Sisters of Treason (52 page)

The Queen calls Frances over to her, asking her something. Frances is nodding like a drunk’s puppet. My breath is shallow and I am trying not to think of what is about to happen, to think instead of my wedding day, my wedding night, of lying in the arms
of my dear husband. As my fingers continue to play, I think about each of the fourteen days and nights I have been Keyes’s wife, of each little kindness done, each blissful instant. I fear my moment in the sun is over.

Frances approaches me. “Her Majesty would like a word.” She wears a smirk that I would wipe off her face were the circumstances different.

The room is silent and everyone has begun to wonder what is happening, throwing questioning looks at each other. I kneel before the Queen, head bent, eyes on the floor.

“Look at me, Mary,” she says.

I lift my eyes. Her expression is inscrutable.

“You are wed?”

I nod.

“To my Sergeant Porter.” I don’t know if the look of distaste is more for the fact that I have married without her say-so, or the fact that Keyes is so far beneath me in rank—both, perhaps.

I can feel the room’s attention bearing heavily on me.

“Have I single a cousin left who has not betrayed me?”

It is as if the room is in suspension, awaiting an explosion. I can hear a woodpecker’s thrum from beyond the open window. It is summer outside. When the Queen speaks again she is quite calm, which is almost worse for its unexpectedness.

“You have defied me. What do you think I should do with you, Mary?”

In that moment I decide that I will not go off with my tail between my legs like a good girl—good little Mary Grey, good as gold. I will not give up my freedom without a fight.

“Your Majesty,” I say, trying to keep my voice steady. “I am no threat to you. I cannot bear a child to claim your throne. I am barely a woman.” I open my arms as if to say, look at me, look at this useless body of mine.

I notice the Queen wipe a hand over her forehead and press her lips together. I think I see a drop of kindness there.

“I have made myself a nobody with this marriage,” I continue. “I think you could give me a chance of happiness. It would cause no harm.”

She closes her eyes and opens them again slowly, and I allow myself to imagine if I have appeased her.

“I beg of you, do not make me suffer for my sister’s misdemeanors.”

She inhales deeply, then speaks very quietly. “If only that were possible, Mary.” Then louder, so the whole company can hear. “If I allow this, all the world will think they can defy me and be forgiven.”

“But Your Majesty too has made youthful misdemeanors . . .” It slips out unbidden and I feel a knot of dread tie itself inside me. The Queen will not relish being reminded of her own weaknesses—that, I know only too well.

“Take her away!” is the command, spoken with her head turned from me.

A guard takes hold of my upper arm and hauls me from the chamber. Twisting my head back I shout, “I hope it festers on your royal conscience, the misery you have visited upon us Greys!”

January 1568

Cockfield Hall

Katherine

The physician pierces the thin skin in the crook of my arm. I think of Christ’s wound, a red flower opening in his white side, petals falling. I watch the ruby trickle slowly fill the bowl—all the cursed Tudor blood draining from me. I shut my eyes and try to hold the image I saw from the window yesterday, of Tom in the gardens, charging along, emitting peals of laughter, astride an upturned broom serving as a hobby horse, the dogs running behind him as if they were a pack of hounds after a stag.

In my mind it is summer, but I can tell from the patterns of ice
at the edges of the windowpanes that it is deep winter, and now I am confused as to when it was I saw my Tom in the gardens. I find I cannot hold things in my head, and wake sometimes thinking myself back at Pyrgo or in the Tower, with my Hertford but a few yards away. Then comes the wrench of knowing he is not there and the surprise of finding myself in an unfamiliar place. I have to ask one of the maids where I am. The image is fading away and the sound of Tom’s bright laughter has become so quiet I can barely hear it.

“Hush,” I say to the maid, who is clattering about with the basin. “I cannot hear my boy.”

“Lord Thomas is asleep, my lady,” she says.

“Not in the gardens?” I ask, trying to untangle my thoughts, remembering it is winter now and that I was seeing him only in my imagination, realizing too that the doctor is gone and that my arm is bandaged. “Oh dear, I am confused again. Tell me, Lucy, where are we?”

“I am not Lucy, my lady. I am Maud and we are in Suffolk, at Cockfield Hall, in the care of Sir Owen Hopton.”

“Maud,” I say. I remember that I like Maud, but cannot make any sense of things otherwise. “I thought we were at Ingatestone.”

“No, my lady. We moved from there some time ago and have since been at Gosfield Hall and now here.”

“I am the King’s mother.”

“There is no King, my lady.” Her voice is soft. “It is Queen Elizabeth on the throne, near on ten years now.”

“She is my cousin.”

“I believe she is, my lady.”

“And Tom, where is he?” I feel panic rising.

She sits beside me, taking my hand. “Fret not for Lord Thomas. He sleeps soundly next door.”

I am suddenly afraid that time is playing tricks on me. “How many years have gone by, Maud?” I ask, trying to remember the places she talks of, trying to remember how old Tom is. “What age is my boy?”

“He is five, my lady. And a fine strapping lad he is too.”

“Five? Who stole the years?”

She takes a cup in her hands. I can see a feather of steam rising from it. “Will you take a little broth?”

I smell it now—an animal smell that knots my stomach. The stench of it is filling me with sin. I shake my head slowly.

“Just a sip. You will feel better.”

“Maud,” I clutch at her arm. “You will take care of him . . .”

I can tell by the stricken look on her face that she knows, as well as I, that I am not long for this place.

“I promise,” she says.

I am gripped with a sudden horror. I must face my own obliteration. Jane is whispering to me:
It will learn you to die
 . . .
It will learn you to die . . . I will learn you to die
 . . . I think of Christ—His skin is pearl white, luminous, and the red petals fall forever from His side. He smiles at me.

“Help me to the prayer stand, Maud.” As I say it, I wonder where I will find the strength to drag my carcass from the bed. I feel her capable arms about my waist as I stagger the few yards, collapsing to my knees on the hassock. Muttering out a prayer, I take the pellet of bread I have hidden in my gown and, eyes tight shut, holding the image of Christ steady in my mind, place it on my tongue. Water wells in my mouth and the pellet swells until it is bigger than a fist; bigger than a melon; bigger than my belly, great with child; as big as the earth itself. I swallow and I am replenished. “Hear my prayer, O Lord, give ear to my supplications: in thy faithfulness answer me, and in thy righteousness . . .”

“I shall ask for the chaplain to come and pray with you, my lady,” whispers Maud.

•  •  •

There are people hovering in the chamber like shadows. Jane is among them, at the foot of my bed, waiting for me, her small hand stretched out to take mine. Someone approaches. It is Sir Owen. I can feel words collecting up in me, things I must say.

“How do you?” he is asking.

“Even now, going to God”—the words flow from me, a river of words—“I beseech you promise me one thing, that you yourself with your own mouth will make this request unto the Queen’s Majesty, from the mouth of a dead woman: that she would forgive her displeasure towards me, and that she would be good to my children, and not impute my fault onto them, and to my husband, for I know my death will be heavy news for him . . .” She must free him now, I am thinking, for when I am gone there will be no reason to keep him locked away. “Maud,” I say, “pass me the box where my wedding ring is kept.”

The box feels like a dead weight, heavy as a coffin. It takes all my strength to lift off the lid. Inside I feel for the pointed diamond. Handing it to Sir Owen, I say, “Give this to my husband. It is the ring he gave me when I promised myself to him.”

“Your wedding ring?” he asks.

“No.” I take out the other ring and hand it to him. “This is my wedding ring.”

He inspects it minutely, reading the inscription. “Knot of secret might,” he murmurs. “So it is true. Why did you not show this to the Church Commission?”

“I did.”

I can hear him exhale a great lungful of air. I don’t want to have to remember all that, how they had decided not to believe me, before I even set foot in the Archbishop’s Palace. I take one more ring from the box, bringing it close so my eyes can focus on it. It is the death’s head ring I wore for Juno; its hollow sockets stare back at me. “Give them all to Hertford. And this . . .” I pull Jane’s Greek New Testament from beneath my pillow. “This is for my sister Mary.”

I close my eyes, drained now, feeling the last vestiges of life leaking from me. I can hear Lady Hopton quite clearly, whispering to someone that if only I would eat something, my life would be spared. But I cannot keep Jane waiting. God has sent her to fetch me.

Images run through my mind and I am back in the gardens at Nonsuch with the music trickling from the banqueting hall, astride my Hertford, my face burrowed into his neck, breathing him in; I am in the Tower and there he is on the parapet, standing waiting for me as if it is an ordinary day; I am lying on my bed beside Mary, her small hand held against my belly, waiting for my baby to quicken; I am basking in the gummy smile of my dearest Beech; I am nursing little Tom, his mouth suckered to me; I am in Maman’s arms, a babe myself; I am back above the river pool at Nonsuch, standing on the brink, Juno watching on as I throw myself into the air like I have wings. I look to Jane; she is not alone: Juno and Maman float either side of her, beckoning me.

A figure drifts towards me. It is my Tom. I touch his soft face. It is wet—a rain-drenched peach.

“Weep not, my precious. I go to the Lord’s house. He is waiting for me.” His little shoulders heave as he plants a sweet, damp kiss on my cheek, and I feel the threads attaching my heart to his thinning—one more tug and they will be broken.

September 1571

Bishopsgate

Mary

A blackbird sings outside my window and a breeze flutters the edges of my papers. I am writing to my husband. I think of him at Sandgate Castle, where he is now guardian, a position granted him by the Queen. Closing my eyes, I allow myself to imagine for a moment that I am there by the sea with him—the briny rush of air blows my hair from its ties, the gulls circle above, crying out to one another, the push and suck of the tide throws shells like precious stones up on to the wet beach. I am walking, barefooted, on damp sand, hand in hand with my husband.

I have a pile of his letters, tied with a ribbon that once fastened
my sister Katherine’s hair. It is one of two things I have from her. The other is Jane’s New Testament. It was delivered with news of her death, three years gone.
So I am the last
, I remember thinking. But I am not the last, for there are her boys, my dear nephews, whom I still have never seen. Perhaps there will come a time . . . I do a good deal of thinking these days.

A pair of blue tits pecks at the crumbs I have scattered on the sill, flitting staccato movements, so pretty. Keyes’s letters recount his time in the Fleet. His cell was so small he could not stand straight. He tells of how it was only thoughts of me that kept him from giving up on life. He tells, too, of his release and being joyfully reunited with his children.
It is only you, my dearest wife, that is still lacking from my life. And soon enough, I am sure of it, we will be together again. Look how I am favored with this position. Is it not a sign, my love?
I do not need to read his words for I know them by heart. But I am not so hopeful. The words I spat to Elizabeth as I was taken away haunt me still.
She
will not have forgotten that, even six years on. Elizabeth does not forget a slight.

What cannot be taken from me, though, are those two blissful weeks I spent with him. I go over them in my mind, remembering his touch, how I was transformed beneath his fingers. I come back to my letter, dipping my pen, enjoying the satisfying scratch it makes against the paper.
Naught is easier than self-deceit; for what each man wishes, he believes to be the truth
, I quote Demosthenes. The ancients have been a great comfort to me in the times when I have felt deserted by God. Demosthenes in particular—who could not agree with him, when he says,
Whatever shall be to the advantage of all, may that prevail?

My time is spent with my books in this chamber, so much time for reading. I watch the birds and once a day take leave to stroll in the cloistered garden below, from where I can feel the tight press of the city beyond the walls. It is not such a bad life and I sometimes think that I am like a nun from the old days, who has chosen to shut herself away in the service of something greater than herself.

I do not prevail upon the Greshams. Anne Gresham is not of
an agreeable disposition and is a reluctant jailer, not because she is kind but because she is inconvenienced by my presence. I hear her argue with her husband about me. I see the disgust Anne Gresham has for me clearly. I know it well. It is the same disgust Frances Meautas had for me, the same, thinking far back, as Magdalen Dacre had also. There will always be those who think me an aberration. I do not fit with the perfect environment Anne Gresham seeks to design for herself here at Bishopsgate, her new-built palatial London house, where each fixture has been chosen for its prettiness and even the kitchen lads look like cherubim. Yes, I am not a pretty fixture for Anne Gresham’s new house, and when there are visitors I am kept away. I prefer it so.