Pour The Dark Wine

by Deryn Lake

  ‘The matters were not trivial to me,’ answered Thomas.

  ‘That’s as may be. But the Council await my verdict. Are you going to formally apologise or not?’

  Thomas stood up, approaching his brother with a strange expression, half smile, half something more disquieting.

  ‘I apologise,’ he said, putting his hands flat on the desk’s wooden surface and leaning forward to stare into the Protector’s face. ‘I apologise Ned, for the sake of my wife and the child she is carrying. I would not want either of them to endure the agony of my being imprisoned.’

  Somerset stood also, the light from the window catching his face as he moved. He seemed careworn and haggard, looking far more than his forty-four years, a weary expression in his dark eyes.

  ‘Then I will accept your apology and so report to the Council. But I beg you, both personally and as Lord Protector, let well alone from now on. Concentrate on family life, leave politics to others.’

  There was no reading Thomas’s face as he bowed his head. ‘If that is your wish, my Lord.’

  ‘It is,’ answered Somerset, ‘it is. Now having forgiven, we must forget.’

  There was a pause then Tom said, ‘If you have done with me I will return to Sudeley Castle and my wife.’

  ‘And the Admiralty?’

  ‘Will have to do without me until after the child is born.’

  ‘Have a care, brother,’ whispered the Protector.

  ‘You look after your kingdom, brother. And I will look after Thomas Seymour,’ whispered Tom in reply, as he swiftly left the room.

  *

  A golden, corn-bright August. Hazy mornings, lakes of mist lying at the feet of the gentle Cotswold hills, and brilliant noontimes, the wheatfields shadowed by their clear blue slopes. In the evenings hills dark as grapes, soft and purple in the fading light, the sky above them a fierce bright azure which faded in minutes to deepest indigo.

  The colours in the castle echoed nature. The day nursery had been hung with twelve tapestries, each of which represented a different month of the year and was worked with dyed threads accordingly. The night nursery was vivid as sunset, the nurse’s bed adorned with scarlet and crimson, the cradle trimmed with cloth of gold. Tom had hung the tapestries with his own hands while Katherine and Jane Grey, watching him, had made noises of delight.

  ‘Oh little knave,’ Katherine had said, laying both hands on her swollen body, ‘please hurry. I can hardly bear to be so enormous for another minute.’

  As if in answer the baby had jumped and both Tom and Jane had hurried to feel him, laughing and saying that the child inside danced the volte. But on the last day of August, just as the beaming sun let forth its first light on the Cotswolds, the little knave jumped in earnest and the Queen found herself suddenly soaked with her womb’s mysterious water. This was the sign for which they had all been waiting and the midwives were called at once, while Dr Huick hovered in an ante-chamber.

  Birth was not easy for Katherine Parr. In June she had celebrated her thirty-fifth birthday and though she had eaten sensibly and exercised strictly throughout her pregnancy, the natural strength of a girl ten years younger was no longer hers. Tom’s Romany cousin, Cloverella, had sent a potion of raspberry leaves to drink during labour and Katherine found some relief in this. But her travail was long and wearisome and it was not until the early hours of the next day that the exhausted woman heard the small sad cry of her little knave and the words, ‘You have a daughter, Your Grace.’

  ‘A daughter?’ Katherine could hardly believe it, so sure it was to have been a boy.

  ‘Yes, Your Grace.’

  And they showed her a bundle of humanity, scarcely bigger than Katherine’s hand, which looked at her with surprised blue eyes, and waved its fist.

  ‘Oh how pretty,’ said the Queen, and cried with sheer fatigue. An hour later, when both Katherine and the babe had been washed and dressed, Tom was allowed into the chamber, looking round rather nervously, or so his wife thought.

  ‘The little knave is a girl,’ she said to him wistfully. ‘No son for poor Tom, I’m afraid.’

  ‘I know, I know,’ he answered, then smiled brilliantly. ‘But I have been told already that she is a stunning beauty, fit to break the hearts of every man born. May I see her?’

  And without waiting for permission he crossed to the cradle, leaned over it and picked out his minute daughter.

  Watching him closely, Katherine’s heart swelled with love. This was no act to please her, no pretence that he did not care the child was a girl. Tom genuinely loved the tiny creature he held so gently in his arms, delighted with his little scrap of beauty.

  Kissing the babe gently, he handed her to the nurse and crossed to the bed, sitting down beside Katherine and holding her close to him.

  ‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘You could not have done a nicer thing for me.’

  ‘You really like her?’

  ‘I adore her. As soon as you are ready to sleep I am going to write to every important person in the world, telling them that my daughter is the most beautiful girl they will ever meet.’

  ‘Then go now. I am very tired.’

  Thomas bent close. ‘Was it hard for you, pretty Kate?’

  ‘Very,’ she said, ‘but worth it when I saw your look of delight.’

  ‘I love you,’ he answered gently, ‘don’t forget that, will you?’

  ‘Of course not.’

  And with that Katherine Parr snuggled down to a well-deserved sleep.

  *

  In his riverside study in Syon House, the Lord Protector sat with a letter in each hand, his brow greatly furrowed. One, written earlier that day, taking his brother to task for his naughty behaviour as regarded the Admiralty, Somerset was now regretting. The other, full of wonderful humour and joy, was from the culprit himself, announcing the birth of the most beautiful girl ever born.

  ‘Oh, Thomas,’ sighed Ned Seymour sadly, ‘what are we going to do with you?’

  How could he crush his errant brother with a reproof when Tom was so happy? And yet, if he did not, the Protector would have failed in his duty. He had given his word that he would write to the Lord Admiral that very day and list the Admiralty’s many complaints. And Ned was uneasily aware that there were those in the Council all too ready to make capital from a rift in the family.

  ‘I can’t get out of it,’ he said aloud. ‘Yet it grieves me to mar your joy.’

  Thus, reluctantly leaving the content of the letter exactly as it was, Somerset picked up his pen and added a postscript, frowning all the while.

  ‘We are right glad by your letters,’ he wrote, ‘that the Queen, your bedfellow, hath a happy hour; and, escaping all danger, hath made you the father of so pretty a daughter …’

  His pen scratched on.

  ‘… is no small joy and comfort to us, as we are sure it is to you and Her Grace also; to whom you shall make again our hearty commendations, with no less gratulation of such good success.’

  Somerset smiled at last. Perhaps there was to be a happy ending after all.

  ‘Thus we bid you heartily farewell. From Syon, the 1st of September, 1548. Your loving brother, E. Somerset.’

  He sealed the letter, then let it lie for a moment or two under his fingers.

  ‘God willing, let Thomas behave, and be a good father to the infant,’ he prayed aloud. ‘And God grant good health to the Queen.’

  The candle, which had been giving him extra illumination in the fading evening light, at that moment blew out and Somerset blinked a little, feeling a finger of fear as he sat for a second in total darkness, before he reached for a tinder and lit the taper once more.

  *

  The Queen made a wonderful recovery from the birth and Dr Huick, who saw her the next morning, pronounced himself delighted. The scrap of humanity, too, was thriving and the happy parents decided to name her Mary. Tom, in ecstasy, hung around the nursery suite until he was almost driven out by the Queen’s ladies who wanted their cha
rge to get rest.

  Five days after the delivery, at last considering it safe to leave his wife, Tom went hunting early in the morning, wearing a scarlet coat, and cantering through the mist with his fellow riders. They laughed as they rode, a merry pack of men, out to enjoy themselves as much as to stalk quarry.

  ‘I am the happiest man in the world,’ said Tom, as they stopped to drink from their flasks. ‘Gentlemen, I give you a toast, the Lady Mary Seymour, the most beautiful girl ever born.’

  ‘And Her Grace the Queen,’ said one of his companions.

  ‘The Queen,’ echoed Tom.

  Afterwards he wondered how no hint of disaster came to him, how he continued all that day with no idea of what lay ahead. Yet the moment he entered Sudeley Castle that evening, he knew. The very quiet of the place told him that something was wrong. With a pounding heart, Thomas shot up the stairs and into his wife’s chamber.

  At first he could not see her for the crowd round the bed but on hearing him they drew back, and he glimpsed Katherine, flushed and ill, twisting on her pillows.

  ‘God’s precious blood,’ he said, ‘what has happened?’

  Lady Tyrwhit, who barely tolerated Thomas and could only be icily polite to him, stopped his headlong flight towards the bed. ‘My Lord, I must warn you, Her Grace the Queen is far from well.’

  ‘I can see that, Madam.’

  ‘She was taken ill this morning, just after you left to hunt. When I came in she asked me where I had been so long. And then Her Grace said she felt such things inside herself that she was sure she could not live.’

  ‘What!’ said Thomas. ‘What are you saying to me?’

  He pushed her roughly aside and rushed to Katherine, who seized his hands fiercely as soon as she saw him.

  ‘Oh my darling …’ he started, but a high peevish voice, one that he could hardly identify with his pretty Kate, was whining at him.

  ‘My Lady Tyrwhit,’ the Queen was saying, ‘I am not well handled; for those about me care not for me, but stand laughing at my grief. And the more good I will to them, the less good they will to me.’

  Tom stared at her, horrified. ‘Why, sweetheart, I would do you no hurt.’

  Katherine narrowed her eyes and Tom knew, with a terrible sinking of his heart, that she was remembering Elizabeth and that fatal kiss.

  ‘No, my Lord, I think so,’ she answered. ‘For you have given me many shrewd taunts.’

  The Admiral wheeled round on Lady Tyrwhit. ‘What does she mean by this?’

  ‘She thinks you have not used her well in the past, my Lord.’

  ‘But I love her,’ answered Thomas furiously. ‘She is the only thing I live for.’

  And with that he went back to the bed, disregarding the cries of Katherine’s attendants, and flung himself down beside her, lifting the Queen into his arms, whispering again and again, ‘I love you pretty Kate. I would never hurt you sweetheart. I will make you better.’

  And how desperately he tried. Demanding cool towels, Tom washed her flushed face hour after hour, pushing back the russett hair which was now as damp and limp as the coat of a sick animal.

  ‘I love you, pretty Kate. You are going to be well. Do you understand?’

  She nodded faintly. ‘Yes, yes. But what of her?’

  ‘May she be damned,’ answered Tom savagely.

  ‘Don’t leave me, Tom, will you?’

  ‘Never,’ he answered fiercely. ‘I shall hold you in my arms for ever.’

  ‘Yes, yes,’ she whispered, ‘then I will be happy.’

  And that was how he stayed, the Queen sleeping, until his gentlemen finally led him away exhausted. It was then that Katherine, quite clearly and calmly, asked Dr Huick and John Parkhurst, her chaplain, to witness her verbal will.

  ‘I leave all my goods to my husband,’ she said distinctly, ‘wishing they were a thousand times more valuable than they are.’

  After that Katherine was at peace and began to dream, a rich, strange dream of vivid colours and strong sensations. She dreamt that she was walking through a valley, dark and mysterious, filled with wonderful trees and flowers. At the end of the valley a bright light beckoned Katherine on. Beside her walked Tom for, though she could not see him, she could feel his arms round her and the welcoming cool cloth with which he sponged her face.

  After a while the Queen drew nearer the light and entered it, finding that she was back in her own bedchamber and had really been nowhere at all. Looking round, she saw that on the bed lay two forms, one a waxen figure she did not recognise, the other Tom, convulsed with weeping, wild-eyed and terrible.

  ‘She’s dead,’ he was saying, ‘she’s dead.’

  ‘Hush, my Lord,’ answered a man that Katherine recognised as Dr Huick. ‘Try to get a hold of yourself. Be calm I beg you.’

  ‘How can I?’ Tom asked in a voice like a howl. ‘Without her there is no one left to help Tom Seymour. Oh God’s dear soul, my pretty Kate is dead but it is I who am gone.’

  The brightness in the room was getting stronger and Katherine blinked her eyes, almost blinded by the power of it.

  ‘Are you ready, my dear?’ said a voice at her elbow.

  She turned and saw to her great astonishment that John Latymer, the dear old bullfrog, was holding out his hand to her.

  ‘But what of Thomas?’ she answered anxiously.

  ‘He cannot be helped now. It is you and I who must go together.’

  ‘Will he be all right?’

  ‘That is up to him,’ answered the bullfrog, his funny old face just as sweet as Katherine remembered it. ‘Now come along.’

  And with that they went, hand-in-hand, out of the room and into the radiance.

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Where the summer of 1548 had been golden, now the winter raged. A week before Christmas, on the very day that the Princess Elizabeth and her retinue set out from Cheshunt in Hertfordshire for their journey to London, it started to snow. Flakes as big as fists floated out of a seal-grey sky, settling on the furs and hoods of the travellers, and a wisp of hair which blew about Elizabeth’s face glistened damply, then stuck to her cheek like the tendril of a vine.

  ‘Should we turn back?’ asked Thomas Parry, the Princess’s cofferer, his portly body quivering slightly with the cold.

  ‘No,’ came the indignant answer, ‘there are those who await us in London. My royal brother for one, and also Lord Seymour. If he has been good enough to lend us his house then the least we can do in return is try to maintain some semblance of punctuality. Go to, Master Parry.’

  And with that the Princess had pulled her hood well down both to protect her face from the snow and block the cofferer from sight, or so he suspected.

  It had been a very fraught autumn, thought Thomas Parry, particularly with regard to the Lord Admiral, whose behaviour since the death of his wife had been erratic to put it at its kindest. Terrible stories had circulated. How Lord Seymour had been so drunk on the night of Katherine’s death that it had taken four of his gentlemen to lift him from the floor; how he had ridden off, shrieking curses to the sky, not even to return for his wife’s funeral. How Lady Jane Grey, that mousey child of eleven years, had been forced to play the role of chief mourner, draped in long black weeds and a veil, only to be rewarded for her pains by an exhibition of the Admiral’s most eccentric behaviour.

  In a frenzied fit of despair, Thomas Seymour had announced that he would be shutting down his houses and leaving England only, in the next breath, to change his mind and fetch Dame Margery Seymour from Wolff Hall to run his establishments for him. Jane, who had been sent home to her parents, was promptly asked back again, thrown between her father, Henry Grey, and Thomas, as if she were a ball. But this time Lord Dorset was not so willing to release his daughter, not feeling it quite seemly for her to live in the same place as the Admiral now that the Queen was dead. However, a further fee of £500 and redoubled assurances that a marriage to the boy-King would most definitely be arranged, had changed his mind
and Jane had been despatched once more.

  It was whispered that the girl had not been the only subject under discussion between Lord Dorset and Lord Seymour. It was said that Thomas was also sounding out the ground to see where Henry Grey’s allegiance might lie should Thomas organise a rebellion in the name of the King, a rebellion to let Edward Tudor determine his own acts and do away with the Lord Protector. It was whispered further that should an uprising take place the late Queen’s brother, the Marquess of Northampton, would also add his weight to such an enterprise. But they were mere rumours with probably not a grain of truth to substantiate them.

  But what is true, thought Parry, grinning fatly and stealing a glance to where Elizabeth, a real winter Princess in white furs and scarlet cloak, rode ahead of the column, is that the Admiral is mad for love. And it is the Lady Elizabeth he wants.

  Within a month of the Queen’s death, Parry and Katherine Ashley had been asked to meet the Admiral in conditions of great secrecy, something which had appealed to the child in all three of them. The cofferer could remember the scene now; the Admiral, having assured himself that they were alone, throwing off his cloak and laughing, plying them with strong drink, grinning hugely.

  ‘I’m lonely, that’s the truth of it,’ he had said. ‘I miss my Kate and I want to fill my bed.’

  Mistress Ashley had pretended to blush but it had deceived no one. ‘Oh, Lord Seymour, how can you say such things?’

  ‘Because they are true, Kat. And you of all people know how well the Princess likes me. Now, neither of you will find me ungenerous. All I want you to do is plead my cause — and do a little spying on my behalf.’

  ‘Spying?’ repeated Parry, pompous and shocked.

  ‘Only of the sweetest sort, Sir. I desire you to find out what my Lady thinks of me. Whether or no she will have me for a husband.’

  ‘I think she might well, Lord Admiral,’ Kat had giggled, sipping her brandy.