

"My three little girls are about to leave me." Father shook his head and sighed dolefully. "How time flies! You're not little girls anymore; you're young women-young women about to become wives."

"Married?" Jane gasped and tottered back, tripping over her hems and stumbling hard against the desk. She leaned there looking white as a ghost, tugging hard at the high collar of her funereal black velvet gown as though it were a noose strangling her. And I was sorely afraid that she might faint.

"Married! I'm to be married!" Kate jumped up with a jubilant squeal, spinning around, hugging her clasped hands tight against her excitedly beating heart. "When? Will it be soon? Oh, Father, can I have a golden gown and golden slippers and a cake, a great big cinnamon spice cake, as tall as I am? No! Taller! And covered with gilded marzipan and inside filled with chunks of apples, walnuts, and golden and black raisins, and lots of cinnamon, lots and lots of cinnamon! And minstrels to play at my wedding clad from head to toe in silver since I shall be all in gold!"

"Aye, my love, my beautiful Katey, aye!" Father sat back in his chair and roared with laughter even as tears filled his eyes. "And, yes, it will be soon, in a month's time you'll be married and have left maidenhood behind. But as important as the cake and your dress and slippers and the minstrels are, don't you want to know whom you're going to marry?"

"Oh yes!" Kate stopped her giddy prancing and turned expectantly to Father. "Of course I do! Is he young and handsome? Do I know him? What's his name? Is his hair dark or fair? Does he have blue eyes or brown, grey or green? Shall we have a house in London and one in the country as well? Will he take me to court? Will we have our own barge? Shall I go to court to serve the Queen when Cousin Edward marries? Will he buy me jewels and gowns and puppies and kittens and pet monkeys and songbirds in gilded cages? Oh, Father, I do so long to have a pair of monkeys! I shall dress them in little suits and gowns just like babies! And parrots, talking parrots-I can teach them new words and feed them berries from my hand! And will my husband and I have lots of babies? I want a nursery full of babies! I want to be a little woman round and stout as a barrel with a baby always in my arms, filling out my belly, and a bunch of them tugging at my skirts calling me 'mother'! I want our home to be filled with joy and laughter!"

Father laughed heartily. "So many questions! You're curious as a cat, my Kate! Stop a moment and still your eager tongue, my lovely love, and let me answer! No, you've never met him. His name is Henry, Lord Herbert, he is the Earl of Pembroke's son, and a handsome, fair-haired youth not quite two years older than yourself, and I believe his eyes are blue. You'll like him. I'm as sure of it as I am that this marzipan is delicious!" He waved a hand at the nigh empty box on his desk. "As for the rest, all in good time, my pretty Kate, all in good time! Stop chomping at the bit, raring to be off, my fine filly; slow down and enjoy your life, without racing through it at breakneck speed. If you go too fast, it will all pa.s.s by you in a blur and you'll miss it all."

Nervously, I tugged at Father's sleeve to get his attention. "Me too?" I asked timidly. "I am to be married? Someone wants to marry me?"

"Aye, my little love." Father swooped me up to sit upon his lap. "Though being as you are only eight, you shall have to bide at home and content yourself with being betrothed a while, but, aye, my little Mary, you are to be a bride just like your sisters! And Time has a sneaky habit of flying by, and all too soon the dressmakers will be marching up the stairs to unfurl their banners of silk before you and make you a fine wedding gown of any cut and colour you choose!"

"Who?" I asked in a dazed and breathless whisper. The man I was to marry was of far greater importance to me than any new gown, though honesty compels me to admit that a rich deep plum velvet and silver-flowered lavender damask trimmed with silver fox fur billowed briefly through my mind, and my inner eye caught a teasing, tantalizing glimpse of the fine wine sparkle of garnets and deep purple amethysts set in silver. "Who would want to marry me?"

"I've chosen someone very special for you, my little love." Father chucked my chin and kissed the tip of my nose. "Now he is a wee bit older than you are, five-and-forty, and a kinsman of mine. Mayhap you've heard tell of him, for he's a war hero, one of our greatest-my cousin William Grey, Lord Wilton."

Kate gave such a frightful shriek that I nearly toppled off Father's lap, and Jane momentarily forgot her own staggering surprise as horror, then pity, filled her eyes as she stared at me. Then both my sisters were there, crying and clinging tight to me, as though they could not bear to let me go. But all I could do was nod, my disappointment and hurt went too deep for tears, and there are times in a dwarf's tormented life when one feels all cried dry of tears.

The whole of England knew the story of Lord Wilton, and little boys fought to play him in their war games, their vying for this prized part often leaving them with bloodied lips and blackened eyes. He had been hideously wounded, his face grotesquely mutilated at the Battle of Pinkie Cleugh. A Scottish pike had smashed through the front of his helm, shattering several teeth as it stove in his mouth, and pierced through his tongue, knocking out even more teeth in its violent progress, and penetrated the roof of his mouth. At some point, his nose had also been broken and smashed in in a grotesque and b.l.o.o.d.y parody of one of those darling little dogs with the pushed-in noses that Kate adored so. To make matters worse, his helm had been quite destroyed by enemy blows, and the metal intended to protect his face had instead turned against him, biting deep, like jagged steel teeth, lacerating his flesh, and leaving behind ugly, jagged scars zigzagging like a violent lightning storm all over his face. The enemy pike had also cost him an eye. Some said he was merely blinded and wore a black leather patch to cover the hideous grey-clouded eyeball, though others claimed the eye was white and sightless as an egg, while others said that it concealed an empty hollow, that the Scottish warrior who took it had boasted he had plucked it out of its socket like an olive, though some rather ghoulishly insisted that he popped it in his mouth and swallowed it whole, and yet others insisted he had chewed it with great vigour and glee.

Regardless of which of these tales was the true one, Lord Wilton left the battlefield that day with a face that frightened children and now went about veiled like a lady in public lest his ears be a.s.saulted by cries of "Dear G.o.d, what is that hideous thing?" and "Monster!" and the terrified wails of children, the screams of women, and the thud of their bodies falling down in a faint. I felt sorry for him; I, "Crouchback Mary," the "little gargoyle," the "goblin child," and "mashed-up little toad," could well understand his pain and torment. It must have been especially hard for him since he had once been accounted amongst the handsomest of men, whilst I had been born ugly and misshapen and had known no other form or face.

But empathy was not enough to make me want to marry him. Oh what a pair we would make! I could picture myself leading my half-blind and veiled husband around by the hand, my crooked spine straining and aching at the awful effort. People would think we were a couple of freaks loose from the fair or some n.o.bleman's collection of Mother Nature's mistakes. Those who enjoyed such spectacles might even come up to us and offer us pennies to peer beneath my husband's veil or toss down their coins and cry, "Dance, dwarf, dance!"

"Nay, pet, look not so downhearted! You're frowning as if the world were about to end without you ever having tasted of all its pleasures! Smile!" Father cried, setting me down and with the tips of his fingers pushing the corners of my mouth up to form a smile that instantly disappeared the moment he removed them. "Lord Wilton is a wonderful man and a great hero! A husband you can be proud of! I myself have told him all about you, and he cannot wait to make you his bride. How impatient he is for his little Mary to grow up! He wants to be informed the moment you shed your first woman's blood! He longs for an understanding and intelligent young wife, a quiet, sensible girl whose head and heart will not be turned by a handsome face, one who is content to bide at home and sit by the fire and read to and converse with him, someone he can tell his stories to and relive his former glories with, someone like you, my little love, not some flighty little minx he is likely to find one day rolling in the straw with the stable boy between her knees! And, mind you, just because his face is ruined, doesn't mean that William is lacking in amorous skill, quite the contrary, but that is not a subject fit for your tender years. Suffice it to say that upon your wedding night you shall experience a heavenly rapture, and not of the spiritual kind, but a warm, quivering, panting, pulsing, throbbing ecstasy of the flesh! William has the tongue and fingers to rival the greatest musician in England; he plays a woman's body like an instrument! But forget I said that until you are old enough to remember! It's not a fit subject for a little maid like you to contemplate."

"But, Father!" Kate wailed. "He is so ugly! And old! I have seen him riding through London in his litter, his face covered by a thick veil, with a shawl about his shoulders, just like a hunched and shrivelled-up old woman calling out to his bearers in a whining voice that they are going too fast, or too slow, or to watch out for that pig or that little girl or not to step in the street muck, and to turn here and turn there as though he laid the streets of London himself and knows them better than any!"

"Katherine!" Father barked sharply. "I am appalled and ashamed of you! Don't you realize, girl, that you are talking about a great war hero? The man who led the first charge against the enemy at the Battle of Pinkie Cleugh, mind you! I'll thank you to show some respect for your future brother-in-law! Everyone with a drop of English blood in them should go down on their knees and thank William Grey for sacrificing his looks, and his vanity, for their sake. And before he was injured, he had much to be vain of. He was as bold and brazen as a strutting c.o.c.kerel! If you girls were boys, the stories I could tell you," he added with a wink. Then, hurtling over the obstacles that stood in the way of a good story, he went on as though our s.e.x posed no barrier. "Why, when he was lying there with his face hanging from his skull in shreds and tatters all st.i.tched up with crude thread and swathed in b.l.o.o.d.y rags, not knowing whether he was going to live or die, he called for a mirror though he was told it was best not to look, but look he did, he was that brave, then he defiantly flung the mirror away, and to prove himself still a man he called for women and more women and to keep them coming until he said, 'No more!' He wore out a dozen wh.o.r.es, by some counts as many as sixteen or thirty-everyone who tells the tale gives a different number-but I am sure, knowing my cousin William, that it was at least a dozen wenches. But upon one point everyone agrees-those doxies staggered out of his tent nigh swooning with their knees trembling, complaining that they ached in their privy parts like just deflowered virgins; some of them even clamped rags over their cunnies to staunch the bleeding, saying his battering ram was that big and gave them such a powerful banging, and these were all seasoned camp followers, mind you, wh.o.r.es who had left maidenhood long behind them!" He guiltily clapped a hand over his mouth as though his own words surprised him. "But I shouldn't have told you that. You're just little girls, so forget every word! Your lady-mother would take a horsewhip to my b.u.t.tocks if she knew I had been filling your heads with bawdy stories; the Good Lord above knows that she loves any excuse to do that! Let that be a lesson to you girls. Never marry a woman who lives in riding boots, for like as not she will wear them in bed as well, and the whip will never be far from her hand. Frances even wore them 'neath her bridal gown; I heard her golden spurs jingling as she walked up the aisle to take her place beside me. For the life of me, I could not figure out what that noise was, and when I bent to lift the hem of her skirt to see, she slapped my new feathered hat clean off my head right there at the altar in plain sight of everyone, and as I put the ring on her finger, I had a red and throbbing ear, the wedding guests sat there in the pews t.i.ttering as they watched it swell. But forget I told you that too!" he added hastily. "Your lady-mother wouldn't like it! Have some more sweets, girls!"

He s.n.a.t.c.hed up the box and offered it around to us. "Here's something more suitable for your ears and years that will help you understand, especially you, little Mary, what a grand match this courageous man is! Why, if I were a woman I would leap at the chance to wed Lord Wilton! But don't tell him I said that; William deplores anything he even thinks hints at sodomy, so he would not take my words as the sincere compliment I meant them to be, for I hold him in the highest esteem! But forget I said that too, the bit about sodomy I mean-you girls shouldn't even know that word or what it means! You don't, do you? Please say you don't and spare my hide your mother's riding crop!"

He gave a great sigh of relief and mopped the sweat from his brow with his velvet sleeve when we all nodded obediently. Then he proceeded to climb up onto the long polished table that spanned nearly the entire length of the library and, enthusiastic as a little boy, began a vigorous one-man reenactment of "the wounding of Lord Wilton at the Battle of Pinkie Cleugh," spiritedly wielding pantomime pikes and swords and playing all the various roles, the enemy Scots and the brave Englishmen, falling back, gurgling blood, clasping his throat, and gasping for air as my affianced husband was stricken, then rolling over on his side to quickly inform us how John Dudley, the Duke of Northumberland himself, or "the Earl of Warwick as he was then," had himself thrust his fingers down Lord Wilton's throat and brought up a handful of broken teeth to clear his airway so he could breathe, "thus saving his life."

Then the wounded warrior valiantly mounted his horse again-Father swung his leg over a pretend steed and began to mime a brisk canter, neighing as his boots went clip-clop over the varnished table-explaining in an aside how, with Northumberland at his side, Lord Wilton had ridden hard through the swarming bodies of armoured Englishmen and kilted Scots, wielding clanging swords, swinging spiked maces, and thrusting and clashing pikes. "When suddenly Lord Wilton began to droop, overcome by the heat, dust, buzzing flies, pain, and loss of blood, and seemed poised to faint. 'Twas then that Northumberland grabbed a firkin of ale, tilted the swooning man's head back, and poured it over his head, and as much as he could down his throat, to revive him, thus saving his life yet again. And our brave kinsman finished the charge, a hero, though a trifle drunken with his face a torn and b.l.o.o.d.y ruin, he was a hero nonetheless, and for it by the Crown rewarded with a knighthood and the governorship of Berwick, and he was also made warden of the east marches and general of several of the northern!"

Our lady-mother walked in just as Father was reenacting the shower of ale, having first called to Kate to bring him the flagon from his desk. She stood, arms folded across her ample b.r.e.a.s.t.s, tapping the toe of her boot upon the polished oaken floor, and watched with us as, standing on the table, Father threw his head back and raised the flagon up high and poured a shower of ale down his throat and all over his chest, so caught up in the drama he was reenacting that he displayed a reckless disregard for his elegant new clothes.

"Hal, whatever are you doing?" our lady-mother demanded. "Get down off that table, you're making a perfect spectacle of yourself!"

"Well, at least he is doing it perfectly," Jane murmured tartly, making a not so veiled reference to our lady-mother's insistence on perfection.

Without even glancing at Jane, our lady-mother raised her hand and with the back of it dealt Jane's face a slap. "Sarcasm is not a becoming quality in a young lady, Jane, especially not a young lady about to be married. Or hasn't your father told you about that yet?"

Father dropped the flagon, and it fell onto the table with a loud clatter as he quickly clambered down, explaining that he had just been telling us the happy news.

"This required you standing on the table my mother left me, scratching it with your boots, pouring ale all over yourself, and ruining your new doublet?" she asked, arching one finely plucked brow in disbelief.

"I-I was just showing the girls how Lord Wilton was wounded at the Battle of Pinkie Cleugh," Father sheepishly explained as a blush flamed like a wildfire across his cheeks above his bushy auburn beard.

Poor Father! Mother always made him act like a mouse cornered by a cat. In her presence, he was forever fidgeting, stammering, and gnawing his nails, and tugging and twisting his hair, as a sweat broke out on his brow. Even when she was not there he was always starting at unexpected sounds and darting swift, nervous, and guilty glances around even when he was not partaking of the contents of his "sweet drawer."

"What in heaven's name for?" our lady-mother asked.

"I ... I ... The girls were ... well I ..." Father stammered, his eyes suddenly intent upon his toes. "It's quite understandable, my dear ... you know he ... he is not ... pleasant ... to look upon ... and I-I wanted Mary to understand and ... be proud that a war hero wants to marry her!"

Our lady-mother rolled her eyes. "Don't lie to her! Her mirror doesn't lie to her, and men's eyes won't either, only your foolish heart and tongue! You think you're being kind, but you're not. He's marrying her because I say she'll have him, and he's the only suitable man of rank and means willing to have her, and far better him for a husband than having the little gargoyle remain a spinster under our roof for the rest of her life since we can't very well send her to a nunnery since England is now Protestant instead of Papist, and she's too high born to be a fool in a great household. That would only shame and disgrace us! Her face will not make her fortune, like Kate's will," she added, her voice softening, growing tender, as she spoke my sister's name and turned to caress the bright curls and bend to press a kiss onto her cheek.

Her words stung me like a slap, and I could not bear the way she stamped all the fun out of Father, chastised him, and made him behave like a naughty schoolboy. And, I confess, it hurt me to witness the affection she showered on Kate, so I timorously piped out a question, never thinking that it might hurt Jane. "F-Father, who is Jane to marry? You did not say before."

Father flashed a grateful smile at me. Anything to divert our lady-mother. He too feared her sharp tongue that was like a metal-barbed whip, always criticizing and chastising us.

"Guildford Dudley," he answered promptly and proudly as though the boy whose name he had just p.r.o.nounced was some great prize that he had won for his firstborn daughter. "The Earl of Northumberland's youngest son of marriageable age, and the only one of his brood with golden hair. All the others are dark," he added. "He is his mother's favourite and was christened with her maiden name-Guildford. It's rather different, don't you think?" he babbled on. "I mean when so many boys are named Henry, Edward, Robert, William, John, and Thomas, it stands out as wonderfully unique, don't you think?"

"Guildford Dudley!" We three sisters raised an incredulous chorus and clung together for comfort. I saw loathing and contempt in Jane's eyes, while Kate's and mine mirrored the pity we each felt for our scholarly sister to be wedded and bedded by such a conceited fool, a gilt-haired youth who made the proud peac.o.c.ks that strutted across the royal gardens look dowdy and meek as sparrows in comparison. Jane was fluent in Latin, Greek, and French, and was currently studying Hebrew to enhance her understanding of the Scriptures; she devoured the works of Cicero, Ovid, Plutarch, Livy, Juvenal, Demosthenes, Justin the Martyr, Plato, Aristotle, Socrates, and the New Testament written in Greek as other girls her age did chivalric romances and the rollicking, ribald tales of Boccaccio and Chaucer; she had even recently acquired a Latin translation of the Jewish Talmud. And now she was betrothed to a boy who thought books were merely decorative. Poor Jane!

Everyone knew that Guildford Dudley was vainer than any girl. His own family called him their gilded lily and their golden gillyflower and catered to his every whim, shamelessly pampering and indulging their petulant and decadent darling in every way imaginable. And he was such a fool, though he himself, and his adoring mother, who put him on a pedestal like a gilt idol, thought his brains as brilliant as his beauty. Everyone knew that all the Dudleys' servants were dark-haired, to make Guildford's own golden head shine all the brighter; Guildford, who washed his hair twice a week with a mixture of lemon juice and chamomile, was known to throw fierce tantrums if any boy with fair hair dared to stand within twenty paces of him. He was the only boy I ever knew who slept with his head in curl rags every night and insisted his hairdresser, standing ready to attend him, be the first person he saw when he opened his eyes each morning. That was Guildford Dudley-Jane's betrothed. Oh my poor, poor sister!

"I Will Not." One moment Jane was speaking, enunciating each word with hard, ironclad clarity, the next her skull was striking the floor and her feet flying up as our lady-mother felled her with one swift blow from her fist.

"You will," our lady-mother said with icy calmness.

Jane raised her throbbing head from the floor and locked eyes with our lady-mother. "I will not," she repeated. "I will not marry Guildford Dudley."

There was an ominous quietness, wrapping us all like a shroud. We all knew what was about to happen; it had happened so many times before it would have been accounted a miracle if it hadn't. Jane would be taken upstairs to the Long Gallery outside our rooms, where we had always gathered by the fire and played on cold or rainy days. She would be stripped to her shift and made to wait, kneeling like a penitent, before a hard wooden bench. Then we would hear the determined tread of our lady-mother's leather-booted footsteps, the jingle-jangle of her spurs, and the slap of her riding crop against her palm as she approached. A few words would be exchanged, though to no profit, as Jane would not apologize for whatever offence she had committed. Then our lady-mother would point her whip at the bench and Jane would lift off her shift and position herself over it with her bare back and b.u.t.tocks fully exposed to the merciless cascade of blows that were about to descend. She would bite her lips until they bled and silent tears would drip down onto the floor as she choked back her sobs and refused to cry out. She would not give our lady-mother the satisfaction of hearing her plead for mercy.

"To the Long Gallery," our lady-mother said, and briskly strode out without a backward glance.

"Oh, Jane!" we cried, huddling close around our sister, as if our love alone could protect her, but she brushed away our arms and walked stoically out after our lady-mother with her head held high and proud, just like a Christian martyr about to be thrown to the lions. There were times when I thought Jane actually relished the role, the sympathy her suffering stirred, and how it made her brilliance shine all the brighter, like a perfect diamond in a dull setting.

Father returned to munching his marzipan with a nervous vengeance, crying out once when he accidentally bit his own finger, and Kate and I stood helplessly holding hands staring worriedly after Jane, wincing inwardly at each imagined lash of the whip upon her vulnerable flesh.

In one day we had gone from being three little girls, a trio of sisters playing in the snow, growing drunk and giddy on syllabub, to three maids about to be married.

Later, when Jane lay upon her stomach, Kate and I knelt on the bed beside her, frowning over the blood-crusted slashes and livid red welts blooming like a riot of red roses all over her back, bottom, and thighs already crisscrossed with several silvery white scars from previous beatings. We cleansed them gently with a cloth dipped in a mixture of yarrow and comfrey followed by a comforting balm of lavender, which Kate also dabbed onto Jane's temples after she kissed them.

Finally I asked, "Why did you resist? You knew what would happen if you did, that you would be beaten, and in the end it would change nothing, nothing at all except you would be lying here like this." I brandished an angry hand over her wounded back, b.u.t.tocks, and thighs. "None of us has the right to choose whom we will marry. We can only accept and try to make the best of it."

Jane didn't answer me. She lay there silent as a stone. Perhaps she was mulling it over in her mind, searching for an answer, or mayhap she was contemplating a day when the sorrowful tale of how Lady Jane Grey was beaten into submission and forced to marry a fool would be spread far and wide amongst Europe's most distinguished scholars. The laments that would be expressed when it became known that their bright star, the Reformed Faith's brightest candle, had been forced to douse her light and put away her books and accept a woman's lot of marriage and, eventually, motherhood. "What a waste that such a mind should be trapped in a woman's body!" they would say.

Though I never dared broach the subject with Jane, and perhaps my thinking is coloured by what came after, I often suspected that though she despised the stories of the Catholic saints, and the suffering that made them martyrs, she secretly used them as her own personal embroidery pattern, envisioning a similar fate for herself. She never bit her tongue and humbly bowed her head and suffered in silence like most chastised and punished children did, nor did she ever school herself to adopt meek ways and avoid further beatings; instead she seemed to provoke and invite them. There were so many times when Jane could have saved herself, but she didn't. And afterward she always found a way-a sympathetic ear with a gossipy tongue-to tell the world. Jane felt her story must be told; she craved sympathy the way a drunkard does wine and praise as a glutton dreams of devouring a royal banquet.

"And at least Guildford Dudley is handsome, even if he is a fool," Kate added, "so it might not be so bad. Perhaps he will be kind? And failing that, he is always good for a laugh." She giggled. "I once saw him in a shop in London; he bought a grey velvet cloak lined in pale blue silk and fringed and embroidered with silver flowers-it was a very beautiful cloak-because he had just the cat to wear it with. See, Jane?" She prodded her gently when the ghost of a smile twitched at Jane's lips. "You will always have a husband who will make you smile! And it could be far worse; poor Mary is stuck with Lord Wilton, and he has a face that gives little children nightmares." Kate made a sour face and shuddered.

All of a sudden I began to shake and shiver, and then the tears came, uncontrollably, though I did not wish to appear babyish before my sisters, especially after I had just been scolding Jane for resisting what could not be changed, but I could not help it.

"Mary, what is it?" Kate turned to me. "I am sorry for what I said about Lord Wilton, truly I am. I did not mean to make you cry. Oh please don't cry, or I will cry too!" And even as she spoke, tears began to trickle down my sister's lovely face.

"It's not that!" I blurted. "It's just ... you are both going to leave me! In only a few weeks ... I shall lose you both!"

"Oh, Mary!" Kate threw her arms about me, and Jane levered up her sore body and crawled over to put her arms around my waist and lay her head in my lap.

"Don't cry!" Kate pleaded. "I promise I shall have you visit me often, mayhap you can even come to live with me. I shall use my every charm to persuade Lord Herbert to allow it."

"And you shall visit me too," Jane promised, "as often as you can. Just think, soon you will be grumbling about all the time you spend on the road going from Kate's house to mine."

"R-really?" I blubbered hopefully.

"Really!" my sisters promised and hugged me tighter.

"We are sisters," Kate said, "and we shall never truly be parted, not even by time and distance."

"Even when we are apart, we will still be together-always!" Jane declared in a voice filled with unshakable confidence, as solid and strong as the bond between us.

And I felt better, with their words I truly felt the weight and strength of the invisible chain forged between us, a wonderful set of unbreakable shackles binding us together forever that not even marriage, motherhood, or death could sever.

The next morning, Kate and I helped Jane dress her stiff and aching body in a plain, high-necked black velvet gown and quilted dove grey petticoat and held her hands as she hobbled bent-backed between us out into the Long Gallery to enact the ritual we knew so well. Each time one of us was punished, the next morning we must crawl on our hands and knees the full length of the Long Gallery to where our parents sat waiting and humbly beg our lady-mother's pardon. By the time we reached them, our arms would be aching, our palms smarting and red from the hard stone floor, and our knees sc.r.a.ped raw despite our skirts and stockings. Sometimes our lady-mother would bestow her forgiveness right away, like a queen graciously granting a pet.i.tioner some bounty, and raise and kiss us once on each cheek; other times she would fold her arms across her chest, frown, and shake her head emphatically, and the ritual would have to be repeated each morning until she deigned to give it. There was no rhyme or reason to it. Sometimes she would instantly forgive the most grievous offence and deny it for the most trifling. I remember when I pilfered some bright yellow embroidery silk from our lady-mother's sewing basket, I had to crawl the length of that gallery seven mornings in a row, but when a curious Kate, at the time aged eight, charmed one of the kitchen boys into showing her his c.o.c.k, and with an obliging smile returned the favour by lifting her skirts and displaying her cunny, our lady-mother instantly forgave her the first time she asked. And poor Jane, when she dribbled gravy on that white and gold gown, her first adult raiment, she was forced to crawl the Long Gallery and crave forgiveness a full five weeks-one for each stain that the laundress could not remove-before our lady-mother finally gave it.

This particular morning, seeing what pain our sister was in, Kate had "a brilliant idea" and ran back to her room and s.n.a.t.c.hed two small cushions from the baskets where her puppies and kittens rested, and two lengths of wide satin ribbon from her sewing basket. She knelt before Jane and bade her hold her skirts up high and then with the ribbons bound a cushion around each of Jane's knees.

"There now"-she smiled up at Jane-"now it will not be so bad."

And at first it didn't seem to be. Kate and I held hands and watched anxiously as Jane crawled slowly down the gallery's great length to where our parents waited, our lady-mother clearly impatient to be off hunting, slapping her riding crop against her leather-gloved palm and dangling a leg so that the golden spurs on her leather boots jangled.

It seemed as though whole hours crept past, but at long last there she was, kneeling, a humble supplicant before our lady-mother.

Head bowed, she softly intoned the requisite words: "I most humbly crave your pardon, my lady-mother."

Compa.s.sion lighting his face like a candle within a gourd, Father whispered, "Dearest girl," and reached out a hand to stroke Jane's hair, but our lady-mother slapped it away with her riding crop. Poor Father started and s.n.a.t.c.hed back his smarting fingers, raising them to his mouth to suck away the blood welling from his knuckles.

Supremely cool, our lady-mother lifted one finely plucked Tudor red brow. "Will you marry Guildford Dudley?" she asked.

There was a moment of lengthy tension in which I could feel the war raging within Jane, but at last she surrendered, and with head hung low and shoulders sagging in sad defeat, did what was expected of her and answered, "Yes, my lady-mother."

With a brisk nod and a smile of triumph upon her lips, our lady-mother reached out to clasp Jane's shoulders and bent to brush her lips against each of my sister's cheeks, then, sitting back, gestured with her riding crop for Jane to rise.

It was then that disaster struck. As Jane struggled sorely to her feet, the ribbons securing the cushions slipped. Jane stood there mortified, staring down at the plump little cushions of plum purple and cherry red puddled at her feet, and the pink and blue satin ribbons snaking out from beneath her skirts.

Our lady-mother's whip shot out, to whisk Jane's skirts up and reveal Kate's "brilliant idea."

With a nervous glance at our lady-mother, Father began to laugh and clap his hands, hoping against hope that his wife would see the humour of the situation rather than fly into a rage.

But our lady-mother was not amused. Two slaps, one to each of the cheeks she had just kissed, sent Jane toppling backward, barking her palms painfully against the floor when she tried to break her fall.

I tried to restrain her, but Kate broke away from me. "My lady-mother, no, please no, it was my idea!" Tearfully, she flung herself at our lady-mother's feet, bruising her own tender knees, and grabbed our lady-mother's hands and kissed and pressed them to her own tear-dampened cheeks, and said, "I most humbly crave your pardon, my lady-mother."

"This was your idea?" Our lady-mother flicked her riding crop at the cushions and ribbons lying in a guilty heap upon the floor. When Kate, still kneeling, nodded, a bright smile spread across our lady-mother's face and, beaming, she swept Kate up into her arms, nigh smothering her against her ample bosom. "My darling, you are almost as clever as you are beautiful! That kind of thinking will serve you far better at court than Plato ever will." She sneered at Jane. "Come, my love." She took Kate's hand. "Walk with me to the stables and you may pet the spotted hunting hounds and feed a carrot to my horse. Come, Hal!" she called back over her shoulder to Father, and he s.n.a.t.c.hed up his feathered cap, gloves, and riding crop and ran after her, obedient as a dog himself.

I stood there, longing to run to Jane, but cowardly not daring to move lest I somehow incur my lady-mother's wrath. I stood there, staring after them, my heart beating as though it might at any moment burst through the wall of my chest. Please, Lord, don't let our lady-mother turn round, I prayed. Let her forget about Jane.

But it was not to be. In the doorway, our lady-mother paused and looked back.

"Mrs. Ellen!" she called to Jane's nurse, who through it all had stood back, an un.o.btrusive presence in her crow-black gown and hood, silently observing the scene. "Fetch some pins! You are to secure Lady Jane's skirts above her knees and then remove her shoes and stockings." Then she turned to Jane and directed sternly, "You are to crawl back and forth the entire length of this gallery on your bare hands and knees until we return from the hunt." Then she was gone, spurs jingling, the feathers on her hat bouncing, without waiting for an answer, confident as a queen that her will would be obeyed.

As soon as she was gone, I rushed to Jane, but she sat up and held out her hand to stay me. "No! Stay back, stay away, Mary, or she'll punish you too!"

All through the morning and long into the afternoon Kate and I sat, holding each other and sobbing, helplessly watching our sister, weeping all the harder when we saw the trails of blood that marked her slow progress up and down the Long Gallery as the day wore on. Kate pleaded for Jane to stop and rest a while, imploring Mrs. Ellen with tear-filled eyes to lie and say Jane had enacted her punishment exactly as described.

"My lady, I cannot, I dare not," Mrs. Ellen said sadly as she gently unclenched Kate's fists from the folds of her black skirt.

And Jane would not stop until, as the sky glowed orange through the windows, our lady-mother appeared in the doorway and spoke a single word: "Enough!" And Jane fell fainting, facedown, flat upon the floor.

If memory doesn't deceive me, it was the next day that we were called again to the library and the portraits, gifts from our betrotheds, were unveiled before us.

For me there was a lush, sable-bearded likeness of Lord Wilton in all his former glory, a big, handsome, burly bear of a man, towering and overpowering in a suit of satin-slashed buff brocade and golden breastplate and feathered helm, armed with a sword and shield like a war G.o.d. For the life of me, I couldn't rightly say whether I found him more frightening before or after his battle scars. He did not have the look of a kind or patient man, but the sort who would order his household with military precision. I only knew, in my heart, I didn't want him; he was not the man for me. But I also knew it was my duty to obey and futile to resist; no one cared what I thought; like all n.o.bly born girls, I truly had no say in the matter. And so I praised the portrait, calling it "a handsome picture," and retreated into silence.

For Kate there was a miniature of Lord Herbert with a bail at the top of the round gold frame so that she might wear it upon a golden chain, jewelled necklace, or a rope of pearls. Lord Herbert had thoughtfully sent along a dozen of these as a betrothal gift so that no matter what gown she was wearing Kate would have something to suit and thus his likeness could always be with her until the day he took his place at her side, he gallantly explained in the accompanying letter. Kate squealed with delight. "How handsome he is!" she enthused again and again, dancing around the room as our lady-mother bent to examine the necklaces with the practised eye of a p.a.w.nbroker, alert for any flaws or duplicity.

Her inspection done, and apparently satisfied with both the quality and workmanship, our lady-mother laid down a rope of pearls and ruby beads and smiled at her favourite daughter's girlish enthusiasm and pointed out that the miniature she was holding was ringed with diamonds. "Particularly fine diamonds, daughter; take note of them and measure any jewels that come after against them and you will always know exactly where you stand in your husband's affections. There are ways of managing a man," she added pointedly, "and the important thing is that you never wear anything that is not first-rate. Never settle for anything inferior, for once you do, he will never bring you the best again."

Kate clasped the picture to her bosom and breathed, "But he is so handsome; I am certain I would love him even if they were gla.s.s instead of diamonds!"

"Then you are a fool," our lady-mother stated simply, "a beautiful simpleton, nothing more, and you shall never amount to anything."

Kate gave a wounded little cry, and her lips began to tremble as her eyes filled with tears and she stared, hurt and uncomprehending, at our lady-mother.

"Now, now"-our lady-mother pulled her close-"it is good to see you so excited and eager to love your husband; you need only temper your exuberance with a little wisdom, daughter, and all shall be well."

"Yes, my lady-mother, yes, I promise, I will!" Kate vowed, all sunny smiles again. "I shall see to it that Lord Herbert gives me the best of everything, for I shall ensure that I am worth it by always giving my best to him!"

"That's my clever girl!" our lady-mother beamed and patted her cheek. "There are brains behind that beauty after all!"

Lastly, for Jane there was a full-sized portrait of Guildford Dudley. Its ornate frame of carved gilded gillyflowers and the Dudleys' heraldic bear and ragged staff was so heavy that it took two men to carry it in. When our lady-mother removed the gold-fringed yellow velvet that covered it, we all gasped and stepped back.

"My, my," Father said, patting his heart as he looked the painted likeness of his soon to be son-in-law up and down.

Head to toe, the spoiled and decadent darling of the Dudleys was like a gilded idol; all that was missing was a pedestal for him to stand upon and a throng of adoring minions kneeling at his feet. Each perfectly arranged golden curl adorning his head shone as though it had been sculpted by a master goldsmith, his lips were arranged in a perfect, petulant, pink rosebud pout, and his green eyes were the exact colour of gooseberries; they made me shudder and think of snakes and pale emeralds all at the same time. His lavish yellow brocade vestments were woven thickly with golden threads in a pattern of gillyflowers accentuated with diamond brilliants and creamy gold pearls. His long, shapely limbs were encased in hose of vivid yellow silk, and he held one foot pointed just so that we could see the bouquet of golden gillyflowers embroidered over his ankle, and upon the toes of his yellow shoes, golden gillyflowers bloomed and twinkled with diamonds that made the ones that ringed Lord Herbert's portrait look paltry and dull in comparison. Even the rings on his fingers and the heavy golden chain about his neck were bejewelled golden gillyflowers; clearly Guildford considered this his flower. The artist had even painted a ma.s.s of them, yellow of course, blooming about his feet. Before our astonished eyes, this radiant young man held out his arms, golden wrist frills gleaming, as if to say to the world, "Here I am-worship and adore me!"

"With all those diamonds sewn upon the yellow, he makes me think of sugared lemons!" Father observed. "Mmmm ... sugared lemons!" He shut his eyes and sighed. "So tart and yet ... so sweet! It's like ... love in contradiction!"

"Precisely"-our lady-mother nodded-"if he were entirely sweet, it would be much too decadent, too soft, and perhaps even effete, but that tartness beneath the sugar denotes strength and thus masculinity, though if one is not careful it can elude the eye. You don't know how fortunate you are, Jane; you are such a stubborn, ungrateful girl you can't see it. You know, Jane, I actually envy you! Look at him. He is a sugarplum for the eye, like a gilded marzipan subtlety come to life!"

"Yes, indeed he is! Mmmm ... marzipan ... gilded marzipan!" Father sighed rapturously, shutting his eyes again as his tongue savoured the words as if the syllables themselves were sweets. "Guildford is just like gilded marzipan! So rich, so decadently delicious, as divine as a gift of sweetmeats straight from Our Lord's confectionary kitchen in Heaven served on golden plates by angels!"

Jane rolled her eyes and wondered sotto voce, "Where in the Bible does it say that the Lord has a confectionary kitchen in Heaven?"