Raven Queen (7 page)

There were other times when we saw each other in public and each Sunday in the chapel. Although I sat in the family pew at the front, my body told me when Ned was there – a tingling across my skin, a trembling in my heart – and I would glance over my shoulder to find his eyes on me. Catherine noticed because she nudged me and giggled and I wondered if she thought Ned was looking at her.

If
her
eyes lingered on him too long, I saw him with fresh eyes – broad-shouldered from chopping, face the colour of honey, green eyes flecked with brown.

When I glimpsed him from the window of my bedchamber, I knew that he had seen me watching him by the way he swung his axe and put a spring in his step.

“I have been watching for you all day,” I would confess when I was with him.

“And I you,” he would reply.

“Do you wish I was not a princess?”

“Do you wish I was not a woodman?”

Then we would fall silent.

I have not spoken to Jane for a week.

I kick the oven hard. “Who is he?” I ask Alice. I am soaked to the skin, drying myself in the bakehouse.

“A student from Germany, Jack says. He’s going to study at Oxford after the summer. He speaks to Lady Jane in a language I ain’t ever heard. He’s a nice young man.”

Jealousy shoots through me, hotter than the oven.
Germany.
The hotbed of Protestantism. No wonder she has no time for me. I kick the oven again.

“What do you and Lady Jane talk about in the forest, then?” Alice asks. “Heaven help you if her father finds out.” She leans towards me, whispering, “They say he—” She screams. Jack is suddenly there, swinging two dead mice in front of her face, caught from the kitchen traps.

He glares at me. I leave them and as I hurry away, I hear the sound of lips kissing skin.

The days become fiery. At night, when the sky pales instead of darkening, birds cast their shadows against its golden streaks.

Jane’s parents have planned a farewell celebration for their visitor. No expense has been spared. I gaze across the deer park dotted with garlanded canopies and flags. In the distance, archery boards turn their faces to the sun. Acrobats somersault across the stream and fire-eaters flame the already hot air.

I am helping to hand out the wine. Jane is sitting next to John Ulmis, flushing with excitement. “I have read everything Doctor Bullinger has written,” she is saying: “‘
As the sun shines in heaven but is still present on earth with its light and heat, so Christ sits in heaven and is still present on earth in the hearts of all true believers.’
I know I shall never meet him, never hear him preach, but his letters have made my life bearable.”

I cough loudly but they do not notice me and I sip wine from each of the goblets in front of me.

“He is the most devout man I have ever met,” John Ulmis replies. “His house in Zurich is always open to those in need. He and his wife give money, food and clothing to the poor. Many Protestants in exile find their way to his door and they are never turned away.” His voice is light, like a child’s, and his words accented like a person who usually speaks German.

He lifts a strawberry and she takes it from him with her mouth, spattering red juice onto her neck, and little Mary claps. Mistress Ellen hands her a spoon.

As I walk on to Doctor Aylmer, jealous feelings, which I do not like and am not used to, rage inside me.

“You have not told her yet?” he whispers.

I shake my head.

“Do it soon, Ned. And stop drinking! Your face is already flushed.”

Dusk comes at last, dampening our skin with its dew. Flaming torches edge the grass. Catherine wheels spin on the trees and I watch their glitter until I grow dizzy and have to look away. People sprawl everywhere, singing, drinking and laughing.

Jane has drunk wine, too. I watch her lean towards John Ulmis. “I pass my days in this earthly prison as if I were dead,” she shouts, “while you and Doctor Bullinger and all the other reformers live!”

Has she forgotten me already?

Her father catches hold of her arm across the table, digging his fingers into her flesh. “You have grown wilder these last weeks,” he roars. He lets her go and laughs. “It is time she was married, is it not, Master Ulmis? A husband will tame her. Jane is destined for the King! What do you think of that?”

Yes, I shall tell her tonight, while wine loosens both our tongues.

A cartwheel stuffed with straw sits at the top of a slope above the park. A symbol of the sun, Thomas tells me. Lady Jane will light the straw and we will push the wheel. If the flames are still burning when it reaches the bottom of the slope, it will be a fine harvest. If they have burned out, it will be a poor one.

Jack is watching with Alice and Daniel and Will. Opposite us stand Jane and her sisters. She smiles at me as Thomas hands her the flaming torch. The hay flares and we all let go. The wheel gathers speed, showering sparks into the darkening sky. Suddenly, Jack lets out a deafening cry, “Burn! Burn! Catholic, burn!” Thomas warns them to stop, but the others take up the cry, even Alice. “Burn! Burn! Catholic, burn!” They are all baying for blood as they run behind the wheel, prodding the hay with sticks, laughing and screaming their insults.

Jane orders them to stop and I look at her, grateful; but for a moment, as the flames reflect in her eyes, I see a look of delight pass across her face.

Alice screams. The flames have caught her skirt. Jack throws ale over her and she jumps to her feet laughing. I see her later, dancing, her face still blackened by the smoke and I wonder how she can laugh so easily after being licked by the flames of death.

I long for quiet. I make my way to the walled garden. Moths whirr around me as I walk, whitening the air. Jane is sitting by the fountain, silhouetted against the sky, birds roosting in the trees around her.

When she calls to me, my anger spills out, strengthening my voice. “Does Master Ulmis tell you that he reports everything back to Bullinger? Oh yes! They flatter you because they hope that you’ll marry the King.” I do not know what I am saying. I do not even know if it is the truth, but I have to say it. I have to punish her. “Then they’ll have influence over him through you. What better way to benefit their Protestant cause?”

The birds fly in fright from the tree and their shadows flit across her face. “No!” she cries. “That is not true! He writes to me because he wishes to instruct me. He thinks that my mind is worth improving.”

To my shame, I throw back my head and laugh. “
You
are his way to the King of England. Why else would he waste his time with you? Ask him! I
dare
you!”

She is crying as she runs from me. And the sun cools for me long before the end of that day.

I did not mean to forget about Ned. I do not take to people easily. I usually keep myself aloof because I have worked out that life is simpler that way. I could not forgive him for what he had said. His words had hurt me far more than the whip because they had sown the seeds of doubt in my mind.

Should I ask Doctor Bullinger if it was true? Of all men, he must respect my female body.

For the first time in my life, I did not know what to do.

“He was jealous, that is all,” Ellie said. “For all your learning, you are such an innocent child.”

I stayed away from the forest. My head ached and I sat by the window of the summer parlour. The oak trees in front of the house were bursting with life. I watched the raven leaning into the wind, his feathers ruffling, soaring over the treetops. Then he swooped to feed, hiding behind the leaves to peck out insects until he was fat and full.

There is light and shadow in life as there is in the forest, I thought.

I finished reading
Utopia.
I learned of rich landowners who had put hedges and fences around the common land so that the poor people could no longer graze their cattle there or grow crops. Men were forced to live by begging or stealing and when they were hanged for it, their wives and children starved under the very hedgerows that had forced them into poverty.

“Your head is aching because you wear too many pearls in your hair,” Doctor Aylmer said.

“I only have a few,” I replied.

“You do not need any at all. God has given you beautiful hair.” He picked up his Bible and opened it at a well-worn page. “The Gospel according to St. Peter,” he said. “Book Three. Verse Twenty-two. ‘
Your beauty should not come from outward adornment such as braided hair and the wearing of gold jewellery and fine clothes
,’” he read. “‘
Instead it should be that of your inner self, the duty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is of great worth in God’s sight.
’” His voice brightened. “Why do you not ask Doctor Bullinger’s advice?”

I understood his rebuke. I had not written to him since Midsummer Day. The seeds had taken root. And, at the same time, I became awkward in John Ulmis’s company and I was glad when he left for Oxford at the beginning of August.

I went no further than the walled garden. One morning, I returned through the laundry yard. Alice had put out the ruffs to dry. They perched stiff and headless on their wooden poles. She came to the doorway, her face disappointed when she saw me. As she curtsied, a linen petticoat fluttered on the washing rope and Alice stifled a giggle. I lifted it. Jack stood there. Everything about him was dirty: his hair, his skin, his teeth, his clothes. He was as dirty as Ned had been at the gallows, but Jack did not speak Latin in a gentleman’s voice. I was ashamed of my thoughts, and shame made my voice shrill like a child’s.

“Why are you not working, Jack?” I asked. “I shall tell my father.”

He bowed. “I
am
working, my lady. I have come to collect the dead mice from the kitchen traps.”

“That is a pity.”

He smiled at Alice and walked away. Her eyes never left him.

I hate Jack. He sets the bird snares. He shoots the forest creatures. He has blood on his hands.

“Take down that petticoat and wash it again,” I said. I heard my mother’s voice in mine as I spoke.

Do not let him snare you, Alice.

I pray that she will come to me, since I cannot go to her.

Sometimes I sit by the stream for so long that Thomas scolds me and threatens to find another woodman. Sometimes, on my day of rest, I wait from dawn until dusk on Beacon Hill.

August brings days and nights so sultry that I cannot sleep above the bakehouse. So I sleep on the hill, watching the moon. People say that it is dangerous to sleep in the moonlight. It will make you blind. But it is not that thought that keeps my eyes open. It is the beauty of the moon. Its craters and crevices like the face of an old friend.

One morning, as I scramble down the hill, I shiver and look up. Jane is coming towards me, the pearls in her headdress gleaming. She tramples the dying foxgloves in her haste. She does not even glance at the rising sun. I run towards her, catching her around the waist so fast that she stumbles and we start to roll down the hill. She stiffens and clings to me.

“Let yourself go limp,” I whisper.

We roll on as if for ever, laughing, until we stop with a jolt that takes away our breath. Her hair has escaped and it hides her face.