The Fallen Queen Part 9

7.

Our lady-mother would not allow us to be tainted by Jane's disgrace. "When a fox is caught in a trap sometimes it chews off its own leg to save its life," she said savagely as she shouted to Father, complaining of boredom in his bedchamber across the hall, to stay in bed. "Feign fearing for your life, Hal, if you haven't the wit to do it in truth! And enjoy that soft, comfortable bed while you can, for tomorrow you may be in the Tower if I cannot persuade the Queen to clemency!" She added this as she elbowed Henny aside and gave Kate's corset laces a vicious yank that made my sister, standing there clinging to the bedpost as though for dear life, wince and cry out, while I, in my new blue black velvet, sat and watched in silence, nervously fingering the sapphire and diamond crucifix our lady-mother had herself fastened about my neck while Hetty braided my hair with ropes of pearls.

But though I sat mute and pliant, inside my heart was raging. It was all so unfair! We were going to court to plead for our family's fortune and Father's life, but when I asked our lady-mother what about Jane, she sternly rebuked me and cautioned me not to mention my sister's name or refer to her at all even with the most subtle hint before our cousin, the Queen. It wasn't right! Jane was to be sacrificed, when she had done naught but obey our parents and her father-in-law. She had never wanted the Crown; she had been all along the p.a.w.n of ambitious, greedy, power hungry men, all of whom had turned tail and run to our royal cousin and saved themselves, and now Jane was a prisoner with no one to speak on her behalf. It wasn't fair! She amongst them all, even our beloved father, was the one most deserving of mercy!

"Pinch your cheeks to give them colour!" our lady-mother hissed in Kate's ear as she gave the laces another sharp tug that I feared would snap Kate in half then knotted them tight. "Remember to smile, albeit demurely; you must subdue your sparkle," she counselled, though somehow, looking at Kate's pale and sickly face, I didn't think that would be a problem. "Anything more risks appearing unsuitably brazen given your current circ.u.mstances."

My sister teetered and seemed on the verge of fainting as she clung even tighter to the gilded bedpost. Yet she whispered softly, obediently, "Yes, my lady-mother." My poor Kate, all the fight and spirit seemed to have been wrung out of her by that vile black potion; she was so quiet now, so listless and pale, so caught up in her own woes that I feared she too had forgotten about Jane.

But our lady-mother didn't care how weak and wobbly Kate was, that she was loathe to go to court and appear before the all-appraising eyes as a divorced and disgraced woman, and even perchance see her former husband and father-in-law basking in the Queen's favour while we knelt before her as rosary-clutching, crucifix-wearing penitents.

"Too pale! You're whiter than a bedsheet, my girl; that will never do!" Our lady-mother sighed and stormed out to fetch her own rouge pot, pausing to shout again at Father, who was now whining petulantly for sugared almonds, while Kate, now arrayed in gold-flowered brocade the colour of dried blood, sank down onto the foot of the bed and let Henny fasten a diamond crucifix about her throat and brush her beautiful hair, adorning it with diamond and pearl flowered combs, but otherwise leaving it unbound like a virgin's-our lady-mother's way of advertising the fact that Kate was again available and still a good and, most important of all, an unsullied catch-not just barely used and like a virgin but a virgin indeed.

"Remember who you are!" our lady-mother said fiercely as she gripped Kate's chin hard and began to paint her lips and cheeks. "Queen Mary is seven years past thirty. Her womb has been the bane of her existence, bringing her great pain every month since she first began to bleed-'strangulation of the womb' the doctors call it-and even if she should overcome her old maid's timidity and marry, until she bears a son, you are heiress to the throne! She cannot abide Elizabeth! So stop moping and hold your head up high, and I promise you, a day will come, when that weak, snivelling boy will beg you to take him back, and you can gaze at him with withering scorn and say, Nay! You shall have better, my love, far better than the Earl of Pembroke's puny son! The boy's character is as weak as his knees, and the same is probably true of his c.o.c.k too! You married a jelly, but trust me, my Kate, you are well rid of him! I know-I married a jelly too, that ninny lying across the hall braying like an a.s.s for sugared almonds when his very life is at stake, but I made it work for me. Take that lesson to heart, Kate, though the Lord and Law teach us that the husband rules and it is the wife's duty to obey his every wish and whim, I as your mother tell you that you, as a wife, must always find a way to gain the upper hand; you will be lost and miserable if you don't! Now smile!" she commanded and held up the mermaid hand mirror.

"Look at yourself! Such beauty should never even know what sorrow means! Your beauty is your fortune, my love; you can make men bleed and beg for you and use them as you will and never lift a finger even if they think that you are their pretty plaything; learn from this misfortune, my daughter, and use your power well while you can; beauty does not last forever, and one day you'll wake up and discover that without your beauty you are nothing!"

"Yes, my lady-mother." Kate nodded, staring straight ahead, her eyes blind and unseeing, and I was certain she had not heard a word. Thankfully, our lady-mother, already primping before the looking gla.s.s in her garish salmon velvet spangled with gold beads and diamonds, and trimmed with red fox fur, wasn't paying attention; she was preoccupied with stuffing a stray strand of Tudor red hair back into the golden net, fluffing the orange, pink, and white plumes on her velvet hat, and slathering yet more rouge on her cheeks, so Kate's docile answer was enough to content her.

I don't know how we did it. I don't know how we found the strength to walk into the presence chamber, a parade of penitents in finery instead of sackcloth and ashes, with censorious eyes glaring at us from all sides, and kneel humbly before our royal cousin. Kate faltered and almost fainted when we pa.s.sed the Earl of Pembroke, who stared straight ahead and through her like gla.s.s, and watery-eyed Berry, whose doughy belly made him look like a blueberry in his blue velvet doublet, but at least he had the decency to blush and hang his head in shame. But I held Kate's hand tight, letting her feel the bite of my nails, willing her to feel my own strength flowing into her and stay on her feet. She squeezed back and gave me a grateful little smile, and we continued our slow, torturous progress, following our lady-mother up to the gilded throne upon the crimson-carpeted dais where our royal cousin sat gowned in regal purple beneath the gold-fringed canopy of estate, squinting her shortsighted eyes at us.

It all pa.s.sed in a blur that, when we discussed it later, neither Kate nor I could recall clearly except in a few sharp fragments like shards of gla.s.s picked up from the muddy river silt. I remember kneeling several paces behind our lady-mother and staring entranced at her gold-spurred bloodred Spanish leather boots as she knelt laboriously, with creaking, protesting stays that made those standing nearest sn.i.g.g.e.r, before our royal cousin. Kate recalled our lady-mother's sausage-fat pink fingers twisting and tugging at the numerous chains of diamonds and ropes of pearls that encircled her thick, florid neck, pointedly caressing the most prominent jewel of all-a great diamond crucifix as large as a man's hand, while her other hand clutched the pink coral rosary at her waist. She swore we had seen the error of our ways and embraced the true faith and pleaded for Father's life, claiming that Northumberland had secretly administered a slow-acting poison, to influence Father's behaviour and put him in fear of his life; compelling him to bend his will to his own if he hoped to attain the antidote and live. And our poor father yet languished, our lady-mother said, an ailing and befuddled invalid uncertain of his life, with a priest's comforting presence keeping vigil at his bedside, aiding in his prayers, which he uttered fervently every waking moment, imploring G.o.d to spare him and that Her Majesty Queen Mary find it in her heart to be merciful to her loyal and loving kinsman who, though he had never wavered in his love for her, had been led most grievously astray by the Devil's henchman Northumberland.

"My husband, as Your Majesty well knows," our lady-mother said apologetically, "is a weak and foolish man, and, alas, he fell into the power of Satan's emissary-the evil Northumberland. I tried, with a wife's gentle persuasions to dissuade him, but alas"-she sighed-"it is a wife's duty to obey her husband and be guided by him, not to counsel him or try to usurp his power."

I choked on my laughter and had to quickly feign a sneeze when she turned and glared furiously at me.

I remember our proud lady-mother, sweating and red-faced, crawling laboriously on her fat knees up the stairs of the dais to kiss the hem of Cousin Mary's purple velvet gown and then receive her embrace and a kiss on each cheek. Then Kate and I were there, in our cousin's arms, feeling her soft velvet sleeves enfolding us like a pair of purple wings, and the hot yet dry caress of her lips brushing our cheeks and the overpowering odour of her musky perfume mingling with her sweat on that hot July day.

"We are family," the new queen magnanimously declared, "and all is forgiven!" Though all, I would later discover, didn't include Jane; she had been conveniently forgotten, like dust a lazy servant had swept under the grand Turkey carpet.

I gazed up into our royal cousin's pale, pinched, and lined face, half blinded by the rainbow of jewels bordering the purple velvet hood that crowned her faded hair as the sun poured in through the high arched windows and struck them, and prayed G.o.d that she could read my mind as I gripped her hands and silently beseeched her to be kind and merciful to Jane.

But Cousin Mary merely smiled and bent down to pat my cheek as she whispered, "You need not be in awe of me now that I am queen, little cousin; you are still as dear to me as ever." Then Kate was in her arms, as Cousin Mary crooned over her and caressed her face-"so pale, my pretty Kate!"-and condoled with her over the loss of her husband and, taking the pearl rosary that hung from Kate's waist and wrapping it comfortingly around her pale, bloodless fingers, promised that G.o.d would provide a balm for her wounds if she asked Him to. "Pray, Cousin Kate, pray, and in G.o.d's love you will find a greater consolation than in the arms of Pembroke's lad."

Kate nodded blankly and answered softly with a dazed, "Yes, Your Majesty." She looked ready to fall over in a faint, and I quickly moved to help guide her down the dais as we retreated, backward, curtsying thrice as royal etiquette demanded.

Cousin Mary said more, but neither Kate nor I remembered. We felt as if we were watching it all from under water and the babbling current m.u.f.fled our ears; it all seemed so foreign and far away as though it were happening to someone else and the scene was being played out in a foreign language that neither of us could comprehend. And then it was all over, and we were home again, back at Suffolk House, and our lady-mother was calling in the dressmakers again, to outfit Kate and me for court, where we were to go and live and serve our gracious queen as ladies of the bedchamber, and at the same time sternly shaking a finger at Father, who had padded in in his velvet slippers with his comfit box in hand and his valet in tow bearing a gilded tray groaning with fruit and cream-filled pastries and pretty marzipan cakes. He sat pale and shivering by the fire in a cinnamon and white, swirled, brocade dressing gown, listing to our lady-mother insisting that he must, when questioned, say that he did not remember, that he had been ill, and in fear-deadly fear-for his life, and that he must lay all the blame upon Northumberland and say that he had given him poison that had made him follow docile as a dog wherever he led, even unto the folly of committing high treason.

"Yes, dear." Father nodded distractedly as he nibbled on a piece of marzipan.

"But what about Jane?" I asked.

"Shut up, Mary!" our lady-mother hissed as she swung around and dealt me such a slap that I, sitting on the foot of Kate's bed, fell backward, my legs actually flying up over my head, in a somersault that would have been comic had it all not been so very tragic.

Seeing our woebegone, tear-streaked faces, Father came and sat down between us. He gave us each a sugar roll and put his arms around us.

"There, there"-he patted our shoulders-"it's not so bad; think of all the wonderful pastries and sweetmeats you shall have to eat at court! Cakes filled with berries in wine and slathered with rich cream, honeyed pear tarts in flaky golden crusts, marzipan cakes with gilded frosting-mmmm ... edible gold!-bitter oranges and tart lemons made sweet with shimmering coatings of sugar crystals, tangy candied figs and apricots, candied cherries bright and fine as rubies, red jewels to delight the tongue, sugarplums, almonds hidden inside sh.e.l.ls of coloured sugar, mincemeat pies, moist golden cakes sodden with cinnamon syrup, and the subtleties-just think of the subtleties, my dears!"

As our lady-mother rolled her eyes, he mused rapturously about these wonderful works of edible art, wrought from spun sugar and marzipan, in marvellous, miraculous, and magnificent designs, confectionary art and architecture, made especially for the Queen's table, by confectioners who deserved to stand shoulder to shoulder with the world's most brilliant architects. "I've never understood it! Why are the greatest architects remembered but the best pastry cooks forgotten? Where are their memorials? I'll tell you-melted like sugar in the rain! Oh the fickleness of humanity! It makes me want to weep!" he cried and reached into his comfit box and shoved another handful of sugared almonds into his mouth.

Kate and I just sat there, staring down at the sugar rolls growing sticky in the heat of our hands. It just wasn't fair! We were to be ladies-in-waiting, to live in luxury at court, with dancing, feasting, and beautiful clothes, and a generous allowance for each of us of eighty pounds per annum, while our sister was to languish in prison with the shadow of the axe hanging over her. Just as Nero fiddled while Rome burned, our lady-mother was draping our shoulders with pale orange satin to see which of us it suited best and debating whether the gold braid or vermilion silk fringe made the best trim, and Father was railing against the unjustly forgotten pastry cooks of bygone centuries. There seemed to be no justice left in the world!

8.

To appease the fears and keep-or win-the good regard of her n.o.bles, Queen Mary decreed that they should keep their church spoils and plunder, that while the religion would in time be restored, the properties and goods would remain where they were, in private hands. But there were other things that made the men squirm uneasily in their seats around the council table-Queen Mary seemed to trust Senor Renard, the Spanish amba.s.sador, more than she did any Englishman. She deferred to him at every turn. And though it was true these men, most of whom had betrayed and sacrificed my sister to save themselves, did not merit great trust, they were all Englishmen born and bred who would put their own proud little nation before the interests of any foreign country and fight for it unto the death.

It all seemed such a fraud to me! My family and many of the men who now sat on the Queen's Council had, until a scant few weeks ago, been Protestants, ardent devotees of the Reformed Religion, yet now we all decked ourselves with rosaries and crucifixes, listened to the priests' Latin litanies, and marvelled at the miraculous moment when the bread and wine became the body and blood of our saviour Jesus Christ, and never missed a Ma.s.s.

"We are all turncoats and hypocrites," I said to Kate one day as we were dressing in the room we shared at Greenwich Palace, donning the russet and black velvet livery we wore during our daily attendance upon the Queen, saving our finery for evenings, holy days, Sundays, special celebrations, banquets, b.a.l.l.s, and feasts.

Kate vehemently agreed, adding, albeit softly lest the walls have ears, that she herself believed that Princess Elizabeth had it right and that there was but one Jesus Christ and all the rest was naught but dispute and debate over trifles.

As I finished lacing the back of her gown, Kate turned and in all seriousness said to me, "I believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and try to honour and live by his teachings, I read my Bible, follow the Ten Commandments, and say my prayers; why is that not enough, Mary? Why must we be either Catholic or Protestant? Why must lives be ruined and sacrificed for either faith?"

"Heaven only knows." I sighed as I stepped up onto the trunk at the foot of our bed and grasped the bedpost so Kate could return the favour and lace mine. "For I certainly don't!"

Meanwhile, in Master Partridge's house, Jane waited, through the sweltering heat and summer storms. Wait-that was really all she could do. She had already written and justified herself as best she could to the Queen.

Day after day she pa.s.sed sitting tensely by the window, quietly observing the gate to see who came in and out, warily watching the Tower Green, gazing at the Beauchamp Tower, where Guildford and his brothers were kept, and the chapel. All the while the fever burned slow and steadily within her, making the August heat even harder to bear. Mercifully it never rose alarmingly high, never enough to drive her out of her senses into the arms of delirium, or to require more than cooling compresses, but it never departed either.

From her window, Jane watched our royal cousin ride through the Tower gates in triumphal procession, amidst heralds and trumpets and splendidly arrayed n.o.bility, mounted on a white palfrey caparisoned in gold embroidered white velvet nigh down to the horse's hooves, with Cousin Mary herself in grand purple array embroidered with a blinding blaze of gold and a jewelled coronet casting rainbows over her faded hair and haggard face.

Before we hastened to take up her train, Kate and I waved and blew a swift kiss to Jane, just to let her know that we had not forgotten her.

And Jane was there at her window, to observe in stern and disapproving silence the Catholic requiem Ma.s.s Queen Mary ordered in memoriam of the late King Edward. Though, in fairness to our royal cousin, I must say this was more for her than for him, for she had already given Edward the stark Protestant funeral service at Westminster Abbey that he would have wanted. Kate and I, as well as our lady-mother, walked, veiled and black clad, each of us with a large silver crucifix on our breast and a black onyx rosary in our hands, behind the new queen, amidst priests in embroidered and brocaded robes and miters and swinging censers that engulfed us in perfumed blue clouds of incense that made us cough and feel light-headed.

And Jane was there at her window to watch Northumberland embrace the Catholic faith in a desperate ploy to preserve his life. Whenever she saw him being escorted under guard to hear Ma.s.s in the Tower's chapel, she pounded the gla.s.s and loudly denounced him as "a hypocrite," "an evil fraud," "a base and false man," "a white-livered milksop," and "the devil's imp." She accused him of "trading the beautiful temple of G.o.d for Satan's stinking, filthy kennel" and shouted, "Whoso denieth Him before men, he will not know Him in His Father's kingdom!" But if he heard her, Northumberland gave no sign, studiously bowing his head over his book of hours as a pearl rosary swung from his hand, the dangling silver crucifix catching the last rays of the dying sun. Sometimes his sons followed after-Ambrose, John, and Robert-a penitent trio of bowed, dark heads, but strangely never Guildford. Later I heard that when he was coaxed to convert, to try to save himself, Guildford-vain, foppish, frivolous Guildford-replied that since his wife valued the Reformed Faith so highly he didn't think "it should be cast off lightly like one suit of clothes for another."

On the twenty-third day of August, Jane was there at her window to witness the poignant farewell between Northumberland and his sons, outside the chapel where he had just heard Ma.s.s for the last time. Stoically, he bade each boy a fond farewell, until he came to Guildford. It was then that Northumberland's famous composure deserted him. He pressed his golden boy to his breast again and again and wept and kissed him, before Sir John Bridges gently parted them and led Northumberland away to die upon the scaffold, where he once again renounced the Reformed Religion and implored the Queen to be merciful to his children, and remember that they had only obeyed their father as all good and obedient children were reared to do.

But there was reason to take heart; the night before her coronation, when I knelt to remove Cousin Mary's gold-embroidered, rose velvet slippers, while Kate brushed and braided her long, lank hair in readiness for bed, hoping to coax the faded, dingy, orange and grey strands into holding a wave on her day of triumph, Cousin Mary dismissed her other ladies. She bade us to sit beside her and, with her arms draped affectionately about us, confided that she could not bear to have a pall of sorrow cast over the morrow, she wanted it to be a happy day for all, so we must banish our fears and know that Jane had naught to fear from her.

"An innocent girl should not suffer for the crimes and greed of others, and my conscience, and my heart, will not allow me to condemn unjustly. I know it may seem an unjust punishment, but your sister is safer where she is at present. She is housed in comfort and treated with great kindness. As soon as I am married and have borne a son, then, when no man can dare raise a banner in your sister's name, to try to claim for her a crown I know she does not want, then it will be safe-for her and for me-to set her free. For now, I am protecting her by preventing any man from using her as his p.a.w.n; when I restore Jane to liberty I want her to be truly free, to know that no one can ever do that to her again. She is a young woman, not a weapon, and youth and beauty are fleeting, I know, and I want her to be able to enjoy them before they slip away."

Jane was there, as we knew she would be, watching from her window, upon that sultry September morning when the long, splendid coronation procession a.s.sembled in the courtyard, led by Queen Mary seated resplendently in a golden litter in sumptuous ermine-bordered, gold-embroidered sapphire velvet and a dazzling coronet of jewelled flowers like a spring garden sprouting from the lost and faded glory of her hair.

For that occasion, I made two red silk petticoats trimmed with golden lace, for Kate and me to wear beneath our new crimson and ermine gowns. Upon each I embroidered three golden b.u.t.terflies, working a concealed initial into the wings of each-J, K, M. When we emerged from the royal apartments, to take our places in the procession, we boldly went to stand before Master Partridge's house, so that Jane could see us. We lifted our skirts to show our petticoats, the three golden b.u.t.terflies, and we held up three fingers then pointed up to Jane, then back at ourselves, to show that we had not forgotten her, that we were still together, three sisters, and nothing could divide us.

"The brilliant one," Jane mouthed.

Then it was Kate's turn-"The beautiful one."

Then mine-"The beastly little one."

Jane watched us climb into a gilded chariot where a discreet crimson-carpeted step had been supplied to put me at an equal height with Kate. It was with glad and excited hearts that we waved gaily back at Jane as the trumpets sounded and the long, winding procession headed out the Tower gates to progress slowly through the city to Westminster Abbey. We blew kisses back to her, hoping to convey to her that soon, very soon, all would be well, we had the Queen's word upon it, and she would soon be free, to live quietly with her beloved books and Guildford and perhaps-how Kate and I hoped!-learn to embrace the joys of being young, beautiful, and to taste and savour the fruits of love. We still believed that love was possible between Jane and Guildford; if Jane would only stop fighting desire as though it were a demon sent to tempt and torment her.

But we didn't know then that Senor Renard was holding Prince Philip, the dazzling golden Spanish bridegroom, out, tantalizing, before Queen Mary, dangling the man whose portrait our royal cousin had fallen in love with like a carrot before a donkey's nose, trying to compel her to condemn Jane, making it so that Mary must choose between Jane's life and the love she had always longed for. But in those days our cousin was still clinging strong to clemency, wringing her hands, and crying, "I cannot find it in my heart to put my unfortunate kinswoman to death." Vainly she tried to a.s.sure Amba.s.sador Renard that "every requisite precaution will be taken before I set the Lady Jane at liberty." But by these a.s.surances he would not be placated, and Mary's dream of marriage with her gold-bearded Spanish prince seemed to drift further and further away, until, I think, she too began to see that Jane stood between her and the most incredible, fierce desire she had ever known.

Jane was still a prisoner the bl.u.s.tery October day when she turned sixteen. We were afraid she would think that we had forgotten her, so we wanted to do something special to let her know that even though our bodies were apart we, her loving and devoted sisters, were always there with her in spirit. Through Mrs. Ellen, we sent her a rich plum cake and a beautiful but, by court standards, plain, new gown of the more modest cut Jane favoured. It was made of velvet of that most delicate hue of blue known as milk-and-water with its modest square-cut bodice edged with luminous moonstones. Mrs. Ellen ignored Jane's protests and dressed her in it and brushed and crowned the red-kissed brown waves of her hair with a delicate pearl chaplet. With the connivance of Mr. and Mrs. Partridge and Sir John Bridges, we arranged that Jane be encouraged to walk in the walled garden after supper and enjoy the breeze off the river.

How Kate and I relished imagining the scene that followed! Kate pleaded a headache and to be excused from her duties that night, and I was allowed to stay with her, and we lay side by side on our bed, imagining Guildford Dudley clad head to toe in shining white stealing up behind Jane and gently cupping his hand over her mouth so she would not scream. With his own body, he would press her against the side of Master Partridge's house, letting her feel his desire, and there, in the shadows of the weeping willow tree, sheltered by the lilac bush, lift her skirts and make sweet love to her. Even when the rain began to fall and the lightning flashed across the darkened sky, Kate and I imagined them clinging all the closer, feeling the full scorching heat of their pa.s.sion in the chill of the autumn rain.

But Jane always knew how to spoil a good dream. The next day Mrs. Ellen told us that, after their pa.s.sion had been spent and Jane had pushed Guildford into a mud puddle, she rushed into the Partridges' kitchen, soaked to the skin, breathless, and bedraggled, and frantically sought lemon juice and vinegar. She had made a great mess, which she did not tarry to clean up, attempting to pour both into a wine bottle, then bolted up the stairs to her bedchamber, ripped off her sodden clothes, and flung herself naked upon the bed. She spread her legs wide, and, with a rage-fuelled brutality akin to rape, shoved the long, slender neck of the bottle inside her cunny, thrusting her hips high as she poured its tart, stinging contents inside her.

When Mrs. Ellen tried to intervene, fearing that Jane would do herself an injury, Jane snarled like a mad dog and slapped her hands away, shouting, "Leave me be!" and Mrs. Ellen quietly withdrew to sit upon a stool in the corner. Later, when Jane lay curled upon her side and wept because the mixture stung and burned her inside, and she ached from the bruising force of the bottle she had thrust into her secret centre, she rejected all Mrs. Ellen's attempts to comfort her and ordered her to get out.

"Leave me be! Leave me be!" she sobbed to the rhythm of Mrs. Ellen's softly retreating footsteps.

When I heard about it later, I sighed and shook my head and felt the salty p.r.i.c.k of tears stab my eyes. There was a battle betwixt angels and demons raging inside my sister, so heated, confused, crowded, and clouded by smoke and writhing, warring bodies, sometimes it was impossible to tell good from bad, friend from foe, or who would triumph in the end. I loved my sister, but I despaired of ever understanding her. Why must she fight against herself and push away any who would love and comfort her? Why did she relish the role of victim and stage her life for sacrifice? Why did she reject pleasure and choose pain time and again?

These questions I can ask, but never answer, and I wonder sometimes if Jane even could. Perhaps the truths were too deeply buried to ever be unearthed. Some things are not meant for the plain light of day and prefer to dwell in darkness; some things are better left hidden no matter how much curiosity needles us.

9.

On a bitterly cold November morning, Kate and I huddled together in our furs and stood amongst a great crowd on a busy London street to watch Jane and Guildford walk to the Guildhall in London, where they were to stand trial. We tried not to be afraid. Everyone said it was just a formality. Proper form must be observed, and since Jane had technically committed treason, albeit most unwillingly and under duress, she must still be condemned, but everyone knew the Queen intended to a.s.sert her royal prerogative and issue a pardon.

Though the people stood and stared, and did naught to shatter the peace of that bitingly cold morning, a number of halberdiers in uniforms as bright as blood splashed on the snow surrounded the prisoners, each man walking with the gleaming head of his new-polished axe turned out to show that the accused had not yet been condemned. We tried to catch Jane's eye, but she kept her head bent over the black velvet prayer book she held open before her, her lips moving silently over the words I hoped would give her enough comfort to see her through the coming ordeal. She wore stark, unadorned, black velvet, with an equally plain hood with a black silk veil fluttering in back. Mrs. Ellen and Mrs. Tylney, also clad in austere black, followed a few steps behind. Mrs. Ellen held a black velvet cloak lined and collared with fur over her arm, and when she saw Jane shiver, she unfolded it and started to step forward.

But Guildford, walking beside Jane, a vision in black velvet slashed with white satin and festooned with pearls, with a gay bouquet of pinks, violets, and his favourite yellow gillyflowers cut from silk to brighten the winter gloom pinned festively to his feathered hat, fell back a step and took it from her. He moved behind Jane and most tenderly draped it around her thin, trembling shoulders. But Jane never even looked up, much less glanced back, and I sincerely doubt she uttered even one word of thanks. Guildford, with a sorrowful expression, let his hands fall from where they had lingered on her shoulders and fell back in step beside her.

Kate and I clung together and waited, our eyes never once leaving the doors of the Guildhall. I don't think even a half hour pa.s.sed before they opened again and the procession emerged to make the return journey to the Tower. Although we knew what to expect, it was still like a hard slap that left us reeling. This time the axe heads were turned to point toward Jane and Guildford, and the silent ma.s.ses fell back with pitying and horrified gasps, some even daring to softly mutter "G.o.d save you!" to the condemned. Kate clutched my hand hard. "It's just for form's sake, it's just for form's sake," she kept repeating, as though by sheer repet.i.tion she could convince herself, and me.

Why should it not be true? After all, we had no reason to doubt our royal cousin. Though, in truth, I would have felt much better if, during the times we had spent with her, Jane had responded with a loving sweetness and sincere grat.i.tude instead of rudeness and hostility. Every time I looked back and remembered Jane's behaviour at Beaulieu that Christmas I felt sick to my very soul. I could still hear Jane taking Mary's lady-in-waiting to task for curtsying to the Host, quipping about the baker making Christ, and noisily breaking wind while Cousin Mary regaled us with stories of the saints' lives. Deep down a part of me feared, though Cousin Mary would deny it and try to bury it beneath layers of politeness, that Jane had indeed turned our kinswoman into a secret enemy. If it came down to a choice between a sulky girl who turned her back on priests and farted when told how the pious and worthy virgin Saint Lucy had plucked out her own eyes when her pagan betrothed admired them and cried, "Here, take them! Now leave me to G.o.d!" and a golden Spanish prince, handsome, l.u.s.ty, and devout, we all knew who our royal cousin would choose. I had seen the way her eyes devoured his portrait; it was the same way Father looked at plates of marzipan and Guildford Dudley, and our lady-mother regarded Adrian Stokes, the same hungry intensity, subtle and slow-burning, biding its time, trying to be patient while waiting to burst into pa.s.sionate flame.

Our royal cousin was fortunate, as only a queen can be, that she could always justify her choice by claiming Jane was a liability, a life that had to be sacrificed for the greater good, and that her marriage to Philip was an act of duty, not of pa.s.sion, to ensure the succession. But no one would be deceived. They would only see a l.u.s.t-mad old maid hankering to lift her petticoats for a golden-haired lad eleven years her junior, and they would all laugh and gossip and whisper and mock, but none of them would rush to be Jane's champion either; the n.o.bles at court cared only for themselves, and Jane's so-called friends, all the bookish scholars safely away in Protestant-friendly Switzerland and the Low Countries, were not knights in shining armour ready to ride out and rescue the lady-fair. And Jane was, in the end, worth more to them as a martyr-a young and beautiful martyr.

But Jane seemed oblivious to it all and displayed no concern; not even the faintest flicker of emotion flitted across her pale face. She never once lifted her head from her prayer book, and Guildford, walking beside her, stared blindly straight ahead, moving like one in a trance. Then, all of a sudden it seemed to strike him, like a blow coming out of the dark, and he staggered and stood still a moment, then fell back to walk several steps behind Jane and hung his head to try to hide the tears now pouring down his face. I remember the teardrop pearls tr.i.m.m.i.n.g his beautiful, black velvet hat fell forward, and it looked like even his hat was weeping too for beautiful, doomed Guildford Dudley, and the white plume that crowned it quaking, like a shaking fist, out of sheer fury at the unfairness of it all.

A lady in a rabbit fur cloak standing near us shook her head and sighed at the woebegone sight pa.s.sing mute and dazed before us-"How can they be so unkind to someone so beautiful?"-speaking words that Guildford himself might have uttered when the verdict was read. Both my sister and her unwanted husband had been condemned "to be burned or beheaded at the Queen's pleasure."

Kate knelt down, despite the snow that soaked through her skirts and chilled her knees, and hugged me so tight I thought she would squeeze all the breath out of me. We clung together, two sad little girls, fourteen and nine, swathed in rabbit fur, but ice-cold inside, and wept, feeling the hot tears turn to ice upon our wind-chapped cheeks.

In the days and weeks that followed, Jane could not rest; lit from within by the fire of fever, tormented by long, slow-dragging days and so many sleepless nights, she would nervously walk the floor, pacing back and forth, wall to wall, constantly reciting, as if to instill herself with courage: "Be constant, be constant: fear not any pain, Christ hath redeemed thee, and Heaven is thy gain." She had begun to fear that G.o.d was testing her with this imprisonment and was terrified that she would fail. No longer could she find forgetfulness and solace in her beloved books; she was too consumed with worry about what would become of her.

While we danced and revelled through the Twelve Days of Christmas and the New Year, Jane sat by the fire and stared at Mr. Partridge's Yule log, wondering if "to be burned or beheaded at the Queen's pleasure" would be her fate in the new year of 1554.

When she walked out into the biting winter air, Jane stubbornly refused to look up at the wall walk of the Beauchamp Tower, where Guildford was allowed to take his daily exercise. He would stand there and watch the river traffic, no doubt remembering the days when he had glided in grand style along the Thames reclining on the velvet cushions of his family's barge. He would stand and stare at London Bridge, where the heads of traitors were impaled on metal spikes and picked down to pearly bone by the ravenous ravens before their bare skulls were hurled into the river to make room for more. No doubt he wondered if his and Jane's heads would soon join them. Sometimes he watched Jane, gazing down at her, as though willing her to look up and wave at him. But she never did.

I always wished she had. One smile, one wave would have meant so much. Though they were kept in separate quarters, they were together, as prisoners condemned to die, yet they were alone because Jane willed it.

The New Year brought disaster instead of the peace I knew Queen Mary craved. The country was as unquiet, fearful, and restless as Jane's own feverish, fear-racked mind. People feared the coming of Philip. They were afraid he would bring the Spanish Inquisition with him as a bridal gift and that we would all lose ourselves under the red cloak of Spain. The Queen was so besotted with the prince of her dreams, giddy as a girl, she would sing and hum s.n.a.t.c.hes of songs throughout the day and sit for hours gazing lovingly at his portrait. Time and again she would declare, "I shall love him perfectly and never give him cause to be jealous!" never knowing how cruelly others mocked her for it, laughing behind her back, and how so many guffaws quickly became coughs as she pa.s.sed. The idea that our aging, spinster queen could ever give a man as handsome as Prince Philip, and eleven years younger than herself, cause to be jealous, was utterly absurd. To Prince Philip, this was a marriage of state, yet in her heart our royal cousin had transformed it into one of smouldering pa.s.sion. And when she heard rumours-as those cruel-minded mockers made certain she did-of his exotic and alluring mistresses and baseborn children, she made herself sick weeping, and only the Spanish amba.s.sador's a.s.surances that this was naught but false and malicious gossip could make her dry her eyes and smile again.

Senor Renard was urgently endeavouring to persuade her that Jane must die. He was also fanning the flames of Mary's fear and suspicion of her own half sister, Elizabeth. "Elizabeth is greatly to be feared," he cautioned, "for she has a power of enchantment; she has inherited her mother Anne Boleyn's sorcery"-knowing full well that just the mention of Anne Boleyn's name was enough to rekindle all our royal cousin's most deeply embedded grievances, reminding her that she had been the loved and adored princess until the woman she always called "The Great Wh.o.r.e" came along and ousted both Mary and her venerable mother, the pious and devout Catherine of Aragon, from Henry VIII's fickle affections.

Trouble was brewing, and you could sense it, even smell it, in the air. Thus it came as no surprise that in the county of Kent, a fine-figured, auburn-bearded man called Thomas Wyatt the Younger, the son of the poet who had at one time rivalled Henry VIII for the love of Anne Boleyn, began to raise an army, inciting others to join him. He intended that they should march on London, hoping with this show of might and force to dissuade Queen Mary from marrying Prince Philip. Wyatt would always afterward insist his sole aim had been to show Her Majesty that her people loved her but feared the threat of foreign domination that came hand in glove with the marriage. But some whispered that there was more to it-a secret scheme to wrest Mary from the throne and replace her with Princess Elizabeth, or Jane.

Then misfortune came to darken our doorstep once again. Our lady-mother was in London with the Queen, basking and revelling in her favour, flaunting her new jewels and gaudy velvets, gambling and making merry, and riding out with the royal hunt or alone with Master Stokes for a brisk, vigorous canter every chance she got, thus she failed to be properly vigilant where Father was concerned. If ever a man needed an alert and watchful wife it was Father. Left to his own devices in the country with his horses and hounds and recipe books filled with sweet things he was always pestering the cook to make, he was in a most vulnerable state when the charismatic Wyatt came calling. Father fell under the man's wicked spell and foolishly, nay idiotically, agreed to join him provided that, if Queen Mary failed to see reason, Jane would be restored to the throne as England's queen.

But the people loved Queen Mary more than they hated Spanish Philip. She made a rousing speech at the Guildhall that made the Londoners fall in love with her all over again. And when Wyatt came, the people closed their doors and hid from him. He was, in the end-though there were a few tense moments when we feared all would be lost-soundly defeated and taken in chains to the Tower.

After it was all over, rotting corpses hung from gibbets on every street corner, and dangled from the trees and London Bridge, which had more heads displayed on it than anyone could ever remember seeing before. London was an ugly, stinking place we longed to run away from, but we could not forsake our sister. Sometimes it seemed as though ugly, leering corpses had risen from their graves to take over the city and frighten the wits out of the living. Whenever we went out, travelling between whichever royal palace the court was in residence at and Suffolk House, where our lady-mother presided grandly over bountiful banquets and the gambling tables, Kate and I clutched pomander b.a.l.l.s stuffed with oranges and cloves to our noses, but it did little good; there was just no escaping the stench of death.

Father never even made it to London. Five miles outside of Coventry, his men deserted him. He fled alone, in hasty panic, lamenting that our lady-mother was not there to do his thinking for him. He made his way to Astley Park, one of his Suffolk estates. There, hunted like prey himself, pursued by packs of barking hounds, he panicked, and, as he ran across the Great Park, through the sticky, slurping mud that sucked off his boots and dense curtains of relentlessly pounding rain, cast off all his clothes and, running in a zigzag motion, flung them far and wide. He hurled himself to the ground and rolled in the mud, thoroughly coating himself, "like a roast in spicy batter" he would say after, hoping to erase his scent and fool the dogs. Then he ran, clutching his beloved comfit box against his pounding heart, pausing only to try to paste some fallen leaves around his loins with mud for modesty's sake. As his pursuers gained on him, he sought a hiding place and endeavoured to cram his great, dough-soft body inside a hollow tree, in which he became hopelessly, and most uncomfortably, and indecently, stuck. "It seemed like such a good idea at the time," he would afterward say when attempting to justify his outlandish behaviour. As the hounds brayed, held back by their keeper, and the soldiers stood about laughing, woodsmen were summoned with saws and axes to carefully extricate our cold and miserable father from the tree's embrace. He emerged pale as a ghost, a broken and defeated man who realized he had been a fool to try to make a deal with the Devil, like the greedy man in that old story his tutor used to tell him as a lad who had sold his soul for a sack of gold only to discover upon opening it that it contained only chestnuts. Father was doomed. His mud-caked body covered once again with his cast-off clothes, he was led in chains back to London.

Jane, who had heard the confusion and panic in the city, the distant din and chaos of Wyatt's rebellion, but not known the cause of it as neither Master Partridge nor Sir John Bridges had the heart to tell her, sat at her window and watched Father's sad arrival. She turned to Master Partridge and demanded to know the reason for his arrest. At his honestly given answer, she sank down on her knees, hugging herself and weeping silently, all hope gone, knowing that our royal cousin would not dare let her live now. Mary could no longer afford to be merciful. The only freedom Jane would ever have would come when the headsman's axe set her soul free.

That same day, our royal cousin signed the death warrants for Jane, Guildford, and Father. Afterward she closeted herself alone, weeping, in her private chapel, with a miniature of Jane in one hand and one of Prince Philip in the other. She emerged hours later, puffy-faced and swollen-eyed, with a plan to send her own chaplain, the kindly Dr. f.e.c.kenham, to try to convert Jane. What a feather that would be for the cap of Catholicism-to convert one of their most fervent and fanatical opponents! And, with Mary soon to be married, and, G.o.d willing, a mother, and Jane no longer a heretic, but a good Catholic, it would soon be safe to release her into a life of quiet seclusion. Dr. f.e.c.kenham was well chosen; he was not a sour-faced, grim, and pedantic priest, but a smiling, jovial man, the very soul of kindness, and, having been imprisoned for his faith during King Edward's reign, he could sympathize and well understand Jane's predicament.

But Jane was ever wont to turn her back and stick up her nose at Cousin Mary's kindness.

"I am ready to receive death patiently and in whatever manner pleaseth the Queen," she icily informed Dr. f.e.c.kenham.

Yet the scholar in her could not resist his challenge, one last opportunity to show off her much touted brilliance, and dispute with him on various theological points upon which their faiths diverged. To the tune of the hammers wielded by the workmen building her scaffold on Tower Green, they debated the number and nature of the sacraments and the miracle of the Ma.s.s, the mystical moment when the bread and wine became the body and blood of Jesus Christ. But Jane would not be moved, not even to save her life; to her, her soul was more important, and she would rather die for what she saw as the truth than live a lie.

"Well, my lady, I see we shall never agree," f.e.c.kenham most dolefully concluded.

"Not unless G.o.d turn your heart," Jane woefully answered, for in f.e.c.kenham she had seen that not all Catholic priests were the devils she imagined them. Here was a man, a kind, fatherly man, whose faith was as sincere, devout, and strong as her own, and even though he had failed to sway and change her, he would not abandon her, but would, as a friend, if she would allow it, stand by her to the very end. And for this great kindness, with tears in her eyes, Jane thanked him.

When f.e.c.kenham bade her farewell, leaving her to prepare to face death upon the morrow, she laid her hand upon his sleeve and spoke, regretfully, of Guildford. "He is innocent and only obeyed his father in all things as all children are brought up to do."

Then she turned her back on him and went and knelt beside her bed to pray.

Jane would never know the sacrifice Kate made to try to save her. Afterward, we would both try to forget, to pretend it never happened. When the Earl of Pembroke, her former father-in-law, cut off Wyatt's advance, Queen Mary rewarded him with a diamond ring from her own finger. He knelt at her feet and, with tears shimmering on his proud, patrician face, slipped it onto his smallest finger, the only one it would fit, and vowed he would wear and cherish it until the day he died.

Afterward, I saw the Spanish amba.s.sador draw him aside. Little and unnoticed, I heard their urgently exchanged words-the Spaniard's evil serpent's tongue urging Pembroke to persuade Queen Mary, who was wont to let kinship and sentimentality sway her, that Jane must die, she could not be allowed to live, it was too dangerous.

I made the mistake of telling Kate. That night, when the clocks struck midnight, Kate, her hair rippling down her back like a curtain of flame and clad in her sheerest lawn shift edged with Spanish blackwork embroidery, silently covered herself in a cloak of black velvet, drew up the hood to hide her face in shadows, and went to him. I begged her not to go, but without a word, she gently but firmly pushed me away. She gave herself, she surrendered her virginity, that most precious gift a woman can give but once, to a man who had already hurt and wronged her, to try to save our sister's life. He was the most powerful and influential man at court, the richest earl in England; only his word stood a chance of outweighing the Spanish amba.s.sador's, and if he spoke up for Jane his words might be enough to tip the balance in her favour, to our royal cousin's natural tendency toward clemency. Pembroke promised, but he exacted a price-Kate must give herself to him; only then would he speak for Jane.