Sisters of Treason (25 page)

“My baby sister has started telling me what to do.” I watch the fragments of paper twirl and flutter down to the water below.

“What does she say?”

“She is warning me against a Spanish match. Everyone seeks to warn me.” I am wondering when it was my little sister made herself so aware of state affairs.

“She is right, and you know it.”

“Don’t
you
start telling me what to do, as well. I am not so stupid as to be entirely unaware of my value.”

“I know you are not stupid,” she laughs, lying back and opening her arms out as if to invite me to lie down with her. “I am so very glad to have you back, Kitty.”

I take off my shoes and stockings, feeling the warm stone beneath
my bare feet, and peel off my outer garments and my coif, allowing my hair to fall about my shoulders. “I wish I were just an ordinary girl, free to wed where she pleases.” I move to the lip of the rock, looking down into the green pool, imagining the coolness of the water.

“My brother arrives today,” she says.

“Your brother.” I try to keep the excitement from my voice. “Your brother has ill used me.”

“He wants to see you. Says he pines for you.”

“Before I left he certainly didn’t behave like a person with—” I hesitate—“with feelings.”

“He feared you would make a Spanish match.”

“Not that again! Everyone seems to fear that. I have had enough of other people’s misplaced concern.”

“Kitty, don’t be bitter. We have each other.” She stands now, joining me at the edge.

“Jump with me. Prove your love,” I say.

“Kitty, no. You don’t know what is down there. The water may be foul. There may be hidden rocks.” She has taken hold of my wrist and is pulling me back.

“Are you scared?”

“I am not a fool.”

I shake her off and jump, feeling the rush of air all about me. The thrill of it catches in my throat making me squeal with glee, and then the cold surprise of the water. I am breathless with wet laughter.

•  •  •

I watch Hertford from the side of my eye. He is sitting beside Juno some way up the table. I am down beyond the salt as usual—I have become quite used to being snubbed by Elizabeth. His hair is shorter and he is wearing a notched satin doublet I haven’t seen before. There is not much of interest to eat at this end of the table and there is a squawking band of musicians right behind me that
would be enough to put anyone off their food; but I find I can barely eat a morsel as it is. I put this down to the fact of Hertford, and his becoming new hairstyle, at the other end of the table, and the fact that he is sitting next to pretty Mary Howard, who has engaged him in deep conversation.

When he entered the hall he passed me, making a little bow. I responded with a vague curtsy, but my heart was thudding so hard I thought it might disturb the ladies reading at the far end of the chamber. He has tried to catch my eye several times, and, though I am all a-wobble inside, I have assiduously resisted meeting his gaze.

“What have you to say of the new French King, Lady Katherine? I hear he is but fifteen years of age.” My neighbor is trying to make conversation but I am not really listening.

“I do not have much of an opinion on the matter,” I reply.

“It is said his wife is a great beauty.”

“Mary of Scotland? I have never seen her.” I smile and tilt my head, as if I am stupid. Life is easier that way.

“She claims the English throne is hers.”

“Well she will never have it,” says a man opposite. “Not now her father-in-law is dead and she has only her milksop husband to fight on her behalf.”

They talk about how the old French king died, going into the greatest detail about the splinter that gouged his eye and worked its way to his brain, and how he was in agony for weeks. I am watching the servers parade some great culinary gargoyle up and down for people to gasp at—the back end of some kind of large fowl and the front end of a pig. Even mythology couldn’t conjure up something that ugly, and I am quite relieved that none of it will end up this far down the table. Uncle Arundel, who is our host, is seated up beside the Queen and is oohing and ahhing loudly, making a great fuss over it all. Elizabeth looks unimpressed but nods slightly in acknowledgement before turning to peruse a juggler who has picked up three crystal glasses and is about to throw
them into the air. Arundel looks furious behind his smile, doubtless thinking of his best Italian crystal. I cannot keep myself from glancing towards Hertford, who is now sharing a joke with Mary Howard. Oh, how they are laughing.

“Who are you looking at?” asks Levina, seated on my other side. She notices everything, says it is her artist’s eye that makes her see things others don’t. More like she is spying for Maman, making sure I behave.

“Nobody,” I say, but despite pursing my lips tightly, my smile can’t be hidden.

“Nobody Hertford?” she says, making me laugh. “He is a fine enough fellow,” she adds.

“You think so?” I pretend indifference, but Levina knows me better, sometimes better than I know myself.

“Would you like me to talk to your mother about him?” she asks quietly, so the people around us can’t hear—anyway, they are all transfixed by the juggler, waiting agog for the sound of crystal shattering against stone.

“There is nothing to say.”

“I could talk to her anyway.”

“As you wish,” I concede, as if I care not a jot.

Hertford is whispering something to Juno. Then they both look at me, he only momentarily, before casting his eyes back to his food, Juno giving a little flutter of a wave. I smile at her, feeling Levina’s artist eye on me. The “
thing
” hovers in my mind, making me unsure how to be, but the tug of Hertford is impossible to deny. I have always known exactly how to behave, exactly how to have them all, boys and men alike, eating out of my palm; but now a flood of contradictory feelings has befuddled me.

A marchpane facsimile of Nonsuch is being carried up to the top table now, and the hall erupts with applause. Even the Queen is impressed, for every detail is there, down to the elaborate Italianate carvings and the stone lions perched on the turrets, bearing flags. Uncle Arundel looks as smug as if he’d made the thing
with his own hands. Juno and I made some subtleties yesterday. Levina had helped us make plaster molds of the fruits we picked in the Nonsuch orchards: pears, peaches, pippins, and apricots, rare as diamonds—but nothing is too rare for Arundel’s gardens. We pressed the sugar paste into them, turning out perfect white shapes. Then we concocted paints of beetroot and carrot and the juice of green grasses. Under Levina’s direction, the white shapes transformed into counterfeit fruits so convincing you could hardly tell them apart from the real thing. It was a long time since I’d made sugar fancies, back at Bradgate, when life was different. Maman had shown us how to carefully heat the sugar in an earthenware pot set over a few coals, and then shape the warm paste into all manner of fanciful things.

Now our platter of pretend fruits is being offered to the Queen, who acknowledges Juno with a smile. Everyone knows of her sweet tooth. She picks out an apricot, turns it over in her hand, appraising it with raised eyebrows, then seeks me out, making a little nod of acknowledgment in my direction. Unless I am imagining it, the corners of her mouth lift slightly into something that could be construed as a half smile. Levina gives me a nudge with her foot. I stand and bob in a curtsy. The Queen seems satisfied. Perhaps she is relenting a little, but my head is too full of Hertford to think of what it might mean.

The Queen eventually takes her leave, to a great fanfare, followed out by Dudley; and Arundel; and Cecil; and Norfolk; and all the privy chamber ladies; and the twenty or so others who have her favor, Juno and Hertford among them—but not me. Directly after go the musicians and a string of servers with the sugar subtleties. Our display of sweet fruits is taken with the rest of the platters, all loaded with colorful fancies in towering piles, and carried out to the banqueting hall in the gardens.

I am abandoned while the boards are cleared away about me. Those who are not invited to the banqueting hall mill around in groups but none approach me. My rank makes them uncomfortable.
Just as I am starting to wish myself back under the wing of the Ferias, a page appears before me.

“Lady Katherine Grey,” he is saying.

“That is I,” I reply, thinking that he must have some bad news from Maman or Mary—news that one of them is ailing, or worse. But he has a mild look on his face that does not seem to spell disaster.

“The Queen requests your presence, my lady.”

“
My
presence?” I repeat, wondering if my ears don’t need cleaning.

“Yes, my lady,” he says. “I shall accompany you to her.”

I nod, unusually lost for words, and follow him, meek as anything, out through the gardens to the banqueting hall. It has been draped in great sheets of white cotton and lit by clever contraptions that cast shadows of Roman gods and goddesses over the walls. An usher announces me, and a few turn my way. Juno is across the room with Hertford, whose look I take care to avoid. I drop into a deep curtsy before Elizabeth, who, after leaving me on my knees longer than is strictly necessary, bids me stand and beckons me closer.

“We are considering admitting you to the privy chamber.” Her smile is an icy rictus and she drops her voice further, adding in a hiss, “A privilege you hardly merit, Lady Katherine.” I can sense everyone craning in, trying to get the gist of what is said.

“I know not how to express my gratitude, Your Majesty—” I begin, but she interrupts.

“Just
thinking
about it, mind; it is not done yet. We shall see.”

So she is toying with me. She likes to play those kind of games, games that show her strength, like when she left poor Jane Dormer, so great with child she could barely stand, waiting an hour on her feet for an audience. The Spanish were beside themselves with rage; it nearly caused a diplomatic incident. Juno said it was punishment for the Ferias getting their clutches on me. I wonder if Jane Dormer has birthed her baby yet.

I offer the Queen a suitably humble thank-you, and she dismisses me, shooing me off with a flick of her wrist. I back away, careful to keep my eyes low, but despite my show of groveling, I feel elated. It is as if I have at last been dealt a good card from the pack—a royal card—when lately I have had only the most miserable of hands—twos and threes at best. I hear Kat Astley mutter something in disapproval, but I don’t care what Kat Astley thinks of me, favorite or not; I have dealt with worse women than her. I can see people about the room asking each other what was said to me.

A small platter is thrust into my hand. “Turn it over,” says Margaret Audley, Norfolk’s new duchess, whom I find myself standing beside. “See what inscription you have been given.” She is showing me the underside of her plate, where some words are inscribed in Latin.

“
Moribus et forma conciliandus amor
,” I stumble out, wishing, not for the first time, that I had concentrated more at my Latin studies instead of gazing out of the window at Father’s pages practicing their archery.

Fortunately Margaret Audley translates it herself, “Love is conciliated, won by manners and beauty.”

“The Queen thinks highly of you,” I say. In the corner of my eye I am watching Hertford talking to Frances Meautas.

“It would appear so,” she says. “Though there is discord between my husband and that
creature
of hers.” She holds her feather fan close to her mouth to mask her words from others. I can only suppose that by “
creature
” she means Dudley. “Norfolk,” she continues, “is of the mind that the upstart stands in the way of a proper royal marriage. My husband supports the Habsburg suit. What is your mind?”

“I would agree with that,” I say. To be honest I haven’t given much thought to whom the Queen will marry, though it seems to be all anyone wants to talk about; but it does remind me of my own “illustrious match” and Mary’s letter of warning.

“Show me yours,” she says. For an instant I don’t know what
she means and I hesitate, until she takes my plate from my hand, turning it over, reading,
“Amicos tuos prope et inimicos tuos propius tene.”
The Latin is, of course, meaningless to me.

“But that is not a Roman saying,” she continues. “It is supposed to have a Roman theme. That is Machiavelli, isn’t it? Or perhaps one of the Romans said it first. But it can’t be for
you
—not that. You must have the wrong one.” Then, looking beyond my shoulder, she adds, “Norfolk beckons. Will you excuse me, Lady Katherine; my husband does not like to be kept waiting,” leaving me none the wiser.

I seek out Juno, showing her the inscription. “What does it say?” But her face crumples as she reads it, and she shakes her head slightly. “What does it say?”

“Keep your friends close . . .” she begins.

“. . . and your enemies closer,” I whisper. “Oh, don’t look so worried, Juno.” I put an arm about her shoulders. “We all know there is no love lost between Elizabeth and me. But she
has
intimated that she may reinstate me to the privy chamber. Though it is highly likely she is merely toying with me.”

“So that is what she was saying. This is good news indeed, Kitty.” She smiles, though only fleetingly. “But
enemy
, that is a strong word.”

“It is only a game, Juno. She is warning me to behave, that is all.” But I am wondering if the Queen has somehow got wind of my “illustrious marriage,” and that she is playing with me before she pounces. I push that thought away and watch as a whisper travels through the room—hands cupped to ears, eyebrows raised. “What are they saying?” I ask Lettice Knollys to my right, who has just heard it from Frances Meautas.

“Dudley’s inscription said, ‘
Audax ad omnia femina 
. . .’ ”

“In English, Lettice,” I say. “Please.”

“A woman who loves or hates will dare everything.” She giggles. “Would you believe it? And,” she adds in a conspiratorial tone, “they say Dudley’s wife has a malady in one of her breasts and they are waiting—”