Shadow of Persephone

by G Lawrence

  My breath was sharp in my ears as I marched along the corridors of Chesworth. Even if he were there, I thought, I would not go back. Chesworth was large, scary and intimidating, but home was a sad place.

  Along dark corridors, lit only by the fading sun, we marched until we reached a door. “In here,” said Joan. “This is where you will sleep. The other maids are all in there now, as it is our time for personal tasks.”

  She opened the door and I entered, my heart in my throat. A wall of eyes looked up, and stared straight at me.

  Chapter Three

  Chesworth House

  Summer - Winter 1531

  Our day began at dawn.

  In the maidens’ chamber, in the faded light before the sun rises, I was woken by my bedfellow, Kat Tilney, a distant cousin. We washed our hands and faces in cold water, which was better, my grandmother said, for the complexion. Hot water opened pores to wandering imps and fevers, but cold water was safe as long as the washer was healthy. We made sure our faces and hands, especially the nails, were clean as my grandmother always inspected us. By our beds we knelt, thanking God for the blessings He had granted, asking for His grace in all our works.

  We dressed in gown and kirtle, our hair combed and flowing down our backs, as maidens were supposed to wear it. We walked to Mass in the chapel where we asked God to forgive our trespasses, and bowed our heads as the priest spoke in Latin over us, sometimes giving a sermon, usually about the ills of women. Women were wicked, easily corruptible and corrupting of others, he droned as the maids giggled quietly at the back of the church. Women were doomed since Eve to tempt men, and had to be controlled, he said. It was the place of men to ensure we devils in dresses did not run out of control.

  The young men, standing on the other side of the church, did not look particularly interested in following the priest’s commandments. They were more interested in what, or whom, the girls were giggling about.

  When God was done with us, we broke our fast on bread and sometimes meat, or fish if it was a saint’s day, Advent or Lent, making sure to say a prayer and make the sign of the cross upon our lips before eating. Then, I went to my tutor. No more play with spinning tops or running about the house playing hide and seek or leapfrog for me. There was much to be learned.

  I shared this teacher with other girls, ten of them. Henry was not there, for he was separated from me so he might be instructed in advanced lessons, ones suitable only for boys.

  I already knew how to read and write, and that knowledge was built upon, but numbers were included so one day I might manage my husband’s household. I would learn passages from the Bible, some in Latin, although I knew not what I was reciting, as I knew nothing of that language but how to speak it. I was told this did not matter. Priests were there to explain the Bible. They were our link to God.

  At eleven, when the chapel bell rang, we went to the great hall to eat with the rest of the servants. There, I was shown how to wash my hands in the bowl brought around before the meal, how to sip pottage quietly, not to belch or scratch, to wipe my mouth carefully before drinking from the shared ale-cup, and how to dip my knife daintily into the salt cellar, taking only a little. That was the only time I saw Henry, from afar, on the other side of the hall where he sat with his friends. After the first few days, I did not miss him. He had never been very nice to me. Although he was my only link to home, the only person I really knew, when I started to get to know the other girls he faded like smoke upon reaching the rafters.

  We ate plain food, for it was more beneficial for children. My grandmother ate fine, white bread, but ours was dark, with grain in it. There was always a pottage to start with, of fish if it were a fish day, and meat or grain if not. Beans bobbed in our broth along with flakes of fish or vegetables. There was capon and onions, buttered worts and pickled walnuts, beef or mutton stews, and roasted eels. We ate well and quietly, talking gently to those on either side of us, but never shouting across the table, even when passing dishes.

  If my grandmother was feeling generous she would allow one of us, always someone related to her, to take a sip from her own cup of wine. We had to take it with both hands, and pass it back to the same servant who had offered it, not spilling a drop. Such waste and indelicate behaviour would bring about a beating.

  Many things brought about beatings. Children were born sinful, and strictness was required to rid us of wickedness. The rod beat it from us, as though cheekiness or boldness could escape the flesh upon the red weals that rose after a willow switch struck. My grandmother said children needed to be broken in, like horses, taught to obey their master. But think not that she was cruel or unusual. All children were flogged when they did wrong, and my grandmother’s punishments were nothing to those of other houses. Kat Tilney told me she had been beaten and locked in a cupboard by her father when he suspected she had stolen a honey cake.

  “And had you?” I asked.

  “Of course,” she said, giggling. “I stole one every day. One might as well be beaten for something one has actually done.”

  In the afternoon, I learned sewing and embroidery. Then there was dancing, my favourite lesson, and music. Late in the afternoon, I waited on my grandmother, learning from Joan Bulmer or Kat how to wait upon my betters.

  Kat was older than me, a pretty young girl of eleven with light brown hair and eyes. I thought her grand and grown up, and since she was the nearest to my age, we were together a great deal. She took me about the house, guiding me down corridors, showing me how to remember my way. She pointed out the other women, like Joan Bulmer, who was married but did not live with her husband.

  “Why not?” I asked.

  “Because he is mean and wicked,” she said. “Your grandmother, my great-aunt, took Joan in when she asked, for she knew he beat her. It is a husband’s right, so the Dowager said nothing, but she helped Joan because some men beat women whether they deserve it or not. When first Joan came, she used to limp. He had broken her ankle. But she is better now.”

  It was not uncommon for married couples to live separately if one of them had a good job in a house like my grandmother’s. Agnes was respectable, so was her house, and as a married woman Joan could wait on her personally, which was a worthy job to hold. Joan’s wages went back to her husband, so he was happy, and Joan escaped nightly beatings so she was too.

  Joan was sixteen, even grander than Kat. She was beautiful, with long, fair hair that curled a little, a button nose and bright blue eyes. I could not imagine how she could have displeased her husband, for she was gay, clever and sweet.

  “Some men do not like spirit in a woman,” said Kat.

  “Many men seem to,” I said, watching gallants of the household who stared at Joan wherever she went.

  “Before marriage,” she said, chuckling as though I had told a fine jest. “Not after.”

  There were many maids at Chesworth. Kat’s elder sister, Melena, was also in our chamber. There was also Alice Wilkes, Margaret Morton, Margaret Smith, and Dorothy Baskerville. Some twenty women slept in that room, but they were the ones I came to know best. The maidens’ chamber was a vast, long room where we slept two or three to a bed, with a smooth log for a pillow, sheets of linen in the summer and wool in winter. We were fortunate to have beds. Some masters only granted straw mattresses, full of ticks and fleas.

  Together we learned to brew and bake, how to salt and preserve fish and meat, or how to smoke them, hanging haunches and bundles of fish from rafters. We learnt how to pickle eggs, vegetables and in the autumn, mushrooms. Even if some of us were to marry well and become great ladies, it was good to understand these tasks.

  “That way, servants cannot cheat you,” my grandmother said as we stood in the salt room. She looked stern, as though we were about to do just that.

  We learned sewing and embroidery, so we might mend and decorate the clothes of our husbands and children. My grandmother considered herself an expert in remedies and medicines, so tutored us in how to distil and prepare
plants, how to care for the sick, and which remedies were best for which affliction.

  “The Duke of Suffolk tried my potion for the sweat,” she said once, pride riding her breath. “And proclaimed it better than that of any physician.”

  I was later told that her boast used to be about Cardinal Wolsey, but now few people dared speak that man’s name. He had failed to gain an annulment for the King. Arrested on charges of treason, Wolsey had died on his way to the Tower of London, but people said had he made it there the King would have taken his head.

  Agnes taught us how the body was ruled by the humours; blood, phlegm, choler and bile. How sickness might be cured by restoring humours that had fallen out of balance by letting blood, or feeding a patient herbs. We learned how to purge a patient through bowels or mouth, how to stop a headache, and cure piles with ash and lard.

  “This will save money,” said Agnes. “Every good wife is a physician. Coin should not be lavished on a doctor for every ache and groan. A good wife saves her husband money…” she grinned “… that way, there is more to be spent on pretty ribbons for herself.”

  We all laughed. My grandmother was strict, but witty.

  She showed us how to make syrup of poppies for pain, burn feathers for quinsy, brew the brains of a hare for teething babes, and prepare a green frog so it might rid teeth of worms. We were to wash walls with vinegar to purify them, feed a patient garlic to rid them of sickness, or almonds to aid digestion. Mandrake was fed to barren couples and also to those who could not sleep. She took us through her grounds, pointing out plants that we all should keep in our gardens when we married; tansy, pennyroyal, harefoot, mandrake, wormwood, plantain, rosemary, thyme, garlic, valerian and nightshade. Poisonous plants should be roped off so young children could not get to them, she said, but even poisons were useful in small measures.

  “Take this,” she said, stopping at a plant and waving her cane at it. “Hemlock. In the right dose, it is a fine sedative, but use too much and it kills. Henbane, too,” the cane gestured wildly in the direction of another part of the garden, “excellent for weak lungs and coughs, but too much and it will kill not only chickens.” Seeing we knew not what plant she was speaking about, she took us to it. Roped off, in gritty soil it stood. Many of us covered our noses as we came close. “Yes,” she said. “Unpleasant smell, but it has uses. Many vile things do.”

  My grandmother told us how to make infusions, teas, drops and perfume. “You may hap on an older husband,” she told us, “a man married before, and accustomed to a wife who knows her duties, but also accustomed to being cared for.” She fixed us with a glittering eye. “The older men get, the more trials they face, and they will tell you of them, often, and in detail.” She smiled. “You must recognise signs of illness, so you can use the right herbs.”

  As we walked, she would fire questions at us; what are the symptoms of gout? What herbs would you use for a child in fever? How would you rid a body of worms? It was terrifying to find the cane pointed at you, and more often than not my mind went blank, but fear certainly worked as a tool for the memory. I soon found my tongue blurting out answers before my mind had thought them. And they were right.

  Some afternoons we were taken to learn archery, shooting at butts in the parkland near the house. Those were languorous, golden afternoons of muffled word and muted laughter, the only strong noise the thwack of arrows thumping into butts made of hay and cloth.

  Each afternoon, we were granted an hour to ourselves. Kat took me about the house and gardens in the first few days, as my grandmother had told her to.

  “There are over two hundred acres,” she said as we wandered the gardens. “Part of the forest of St Leonard’s lies within the estate.”

  The house was vast. Timber-framed and two storeys high, it was built in an older style than my father’s house. Surrounded by a moat, it nestled in the beautiful countryside of Sussex, and boasted a drawbridge leading through a gatehouse into two courtyards beyond. There were five grand receptions rooms including the great hall, as well as endless chambers and corridors. Outside was the chapel, a bakehouse, kitchens and the brewhouse, but if you looked closely, there were little signs of neglect. Timber needed replacing in some walls, for they bowed out as though pregnant. Paint had chipped in the lesser chambers, but since they were scarcely used my grandmother paid no heed. She cut costs where she could, as she told us, besides, rooms for the best guests were kept beautifully, and those people were the ones who mattered.

  The house was always busy, with maids gathering herbs in the gardens for the stewpot, women tending to captive rabbit warrens, pageboys carrying messages from my grandmother to her men, valets checking grain or horses, and men herding animals to the slaughterhouse. There were women carding flax or weaving, and gardeners tending beds of flowers, herbs and vegetables. Father Borough, the chaplain, was always up to something, preserving the house’s religious relics, usually, and my grandmother’s almoner oversaw her charitable giving to the poor. The ale maker was always brewing, and chamberers bustled, placing new, green rushes on floors or sweeping them out when they became dirty.

  The village of Horsham stood nearby, and its people were grateful, for the estate brought them work and trade. The estate grew vegetables, and yeomen who rented plots farmed animals. The forest supplied wild beasts for our table, and there were stock ponds of fish in the grounds. Cows bellowed from the byre and fields, geese honked on the ponds, chickens squawked in the yard, and deer sauntered through orchards, fleeing when they heard footsteps.

  The buttery stored ales and wines, the saucery made sauces for dishes, and the bakehouse endlessly baked bread and pies. There was a salt cellar for preserving meat and fish, a room where my grandmother made her remedies, a pantry where food was stored and a yard where men made barrels to store ale or apples.

  My grandmother had a steward, a comptroller, receiver, solicitor and secretary. She had maids, gentlemen ushers, carvers, servers and gentlemen of her chambers. There was her Master of Horse, another of mews, a clerk of the kitchen, yeomen of the pantry, ewery, buttery and wardrobe, as well as cooks, bakers, brewers, her almoner and scullery men. There was us, too, of course; relations brought to learn to be both maids and wives.

  “For who knows which we will become?” Kat said, taking hold of a tuft of grass and pulling until she had a seed head in hand. She stripped the seeds absentmindedly, letting them float to the earth. “Perhaps maids of honour to wealthy women, or the Queen if we are fortunate. Perhaps we will marry and serve as ladies to richer women. If our fathers can gather good dowries, we may wed well, and if not, we will have to hope for the best.”

  It was not a bad thing to be a servant to someone rich. It was the way of things. Most people were servants, and the higher you were, the higher the one you served was too. The Duke of Buckingham had waited upon the King… until he had his head chopped off for witchcraft. Wives of earls and dukes waited upon the Queen. We, lesser daughters of noble houses, or of the higher gentry, waited upon my grandmother.

  “You will likely go to court,” Kat said. “You are a Howard, after all.”

  “Not a very important one,” I pointed out. “The King does not like my father.”

  “Why?”

  “Father bested him at jousting.”

  Kat giggled, her eyes darting about. “Watch that tongue, Catherine. It might get you into trouble.”

  “For telling the truth?” I was confused. I had been taught lies were bad, not truths. I had not realised adults teach values to children they do not care to follow themselves.

  “Some truths should not be spoken,” she said. “Especially about the King.”

  In return for service, my grandmother fed and clothed us, taught and instructed us, and paid a small wage. When a servant started as I did, in their green years, they might save a small dowry, or, if a man, enough to purchase a small flock of sheep or a house. If she liked you, you were likely to gain rewards; a better paid post, cast-offs from her gloriou
s wardrobe, or little combs, sweet treats or headdresses.

  When the day ended, we ate at five or six of the clock and went to bed, exhausted. In the maidens’ chamber a fire glowed; red shadows dancing with black upon walls and beds. Shifting cloth about our beds, moved by ghostly, cold hands, wafted slowly in the red-black darkness, and chill air from draughts washed over my face, but blankets and my bedfellow kept my body warm. I often fell asleep within two blinks of the eye.

  My grandmother also had many visitors, my aunt, another Katherine Howard, amongst them.

  “The Dowager likes gossip,” Kat told me. “Your aunt never comes empty-handed.”

  She was a fascinating woman, this aunt of mine. When I came to my grandmother’s house, Katherine’s husband, Rhys ap Gruffydd, had been arrested for treason. Rhys was descended from the Welsh King of the same name, and was once the most powerful man in Wales. When his grandfather died, some ten years before I came to Chesworth, Rhys had expected to inherit his lands and titles. But he did not. The estates and titles were granted instead to Lord Ferrers, leading to Ferrers and Rhys coming into conflict.