It had been a while since I had run—really run—and as soon as we reached the outdoors, I embraced the freedom of it and pushed myself to the limit. The day was beautiful, and the grass felt marvelous beneath my bare feet. This was what my soul needed, for it was almost as liberating as riding. Kat never let me run. She thought it beneath me, but I sometimes wanted to tell her that I was only nine and running was a normal part of youth.
When we reached the lake, Robert plopped down on the bank and tossed his line into the water. I did not have a pole, so I sat down next to him and he handed his to me.
“Do you really think we will catch anything?” I asked, keeping the pole steady while I held my breath.
“Probably not. But that’s not the point, is it?”
I looked at him curiously. “What do you mean? We have a pole and a hook. What other reason could we have for sitting on the lakeside?”
“We are here to talk and enjoy the quiet.”
Just then a large duck quacked loudly in our direction, and Robert turned to me with a laugh. He said to the duck with mock severity, “Silence duck! We are here to enjoy the quiet.” I laughed again and thought how different he was from yesterday or this morning. There were no pretty courtier words or flirtatious smiles, only funny jokes and playful laughs. I liked this side of him.
Before long, I found a wonderful muddy spot on the lakeside, and Robert and I constructed all sorts of villages in our homemade modeling clay. At first it was hard for me to get all dirty, but after Robert had thrown a few handfuls of mud at me, I gave up my attempt at staying clean.
We had a marvelous time, but the most important thing we did, as far as I was concerned, was talk. We talked about everything and nothing. I told Robert about how my mud hut would look if I could build it the way I wanted, and he constructed a battlefield of mud men, or rather lumps, to protect my village from the water serpents. Afterward, we cleaned ourselves off in the pond and, naturally, had a water fight.
We made boats out of leaves and pushed them about the lake with sticks. I told him about my life with Kat, Blanche, Mary, and Master Parry, and he told me about his family and his life at court.
“I do not particularly like court. It is all parties, and late nights, and children are never allowed. If I did not have my horse and my brother, Guildford, I would have been bored out of my skull. Guildford and I played tricks on the maids and roamed the castle like it was our home.”
“It was your home,” I said with a smile. “I have not been to court for a very long time. Father banished me,” I added frankly.
He chuckled. “Oh yes, I remember this story. Didn’t you tell him he was a bad man for killing people?”
I did not laugh as I said, “Close.” Pausing, I considered if I should tell him the truth, and as I looked into his merry blue eyes I chose to trust him. “I asked him how it was that he could chop off the head of anyone he chose. Then I told him that Queen Anne was my mother, and his wife, and it was naughty of him to kill her.”
Robert stopped laughing and said, “I am sorry. That really is not funny.”
“I dare say it was not. I can still remember the anger in his face, and I was just a wee child.” I sighed. “Do you think he will ever let me back into his favor and back to court?”
“I am certain he will.” He smiled and patted my shoulder. “It looks like your boat has been sent to the fathoms below.”
I looked over and he was right. My oak leaf had sunk. “I suppose that means you win?”
“It does, indeed. Now, pay up!” he said, and held out his hand.
I reached in my pocket, fished out a smooth black rock I had found, and laid it in his palm. “You are just awful for taking my pretty rock.”
“Well, perhaps one day I shall let you win it back from me.” He smiled and slipped the rock into his breeches pocket.
I would one day be expected to host every holiday in the kingdom, so my education as hostess began with my ninth birthday. “I do not feel like wearing something so constricting, Blanche,” I remarked as the woman cinched my waist tighter.
“Arriving early and overstaying one's welcome is the material practice of nobility, my Lady. Since your event is but four days away, I predict you will be busy receiving family and friends this afternoon and you must look the part.” Blanche, who acted as my personal waiting maid, stated this information without any disdain. It was fact and not to be judged.
“Come now, Blanche. I have plans.”
Blanche pursed her lips. “We shall see.”
Naturally, I spent the afternoon greeting guests. Before my boots were laced, I was called down to the sitting room. My cousins had arrived.
I took Blanche with me to greet them. Bless her heart, she did not give me a single snide look, but she did talk merrily with everyone. I found I was not in the mood for talking. I was thinking—thinking about how I did not want to act like a grown up right now. I wanted with all my heart to leave all these people behind and find Robert, or have him come to me. In my mind I saw him walking through the doors, smiling at me, and kissing my hand. I sighed and could not help myself from wanting it to be so.
A few minutes after this desire settled in my heart, and I had almost decided to excuse myself, Robert and his father entered the drawing room. He quickly came over to my side. I could not help but brighten as I saw him, and I checked my dress and touched my hair to make sure all was in order. He bowed low and said casually, “Lady Elizabeth, how are you this evening?”
“Greetings Robert, Sir John. I am wonderful…now,” I added quietly, and intensified my smile.
“Wonderful. I only ask, for just a moment ago, I had a strange, overwhelming feeling.” Robert’s cheeks flushed, and he cleared his throat unconsciously. “Never mind.” There was a crinkle to his brow and I sensed a nervousness in him. “It’s silly. I guess I just had the feeling that you needed to be rescued.”
“Nice as it would be to call you to my side whenever I should need rescuing, sir, I do not have that power. Do you think it indigestion?” I said with a laugh on my lips.
“No, I do not.” His face would not laugh. He was serious.
“Come, it is cooling down outside. Let us go out on to the terrace and talk.” Robert walked next to me as we left the room. “Do you think we will be missed?”
“I am sure you will be. You’re the hostess. But it is not as if we are hiding,” he replied.
“I do not feel like a hostess. I feel like this is a punishment for all the fun I had with you today.” I took out my fan and began sweeping it back and forth in front of my face.
With the heat, and the gown, and the expectations waiting inside, my mind tumbled and finally settled. I’d never been unhappy with my life, with its plethora of rules and intense training. I knew that some royalty balked at the control exuded upon them, but I’d never felt that way. I was a sponge, longing to know and to do and to be everything.
Until Robert came.
Ever since he arrived, a growing knot of uneasiness had been settling in my belly. Now that I had a taste of freedom, I did not want to give it up.
A touch of a breeze brushed my face and I instantly felt refreshed.
“I have thought of nothing else but all we did this afternoon.” I turned to him, “Thank you for forcing me to have fun. And our conversation…I feel it is the first of its kind for me with anyone but Kat.” I thought about that for a moment and realized that perhaps the conversation I had with my father at Pyrgo was in this same category. “Alright, perhaps the second real conversation I have ever had.” And before I knew what I was doing, I recounted all the particulars of my visit to Pyrgo. I told him how wonderful and strange it all was.
He must have misunderstood my meaning, for his response was, “I do not assume to instruct you on your relations with your father, but everyone has been talking of nothing but Queen Catherine’s beheading, and the toll it is taking on the king, so I would humor him.”
Catherine beheaded? I sput
tered, and my heart instantly burned with anger and hatred toward the man whom I loved so dearly moments before. Father had beheaded another one of his wives? How could he do that when he knew that I was still alive to hear about it? I thought over his words to me, for they were fresh in my thoughts, having just recounted them, and I wondered if part of his apology to me included, at least in his mind, the offense of this situation.
I wished all manner of ill on him at that moment because I was not thinking of him as a king. I was thinking of him as a man who killed a young woman I very much liked and admired. A woman whom I had known better than I knew him, my own father.
For some reason, at that very moment, Mary’s face came into my mind and I knew that I now understood her anger toward our father. I needed to know everything if I was going to forgive him for this, and I wanted to forgive him. I reached into the pocket of my dress and felt the birthday gift he had helped make for me.
Steadying myself, I looked up at Robert and asked, “What was her crime?”
Absolute shock covered his face. “You do not—do not know?”
“I did not want to know. I figured he did it in some gruesome manner, but I have asked everyone to keep it from me. But now I must have the details, or I will just continue to be angry with him,” I said, my hand shaking inside my pocket.
“Infidelity,” he said shortly. “She was caught in the act. There was no question, unlike…” He trailed off uncertainly.
“Unlike with my mother,” I finished for him. Then angry words exited my mouth. “I saw them. Catherine loved my father and he adored her.” My fan beat back and forth more erratically. “Well, Robert, if that is how love ends when you are a prince, I am glad that I have been cut off. If I am ever in that high office, I shall never marry.” This was said as seriously as I could say it, and when I looked at Robert’s face, I knew that he knew I meant it.
He seemed very taken aback.
I did not want to discuss my now definite resolve, so I began mumbling about how I was feeling.
“I know it is feminine and insensible, but I am angry with him for cutting off her head. That is a personally offensive executionary method for me and yet”—I put my fan down— “and yet, I never truly knew my mother. So, I find myself angry, but still loving my father. Not ignoring him, despite his deplorable actions, but wanting his approval, even in the wake of them. I do not understand myself. Do you understand me, Robert?”
“Not a bit…or I think maybe a little,” he said with a mischievous smile.
“Come, Robert, let us not talk like we were born north of the Northumberland.”
He laughed so hard that I had to shush him. I did not want Blanche to descend upon us when I was finally having a good conversation. But, with his laugh came the light heart that I had felt before.
I would not think about this news of my father right now. I would just listen to Robert and have my mind be here, with him.
Episode 5
September 1542
Hatfield House, Hertfordshire
Robert and I took full advantage of Kat’s absence and Blanche’s unwatchful eye. I was free for the first time in my life, with no schoolwork, no forced responsibilities. Truth be told, I should have spent this time with my guests, but I did not. I spent every waking moment with Robert. I decided that my dress that had been worn to the lake that first day was now my play dress, and once I stopped fearing the dirt and embraced it, I had so much fun. Robert and I chased frogs and hunted snakes. There was an old swing hidden in a large oak on the grounds, and we spent hours taking turns swinging. Robert would always push me when it was my turn.
Once we had breached the wood, we climbed all the trees we could, and we ran and ran and ran. We chased one another and laughed. We talked of the animals we saw, and we even caught a glimpse of a doe one morning. I do not think I had ever had better conversation, for it was not contrived. It was the true and natural talk of youth.
On the evening before my birthday party, we found a small meadow overgrown with wildflowers. Robert made me a crown of beautiful tiny flowers and called me “Queen Elizabeth” when he put it on my head. Later, I found a stick and decided to knight him.
“I shall call you ‘Sir Robin’, but only when we are together like this, I think.” He looked at me quizzically and I explained, “Not because you remind me of a yeoman or because you steal from the rich to give to the poor. Heavens, nothing that serious.” I paused to be dramatic and raised my sword to touch the other shoulder; “You are Sir Robin, for you are a man in disguise. I feel privileged to be the one to whom you show your true self.”
His face became very serious, and he slowly stood so that our faces were only inches apart. Even in the dim twilight, his glorious blue eyes gazed into mine with such intensity that my heart began instantly to hammer. I did not understand what he was doing as he touched my arm gently, but the touch made me shiver.
He was suddenly smiling roguishly. His hand had reached mine and it just happened to be the one with my sword in it. In one quick movement, he slipped the sword out of my hand, sprung back a few feet, and yelled, “Guard ye, filthy swine!”
Naturally, a fantastic sword fight ensued, followed by a superb defeat. He slaughtered me, and I was as humble as a mouse in my surrender.
Kat returned the next morning, an entire day late. I teased her that she had not wanted to return, for her face was alight with something, though I could not tell what.
“What have you been doing?” she said with a tsk, when she tied up my petticoat and saw that my face and arms were brown from the sun. “I have not spoken with Blanche as of yet, so you will have to tell me.”
I had determined to continue playtime with Robert, no matter what Kat had to say.
“I have been playing, Kat. Robert and I have spent every moment of every day together, running and jumping and playing in the mud!” My voice was haughty, and my eyes dared her to say anything about it to me.
Her face hardened. “Well, if you think that my absence has changed our relationship to the point that you can speak to me in this manner, you are mistaken, my Lady. I am almost forty years old and I will not be spoken to so disrespectfully, even by the daughter of the king.” She did not raise her voice, but she did command respect.
I felt ashamed, but not so much as to give in, so I tried a different approach.
“Kat, I am sorry for being disrespectful. You know I love you as well as a mother, but you never let me play. I need it. I like it. It makes me feel free. Daughter of the king or not, I am only nine years old!”
“Yes, you are nine, and that is too old to be rolling around in the mud. I will not hear of it, Elizabeth.” Her voice was final and unemotional, and I knew that was the end of it, but I protested more anyway.
“Perhaps we can reach a bargain.” I looked at her hopefully. She regarded me with a straight face but nodded me on. “I will not do anything that will get whatever clothes I am wearing dirty or damaged. That means that I can run and swing and sword fight with Robert. I can still play but not in a messy, childish way. Also, it will not conflict with my study time.”
I smiled sweetly at her and her face moved a little, so I thought that there may be a chance of agreement. The terms sounded perfectly reasonable to me.
After a moment of looking at me, the corners of her mouth lifted slightly, and she said, “I shall talk to Blanche and Sir John.”
I screamed with pleasure, “Thank you, Kat!” and hugged her tightly around the waist.
“That is not a yes, my Lady,” she said and slipped my dress over my head.
After I was dressed, Emma, the morning maid, brought in our breakfast. Her pregnant belly was getting quite large and I asked her how she felt.
“As well as can be, my Lady,” she answered and left without another word.
We sat down to eat, and I began Kat’s interrogation. “So, tell me what happened on your trip. Did you find Master Dunsy?”
Kat cleared her throat and nodded.
“Yes, I did, and he was a very nice man. But, he would not give me the box and letter until I had someone testify that I was who I said. That is what took me so long. Finally, I was able to get your second cousin, John Ashley, who was staying at the castle, to speak on my behalf.”
She blushed so deeply when she said this, that I had to ask, “John is moderately handsome, if I recall correctly, is he not?”
I smiled as I saw the red stain on her cheeks darken. “He is handsome and very amiable. It was exceptionally good of him to assist me, for Master Dunsy would not yield.” She took a bite of her pottage and chewed slowly. “I do not think this rabbit pottage will be good tomorrow. Let us not forget to tell Agnes.”
“I shall remember to remind you. Continue your story, please,” I said, and took a bite. She was right as always, and I did not know if I could finish the pottage in front of me, let alone stomach more tomorrow.
“Well, Sir John must have convinced him that I was who I said I was, for he handed me the box and letter the next day.”
“And was it from some evil sorceress attempting to curse you?”
Kat choked on her food and it was a while before she could speak. “I am not…I cannot…it is written in beautiful French and so I am going to let you translate it for your studies today. That way you can read it for yourself and form your own opinion.”
I was intrigued, not only because I realized how much I longed to get back to my studies, translation being a favorite subject of mine, but also because I had a mystery to uncover. Kat was not telling me anything, and so it felt like a fun game she was playing, though I knew she did not play games.
Episode 6
September 1542
Elizabeth Tudor- Ancestry of Sorcery Page 4