The Fallen Queen Part 7

6.

The next morning found us all baking beneath the blazing July sun, squinting and shading our eyes against the brightness as spreading wet blossoms of sweat bloomed beneath the arms of our sumptuous new clothes. Slowly, in a grand yet sedate procession, we boarded the big gilded barge that would convey us to the Tower of London, where Jane and Guildford were to await their coronation. Behind us, other n.o.bles swarmed onto their own barges, to form a flotilla that would accompany us. Not a breeze was blowing, and all the colourful gold and silver embroidered and fringed banners hung slack, limp and lifeless, as the trumpets blared seemingly with the sole purpose of deafening us. Oh what a sight we were! Sumptuous and sweaty, beautiful but bedraggled! When I remember us now, I don't know whether to laugh or cry-we were both comical and magnificent.

Our lady-mother walked proudly behind Jane, like a golden galleon in full, majestic sail, hung with a fortune in diamonds and arrayed from head to toe in cloth-of-gold that the sun struck with blinding brilliance. Beside her, Father, in gold-embellished wine-coloured velvet, reverently followed Guildford, holding up the hem of his long, ground-sweeping green-satin-lined white velvet cloak embroidered with golden crowns, yellow gillyflowers, and gold and silver lilies and roses.

Our lady-mother had insisted upon being the one to carry Jane's heavy green and white velvet train, profusely embroidered with red and white Tudor roses and golden crowns, while my poor sister tottered along, reeling like a drunkard, balanced precariously upon the four-inch cork platform soles of the chopines we had strapped to her green velvet slippers at Northumberland's insistence, to raise her diminutive form so that the people could see her better. She staggered and stretched out her hands before her like a blind woman trying to feel her way along as she boarded the barge and made her way to the purple velvet-carpeted dais where she was to stand, with Guildford, and their closest attendants, on display for the teeming mult.i.tudes thronging the muddy banks of the Thames. She took her place beside her husband, frowning deeply and tugging at "Cousin Mary's b.l.o.o.d.y necklace." Our lady-mother had herself fastened it around Jane's neck, ignoring her complaints that it was too tight and bit painfully into her neck, just as she ignored Jane's insistence that the green velvet headdress laden with jewels was too heavy and the pins stabbed her scalp like a mult.i.tude of tiny daggers. "One must suffer to be beautiful, Jane," our lady-mother answered, slapping down the little white hands that tried to pluck out the pins she had only just put in.

Beside Jane, Guildford stood smiling and waving with restrained elegance at the crowd. Each golden curl was arranged to gleaming perfection, and his beautiful body was clad in gooseberry green hose that looked as though they had been painted on and a white velvet doublet embroidered with golden gillyflowers. While behind him, beside Father, stood a radiant, smiling Kate, the heir apparent until Jane bore her first child, arm in arm with her husband and father-in-law, beautiful in spring green velvet and cloth-of-silver, the emeralds they had given her blazing green fire on her throat, breast, fingers, and ears, and in her hair, its colour a bold, flaming reminder of her Tudor heritage.

I peeked out from behind our lady-mother and smiled and waved at Kate, who nodded back at me and called, "You look beautiful, Mary!"

At first it had seemed very likely that I would be left behind, our lady-mother insisting that I would be mistaken for a fool, a jester, that my very presence would make a mockery of this momentous occasion, but Jane, exerting her will as Queen, announced that I would walk behind our lady-mother, and have the honour of carrying Jane's black velvet bound prayer book-the one she was never without and most often wore hanging from a chain or cord about her waist-upon a white satin pillow. "You shall be the torchbearer of the true religion, the Reformed Faith, Mary!" Jane announced. And when our lady-mother continued her protests, Jane adamantly declared, "I shall not go without both my sisters!" Father set aside his comfit box, brushed away the sugar clinging to his chest, and said there was really no cause for concern since I would be dressed with such opulence no one could possibly mistake me for a fool unless they were one themselves.

So I walked proudly behind my sister, the scarlet-infused sable of my hair plaited with pearls beneath a deep green velvet hood edged with emeralds resting in nests of silver braid. I wore a gown of white satin embroidered with ornate flourishes of silver vines and leaves blooming with dainty flowers made of emeralds and pearls, and over it a loose, silver-braided green velvet surcoat flowing gracefully over my hunched and twisted spine. In my hands, like a sacred relic, I carried my sister's prayer book lying stark black against a white pillow. Originally four long silk ta.s.sels dangled from each corner, but Jane, despite the appalled gasps of those surrounding us, ripped them off one by one, saying, "G.o.d's truth needs no adornment!"

Behind me and Kate followed Northumberland, his wife, and their elegantly arrayed brood of sons and daughters, and the spouses of those already married. Only Amy, to my great dismay, was absent. When I dared pluck Robert Dudley's cloak and timidly asked her whereabouts, he glared down at me from his haughty height and said she was in the country where she belonged and could not embarra.s.s him or anyone who mattered. Then he turned away from me, barely managing to conceal the disgust in his dark eyes, directed both at me and the absent Amy, whose very existence by then was enough to kindle her husband's anger. The Dudleys were trailed by the gentlemen of the Council in their long black velvet robes, white neck ruffs, and gold chains of office, the highborn lords and ladies who had been appointed to serve the royal family, and dozens of servants in the royal Tudor green and white livery and the Dudleys' blue velvet emblazoned with their proud emblem of a bear clutching a ragged staff.

As we set sail, I noticed that the people who thronged the riverbanks were very glum and silent. None of them waved or cheered. There were a couple of lackl.u.s.tre cries of "G.o.d save her!" as though they were praying for Jane's deliverance from a cruel fate, not celebrating her ascension to England's throne. The truth was they didn't know Jane; she was a stranger to them, unlike Princesses Mary and Elizabeth, whom they had watched grow up and come to love. They distrusted Jane; they saw her, and, given the circ.u.mstances, with good reason, as Northumberland's puppet, a tool to set his own son upon the throne.

"They don't seem very happy," Jane worriedly observed.

"Nonsense!" Guildford scoffed. "They are simply awestruck by my beauty-I mean our beauty"-he laid a hand on Jane's arm which she contemptuously jerked away-"and my majestic presence, which, with a little effort I am sure you will, my queen, acquire in time. King Edward was a poor, scrawny lad, a pale, puny weakling," he continued. "And, though accounted a most handsome man in his youth, his sire, Henry VIII, was a hideous, monstrous mountain of bloated, rotting flesh, and bald as an egg beneath his cap too. I've heard it said that three goodly sized men could fit inside one of his doublets. But we"-Guildford smiled-"are young and beautiful! Look!" He waved a hand out to encompa.s.s the mute and scowling ma.s.ses. "Some of them are weeping from the sheer joy of beholding me-I mean us. Thank you, my good people, thank you, your tears are more eloquent testament of your adoration than your words could ever be!" he called out to them and blew them a single kiss.

"You idiot, you addle-pated ninny, they hate us!" Jane snapped. "You can't even see it; you're so besotted with your own beauty! You empty-headed nincomp.o.o.p! I hate you!"

"My dear wife," Guildford said, favouring her with an indulgent smile. "I am not so empty-headed that it has escaped my notice that you have just admitted that you find me beautiful, even though you tried to hide it amidst a volley of insults. There is too much pa.s.sion in your hate for me to be deceived and not see through it to what it really is-you love me and you know it. Everyone does; I'm very lovable! You shouldn't be ashamed, you know, I am your husband, so it is quite all right, even expected, for you to love and adore me like the sun that lights up your dreary little life. Besides, many find me beautiful, and how could so many people possibly be wrong? Now smile and wave at our people, Jane, smile and wave!" he coaxed, lifting her limp hand by the wrist and waggling it in the air. "That's it! You're doing splendidly! Smile! I said smile, not pout and puff out your cheeks like you have a toothache. And no glowering at me as though your eyes were daggers you want to bury deep in my heart, when we all know it's my fleshly dagger you want buried deep inside you instead. But you won't admit it, not even to yourself. You're frightened by your desires and fighting to deny them, but 'tis a losing battle, and your love, and l.u.s.t, for me shall in time be the victor. It's inevitable-I'm irresistible! Now smile and wave! Watch me and try to be as wonderful as I am. Smile and wave! Smile and wave!"

"You're wonderfully dreadful! Pompous, conceited, vain, and I hate you!" Jane retorted, stamping her foot and nearly falling, grimacing as she twisted her ankle in her unaccustomed chopines.

"Wonderfully desirable, you mean, Jane," Guildford calmly corrected as he caught her arm to help steady her. "Look out there, my wife"-he swept a hand over the silent crowds thronging the riverbanks-"there stand our subjects, and every one of them wishes they could make love to me; I can tell by their smouldering eyes and silent, reverential awe. Not everyone who wants me makes so bold as to tell me so; some of them are shy, but I can always tell. When you're as beautiful as I am, you become accustomed to being the unattainable object of desire to so many people; why, I couldn't even begin to count them even if I wanted to try! How they envy you to have me in your bed! That is what each and every one of them is thinking, you've incited the envy of all London, you lucky girl!"

Jane just glowered at Guildford and tried to pull her hand away. But, despite his seemingly delicate beauty, he maintained a masterful grip upon her wrist, forcing her limp hand to flutter up and down, until the barge reached the Tower just as a deafening hundred-gun salute was fired to welcome them.

"I hate you!" Jane hissed when he finally released her wrist. "I'll hate you until I die!"

"Methinks the lady doth protest too much!" Guildford simpered to his brothers, who snickered and nodded.

"I'll hate, detest, deplore, and despise you until you die!" Jane stamped her c.u.mbersome cork-soled feet and screeched like one of the cantankerous, old women who sold fish in the marketplace, heedless of our lady-mother's swiftly delivered pinch and hissed reminder that such undignified behaviour did not become a queen.

"Then you'll cry when you realize how much you love and miss me," Guildford serenely surmised to the tune of his brothers' encouraging laughter.

"Hmp!" Jane snorted and, gathering up her full skirts and thrusting her nose disdainfully high in the air, started past him. Her indignant exit, however, was ruined when her chopines threw her off balance and she began to fall. But Guildford acted quickly; he caught and swept her up into his arms, and, as all those aboard the barge gave a hearty cheer, he carried her ash.o.r.e and through the Tower gates.

After Northumberland stepped forward and most presumptuously accepted the keys to the Tower, which were always given to the new monarch upon their arrival, Sir John Bridges, the Lieutenant of the Tower, smiling back over his shoulder at Jane and Guildford from time to time, thinking them no doubt a pretty and playful pair of young lovers, began leading the way to the White Tower, where the royal apartments were. Kate giggled and s.n.a.t.c.hed a basket of rose petals that had been intended to carpet the ground the new king and queen would walk upon from a startled page boy and rushed after them, flinging handfuls of red and white petals in the air so that they wafted down in a perfumed rain over Guildford and Jane.

"Do stop it, Kate!" Jane snapped over Guildford's shoulder. "You're wasting perfectly good rose petals that could be made into cough syrup!"

"To give to the poor no doubt, pardon me, my bride, the Protestant poor," Guildford jibed. "Not the Papists for we loathe them and do not want to ease their coughs and sore throats, better that they should die and burn in h.e.l.l. Is that not an apt a.s.sessment of your way of thinking, my love?"

"It's no laughing matter! It is our Christian duty to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, and give drink to the thirsty! But unless they mend their ways and turn their back upon the Roman Church, they deserve to be d.a.m.ned and burn for all eternity!" Jane retorted heatedly, shaking her head hard to dislodge the shower of petals that had just landed there courtesy of Kate.

"You put covering nakedness before quenching thirst," Guildford observed. "How interesting! I'm rather surprised you didn't put it before appeasing hunger as well. After all, we don't want people falling on their food like naked savages, do we? No, far better that they should be clothed first before they even think of food and drink. Is that not so, my queen? You see, I am endeavouring to understand how you think. I do everything else so well, I should hate to think that I would fail to be a good husband."

"It is not a jest!" Jane cried, looking as though she was about to burst into tears.

Guildford heaved an exaggeratedly languid sigh. "Life is a joke, Jane. Better to laugh through it than to cry! Don't you think I know that everyone laughs at me? But what they don't know is that I laugh first!"

Just for a moment, as I waddled along, struggling to keep up and not let Jane's black velvet prayer book slide off the slick white satin cushion, I thought I saw the ghost of sadness in Guildford's eyes, but it flitted past so tantalizingly swift, I was never really sure, though in my heart I always felt certain that I had in that moment caught a glimpse of Guildford Dudley's soul. But whatever it was, he shrugged it off and laughed and Kate gave a joyous whoop and flung another handful of rose petals over their heads.

Once in the royal apartments, Guildford tossed Jane onto the bed and called for wine. "I'm rather parched," he added as Jane floundered amidst her full skirts and c.u.mbersome train and kicked her feet in the clunky cork chopines and screamed for Kate and me to "get these things off!" We hastened to unbuckle the leather straps only to have Jane seize them from our hands and fling them across the room. She was aiming for Guildford but hit the big silver mirror he was standing in front of instead. Guildford calmly stepped aside, utterly unfazed, sipping his wine as the mirror shattered. "You shouldn't have done that; that's seven years bad luck," he remarked. "Now your eyes shall have to be the mirror I see myself in."

With a scream, Jane flung herself back on the bed, arms and legs wide, and began kicking her feet and pummeling the bed with her fists just like a child in the throes of a tantrum. Then, all of a sudden, she heaved herself up, her face flushed crimson and chalky pale all at the same time and covered with a pearly sheen of sweat. Nearly falling, tripping over her skirts as she went, she began tearing at her clothes, ripping laces and fastenings, desperate to get them off, slapping Kate's hands away and knocking me down when we tried to a.s.sist her. "I'm burning up!" she screamed. "These sweltering velvets are a foretaste of the flames of h.e.l.l, lit by the bonfire of our vanity! G.o.d save me! I can feel the flames already, burning inside me, devouring me!"

Without even trying to unfasten the clasp, she tore Cousin Mary's necklace from her throat, cutting the back and side of her neck, and letting the broken links of gold and deep red rubies fall like tears of blood onto the floor. Kate tried to go to her and press a cloth over the cuts, but Jane snarled like a mad dog and shoved her away. Once she had stripped herself down to her shift and torn off her garters and stockings, Jane raced across the room to the washstand where the heavy white porcelain pitcher and basin sat, lifted the pitcher high, and poured the water down over her upraised face, sighing with ecstatic relief as it drenched the front of her shift and dripped down onto her bare toes to puddle on the floor.

A l.u.s.ty gleam came into Guildford's eye as he saw how the water had plastered the thin white lawn shift to her form and turned it nigh transparent. He thrust his wine cup into Kate's hand and said in a regal tone, "Be gone! The King would be alone with his Queen!"

Kate giggled and grabbed my hand and as we pulled the door closed behind us we couldn't resist peeping around and catching a last glimpse of Guildford struggling to lift our kicking, squirming sister into his arms, and carry her, fighting and protesting all the while, back to the bed.

"Kiss me the way you did in the meadow at Chelsea, Jane!" he urged as Jane s.n.a.t.c.hed up a pillow and bashed him over the head, rumpling his beautifully arranged curls and sending white feathers wafting down over them like snow.

"Oh ho!" Guildford chuckled as he lunged to pin her down again. "I thought I'd married a dove, but I see I am saddled with a scorpion instead! But, nay, she shall not sting me; I shall saddle and tame her instead!"

As Jane continued to struggle and thrash beneath him, Guildford went on as though they were a loving couple having a delightful breakfast table conversation.

"Father thinks it's high time we produced an heir, and I agree." He nodded, darting swiftly across the great, gold, damask-covered bed when Jane managed to break free and grabbing her ankles and pulling her back to him. "A beautiful golden-haired boy," he continued as he nonchalantly flipped my sister over, flat on her back, just like a pancake, then clambered atop her, wrestling to get hold of her wrists. "Or girl. If it's a boy we shall name him Prince Gillyflower, and if it's a girl ... Princess Gillyflower! It has a certain charm, don't you think? I think we should name all our children after flowers, so they will surround us like a beautiful bouquet. Wouldn't that make a fine portrait! The two of us sitting most regally clad upon our thrones with our children cl.u.s.tered about us dressed in clothes embroidered and adorned with the flower they are named for! Of course, all our children will be blond like me; how could they even contemplate being anything else?"

"You're a fool, a vain, contemptible, empty-headed fool, and I hate you, I hate you, I hate you!" Jane screamed and kept screaming until Guildford leaned down and stopped her with a kiss, and we hastily shut the door and slumped against it, hugging each other and giggling.

"No, Jane, you hate yourself because you desire me and feel betrayed by your own flesh and l.u.s.t," were the last words we heard Guildford say, m.u.f.fled by the thick, ornately carved wood, and then it was all moans, groans, and cries of delight, and Jane's "I hate you!"s were uttered with a breathless fervour that exposed them for the lie they were.

"She loves him." Kate smiled as she sat back against the door and hugged her knees. "She really loves him!"

The next few days pa.s.sed in a constant flurry. Our lady-mother decreed that Jane must now dress to suit her royal station and called in a whole army of dressmakers, seamstresses, and embroidery women, and Kate and I were there to attend our sister as she thrashed and pouted her way through the fittings that followed.

I tried to placate her by choosing fabrics and designs of a more subtle opulence, but only the dark, stark, and plain would satisfy Jane, and these our lady-mother slapped away with the most emphatic disdain. Vainly I offered up silks and damasks in aquatic hues of blues and greens and jewel vibrant sapphire and emerald satins and velvets, but Jane thrust them away.

"People expect elegance and glamour from their queen," I endeavoured to explain as I helped lace a glum-faced Jane into a high-collared midnight blue satin with a yoke, kirtle, and under-sleeves of the same blue st.i.tched with shimmering jet flowers. "They will be so disappointed if you appear before them in plain black or grey. The people take pride in their queen's jewels and gowns, at seeing her look her best."

But Jane simply replied that they should look to their souls instead "and endeavour to purge and wean themselves of their pride and vanity." When I tried to coax her into a misty grey velvet with a low square bodice bordered with moonstones and pearls, Jane s.n.a.t.c.hed the scissors from the nearest seamstress and snipped the jewels away, insisting that they be replaced with a border of plain black silk braid and that the neckline be filled in with a simple white lawn partlet devoid of embroidery.

But we persevered, bringing her gowns, kirtles, and sleeves in shades of cinnamon, mulberry, walnut, crimson, purple, ruddy embers, moss green, and a beautiful tawny rose brocade trimmed with pearls and rabbit fur.

In the end, Jane threw up her hands and cried, "Do as you will! I want neither the Crown nor the regal wardrobe that goes with it, but no one cares what I want! So do as you will; you will anyway, no matter what I say!" With that she stood stoic and still and flung her arms wide, as though she were bracing herself to be nailed to a cross, and shut her eyes, and let the seamstresses swarm around her.

While in the room across from Jane's, Guildford submitted to the tailors' ministrations with a kingly grace. I found that he welcomed my opinions when I, pa.s.sing the open door, timidly said that gold embroidery would suit that cinnamon velvet far better than crimson. "You have an eye for fashion, little gargoyle," Guildford complimented me. "Henceforth I want you here for all my fittings. Get her a comfortable chair. One that will ease her back, not a stool, you oaf!" he barked at his poor valet. Thus I pa.s.sed many pleasant hours comfortably ensconced amongst the beautiful fabrics and tr.i.m.m.i.n.gs I loved so, while my brother-in-law, handsome as a sun G.o.d, stood unabashedly naked before me and let the tailors drape him with swathes of shimmering, jewel-coloured satins, silks, brocades, and velvets, and even sat beside me, with our heads together, as we examined the various buckles, b.u.t.tons, and brooches the jewellers brought.

Guildford was particularly excited about his coronation clothes, but simply could not set his mind on a single colour, much to the despair of the tailors, who tore at their hair as they had already started, then stopped, six coronation suits already. "I shall be perfect in purple!" he would enthuse, then later that same afternoon declare, "I shall be ravishing in red!" or the next morning upon awaking decide, "I shall be glorious in green!" Then, while taking a turn in the Tower gardens, he would turn to me, nibbling uncertainly at his lower lip, and inquire, "Or should it be blue? I am always becoming in blue, and Mother says I am most piquant in pink. Just think how striking I would be in silver with my hair blazing like gold in the sun!"

But I just smiled and said, "If ever an occasion called for gold, this is the one." And Guildford nodded and smiled and finally made up his mind.

"What better occasion than one's coronation to deck oneself entirely in gold? I was made for gold!" he cried. Then he went on to fill the tailors' hearts with joy when he told them to go ahead and finish the other suits that languished in various states of completion-"for one can never have too many clothes, and I intend to be the best dressed king England has ever seen; if she is not careful I shall even outshine my own queen.

"I shall dazzle them," he went on. "When they see me, my subjects shall think they've died and gone to heaven and an angel stands before them! And upon the steps of Westminster Abbey, when Jane and I emerge, hand in hand, crowned, with robes of ermine flowing from our shoulders, I shall sing!"

"No!" Suddenly Guildford's brothers-Ambrose, John, and Robert-who had spent the day sitting at a nearby table playing cards, bolted up, sending chairs crashing and cards flying, as they shoved past the tailors. Their mother, who often observed the fittings, sitting on the window seat smiling over her embroidery and nodding approvingly at every word Guildford uttered, gently made her way to Guildford's side and laid her hand lovingly upon his shoulder.

"Darling," the d.u.c.h.ess said gently, "you don't really want to waste your voice on the common rabble-dirty, uncouth people who are incapable of appreciating the gift G.o.d has given you-do you?"

"It seems almost sacrilegious to me," John ventured.

"Yes"-Ambrose nodded vigorously-"and in your ermine robes-think how hot and heavy they shall be-you are apt to overtax yourself!"

"Yes," Robert added emphatically, "and what if you were to faint from the heat, excitement, and strain of it all? The people might think that their new king is a weakling. And you know the Spaniards and the French are always watching; their amba.s.sadors shall be right there watching your every move and recording every word you speak so the story would soon spread abroad. And if they think you are weak, it could mean war!"

"You are right." Guildford nodded sagely. "How fortunate I am to have the benefit of my family's loving wisdom to guide me. Very well, I shall wait until the banquet, when I have been divested of my ermine robes, had my brow ma.s.saged with rosewater, and eased my throat with cooling wine, and then I shall sing for our n.o.ble and refined guests, who are certain to appreciate the precious gift I shall give them." Then, before his loving family could object further, he clapped his hands and called for the tailors to resume his fitting.

"My son is the most beautiful boy in the world," the d.u.c.h.ess of Northumberland said softly, admiringly, as she watched Guildford being draped in gold.

"Until he opens his mouth," Ambrose, standing behind her, added glumly as his brothers nodded.

Later that afternoon, when Jane was seated morosely on her throne in the presence chamber, the Crown was brought to her, by the Royal Treasurer, the Marquis of Winchester, to ensure that it fitted and, as our lady-mother said when she preempted the honour of placing it on her daughter's head, "to see if it suits."

Jane shrank from it, as though she feared it, even as the Marquis spoke comfortingly, a.s.suring her that, "Your Grace may take it without fear."

"It is not my right!" Jane whimpered, but her protests fell on deaf ears as she slouched lower, cringing away from it, whining piteously as she suffered it to be set upon her head. She barely tolerated it a moment before she put it from her, letting it fall with a great clanking clatter onto the stone floor.

The Marquis of Winchester gave an appalled gasp, and our lady-mother gave Jane's arm a vicious pinch.

Guildford picked the crown up and held it at arm's length, eyeing it critically. "And where is my crown?" he demanded. "You haven't even come to measure my head yet!" He turned accusing, icy green eyes on Winchester.

"I-I-one shall have to be made, Your Grace," he stammered.

"No!" Jane cut him off savagely, s.n.a.t.c.hing the crown roughly from Guildford's hands and thrusting it blindly at the Treasurer. "A crown you shall not have! You shall not be king! Your father thought to play kingmaker when they forced me to marry you, but he shall not succeed! I shall create you a duke, but nothing more!"

"I will be made king by you and by Act of Parliament!" Guildford insisted. "I shall settle for nothing less. It is an insult, and most demeaning, for you to be queen and I, your husband and consort, only a duke!"

"You will never be king! Never!" Jane shouted.

"Oh yes, I will!" Guildford countered. "If you don't make me king, I'll ..."

Those lords and ladies standing nearest watched avidly with bated breaths and crowded as close as they dared, eager to see who would win this battle of wills.

"You'll what?" Jane demanded, folding her arms across her chest and glaring hard at Guildford.

"If you don't make me king, I'll"-Guildford gave a tantalizing pause before he rushed on, throwing the words down like a challenge to a duel-"I'll leave you forever and go home to my mother!"

Jane turned slowly, stretched out her arm, and pointed. "There is the door, you lily-livered, mollycoddled milksop, go on back to your mother; I'm surprised that you've even been weaned!" With these words she turned her back on Guildford and flounced sulkily back to slouch sullen-faced upon her unwanted throne. When Mrs. Ellen, so long accustomed to the role of governess, leaned over and whispered a gentle reminder about ladylike posture, Jane glared daggers at her.

"Yes, my love," Guildford said icily, "but you know it would be much simpler if you just called me Guildford, but I daresay a girl who reads Plato in Greek can't help showing off and striving to impress everyone with her vocabulary in any language even when there's no need!" Then he was striding out the door, the very picture of elegant indignation.

A few moments later, hearing a commotion outside, Jane bolted from her throne and hurled herself at the open window, leaning so far out I feared she would fall and ran to be ready to wrap my arms around her legs and act as her anchor if need be. Adopting the most imperious tone I had ever heard come from her, Jane called down to the guards, ordering them to stop Guildford from leaving the Tower. "Although I have no need of my husband in my bed at night," she said scathingly, in a loud, clear voice that would have made the most potent man wither, "by day his place is by my side!"

When Guildford reappeared, Jane ran up to him, and, for a moment I thought she was going to launch herself at him with arms swinging. But instead, she stopped, panting angrily before him, and, with her chin thrust high, announced, "Your father forced me to a.s.sume this throne that is not mine by right and shall be my downfall, but you shall not desert me like a rat fleeing a sinking ship; when we sink-and we will!-we shall go down together! If my life is forfeit because of your father, yours shall not be spared!"

"Oh!" Guildford sighed. "I am touched beyond words that you want us to be together until the day we die; is that not what you are saying, my lady-wife? Really, we must teach you to say these things in a sweeter and more romantic and affectionate way, a more feminine manner that does not instantly call to mind salty-tongued sailors. Even though I can see through these angry and insulting words to the truth that is in your heart, some might be deceived and take you seriously. We don't want the foreign amba.s.sadors reporting back to their masters that the King and Queen of England hate each other and quarrel like a sailor and a fishwife!"

The a.s.sembled lords and ladies chuckled softly at Guildford's jest.

"Oooh!" Jane seethed, balling her fists and stamping her feet in frustration, before she stormed into her bedchamber and slammed the door. A moment later she opened the door again, stuck her head out, and screeched, "I hate you!" before slamming it again.

"Careful, Jane!" Guildford called after her. "People will think we're in love!"

But the argument didn't end there. That night after Guildford had slipped naked between the perfumed silk sheets and s.n.a.t.c.hed away Jane's beloved volume of Plato's Phaedo and flung it across the room, his mother barged in, dark braids bouncing indignantly down her back, in her lavender damask dressing gown and lace-frilled cap. She was carrying a sumptuous gold-ta.s.selled and embroidered emerald velvet dressing gown and a pair of gold-slashed green velvet slippers that she had kept for hours warming before the fire.

"Come, Guildford!" she said, holding the dressing gown out for him to slip his arms into, then kneeling to slide his feet into the slippers as though he were a little child. "I, your loving mother, cannot permit you to share the bed of such an ungrateful, undutiful wife who denies you the kingship that you deserve, and, as her husband, is your right!"

"Yes, Mother." Guildford nodded dutifully.

"You selfish girl," she continued to berate Jane as Kate, Mrs. Ellen, and I rushed out, in our night robes and caps with our hair hanging down in braids, from the adjoining room where Jane had asked us to stay the night. She had felt unwell after dinner and feared her fever was returning and wanted us near in the hope that our presence would deter a scene such as this one. "Don't you know that you owe your crown to us?" the d.u.c.h.ess demanded. "If it had not been for my husband, you would not be queen at all! We have given you the most precious jewel of our family-Guildford! How can you be so ungrateful? To deny him the Crown! Look at him! If any man deserves a crown, it's Guildford!"

"A bright, shiny gold one with emeralds to accentuate my eyes," Guildford interjected. "I want everyone to say King Guildford is the brightest coin in the realm! And I want my profile minted on all the coins too! Well, all the gold ones," he amended. "You can have the silver ones, Jane, since after all, you are queen."

"Is there no end to your vanity?" Jane glared hard at him, then turned back to the d.u.c.h.ess and said frostily, "The Crown is not a plaything for boys and girls. When I look at Guildford, I see a man behaving like a petulant child who has been denied a toy he covets."

The d.u.c.h.ess looked angry enough to strike Jane, but somehow she held back, and instead spun on her heel and marched out, calling, "Come, Guildford!"

"Yes, Mother!" Guildford called, then turned back to Jane. "I will not be a duke, I will be king! If you are queen, it only stands to reason that I am king!" Then he impulsively flung wide his dressing gown, exposing his body in full, naked glory one last time before Jane's wide-open, astonished eyes, to remind her what she would be missing. "Don't look to have me again," he said cattily, closing his robe and knotting the sash tight, "unless I am crowned king. Only then will this jewel again be yours!" With a toss of his golden curls, and his perfect nose haughty high in the air, he followed his mother out the door and down the torch-lit corridor to the bedchamber she had ordered prepared for him.

Fluttering her hand over her heart, Kate sank down onto the foot of Jane's bed. "Oh my!" She shook her head again as if to clear it of the vision of Guildford's nakedness. "Jane, if I weren't already married ... if I didn't love Berry so much ... Oh, Jane! I would swap husbands with you in a heartbeat! Guildford is so very ..."

"Vain, arrogant, childish, petulant, absurd, vapid, conceited, insufferable, ignorant, and empty-headed!" Jane unleashed a furious rush of words. "He's the worst kind of fool-the kind who thinks he isn't one! I hate him! If it were up to me, I would say, 'Take him!' but you're my sister, Kate, and I love you, and I wouldn't wish Guildford Dudley on my worst enemy! A knife in the eye is almost preferable to spending even one hour with him!"

"Well ... yes"-Kate nodded slowly-"but he's so good-looking! Everyone has faults, Jane; can't you find it in your heart to be a little more tolerant and forgiving and try to regard his flaws as charming little foibles? After all, he's so good-looking!"

"No!" Jane said adamantly, lying back down and pounding her pillow hard. "I wanted my sisters here to comfort me, not to lecture me! Everyone is against me! No one cares about me and what I want and how I feel," she cried, and promptly burst into tears, and both Kate and I had to rush to comfort her while Mrs. Ellen went to prepare a soothing draught that would ease her into a quiet sleep.

For the rest of their marriage, Jane and Guildford would sleep apart no matter how hard Kate and I tried to bring them back together. Their hot pride consigned them each to a cold and lonely bed.

The days rolled slowly past, and I watched my sister's eyes grow dark shadowed and purple brown, mottled bruises blossom on her bare arms where she kept pinching herself in a vain attempt to wake herself up from the nightmare her life had become.

In her bedchamber, clad only in her shift-now the plainest garment she was allowed to wear-Jane would stand and stare at the many ornate clocks that the courtiers had, most curiously, given her as gifts. There were clocks of gold, clocks of silver, many beautifully enamelled, and yet more clocks made of ebony, ivory, exquisitely painted porcelain, jade, carved stone, honey-hued oak, and gleaming, dark, varnished cherry. They sat on every suitable surface, covering every table and lined up in neat rows upon the mantels of the great stone fireplaces that warmed Jane's rooms. Her fingers would reach out and move the gilded hands around the ivory faces.