Elizabeth Tudor- Ancestry of Sorcery

by Theresa Pocock

  My friends and family saluted me, and as we commenced the feast, I congratulated myself on gaining yet another skill required of a princess. I hoped Father would be proud.

  We cleared out all the tables from under the canopy to make room for the dancing, which went on until the sun was almost down. As the air cooled off we moved to dancing in the grass. The players were local men and excellent at their craft. Robert looked so handsome in his silk stockings and velvet doublet. I was proud to be bouncing around with him. There were several other girls my age attending, but I was not interested in them or their haughty, ladylike manners. I remained polite, but I did not seek them out. I wanted to have fun. It was my birthday party.

  He was a very good dancer and I had not seen his face so alive before tonight. He was enjoying himself immensely and so was I. It was much different to dance in the arms of the most handsome boy I had ever met.

  “This is wonderful,” I said a little dreamily as I watched Robert leap and kick as the dance called.

  “And terrific exercise! Do you think we should incorporate dancing into the time we spend together?” he asked.

  “I think that an excellent idea, mate,” I said in a Yorkshire accent. He smiled widely as he hopped gracefully past me. After attempting to dance the difficult galliard, the sun was down and so we sat. “I have not told you this, but my father and the king have arranged that I go to Ashridge in January and stay with your brother, Prince Edward, to be his playfellow and receive lessons from his new tutor, Dr. Coxe. I will be living with Edward for at least three or four months. You wouldn’t happen to visit your brother often, would you?” Holding his hand out for me, I rose, and we began dancing once again.

  “Unhappily, not. I miss dear Edward and wish that I could see him more. Perhaps Kat and I will have to take that up with my father.” I smiled at him and he smiled back, then he began humming the melody of the familiar tune being played.

  I knew the tune as well and hummed with him.

  However, as I did he stopped and said with shock, “My Lady, I did not know that you had such a superb voice. How have you not sung for me before?”

  I loved his praise, but it surprised me, and I looked at him to see if he was ridiculing. “You flatter me, sir,” I said with a blush. “I do not spend a lot of time singing, though I play the lute and the virginals. One really should sing if she is going to make the effort of learning to play, don’t you agree?”

  He nodded.

  “However, I have just not pursued singing.”

  “You should sing whenever you can, for you will only get better as you age.” He smiled at me and said, completely unabashed, “Elizabeth, I have to confess something to you.” I waited, and he pulled me to a table where we sat once more. “I think you are the loveliest friend a boy could have.” And with that he took my hand from the table and gently kissed it. “Happy birthday, and I hope this is the first of many we shall spend together.”

  I smiled, knowing he was only being charming.

  Just then a lively song began. “Shall we dance again?”

  He grinned as if I had read his mind and, holding the hand he had just kissed, pulled me to the grass.

  Though the day of my birth had come and gone weeks before, this celebration finally made me feel that I was older. I felt nine, though I did not exactly know what a nine-year-old was supposed to feel like. It was strange, as if I had an inner clock dinging, “You’re nine, you’re nine.”

  I noticed that the night was not as dark as it should be as I walked to the barn to get Larkin, but my mind was busy, so I did not look to the sky to see why. Between a letter and gift from my mother, news of the late Queen Catherine and her dastardly deeds, knowing my Father’s retaliation against her, Robert, and my birthday, I felt as though I were swimming in a mire.

  Kat was close behind me, though tonight she refused to ride with me on account of the long journey she had just returned from. She said she would watch me ride back and forth on the green. I did not think that would be a problem for I only needed the night air and the moonlight to clear my hectic head.

  I walked into Larkin’s stall, loving the smell of the stable. My mare, used to my nighttime rides, greeted me with a stomping foot and soft whinny. I slowly placed the bit in her mouth and then the bridle on her head. I stroked her as I did so, reveling in the chores of preparing her for our ride. I stood on a stool, pulled myself onto her bare back, then gently we walked out into the cold night air. She knew what I wanted before I asked her, and when we were out of the stable yard she instantly picked up her pace. Soon we were running through the grass. I felt everything around me, smelled every hint of fragrance in the breeze. As I lifted my face to the sky, I noticed how huge the moon was. My serenity was halted as I stared at the heavenly object. It was the most glorious sight, large and luminous in the dark speckled sky. I could not take my eyes away.

  I pulled up on Larkin’s reins a little, and when she slowed I noticed something strange. The moon was pulsating, or rather the light around the moon was pulsating. We stopped now. Blinking rapidly but keeping my eyes heavenward, I saw the light throb and it quickened before my eyes. Then, unbelievably, it increased in circumference to the point that the orb looked twice its normal size. I watched in amazement but completely without fear.

  Suddenly a ray of light broke off from the ball in the sky and fell like a star directly toward me. Instinctively I raised my arms, wanting and willing the light to come to me, and come it did. I closed my eyes and the next second, I was hit with warmth, luminosity, and a sensation of wisdom. When I opened my eyes and looked down at myself, I was light. It radiated out of every facet of my skin. I was so bright I was like a small moon shining from the earth. I felt energy and beams of brightness, not only on my outside, but also thudding through my insides, like life’s blood, and I knew that I was powerful.

  I did not know what the power did or what it was for, but it felt amazing to be endowed with it. I stood for several minutes, basking in my new body. But before long I began to wonder. A million things I wondered. What was happening to me? What was this light? Why did it feel familiar? Why was I not frightened? And the scariest question of all: what would Kat think? My friend surely could see me shining like a beacon in the night.

  For a moment I feared she would think I was a sorceress. I suddenly wished the brightness to go out. The moment the thought was firm in my head, the light vanished, instantly and without any warning. The void felt like devastation to my soul. I wanted it back again and willed it to be so with a desire so deep. I flung my hands again in the air toward the moon. The moment I moved toward the light I was again enveloped, and right then I decided that I did not care what people thought of my glowing form. I would never again be without this radiant power flowing through my body.

  After taking Larkin back to her stall, I walked out to meet Kat and prepared myself for her to have a fit. She was sitting on her bench waiting for me, and as soon as I approached she said, “I do not know if it is the moonlight playing tricks with my eyes, but you look—I don’t know.”

  She squinted at me and I thought, I am glowing brighter than all the candles at Christmas Mass, if that is the difference you are speaking of, but I said nothing.

  “Perhaps I should have gone out with you. Your rides always do you so much good, but it did not appear to me that you spent as much time running as you normally do. Why did you stay and stare at the moon so long?” Then she looked embarrassed. “Were you praying, my Lady? Oh, I am sorry for asking. No wonder you look so divine. You have received peace to your soul. I am glad.”

  She rose, placed her arm around my luminous shoulders, and walked me up to the house.

  She did not see it. How could she be this close to me and not feel the power that was inside of me? I was amazed to know she could not, and relieved as well for it meant that no one else should be able to see me this way, and thus, I could obey my desires and stay within the light always.

  Episode 8
<
br />   September 1542

  Hatfield House, Hertfordshire

  After going over and over the questions that filled my mind concerning this light that surrounded me, I finally found myself asleep, yet I had a strange awareness even in my newly vivid dreams. I kept on seeing myself arrive at Hever Castle to find my mother living there and carrying a baby version of me around on her hip. In the dream, she kept singing a song, over and over. One day you shall catch a ray of moonlight, in the middle of a bright and starry night. Look to the women now beyond your sight, for they have bequeathed a brilliant birthright.

  The tune was beautifully haunting, and it stayed with me until the sun rose. Before full coherence found me, the faces of women I had never met, but nevertheless knew, came to me as in a vision that clouded my concentration. My mind could not stop reliving the previous night and all that I had dreamt.

  As I sat at my dressing table, I gazed at my glowing body with a bit of disorientation. I did not feel like myself at all, yet I somehow felt more like myself than ever before. Kat was running a brush through my shining strands of hair as I considered how these two opposing thoughts resided within me.

  Part of my mind heard her as she spoke.

  “What is that tune you are humming? I have never heard it before and it is lovely, like a lullaby.”

  “Hum?” I said. “What?”

  “That tune you were just humming. What is it?”

  I had not realized I was humming at all. “I do not know. I dreamt it up in my sleep last night.”

  “Well, it is beautiful. You may just have a musical talent that we have not fully explored. Sometimes I wonder if I have neglected you in that area because I have no talent there myself.”

  That made me think of Robert. “You know, Robert mentioned that he thought I had a pleasing voice. I think I should like to have some instruction. It seems you have taught me all you can on the lute. Perhaps I have not been as good a pupil as I should, but I am now determined to repent and do better.”

  “What an influence that boy has over you, my Lady,” she said, and gave a very pointed look at my reflection in the mirror. Then she sighed. “I believe that you have reached the hithermost parts of my capacity in many areas, which is why I have written to Master Cromwell and asked that you be given a new tutor. A real tutor.” I turned to her, half excited, half concerned. “He will talk to your father about it, and within a fair amount of time, I am sure that you will be learning more than even you can digest.”

  Suddenly I could not stop the bile from rising in my throat. “You will not be leaving me, Kat. You promised that you would not leave me. You will stay and continue to be my governess. Promise me that you will.”

  She caressed my cheek. “Of course, child. I will not leave you. I gave you my word, and like Ruth, where you go, I will go.”

  I turned to hug her, and she hugged me back. Then I asked, “Whom do you think Father will send to tutor me?”

  “I put in a word about John Cheke. He went to Cambridge with my brother-in-law, Anthony Denny. But we will see what happens. Cheke is exceptional—that is, according to Denny he is exceptional. Have you met the fellow?”

  “I do not think so, but perhaps. It has been so long since I have been to Hampton, I am sure I will not know one face the next time I go, excepting Father’s, of course.” I thought how my stepmother, Catherine, would not be there and it made me sad again. The very small association we did have had made an impression on me. She was the only woman I could call a real stepmother. Anna, who lived at Hever Castle now, was my father’s fourth wife. She was sweet and good, but Father had only been married to her for four months and he was so miserable that, according to him, it should not even count as one of his marriages.

  Kat looked down to my face with eyebrow raised. “Perhaps, while we are waiting to hear word of your tutor, we can think of some excuse to go on a long sightseeing excursion to, say, Kent. I hear there are many wonderful things to see there. Hever Castle, for example.” She winked conspiratorially at me.

  I looked at my glowing form in the mirror and instantly knew that God was leading me. “I have decided to go, excuse or not. We will be leaving at the end of this week, or once my guests have said their goodbyes.”

  Kat stopped brushing my hair and looked at me with surprise. “My Lady, why would you decide this so abruptly without discussing it with your household first?”

  “I am telling you now, Kat, and this is the earliest chance I have had since I only now decided to go. I have never seen my mother’s home, and I have recently discovered a desire to know her a bit better. Do you think we could be ready to go in a week’s time?”

  “Yes, my Lady, but I think we will need to look over the books and discuss this extensively with Master Parry before saying we are absolutely going. You have traveled a lot this year, and with your birthday celebration, I am afraid that funds are running tighter than normal. Let us make sure it is doable before we get our hopes too high.”

  I had not thought of that, “Well Kat, this is important to me. If I must make some sacrifices in order to go, then that is what I will do.”

  Kat looked very perplexed by my sudden pronouncement, and she should have been. I did not make rash, careless, unthinking decisions. Nor had I before acted like I was the one in charge of my life. The adults could, of course, veto any pronouncement I made. I wasn’t Queen, though they did let me play at it a bit. However, before I knew what I was doing, my mind had put the recent events together, and I suddenly knew in my heart that everything was connected to my mother somehow. Perhaps the only way to solve the mysteries that now surrounded me was to open that box, and to do that, I needed to go to Hever Castle.

  I wanted to have studies outside so that I would be easily accessible to Robert, but the weather was ghastly with wind and sideways rain; so, I hoped he would come and see me, and by late morning, he did. However, he did not seem himself at all.

  “What is wrong?” I asked him as we sat for tea. Kat was in her room with the door ajar, riffling around for something.

  “I could ask you the same thing,” he said glumly.

  “Whatever are you talking about?” I asked a bit uneasily. How would it be if Robert was the only person who could see the thing that made me freakish?

  “You look so radiant and happy you would think you were getting married or about to become queen,” he said with wide eyes and pursed, pouting lips.

  “I assure you, I am none of those things!” Thank heavens he did not see my glowing skin. Now out of danger, I focused on him. He truly looked ill. “Come Robert, you have yet to tell me what is wrong with you,” I said with more concern.

  “I thought you would have heard. Has no one spread it about?” he asked, eyeing me suspiciously.

  “No, I have heard nothing,” I said honestly.

  “It’s my mother. She is pregnant again and is having some complications. She sent a note last night to Father asking him to come home immediately.”

  I lowered my head sadly and in a low voice answered, “So, you will be leaving me then.”

  “Yes. At this very moment, Father is getting the horses prepared. I have only come to say goodbye.”

  “But, when will I see you again?”

  “I do not know. Hopefully, you will be able to visit your brother while I am there. Ashridge is such a short distance from here.” That was the first ray of happiness I had seen from him since he’d arrived. It made me wonder how attached he was to me. Would our friendship last if we did not get to see each other often? I hoped with all my heart that I would be able to see him in Ashridge…and, of course, I would go to see Edward, too.

  “Oh Robert, I do not want you to go,” I said, and tears came rushing to my eyes. Now it was time for him to act the part he always played: the gentleman.

  “It is fine, my Lady,” he said, and pulled a handkerchief out of his doublet. He dabbed my tears off my cheeks. “Will you write to me? Frequently?”

  “Of course I w
ill, but will you write back?” The tears were really coming now. I had not realized I had grown so attached, that the thought of being without him would have me blubbering.

  Kat returned then and saw Robert and his handkerchief and me bawling into it. “What have you done?” She looked at Robert with such menace, I knew that her cold attitude had been a kind exterior, one meant to keep me happy. She did not like Robert at all. This aggravated me because she did not know him. Wanting to right an injustice toward my friend, I looked at Kat and willed her to obey me as I spoke to her. “Do not dislike Robert! He is good, and he is my friend.” As I said this, a bit of the light that surrounded me, that life-filling light, left me in the shape of a small orb and flitted over to Kat’s face, where it disappeared.

  I instantly broke out in a cold sweat. What in the name of all the saints had just happened? My brain rushed, battling with confusion and doubt, as I watched Kat’s reaction. Her countenance changed dramatically, the timbre of her voice softened, and her eyes widened in surprise.

  “I know, my Lady. I just thought that he had hurt you in some way, on accident of course.” She turned to Robert and smiled, every shred of menace gone.

  I looked over at Robert. He, of course, had not seen any of the light leave me, but he had watched Kat’s sudden change and it shocked him. I was speechless. I could not believe it. Worse, I did not understand it at all. Had I just willed away a piece of my light and used it to force Kat to do something?

  Both Robert and Kat were looking at me, waiting for some sort of explanation, but I had nothing to say. Robert said it for me. “I was just telling Lady Elizabeth that I have to depart for my home today.”

  “Oh no. She will be so lonely for you once you are gone, Robert.” Her words were completely sincere, but her eyes held relief. She came to me and placed a hand on my shoulder. “I am sorry, my Lady, but we will make do.” Then Kat walked to the window and said, “What a horrible day it is today. Not very good for traveling, I am afraid. Too bad you cannot stay until it lets up.” Then she walked back to her room.