To her credit, Kate proved herself to have a better card face than our father ever did. He scrutinized her hard, but Kate held her ground, her face inscrutable, and in the end he could not say whether she was bluffing. She had succeeded in planting the seed of uncertainty . . . for what little it was worth.
“Is this true?” He turned to Berry.
“I—I—” the young man hung his head and stammered, his blushing face proving the aptness of his nickname. “I—do not know! Please, Father, do not ask me anymore; I cannot bear it!” Then he burst into tears, covered his face with his hands, and ran out, weeping volubly, from fear or heartbreak or both I could not rightly say.
“Very well”—Pembroke nodded—“we shall see.” He summoned a servant and bade him take Kate upstairs, to her former bedchamber, now stripped bare of her belongings, and station men outside her door to ensure that she made no attempt to leave and no one entered without his permission.
I stepped forward then, clutching Kate’s hand, determined not to let go. “Where Kate goes I go!”
Pembroke snorted and shrugged. “What care I, little grotesque? You are of no importance, an ugly, worthless thing that can neither help nor hinder.” He gestured impatiently for us both to leave his study and mount the stairs to the room that would be our prison until he set us free, whenever that would be.
Did an hour pass or two or even three? I could not say. We could have looked at the clock, of course, but somehow this didn’t occur to us. Kate and I lay silently on her bed, with her little dog between us, staring at the ceiling and holding hands, tensely awaiting we knew not what. Did he mean to keep us here until her monthly bleeding proved the lie? Or had he something more sinister in mind?
Finally the door swung open and Pembroke came in accompanied by the most bizarre creature I had ever seen. I sat up and blinked and rubbed my eyes, but I was not dreaming. Standing at the foot of the bed staring at us with gold-lidded evil eyes was a filthy hag arrayed in even filthier finery, made of hundreds of colorful and glittery scraps of rich materials haphazardly stitched and patched together to form a jagged, ragged rainbow motley. Her face was painted like a harlot’s, bold scarlet outlining a mouth filled with blackened stumps. She wore her dingy, dirty, graying hair trailing down her back in a gay messy tangle of little braids plaited with silken ribbons every color of the rainbow, gold and silver tassels, and even tiny bells. Golden hoops drooped from her ears, and stacks of clanking gold bangles adorned her wrists and ankles. The nails on her bare feet were long and yellow with sharp tips like daggers—did she file them to create those sharp points? I marveled that walking unshod on the earth or stone floors hadn’t blunted or broken them. Even before Pembroke introduced her as Kate’s “old friend, Madame Astarte” I knew who she was; I recognized her from Kate’s description. But how did he know? Both Kate and I started and exchanged puzzled looks. Had he had Kate followed?
But there wasn’t time to ponder it. From amidst the filthy folds of her skirt of many colors, Madame Astarte drew a bottle that looked to be filled with black bile.
With a swift movement, she grasped Kate’s head, forcing it back, and put the bottle to her lips. “Open or I’ll break those pretty pearly teeth!” she threatened.
With a shriek, I launched myself across the bed at that wicked Circe, clawing and biting with all my might.
“Run, Kate, run!” I cried, but Pembroke barked an order to the men outside the door to stop her as he pulled me off the witch and threw me contemptuously into the corner. I heard Kate scream my name, and she started to run to me, but Pembroke caught her, and she kicked and flailed as he bore her back to the bed and held her as he shouted for Madame Astarte to do her business fast.
My head had struck the wall, and for a moment or minutes, I sat there dazed and stunned watching through a starry dazzle as, with sharp scarlet-painted nails digging into Kate’s chin, drawing pinpricks of blood, Madame Astarte forced my sister to drain the evil bottle to the dregs.
“Drink this, my pretty,” she cackled as Kate thrashed and kicked, helpless against the two of them. “It will void your womb if there is anything in it. If not, I pity you the more for the cramps it will make claw and grip you from within until you wish you are dead.”
And then it was over. They were gone. The door was shut, locked from without, and we were alone again. Kate ran to me and knelt beside me, clasping my face, urgently imploring me to speak to her. I groaned and sat up straight, assuring her I was fine, even as I noted the fierce ache in my spine where my hunched back had struck the wall.
“Can you stand?” Kate asked, helping me to slowly rise, but then she gave a great gasp and doubled over, clutching her stomach. “Hurry, the chamber pot, Mary!” she cried as the pain brought her to her knees.
The agony my Kate endured! She was not with child, and there was little within her bowels to expel, and once it was all gone the cramps continued, sharp as knives, making her gasp and cry out, and all I could do was hold her, bathe her face, and be there for her. I sang and told her stories, trying to help her mind rise above the pain that gripped her tight like an iron-gloved hand squeezing inside her, determined to wring her dry. I wanted to undress her to make her more comfortable, but she slapped my hands away, even as the beautiful embers and ashes gown grew heavy and soaked with sweat, wrinkled and twisted by the agonized jerking and writhing of her limbs. No, she said, she wanted nothing to delay our departure, she wanted to be ready the very instant we were able to go.
The sun set, and the stars came out to twinkle then faded away. With the first light of dawn, Kate took a deep breath, sat up, cried out, and doubled over again. I scrambled across the bed and tried to make her lie down again, but Kate shoved my hand away. Slowly she straightened her spine and, taking a deep breath again, tried to stand. She failed and fell down beside the bed, yet she would not stop; determinedly she dragged herself across the floor and hammered on the door.
She was kneeling there, hunched and shivering, when Pembroke appeared. She said not a word, but her eyes bored into his, burning with hatred. The silence was answer enough to suit him, and he stepped aside, gesturing that we were free to go. I ran to help Kate as, using the doorjamb, she pulled herself up. I let her lean on me, to give her what support I could, praying that my frail, crooked body did not buckle beneath her weight. I was terrified that she would fall down the stairs, hindered by the heavy, damp, bedraggled skirts and petticoats that tangled about her limbs. I wanted to turn back, swallow my pride and implore Pembroke to be kind and carry her down, or summon a servant to assist her, but Kate hissed at me through her pain-clenched teeth, “Don’t you dare!”
Gripping tight the banister, she made her way slowly down and stumbled out the front door, which led out to the street; better that than risk the damp, slick stone of the water stairs. I left her sitting on the front steps, gasping, hugging her knees, gritting her teeth against the pain, and rocking back and forth, while I ran to hire a coach to take us to our parents’ London house. The coachman was kind, and seeing Kate’s distress, he came down from his box and carried her and set her gently inside his battered old coach that stank of urine and sour wine. But Kate was so grateful for his kindness that when we reached Suffolk House and he had carried her inside, where Henny waited to cluck over her, she pulled the wedding ring from her finger and laid it in his coarse, leathery palm with a fervent “Thank you!” Of course a coin would have sufficed, but such an extravagant gesture was typical of Kate. “My shining golden moment of proud defeat!” she said with a bitter, biting flippancy as she took one last look at the gold ring before she fell fainting at our feet.
Shortly afterward we received a document attesting to the fact that Kate’s marriage had been formally dissolved. The same would soon happen to me, and I would find myself shunned and set aside, for not even Lord Wilton, the great war hero who had survived the Battle of Pinkie Cleugh, was brave enough to marry a traitor’s daughter. Our betrothal, never publicly announced, was swiftly d
issolved, and many never even knew of it until it was all over. They would shake their heads and sigh, and some would even presume to pat my shoulder and condole with me over my lost opportunity. But the truth was I didn’t care; there was no love lost for me to lament over. I had never been one to wear my heart on my sleeve as ripe pluckings for any handsome gallant, much less a hideously disfigured braggart old enough to be my father living on his laurels and gory glory. I would sooner not marry at all than have a man who patted me on the head like a faithful spaniel when I fetched his slippers and plumped the pillows behind his back as he sat by the fire, growing ever more cantankerous and whiny, and endlessly reliving his old campaigns until I wanted to scream and seize one of his swords off the wall and run him through myself.
“Though we never met, we are well rid of each other,” I said, and everyone commended me for putting on a brave face to cover my supposed disappointment.
7
Our lady-mother would not allow us to be tainted by Jane’s disgrace. “When a fox is caught in a trap sometimes it chews off its own leg to save its life,” she said savagely as she shouted to Father, complaining of boredom in his bedchamber across the hall, to stay in bed. “Feign fearing for your life, Hal, if you haven’t the wit to do it in truth! And enjoy that soft, comfortable bed while you can, for tomorrow you may be in the Tower if I cannot persuade the Queen to clemency!” She added this as she elbowed Henny aside and gave Kate’s corset laces a vicious yank that made my sister, standing there clinging to the bedpost as though for dear life, wince and cry out, while I, in my new blue black velvet, sat and watched in silence, nervously fingering the sapphire and diamond crucifix our lady-mother had herself fastened about my neck while Hetty braided my hair with ropes of pearls.
But though I sat mute and pliant, inside my heart was raging. It was all so unfair! We were going to court to plead for our family’s fortune and Father’s life, but when I asked our lady-mother what about Jane, she sternly rebuked me and cautioned me not to mention my sister’s name or refer to her at all even with the most subtle hint before our cousin, the Queen. It wasn’t right! Jane was to be sacrificed, when she had done naught but obey our parents and her father-in-law. She had never wanted the Crown; she had been all along the pawn of ambitious, greedy, power hungry men, all of whom had turned tail and run to our royal cousin and saved themselves, and now Jane was a prisoner with no one to speak on her behalf. It wasn’t fair! She amongst them all, even our beloved father, was the one most deserving of mercy!
“Pinch your cheeks to give them color!” our lady-mother hissed in Kate’s ear as she gave the laces another sharp tug that I feared would snap Kate in half then knotted them tight. “Remember to smile, albeit demurely; you must subdue your sparkle,” she counseled, though somehow, looking at Kate’s pale and sickly face, I didn’t think that would be a problem. “Anything more risks appearing unsuitably brazen given your current circumstances.”
My sister teetered and seemed on the verge of fainting as she clung even tighter to the gilded bedpost. Yet she whispered softly, obediently, “Yes, my lady-mother.” My poor Kate, all the fight and spirit seemed to have been wrung out of her by that vile black potion; she was so quiet now, so listless and pale, so caught up in her own woes that I feared she too had forgotten about Jane.
But our lady-mother didn’t care how weak and wobbly Kate was, that she was loathe to go to court and appear before the all-appraising eyes as a divorced and disgraced woman, and even perchance see her former husband and father-in-law basking in the Queen’s favor while we knelt before her as rosary-clutching, crucifix-wearing penitents.
“Too pale! You’re whiter than a bedsheet, my girl; that will never do!” Our lady-mother sighed and stormed out to fetch her own rouge pot, pausing to shout again at Father, who was now whining petulantly for sugared almonds, while Kate, now arrayed in gold-flowered brocade the color of dried blood, sank down onto the foot of the bed and let Henny fasten a diamond crucifix about her throat and brush her beautiful hair, adorning it with diamond and pearl flowered combs, but otherwise leaving it unbound like a virgin’s—our lady-mother’s way of advertising the fact that Kate was again available and still a good and, most important of all, an unsullied catch—not just barely used and like a virgin but a virgin indeed.
“Remember who you are!” our lady-mother said fiercely as she gripped Kate’s chin hard and began to paint her lips and cheeks. “Queen Mary is seven years past thirty. Her womb has been the bane of her existence, bringing her great pain every month since she first began to bleed—‘strangulation of the womb’ the doctors call it—and even if she should overcome her old maid’s timidity and marry, until she bears a son, you are heiress to the throne! She cannot abide Elizabeth! So stop moping and hold your head up high, and I promise you, a day will come, when that weak, sniveling boy will beg you to take him back, and you can gaze at him with withering scorn and say, Nay! You shall have better, my love, far better than the Earl of Pembroke’s puny son! The boy’s character is as weak as his knees, and the same is probably true of his cock too! You married a jelly, but trust me, my Kate, you are well rid of him! I know—I married a jelly too, that ninny lying across the hall braying like an ass for sugared almonds when his very life is at stake, but I made it work for me. Take that lesson to heart, Kate, though the Lord and Law teach us that the husband rules and it is the wife’s duty to obey his every wish and whim, I as your mother tell you that you, as a wife, must always find a way to gain the upper hand; you will be lost and miserable if you don’t! Now smile!” she commanded and held up the mermaid hand mirror.
“Look at yourself! Such beauty should never even know what sorrow means! Your beauty is your fortune, my love; you can make men bleed and beg for you and use them as you will and never lift a finger even if they think that you are their pretty plaything; learn from this misfortune, my daughter, and use your power well while you can; beauty does not last forever, and one day you’ll wake up and discover that without your beauty you are nothing!”
“Yes, my lady-mother.” Kate nodded, staring straight ahead, her eyes blind and unseeing, and I was certain she had not heard a word. Thankfully, our lady-mother, already primping before the looking glass in her garish salmon velvet spangled with gold beads and diamonds, and trimmed with red fox fur, wasn’t paying attention; she was preoccupied with stuffing a stray strand of Tudor red hair back into the golden net, fluffing the orange, pink, and white plumes on her velvet hat, and slathering yet more rouge on her cheeks, so Kate’s docile answer was enough to content her.
I don’t know how we did it. I don’t know how we found the strength to walk into the presence chamber, a parade of penitents in finery instead of sackcloth and ashes, with censorious eyes glaring at us from all sides, and kneel humbly before our royal cousin. Kate faltered and almost fainted when we passed the Earl of Pembroke, who stared straight ahead and through her like glass, and watery-eyed Berry, whose doughy belly made him look like a blueberry in his blue velvet doublet, but at least he had the decency to blush and hang his head in shame. But I held Kate’s hand tight, letting her feel the bite of my nails, willing her to feel my own strength flowing into her and stay on her feet. She squeezed back and gave me a grateful little smile, and we continued our slow, torturous progress, following our lady-mother up to the gilded throne upon the crimson-carpeted dais where our royal cousin sat gowned in regal purple beneath the gold-fringed canopy of estate, squinting her shortsighted eyes at us.
It all passed in a blur that, when we discussed it later, neither Kate nor I could recall clearly except in a few sharp fragments like shards of glass picked up from the muddy river silt. I remember kneeling several paces behind our lady-mother and staring entranced at her gold-spurred bloodred Spanish leather boots as she knelt laboriously, with creaking, protesting stays that made those standing nearest snigger, before our royal cousin. Kate recalled our lady-mother’s sausage-fat pink fingers twisting and tugging at the numerous chains of diamonds
and ropes of pearls that encircled her thick, florid neck, pointedly caressing the most prominent jewel of all—a great diamond crucifix as large as a man’s hand, while her other hand clutched the pink coral rosary at her waist. She swore we had seen the error of our ways and embraced the true faith and pleaded for Father’s life, claiming that Northumberland had secretly administered a slow-acting poison, to influence Father’s behavior and put him in fear of his life; compelling him to bend his will to his own if he hoped to attain the antidote and live. And our poor father yet languished, our lady-mother said, an ailing and befuddled invalid uncertain of his life, with a priest’s comforting presence keeping vigil at his bedside, aiding in his prayers, which he uttered fervently every waking moment, imploring God to spare him and that Her Majesty Queen Mary find it in her heart to be merciful to her loyal and loving kinsman who, though he had never wavered in his love for her, had been led most grievously astray by the Devil’s henchman Northumberland.
“My husband, as Your Majesty well knows,” our lady-mother said apologetically, “is a weak and foolish man, and, alas, he fell into the power of Satan’s emissary—the evil Northumberland. I tried, with a wife’s gentle persuasions to dissuade him, but alas”—she sighed—“it is a wife’s duty to obey her husband and be guided by him, not to counsel him or try to usurp his power.”
I choked on my laughter and had to quickly feign a sneeze when she turned and glared furiously at me.
I remember our proud lady-mother, sweating and red-faced, crawling laboriously on her fat knees up the stairs of the dais to kiss the hem of Cousin Mary’s purple velvet gown and then receive her embrace and a kiss on each cheek. Then Kate and I were there, in our cousin’s arms, feeling her soft velvet sleeves enfolding us like a pair of purple wings, and the hot yet dry caress of her lips brushing our cheeks and the overpowering odor of her musky perfume mingling with her sweat on that hot July day.
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