Gilt (24 page)

Cat punched a tiny fist into her goose-down mattress.

“Oh, by the Mass, thwarted at every turn!” she cried. “That stupid man!”

I stared.

“Kitty, you must go down the back stairs at once,” she said. “Wait there. Listen. Take the key with you.”

“But I don’t want to, Cat,” I whispered. “The guard said there was no danger.”

“Danger be damned!” she shouted. “Do as I say!”

Jane scurried to get me a taper.

“And Kitty, when you hear someone outside the door, let him in.”

“Let him in?” The guard had just averted one assassination attempt and I was requested to expedite the next?

“Yes!”

“But Cat, are you sure?” I looked at Jane, hoping she would recognize Cat’s lunacy. Jane wouldn’t meet my eye.

“It is not your job to question me!” Cat said, her voice lowering to that dangerous growl. “It is your job to do as I wish. Now go.”

In a daze, I stumbled barefoot down the rough-cut stone stairs, hardly able to see my feet in the weak light of the candle. I was glad I hadn’t changed into my linen shift, because the walls exuded the chill of three hundred years of northern winters.

I came to the door and listened against it. The taper guttered, and I prayed I would not be left in that tomblike space in the dark. I thought I heard the whispers of ghosts. I imagined the vagrants and rebels and drunks of the town amassing outside the walls. I envisioned spiders and crawling bugs and the slithering of worms and snakes.

I was so caught up with the terror in my head that a scuffling outside the door made me shriek.

The noise stopped, and even through the thick oak door, I suspected I could hear a man breathing. Or an angry mob quietly discussing how to dissect a maid.

The latch snapped with a metallic echo up the cold dark stairs. I watched it, horrified. The door creaked almost imperceptibly followed by an angry grunt outside when it held fast.

I slipped the key in the lock with trembling fingers and turned it slowly. As soon as it clicked the latch snapped again and the door flew open.

Thomas Culpepper stood before me. In one swift movement, he pinched the flame of my candle out.

“Jesus, Kitty,” he hissed. “Do you want everyone to see us?”

He slipped through the door, and in the reflected light of stars, Edmund emerged behind him.

“Stay outside, Standebanke,” Culpepper ordered. “If you see anyone, knock, and Kitty here will come and warn us.”

“Can I not keep Kitty company?” Edmund asked.

Oh, yes, please,
I thought, though I told myself it was because I was afraid of the dark.

“No, you fool. One man standing outside will raise no questions. You’re a yeoman of the chamber. You’re guarding the queen. If you’re with a girl, inside or out, you will be in dereliction of duty.”

He pulled the door closed on Edmund’s disappointed face,
and we were plunged into a blackness so complete I could hardly breathe. I heard the key turn the lock.

“Stay here,” Culpepper said, his breath as crepuscular as the vestibule.

“I don’t want to.” My voice shook.

“Too bad for you,” Culpepper replied. He pushed me up against the wall, his body full on mine, hand over my mouth to stifle my scream.

“Stay here in the shadows. Perhaps next time you will cover your light.”

He leapt up the stairs, his soft shoes whispering on stone, as if he could see in the dark like a cat. Or a devil.

The darkness clamped itself to my skull, to the backs of my eyes, and I shook with the effort of driving away the memory of Culpepper’s touch. I wanted to peel my own skin away to divest myself of the taint of him.

A cough outside the door startled me. Edmund. Reminding me he was there. Signaling me to let him in. He would hold me. Protect me.

I turned the key with shaking fingers and fumbled the latch.

“So soon?” Edmund’s voice was hollow in the empty courtyard, but with a grin in it. He knew. Of course he knew.

“It’s me, Edmund,” I whispered at the crack in the door. “I need you.”

He swung the door open farther and seized my face in both of his hands. He lowered his mouth on mine in one swift, tasteless
kiss, hard and anxious, and then he pushed me away.

“Culpepper is right,” he said. “I can’t be seen with you. Now, stay.”

He shut the door.

I locked it.

I sank down and pulled my skirts around my feet to trap the warmth. I wrapped my arms around my knees to stop their trembling. When I closed my eyes, finding comfort in a more familiar darkness, I felt a tear slide down my cheek.

I was aiding and abetting treason. I had allowed a man into the queen’s chambers in the middle of the night. Not just any man, but Thomas Culpepper.

The man I chose to protect me was Culpepper’s best friend. A man who made my blood race but my heart fail. A man who left me in the darkness that terrified me.

I crushed my palms against my eyes to press the thoughts away, sending shooting sparks through the writhing blackness. I stayed there, huddled beside the door, until I fell asleep against the wall.

A
BOOT IN MY RIBS STARTLED ME BACK INTO THE WAKING DARKNESS
.

“Your queen needs you,” came Culpepper’s voice. The sound of the key in the lock. A line of charcoal gray as the door opened. Whispers.

I sat up, rubbing my side, my arm and face cold from the damp stone. I didn’t want to return to the bedroom. To the tumbled sheets. To the smell of him.

I didn’t want to talk to Cat.

My bones creaked when I stood, the rough floor painful beneath my chilled feet. I reached out to close the door, but was stopped by Culpepper’s voice.

“Well, now you have no choice, Standebanke.”

Edmund was still out there.

“It’s not like I had any to begin with,” he muttered.

“My thoughts exactly,” Culpepper said, and I saw his shadow slap Edmund’s on the back. With a laugh, he sauntered away.

“Kitty?” Edmund whispered.

“I’m still here.”

Edmund wedged himself through the crack in the door and
put his arms around me. His cloak and doublet carried the cold mist from outside and offered little warmth, but I leaned into him anyway.

“What did he mean?” I asked. “That you had no choice?”

“What does Thomas Culpepper ever mean?” he said. “His way is the only way and the rest of us have no say in the matter.”

“Shouldn’t we all have a choice?” I asked. Knowing that I didn’t. I’d pledged my choice away when I had sworn my loyalty to Cat.

Edmund pulled away and kissed me on the forehead.

“Get to bed, kitten,” he said, and then moved his lips closer to my ear. “I wish I could go with you.”

But I was glad he couldn’t. Despite his tentative sympathy, I couldn’t forget his coldness in the dark. When I needed him.

I felt my way back up the stairs and into the blinding light of a single candle in Cat’s room. Joan turned at the sound of my footsteps, took in my appearance in one glance, and shook her head. She drew the velvet curtain around the bed.

“Shhhh.”

“Is the queen not asleep yet?” I asked.

“Yes, even now,” she said. “I hope he was worth it.”

She pushed me gently out the door and shut it in my face. Joan thought I was the one having an affair.

Jane Boleyn stood alone in the withdrawing room. Haggard. Pale.

“Good morning, Kitty,” she said.

I gazed at her for a long moment. Had she already been through this once? With Anne Boleyn? Or was that all a fabrication to rid Henry of his second queen? And even if Jane hadn’t been through it before, why was she doing it now?

“How do you do it, Jane?” I asked her.

“Do what?”

“Do what you’re doing? Why do you allow this sort of thing to go on?”

“I’m not sure what you’re talking about,” Jane said.

“My friend is ruining her life,” I said.

Jane moved to the outer door and checked behind it. She pulled me to the far corner of the room. Away from the windows. Away from the fire. Away from anything that could conduct our voices.

“Perhaps not.”

“She’s killing herself!” I said.

Jane made a
tsk
and I realized how dramatic and hysterical I sounded. Like a little girl throwing a tantrum. I took a breath.

“If word gets out, she could be executed,” I said. “So could we.”

“So we will not allow word to get out,” Jane said. She placed a hand on my shoulder. Like a friend. Like a mother. Dispensing wisdom.

“She can’t keep doing this!”

“But she will. No matter what we do or say. Look at it this way, Kitty. It’s serving a purpose. One that cannot help but strengthen her position here at court. Strengthen the country as a whole. An heir to the throne, especially one from the conservative, Catholic-leaning Howard faction, would stabilize everything.”

“You’re letting this happen so she can get
pregnant
?”

“It is my duty to make her path smooth.”

“That’s not smooth, Jane, that’s treason.”

“No, Kitty, it’s the way of the monarchy. Bastards have come to the throne before and will come to the throne again. The Duke of Richmond would have grown to be king had he not died and Prince Edward not been born. The king himself may be descended from the son of an archer and not the royal line at all. If the king cannot do what is necessary to produce children, then we must pursue other lines of possibility.”

“So this is your idea?” I asked. “This doomed, ridiculous romance?”

“No!” Jane looked aghast. “I would never suggest such a thing.”

“But you would promote it.”

“I will do whatever the queen asks.”

“Well, isn’t that noble of you.”

“It is my duty, Kitty,” she said, and fixed me with her feline eyes. “And it is yours. You would do well to remember that.”

“My duty is to my friend, not to the monarchy.”

“Right now, the needs of both are one and the same, and that is your silence,” Jane said. “At court, a word spoken is a word disseminated. Even if you think you are alone, you are not. Trust me on this.”

I did. I had to. Because if anyone knew how secrets got out at court, Jane did.

W
E CONTINUED SLOWLY THROUGH
G
AINSBOROUGH AND
S
COOBY AND
on to Hatfield, where we paused to spend a few days hunting. Every time we had new quarters, Cat sent Jane to search the castle or the house or the outskirts of the tent-laden field for secret hideaways and hidden entrances. I never questioned her. I knew why she sought them.

I watched. I felt that my very observation could somehow prevent Cat from doing anything more. Anything foolish. Anything obvious.

At Hatfield, I saw Jane shake her head after touring the four narrow wings and dim central courtyard. Nowhere to hide. Not enough space. Cat stayed quiet in her chambers, enclosed by the Coven, listening to music and tired gossip.

More than anything, I wanted to leave. I imagined going back to Lambeth, back to my parents, but knew that even there, people were always watching. Always finding fault. I wanted to go somewhere else. Somewhere I could breathe.

I would even marry Lord Poxy if it would get me out.

Jesus, I must be desperate.

I wished I could tell Cat, laugh with her about it. But the Coven, clucking and tutting, surrounded her.

Gossiping that perhaps she was pregnant.

“It must be why she doesn’t ride,” Cat’s stepmother said quietly when the queen moved to look out the window. “What else could it be?”

“It’s about time,” Cat’s sister muttered. “All his other wives were pregnant within three months.”

“Not Anne of Cleves,” the Countess of Bridgewater reminded them.

I moved restlessly away. I felt confined, all of us piled into the queen’s apartments, waiting for the hunt to return. The closed square of the palace allowed contemplation of the surrounding countryside but cut off escape. I couldn’t think straight breathing other people’s air, their skirts touching mine, every rustle and whisper setting my teeth on edge.

“What are you thinking?”

The voice sounded calm. Comforting. Familiar.