Brandy Purdy

by The Queen's Rivals

  Kate concealed the bottle inside her coat as she passed back through the kitchen, smiling sweet and brazen, pausing only long enough to kiss the cook’s cheek and whisper a promise that when she returned the cups and spoon she would bring her back some of our syllabub.

  Everyone loved Kate, and no one could resist her; she was so saucy and vivacious, with a heart tender and loving as could be. She had a smile that made you feel like roses were growing around your feet, beautiful, sweet-smelling roses without the nasty thorns, just like my rosy, pink-cheeked, and smiling sister. She was thirteen then, glowing, and growing more beautiful every day, ripening into womanhood with rounded hips and pert little breasts of which she was very proud and longed to feel a lover’s hand reach around to cup as he kissed the nape of her neck. Unlike Jane, who shrank from such “sordid speculations,” and far preferred her ancient Greek, Latin, and Hebrew texts instead, Kate was avid for more fleshly knowledge, to learn all she could about carnal matters, and the “good and merry sport that happens between a man and his wife behind the bedcurtains at night.” She was eager to be wedded and bedded and prayed that our parents wouldn’t tarry too long over finding her a husband.

  When Kate appeared at the kitchen door, I left the pail with Jane and the cow and ran to help relieve her of her sweet burden—the three full, brimming tin cups, wine bottle, and wooden spoon made a clumsy and precarious armful. Kate handed the rest to Jane and approached the cow. She rubbed her gloved hands together to warm them for the cow, she explained, for she would not like someone’s icy fingers on her teats and didn’t imagine the cow would either. Then, furrowing her brow in concentration—she had never milked a cow before—she gave the cow a pat, said, “Please pardon the presumption, My Lady Brown Eyes,” squatted down, and began to gently pull at its cold pink teats, squirting the milk straight into the ice-cold pail I had brought from the barn. When the pail was full, we poured in the cinnamon, sugar, honey, and wine and took turns stirring vigorously, whipping it into a rich, creamy froth that we scooped into the now empty cups.

  We sat back, sipping our syllabub, sprawled in a snowbank, as if it were a warm feather bed and not wet and cold, giggling and waving our arms and legs, making angels with flowing skirts and fluttering wings, laughing as the wine warmed us within, imagining the sugar, cinnamon, and wine blazing a zesty, spicy-sweet trail through our veins, racing to see which would be first to reach our heads and make us giddy. Jane started to expound on something she had read in a tedious medical tome, but neither Kate nor I was listening and she soon drifted back into glum silence again.

  Suddenly Kate flung her cup aside and leapt up, pulling me and a most reluctant Jane after her, and we began to dance.

  I was eight then, and my joints not yet so badly afflicted that I could not dance a joyful jig. Though in my bed that night I might ache and cry and beg Hetty, my nurse, to heat stones in the fire, then wrap and tuck them in against my back and hips or ’neath my knees, I was not thinking about that then; time enough for that when the pain held me in its grip, impossible to ignore, when all I wanted to do was sleep. I kicked up my heels, raising clouds of snow, like dainty, dwarfish blizzards, and gave myself wholeheartedly to the dance, laughing at the wet slap-flap my skirts made when I kicked my little legs as high as I could. With my sisters, I could dance, free and easy, giddy and gay, as I would never dare do before others.

  When I was a little girl and first discovered the delight of twirling round and round, skipping, prancing, kicking, and leaping, I thought there could be nothing better than to be a dancing girl, but when my lady-mother overheard me prattling this dream to my nurse one evening, she seized me roughly by the arm, her fingernails biting hard enough to draw blood, and dragged me out into the gallery overlooking the Great Hall. There she swung me up, with a roughness that made the burly men who carted and carried sacks of grain seem tender, to stand upon a bench, and pointed down to where a troupe of dwarves clad in rainbow motley and tinkling bells capered and danced before my parents’ guests seated around the banqueting table, rocking and howling with laughter and tossing coins, crusts of bread, fruit, and sweetmeats at them.

  “Look!” she commanded. “Never forget, children like you are often put out to die, exposed to the elements if the wolves don’t get them first! If you were not my daughter, with royal Tudor blood flowing through your veins, if you had been let to live, that would be you down there, puffing out your cheeks and boggling your eyes, cavorting and playing the fool for pennies and crusts from a nobleman’s table! Never forget that, daughter! Only my blood saves you from being a fool in motley, no better than a performing monkey, and worse because you’re no dumb animal and have the wit to understand what is said of you and feel the hurt of it!”

  I understood at once. After that, though I never lost my joy in dancing, it became my secret. I never dared let any but my sisters and, many years later, the husband I thought I never would have, see me dance. When the dressmaker came the next day and unfurled her lengths of vivid, jewel-hued silks, I remembered the rainbow patchwork of the fool’s motley the dancing dwarves had worn and burst into tears, fearing that my lady-mother had changed her mind and, as a punishment for my deformity and the shame it brought my family, had decided to clothe me thus and send me away to join their troupe. How I screamed and bawled in my terror, so incoherent with fear that I could not make its cause clearly understood. And though Kate and Jane were quick to comfort and shush me, before our lady-mother came storming in, and Hetty made excuses for me—“For the life of me, I do not know what has gotten into the child! She is usually so quiet and sweet. I am with her every day and night and I can assure you . . .”—I ever afterward, though my heart craved and cried out for bright colors, chose to clothe myself in darker, more somber, and subdued shades, the better to blend into the shadows and hide, lest I ever be mistaken by my bright, festive attire for a jester, some nobleman or lady’s pet fool, instead of the Duke of Suffolk’s youngest daughter, and someone hurl a penny at my feet and command, “Dance, dwarf, dance!”

  Perhaps that was why I loved dressmaking so, especially for my beautiful Kate, and Jane when she let me. With Kate I could let my fancy fly free and unfettered and deck her peaches and cream and red gold, stormy-blue-eyed beauty with all the bright colors I longed to wear but didn’t dare. For Kate I could stitch gold and green together, like the diamond-shaped panes in a window, and trim it with a double layer of green silk and gold tinsel fringe, to create the kind of gown I, with my dwarf’s body, didn’t dare wear. No one would ever mistake my beautiful Kate for a fool; they would only applaud her dazzling beauty. Kate was my living doll and I loved to dress her. And when she wore the dresses I made, I, vicariously, went out with her, and in those moments I was in the world and of the world, beautiful and brilliant, zesty as a pepper pot but sweet as cream, not hiding shy and nervous in the shadows. In those ruffles and frills, embroideries, cunningly cut bodices, and gracefully draped skirts, I was, through my glorious Kate, the center of attention, adored and admired.

  When Jane pulled back, refusing to dance with us and complaining of the cold, Kate gaily insisted it was spring, glorious spring, the merry month of May, and began singing a rollicking May Day tune full of true love and new flowers, blue skies and bird song, kicking up her heels, as high as she could, seemingly light as air, even in her heavy boots and snow-sodden hems. That was my lively, lovely Kate; she brought sunshine to even the grayest winter day. When I looked at her I could well imagine her in a billowing white gown, with a wreath of May flowers and silk ribbon streamers on her unbound hair, dancing on the warm green grass in her bare feet. I laughed and sang along with her while Jane frowned and shook her head and pronounced decisively, “too much wine in the syllabub!” But Kate just threw back her head and laughed as she spun round and round before, at the end of her song, she flung wide her limbs and fell, flopping back in the snow again, and I tumbled down beside her, reaching out to pull Jane down so that we lay like three May flowers b
looming in a row, and finally even Jane had to smile. And then she began to laugh along with us.

  “Good-bye, Miss Glum and Serious!” Kate crowed and turned to plant a smacking kiss on our sister’s laughter-flushed cheek.

  It was thus we lay, wet, red-faced, and giggling uncontrollably in the snow, feeling high as the sky from the syllabub, when Mrs. Ellen came out to tell us that our father required our presence in the library; we must come in at once and change out of our wet clothes and make ourselves presentable for him “like proper young ladies, a duke’s daughters, which is what you are, not silly peasant girls frolicking in the snow.” As she walked away, I was tempted to hurl a snowball at her back, but Jane already had her arm raised, a ball of snow cupped in her gloved hand, poised to let it fly when Kate and I sprang on her and wrestled her back down into the snow. Sometimes Jane made it devilishly hard to like her with her constant frowns and moody and preachy Protestant airs, but she was our sister, and we always loved her and did not want to see her bring another punishment upon herself. No one ever knew what our lady-mother might do in her efforts to discipline and mold and shape Jane into her idea of a perfect young lady. It was easy for her to frighten Kate and me into good behavior—our lady-mother was more fearsome than any ogre or witch out of a fairy story—but with Jane it was a different story.

  For a time, our lady-mother had been keen on devising punishments to fit the crime—when Jane turned up her nose at eating a certain dish, our lady-mother would insist that she be served no other fare, and for each meal have that same exact plate set before her even after what was upon it had grown quite putrid. Another time, when Jane was a tiny girl about to have her first proper gown, a grown lady’s habiliments in miniature, replete with stays, layered petticoats, jeweled headdress, embroidered kirtle, and flowing sleeves with full, fur cuffs, and Jane had shown her willful side and rebelled against the gold and pearl embellished white velvet, clinging steadfast to her familiar old blue frock, our lady-mother made her go stark naked for a week, attending her lessons and sitting at the table thus, and even sewing in the parlor, and dancing in the Great Hall, while our lady-mother coolly explained to their guests why Jane was being punished in this manner, and slapping, pinching, yanking, and sharply rebuking Jane whenever she wept and tried to hide or cover herself, refusing even when she groveled at her feet and begged to be allowed to put on the new dress to cover her shameful nakedness. By the time the punishment was finished, Jane hated the white and gold dress even more, but she consented to wear it, and when she dribbled gravy on the bodice, she wept in terror at what our lady-mother would do to her.

  Their quarrels over clothes lay dormant for a few years until Jane caught the fever of the Reformed Religion; only then would she dare reassert her disdain for ornate garb again, and by that time our lady-mother, sensing that Jane was incorrigible, and that thinking up suitable punishments for her was more trouble than it was worth, had long since contented herself with beatings and blows and fortnight long repasts of only salt fish, water, and boiled mutton bones that Jane licked and sucked ravenously as her belly grumbled and ached.

  Though I did not know it at the time, that summons to the library would change our lives forever. Nothing would ever be the same again. Yet I felt not even a twinge of fear or foreboding then; instead I was smiling, swishing my midnight blue velvet skirts and humming a lively air, as I watched Kate skip lightheartedly ahead of us with a song on her lips to first keep her promise to Cook and give her the pail, still half filled with our wonderful, delicious syllabub, for her and the rest of the kitchen servants to share, before skipping upstairs to change into her green velvet gown and sunny yellow, quilted, pearl-dotted satin petticoat and matching under-sleeves, the ones with the wide frills of golden point lace at the wrists that she was always fidgeting with, saying that she could not bear to have them cut off, they were so beautiful, but Lord how they made her wrists itch, like the Devil’s own seamstress had made them just to torment her.

  When we entered the library, Father laid down his quill and rose up from behind his desk. He was a tall, broad-shouldered, big-bellied man, handsome and rosy-cheeked with warm brown eyes, a luxuriant bushy auburn beard, and wild, ruddy hair that seemed ever wont to spring up in a riot of nervous panic, as though unsure of which way to run, it went every which way. That day he was dressed in the sedately elegant deep orange and brown velvet garments edged with golden braid that our lady-mother had chosen for him. With hands on hips, she often declared, “If Hal Grey were left to his own devices in matters of dress, he would come out of his room every morning looking like a sunlit rainbow, dazzling and gaudy enough to blind every beholder, and be mistaken by all for a fool in motley!”

  At the sight of us he smiled and opened his arms wide. “My little girls!” he said fondly in a voice that conveyed, even though we were all girls, and none of us the son he longed for, he was nonetheless proud of us.

  We cast a quick and wary glance around to ascertain our lady-mother was not present. She wasn’t—that meant Father would be fun! And we ran into his arms and hugged him tight; even Jane forgot her solemn dignity and hurled herself into his arms. Kate settled herself on his lap, and he tousled and kissed her bright curls and took from the secret “sweet drawer” in his desk a special treat he had been saving to share with us. When he was last in London he had visited his favorite sweetshop and purchased a box of the most wonderful marzipan; the box was lined in blue silk, and each dainty, brightly colored piece was an exquisite replica of a creature from the sea—there were seashells, all manner of fishes, blue and green crabs, and bright red lobsters, oysters that opened to reveal candy pearls, sharks, dolphins, and whales, billowy branches of coral, undulating sea serpents, and even bare-breasted mermaids combing their flowing tresses or playing harps, and lusty, leering, blue-bearded mermen clutching tridents.

  “Don’t tell your lady-mother,” he said with a slightly sad smile, his words only half jesting. “She thinks I overindulge in sweets, though I tell her that one can never have too much of a good thing. She says one day I’ll get as big as old King Henry was and then she’ll divorce me and find herself a lean, lusty lad to replace me.” He lowered his voice to a whisper and confided, “I think she has her eye on our Master of the Horse, young Master Stokes.”

  “No one could ever replace you, Father!” Kate cried as she flung her arms around his neck and kissed his cheek. “And certainly not Master Stokes! He’s only twenty—just five years older than Jane! Our lady-mother would never be so foolish!”

  “Never!” Jane and I chorused, squeezing Kate so tight she squealed as we pressed to embrace Father and kiss the red-bristled sun-bronzed cheeks that bulged with marzipan.

  He swallowed hard and smiled. “Now then, on to serious matters . . .”

  And suddenly I felt the icy touch of fear upon my back, prickly as frozen needles. In that instant I just knew that he was about to speak the words that would set in motion actions that would shatter my world.

  “My three little girls are about to leave me.” Father shook his head and sighed dolefully. “How time flies! You’re not little girls anymore; you’re young women—young women about to become wives.”

  “Married?” Jane gasped and tottered back, tripping over her hems and stumbling hard against the desk. She leaned there looking white as a ghost, tugging hard at the high collar of her funereal black velvet gown as though it were a noose strangling her. And I was sorely afraid that she might faint.

  “Married! I’m to be married!” Kate jumped up with a jubilant squeal, spinning around, hugging her clasped hands tight against her excitedly beating heart. “When? Will it be soon? Oh, Father, can I have a golden gown and golden slippers and a cake, a great big cinnamon spice cake, as tall as I am? No! Taller! And covered with gilded marzipan and inside filled with chunks of apples, walnuts, and golden and black raisins, and lots of cinnamon, lots and lots of cinnamon! And minstrels to play at my wedding clad from head to toe in silver since I shall
be all in gold!”

  “Aye, my love, my beautiful Katey, aye!” Father sat back in his chair and roared with laughter even as tears filled his eyes. “And, yes, it will be soon, in a month’s time you’ll be married and have left maidenhood behind. But as important as the cake and your dress and slippers and the minstrels are, don’t you want to know whom you’re going to marry?”

  “Oh yes!” Kate stopped her giddy prancing and turned expectantly to Father. “Of course I do! Is he young and handsome? Do I know him? What’s his name? Is his hair dark or fair? Does he have blue eyes or brown, gray or green? Shall we have a house in London and one in the country as well? Will he take me to court? Will we have our own barge? Shall I go to court to serve the Queen when Cousin Edward marries? Will he buy me jewels and gowns and puppies and kittens and pet monkeys and songbirds in gilded cages? Oh, Father, I do so long to have a pair of monkeys! I shall dress them in little suits and gowns just like babies! And parrots, talking parrots—I can teach them new words and feed them berries from my hand! And will my husband and I have lots of babies? I want a nursery full of babies! I want to be a little woman round and stout as a barrel with a baby always in my arms, filling out my belly, and a bunch of them tugging at my skirts calling me ‘mother’! I want our home to be filled with joy and laughter!”

  Father laughed heartily. “So many questions! You’re curious as a cat, my Kate! Stop a moment and still your eager tongue, my lovely love, and let me answer! No, you’ve never met him. His name is Henry, Lord Herbert, he is the Earl of Pembroke’s son, and a handsome, fair-haired youth not quite two years older than yourself, and I believe his eyes are blue. You’ll like him. I’m as sure of it as I am that this marzipan is delicious!” He waved a hand at the nigh empty box on his desk. “As for the rest, all in good time, my pretty Kate, all in good time! Stop chomping at the bit, raring to be off, my fine filly; slow down and enjoy your life, without racing through it at breakneck speed. If you go too fast, it will all pass by you in a blur and you’ll miss it all.”