Shadow of Persephone

by G Lawrence

  But I knew it was not a little thing. After that, there would be no going back. I told him I was not ready, and if he really loved me he would wait. He said if I loved him I would not wait, but as long as our meetings went on he did not push too hard. I said one day I would lie with him. I told him that so he might be quiet. I did not want to lie with him, but now he had managed to get more than kisses from me, I feared to be blamed for all he imposed upon me.

  And he had obtained my consent, had he not? That was what he told me. “You agreed,” he said. “You agreed to let me touch you. Your grandmother would blame you, Catherine.”

  Over and over threats were said, until they became as prayers in my mind; true, sacred.

  I became withdrawn. The other maids, gathering almost every night with their men, noticed nothing. They were too busy with their own cares and loves. I took to staring from the window, my eyes blank as they rested on the feather-like frost which came after still, calm nights. Only Kat noticed. I could not tell her all, his hand was still upon my mouth, but when I admitted he was asking for more than I wanted to give, she frowned.

  “Tell your grandmother,” she told me.

  “She will blame me. I led him on, he told me that.”

  “By smiling?” Kat asked.

  “It is my fault,” I said it so often even Kat began to believe me.

  “Tell him you do not want him,” she said on another occasion.

  “I have.”

  “Tell him he is no match for your blood.”

  “I have.”

  “Then tell him you have the pox,” she said, throwing her hands into the air.

  “He knows I am a maid. That is why he chose me.”

  I lost weight. I could not sleep. When I closed my eyes, his face was there, staring, leering. His hands were upon me in my dreams. I would wake screaming, and the other girls hushed me to be quiet. Such noise would bring Mother Emet to the chamber, they said, and I would be the cause of their undoing.

  In silence I was held.

  It was not only Manox keeping me quiet now, it was my friends. When Kat said I did not like his attentions, they laughed and said I had encouraged him. They did not understand, did not try to understand. If I were being hurt by stick or dagger, they would know what to do, but when harm comes through fine words, persuasions and threats, people do not recognise it. They said I should stop leading him on if I wanted him to stop. They did not understand what power he held.

  I felt weak, useless, feeble and hopeless. The sun had gone from the skies, music faded from the world. The empty place was growing, seeping out from my heart to claim my soul. He was a man, more powerful than me in body and mind. He could force me with his strength if not with his threats.

  Man he was, but it was a woman who saved me.

  One day, in my lessons, I stood in a corner. He was kissing me, his hand down the front of my gown. I was not there, and he was busy, so we did not notice when the door opened and someone entered quietly. I noticed nothing until his hand flashed from the front of my gown as though an asp were in it. A hand cracked across my cheek. I tumbled from the empty place as another blow, and another, hit me, making me spin to the floor.

  I looked up, dazed, and stared into the horrified face of my grandmother. “Do you wish to go the way of your cousin?” she screamed.

  I stared up, blank in mind as she turned on Manox. “How dare you?” she screamed, incandescent with fury. “You dare lay hands upon a Howard? You filthy cretin, get you gone!”

  As he ran from the room, she turned on me. “Never will you be alone with him again,” she said. “I know not what you thought you were doing, girl, but your romance is over.”

  She stormed from the room. The door slammed. I put my hand to my cheek and started to laugh. It poured out like summer rain. My grandmother would never know how grateful I was to her that day.

  Still laughing, I went to the window and looked out onto a fresh, clear day. I could see again. The joy he had tried to take from me had not left me, it was still there. From my mouth it had burst. He had not managed to kill my spirit. Laughter could still live within me.

  I felt stronger than I had for months. My grandmother might think me a whore, but she had turned on him. She had not spoken of turning me from the house. He had said that was the first thing she would do. He had lied and I, fool that I was, had believed him.

  “No more,” I whispered. “No more.”

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chesworth House

  Summer - Autumn 1537

  “At least there is peace with Spain,” Norfolk said to my grandmother as I played the lute. Her eyes glanced off me, glimmering with hostility. I had hardly been out of her sight, but she had said nothing about catching Manox and me, and nothing about sending me away. I understood. The secret we all knew was being permitted to live. She would not speak of my disgrace, so it did not exist.

  She thought it punishment, bringing me to her day after day to make me play to her, or sew with her. She found endless fault with everything I did, and smacked me on the bottom, about the ear and around the cheek frequently. She encouraged my tutor to thrash me. It was her way of punishing me without it appearing she was punishing me.

  But I did not care, did not care how many times she hit me, or how many thrashings I got. When with her, I was safe.

  When I had to take music lessons, Master Barnes was always there, and if not him, several of the girls. Manox could not do a thing before so many witnesses and his frustration, seeping from him like creeping mist, made me want to laugh. I hoped he was suffering. Every ounce of his pain was sweet sugar to me.

  I had started to sleep at night, and although I still woke with bad dreams I looked better. My skin was no more grey, but peach and bonny. I laughed with the other girls and helped their suitors steal the keys. I was happy. I wanted them to be too.

  “Peace came when Katherine died,” said my grandmother. “The King of Spain’s Council always told him the annulment was a private dispute, did they not? When she died, there was no reason for him to go against our King.”

  “And now Spain reaches out,” said my uncle. “The Emperor wants to renew war with France, with England as his ally. There is talk such a promise may be sealed with marriage. A son of Spain wed to Lady Mary… but only if the Emperor accepts she is not heir to the throne.”

  Norfolk had need to emphasise this. His loyalty was in question again. The King had heard reports Norfolk had sympathised with the rebels of the north, and some of his men had defected when my uncle had gone to punish them. Although Norfolk had denied any treason in the strongest possible terms, the King remained suspicious. Cromwell was in his ear, whispering the Howard Duke was disloyal.

  “Lady Mary is rendered a lesser prize, without the promise of a crown,” said Agnes.

  “Therein lies the problem,” said my uncle. “The Emperor does not want to tie his son to a bastard, and the King will not hand her to a lesser noble, but at least there are talks. For a while, when that woman was Queen, I thought there would be war. Now she is gone, and the Queen is about to produce an heir, England is safe.”

  Queen Jane was with child. It was said she was happy, eating particular, roasted birds she had a fancy for. The King could not do enough for his Jane, and looked ten years younger.

  My grandmother lifted her eyebrows. “Only if Queen Jane produces a son will England, and she, be safe.”

  *

  We woke one morn to bells pealing from the church.

  “A prince!” Joan said, breathless as she returned from waking my grandmother. A messenger from my uncle had ridden through the night, bringing news. Queen Jane had succeeded where my cousin had failed. England had a prince, named Edward, for he had been born on the eve of the feast of Saint Edward the Confessor, the holy King of England.

  “The Queen is well and the boy hale,” she told us. “The King is delighted. There is to be a celebratory Mass this morning and another this afternoon.” She looked at m
e. “Your grandmother wants you with her.”

  I was not surprised. At my grandmother’s side was where I was always to be found these days. After I had hurried into my gown, I went to her chamber, but as I had almost reached it, a hand, like a claw, grabbed me.

  “Sweet Catherine!” said Manox, pulling me to him. “This separation is more than I can bear.”

  All at once, the world was dark. The shadow had caught me. “Bear it,” I whispered, trying to pull away. “I am not to see you alone, you know that.”

  “Come to me… meet me tonight in the orchard. I will repair all this hurt.”

  “I will not come,” I whispered. “Do you think I do not see what you are doing?”

  “I love you.”

  “You do not. If you did, you would not hurt me so. Now let me go! My grandmother waits.”

  “You will meet me, or I will tell Norfolk you are a whore.”

  I stared, aghast. “You would not dare,” I breathed. “And I am no whore.”

  “Lifting your skirts? Teasing men with smiles and kisses? It is your fault I felt for you, yet I protected you, kept your secrets, but I will no more if you do not meet me.”

  “You made me do that!” I said. “You threatened me!”

  “I? I did nothing of the sort. It was you, pulling me to you with those shy smiles and doe-eyes. And I will be thwarted no more, Catherine. You are mine.”

  He yanked me to him, trying to kiss me as I writhed and wriggled like an eel. I pulled away and tried to escape, but he caught my arm, holding it so tight I squealed.

  “Are you quite well, Mistress Howard?” said a voice.

  Looking up, I saw Ned, his face a mask of displeasure. “I have to go to my grandmother,” I said, yanking my arm from Manox’s.

  “Then go,” Ned said. “And let nothing keep you.”

  As I raced down the corridor, I heard Ned speaking harshly to Manox. I could not hear what he said, but I knew Ned had seen what had happened. He had saved me! How I wished I could have a man like him; one who wanted to protect rather than harm me.

  That day as we stood in the chapel, listening to a Te Deum sung for the Prince, I could feel Manox watching me. I kept my eyes on the statue of Christ as he hung from the cross. Amongst prayers for the new Prince and his mother, I asked Jesus to protect me.

  Priests said God did not like fallen women, but I knew Jesus did. He had defended Mary Magdalene. Perhaps he would defend me.

  *

  “The Queen is dead,” my grandmother told me.

  It was but two weeks after we had celebrated the birth of the Prince, perhaps not even that. I stared at her. I knew women died in childbed, for my mother had, but how could a queen, attended by so many doctors and women, die in such a way?

  Agnes told me all had seemed well, but ten days after the new Prince was welcomed into the family of God, the Queen had fallen to fever, and died. The King, who had been preparing to leave on a hunting trip, had been plunged into grief. Or so reports said. The truth was a little different.

  Norfolk arrived two days later. I had thought the King would be in mourning, but talks had already begun about a new bride.

  “With Jane dead,” said my uncle, “the King looks to Spain for a new Queen. He always wanted to be the second Henry V, marching in to reclaim the French throne and park his portly bottom on it. Now Jane is dead, he can wed a kinswoman of the Emperor, and together they can claim France.”

  “He has a lady in mind?” My grandmother did not seem shocked at all.

  “A few. He would like Christina, Duchess of Milan, for he heard of her beauty.”

  “She is very young, is she not? She cannot be more than fifteen.”

  “Once past fourteen, a girl is ripe for marriage,” said Norfolk. “And the younger the better, for she can breed more children.”

  “She had none with her first husband, Duke Sforza.”

  “He was sickly. Some say he never managed to mount her.”

  “I heard the King was fond of another Englishwoman, Anne Basset, daughter of the Governor of Calais,” said my grandmother.

  “He needs a political match this time. Anne is a beauty, but would bring him nothing. England needs allies.”

  When my uncle departed, I was left with my grandmother. “You were listening?” she asked.

  I did not reply, unsure of the correct answer. But when I felt fingernails pinch my ear, lifting me from the stool, I yelped and said I had been listening.

  “Of course you were,” she said. “But it pleases me you pretend, girl. Better that way. Better to listen and learn than show men, especially men like your uncle, that you know what is going on.” She paused. “So the King is thinking of a new wife before the last is buried.” She chuckled grimly. “At least he is true to form.”

  “So… he did not love her, my lady?”

  My grandmother made a hawing sound. “How could he, after Anne? It would be like being in love with the sun only to replace her with a candle.” She chuckled. “They are all in a rush at court, Norfolk tells me. Reformers trying to push one princess and Catholics another, but they will have no joy.”

  “Why?”

  “Because our King is not like other kings. He must be in love to marry, or suppose himself to be. Before, he has found a new love as the present one fades in his mind, as she falls from grace, but Jane tricked him, dying before he had the time to fall in love with another woman. But he will find her and find her fast. You can tell that by the fact Jane’s household has not been disbanded.” Looking at a light frown on my face she sighed. “When a queen dies, or is about to…” Anne’s shadow seemed to flit across her face “… her household is broken up. If it is not, it means another queen is soon to come. Otherwise the expense is all for nothing. Norfolk says Jane’s household is to remain intact.”

  I left my grandmother’s chamber that day, my head in a whirl of confusion. Everyone had said how much the King had loved Jane. He had sent my cousin to death to take her as his wife, and now, but a few days after Jane’s death, he was looking for a new bride.

  As I closed the door, a shadow fell. Scared, I started backwards. “Let me alone,” I whispered. “Or I will go back into that room and tell my grandmother all.”

  A smile crept up Manox’s face. “All?”

  What more he might have said I know not, for at that moment the door opened and my grandmother walked out, talking to Joan about arrangements for her horses. Manox took one look and ran. It was almost comical.

  Seeing Manox scurry away, she came to me, waving Joan back. “I told you to meet him alone no more,” she whispered, fire in her eyes.

  “I told him, Your Grace. He will not listen. Each time I say such a thing, he says he will tell my uncle of Norfolk that he kissed me.”

  “Does he indeed?” My grandmother’s eyes narrowed. “Did he say such things before?”

  I nodded. My throat was dry, as though to speak aloud the secret would kill me. Her eyes bored into my face. “Did he say things like that in order to get you to kiss him?”

  I nodded.

  “And you believed him.” It was not a question.

  “Women are to blame in such matters,” I muttered.

  “You should not heed everything the priest says, child. Men are just as culpable, especially when three times the age of the woman in question.”

  “Then… you do not blame me, my lady?”

  “Only for being foolish.” She stared at me, but I saw the anger in her eyes was no more directed at me. “The man was playing you, Catherine, do you not see that? He stole innocent favours then used them to wheedle more.” She shook her head. “You are not the first simpleton to be caught out by such tricks… It went no further than kisses?”

  I shook my head. “He wanted it to, but I refused, my lady.”

  “At least you are not wholly stupid.” She touched my cheek. “I will send him from the house. Fear not. He will blackmail you no more.”

  As I looked at her, tears of gratitu
de in my eyes, she smiled. “What did you expect, Granddaughter? That man is nothing to me. You are my kin.”

  And with that astonishing statement, she walked away.

  I realised later that was the first time she had called me something other than girl or child.

  The next day, Manox left. Not in disgrace, just quietly removed and sent to the house of my aunt of Bridgewater. My grandmother sent for me the hour he was to depart and kept me in her rooms. I watched from a window as he left, casting his eyes about, searching for me.