Innocent Traitor (15 page)

Our quarry today is a beautiful red hind, young and vigorous; she leads us all on a merry dance through the chase and into the open countryside beyond. But storm clouds are gathering. The blue winter sky darkens and it begins to rain heavily, drenching us all to the skin in minutes. My parents and their followers seem unbothered by this, but I am growing colder by the second in my saturated clothes. I could not feel more wretched, especially when I remember what is to come.

At two o’clock, the rain is still falling as the hind is finally brought down, and we all dismount onto the muddy ground for the kill. The poor beast lies there in a puddle, wounded in the flank, its belly heaving and its rolling eyes glassy with fear. The huntsmen stand around, restraining the snarling, snapping hounds.

My father places a large knife in my hands. Its blade is of chased steel, long and cruel.

“Jane, yours is the privilege today,” my lord announces. “See that your hand does not falter.”

I grasp the knife. I have been told that I must plunge it deep into the animal’s breast, yet now that the moment has come, I barely have the will or strength to do so. I am shaking so much that I cannot hold the blade steady.

“Look sharp, girl!” barks my mother. Her eyes are glittering with excitement and bloodlust. For her, this is the supreme moment of the chase, and I am spoiling it. “Get on with it!” she shrieks.

I have no choice. Screwing my eyes tight shut, I raise the knife with both hands, pray vehemently to God to guide me true, and plunge downward into the yielding, breathing flesh. When I dare to look, I see that the wretched hind is writhing in its death throes, and that great spatters of blood are on my skirts. I stare in rigid horror as the chief huntsman seizes the knife from my hands and administers the coup de grâce, putting the beast out of its misery.

But worse is to follow. A few more slashes of the knife and the hind’s entrails, steaming and bloody in the damp air, are spilling out onto the wet ground.

“Now you shall be blooded, Daughter!” my father cries, his voice tense with excitement, as if the killing and the brutality have given him some strange rush of pleasure.

I stand motionless, frozen. I have taken the life of one of God’s innocent creatures, and I cannot believe that I have done so, that I have been an accomplice in this butchery. I am utterly diminished by my actions. It is one thing to know that this broken hind’s carcass before me will provide meat for the table tomorrow, another to know myself responsible for its agony. Yes, it would have died anyway, whoever made an end of it, but I am certain that I shall never forget how it felt to pierce that living body, knowing that the stroke I dealt would be fatal.

My father roughly shoves me forward, and when I still do not move at his bidding, he pushes me to my knees before the bleeding mess that had only minutes before been a living deer; then, seizing me by the arms from behind, he thrusts my hands into the warm, gaping wounds, draws them out all bloody, and smears them across my face.

“There!” he roars triumphantly. “The Lady Jane is a fully fledged huntress now.” The company breaks into applause, but before I can stop it, the bitter bile has risen into my mouth and I am vomiting on the mud, hot, unbidden tears streaming from my eyes.

My mother angrily swoops on me and pulls me upright.

“Control yourself,” she growls, delivering a stinging slap across my cheek. “How dare you let us down! Pull yourself together. Can’t you see that everyone is looking at you? What sort of undutiful behavior is this? I tell you, girl, it will never do in this world to be so squeamish. God’s blood, what am I to do with her?”

“Calm yourself, my dear,” soothes my father, ignoring my distress. “I have no doubt that Jane will learn useful lessons from this day’s work. And if not, and she shows us up again in like manner, she knows what the consequences will be.” Shooting a menacing glare at me, he strides off to where his horse is tethered.

The company remounts and turns for home. Shivering and still blood-spattered, I follow on White Lady, my hands almost frozen to the reins. I console myself in the knowledge that, after the first blooding, there is usually no other. Yet I know too that the weekly hunting expedition will remain a recurring nightmare, and several nights during the following week I wake up screaming in memory of the horror and the suffering of that poor animal.

Frances Brandon,
Marchioness of Dorset

BRADGATE HALL, NOVEMBER–DECEMBER 1544

Henry and I are in bed, and as usual, after the excitement of the hunt, we take our pleasure in each other. My lord is a lusty, vigorous lover and can sometimes couch a lance two or three times a night, but tonight I am in a disgruntled mood and cannot enjoy it. This is the fault of that stupid child, who made such an exhibition of herself at her blooding today.

I am also brooding on that remark of Henry’s about Jane not being a boy. Considering how virile he is, how energetically we couple together in bed, and the measures I have taken to ensure conception, it is surprising that my womb has failed to quicken these past four years and more.

Lying sleepless in the feather bed, my body revealed in its nakedness by the cast-off covers, I notice that I am becoming stout. I have ever had a fondness for rich food and good wines, and now I realize that such self-indulgence has its consequences. By day, good corsetry and tight lacing can disguise a thickening waist, flabby stomach, and heavy, drooping breasts. But at night, by candlelight…

Peering across the bed, I realize that Henry too is awake, and that those too-pendulous breasts are having their customary effect on him. Perhaps, I reflect, a voluptuous figure is a good thing after all.

But there is no time for thinking. He lunges at me.

This time, our coupling bears fruit. By Christmas, I know that I am to have another child. We are both praying that it will be the longed-for son. Oh, and I must remember to send a yuletide gift to Anna, the Gypsy woman, in gratitude for her charm.

BRADGATE HALL, JULY 1545

I am once more in labor, God help me. This time the pain is far worse than I have ever experienced before, and the midwife is clearly worried. She has even bade Mrs. Zouche send for the chaplain, just in case, which is not exactly what I want to hear. In fact, when I am not crying out in my agony—my noble resolve to bear my suffering in silence broke hours ago—I am terrified out of my wits.

Indeed, I am now beyond caring whether I bear a son or daughter, or even whether the babe is dead or alive. My contractions are coming every minute or so, and they are of such deadly severity that I cannot help thrashing about on the bed and fighting off those who would help me, screaming at them to go away. So intense and violent are the pangs that, at their height, I forget that I am giving birth and use all my ebbing strength to yell.

“Jesus! Jesus help me!” I cry, again and again.

My lord has been summoned from the mews, where apparently he has been soothing his anxiety for me by inspecting a newly acquired pair of falcons. He strides into the birthing chamber, where of course no man has a right to be, but we are now long past such niceties.

“How does my lady?” he asks fearfully, this big man, who is utterly out of place here. I glimpse his face, taut with worry. It is common for women to die in childbed—oh, dear God!—and Henry is plainly terrified that he will lose not only his longed-for son and heir, but also his wife and helpmeet, and, perhaps more pertinently, for I know my Henry, his claim to kinship with the King.

“She is not doing very well, my lord,” the midwife says in her country burr. “The babe is too slow in coming. The head is crowned, but there seems to be some obstruction preventing the rest of the body from being born.”

Henry groans. “Is there nothing you can do, for the love of God?”

“There is, my lord, but it is a dangerous procedure and may cost the lives of both my lady and the child.”

“Help me! Help me!” I yell. I feel as if I am being torn apart.

“Is there no other way?” Henry’s voice is harsh.

“We can wait upon Nature, my lord, but my lady is weakening by the minute, and time may be running short.”

I scream again. Someone must help me!

“What does this procedure entail?” my lord asks.

For answer, the midwife draws, from her voluminous bag, a long iron rod with a large hook at one end. I catch a brief sight of it and close my eyes in terror. I hear Henry’s shocked intake of breath.

“The hook is passed into the womb, sir, and one tries to pull out the babe.” She pauses. “It’s a last resort, sir. And it can cause some damage to one or both.”

My lord visibly wrestles with himself for one moment more, then, as I screech out again, he nods.

“Do it,” he orders.

It is over. I lie half-conscious on my bloody, sweat-soaked bed, aware only that my worst agony has ceased and that I can now sleep. I swooned in pain at the moment when they dragged the child from my body and thus knew no more for a time. At least I am still alive.

I am lying on my back now, knees drawn up, thighs still apart. There is a soreness and aching in my woman’s parts, yet it is nothing compared to the torment I have just suffered. At the foot of the bed, the midwife is busy with cloths and a bowl of water, and I feel the soothing comfort of being soaped and clad in clean linen. Presently, my limbs are laid straight and I am rolled from one side to the other so that my bedclothes can be changed. Now, barely half-aware, I am covered by sweet-smelling sheets and blankets, my hair is brushed from my face, and I am left to rest.

It is morning, and I wake, fully restored to my senses. The horrors of yesterday seem to belong to the realm of dreams, but I know that I did really suffer that agony and am quite resigned to being told that my infant did not survive the ordeal. Yet, turning gingerly on the mattress to get more comfortable, I am astonished to see that the great wooden cradle is there beside my bed. A soft snuffle suggests that something must be in it. The hour is still early, and I am entirely alone, so there is no one to ask what sex the baby is.

I have to know. Testing my strength, I raise myself up by inches, somewhat painfully, as I am sore down below and every movement seems to make it worse. Damn it, I must have torn during the birth, which means that it will take me far longer than usual to recover. My head is swimming with the effort. But before long, gritting my teeth against the pain, I manage to lean across and peer into the cradle.

What I see lying there makes me cry out in shock. My child is a misshapen, deformed hunchback—there is no mistaking the fact. What is almost worse, I soon discover, after the women have come running, is that it is another girl.

We name her Mary, in honor of the Lady Mary, who has kindly consented to be godmother, but I want nothing to do with the child. Not only is she an offense to the eye, but she has likely also put paid to any hopes I have of ever bearing Henry a son. When I shakily rise from my childbed to be churched after ten days of lying-in and begin to walk slowly around, I realize that something is wrong inside me. I feel as if my womb is about to slide out of me or be expelled from my body like some grotesque infant. The physicians tell me there is nothing they can do, and that I will have to live like this, perhaps indefinitely, uncomfortable though it is.

I have not said anything to Henry, although surely he must notice that something is amiss. Lying on my back in the marital bed, I find that doing my duty is not too painful, but the pleasure has gone, and I fear I will never again be able to conceive. Modesty and shame prevent me from telling anyone else of my malady, and I am determined never to discuss the matter with my lord. While he still has hopes of me, I can rule him.

But my temper is now on a shorter fuse than ever before. I know I have always been inclined to sharpness, but I find it impossible to quell the anger I feel at the hand that life has dealt me, I, who should have raised a quiverful of strong sons to delight our old age. Nor have I time or affection to spare for our older daughters, both of whom irritate me unreasonably with their idle prattle and childish concerns, so I snap at them and lash out in resentment more than was my wont.

Everyone puts my evil humor down to the shock I have received and the whims women have when their milk is drying up. The hunchback has been given over to the care of a nurse, who has been told in no uncertain terms to keep her out of my sight. I will not have her brought up with her sisters or afforded an education like theirs. We will keep her close hidden here at Bradgate, so that the world at large may not discover how God has cursed us.

GREENWICH PALACE, SEPTEMBER 1545

I have returned to my duties at court. The Queen has guessed we have suffered some dread misfortune and is driving me mad with her unlooked-for sympathy. I politely rebuff her well-meant overtures, but I cannot help being withdrawn and bitter. She has even noticed that I walk and sit with some discomfort, but she is fortunately too well bred to persist in her solicitous inquiries after my health. She has also observed that I am less patient than usual with my subordinates in her household and gently reproved me for it.