Kate knelt to serve a dish to the queen, Ned’s wedding ring hanging safely between her breasts by a ribbon, while Mistress Ashley, ever the nurse, removed Elizabeth’s boots and rubbed her feet to warm them.
Laughing, the queen thrust a cold foot at Dudley and, after undoing his doublet and shirt, he took the slender foot in his hands, braced it against his hairy chest and rubbed vigorously, one hand straying on alternate strokes above her ankles. These were the acts of lovers who thought to disguise lust with play, or who were beyond caring what others thought.
Kate didn’t have to look to see the reaction from the queen’s clustered ladies. Their audible intakes of breath told her of their shock.
Elizabeth leaned back on her elbows, waving faithful Ashley away. The queen’s face was marked now with more than high spirits from the day’s ride. Kate saw that desire had replaced sport, until Mistress Ashley gave out a loud cough of warning.
Desire was an expression Kate now knew she must banish from her own face, though the sense of Ned filling her was yet upon her and the scent of sandalwood would never leave her.
“Majesty, a swan pie from your privy kitchen,” Kate said, her hands losing their steadiness.
Elizabeth laughed and gave a little kick with her captured foot. Dudley fell back as if struck by a thunderbolt, clutching his chest and groaning.
A relieved sigh from several throats echoed through the chamber, and both Elizabeth and Dudley fell to laughing wildly, performing and seeing their own spectacle in each other at the same time.
Kate kept her gaze on the dish she held, wondering how Elizabeth could pull herself back time upon time from the brink of desire. Kate knew she could not retrieve herself from yearning for Ned, had not done so, and now that she knew what desire fulfilled truly meant, she could not suffer being without it.
The queen abandoned her laughter and, looking up, waved her ladies away. “Have you no work, my daughters?”
“Majesty.” The word echoed through the chamber from every lady as they curtsied.
“Then to it! My lord Dudley and I are near starved to bone.”
Kate heard a rustle of satin and silk behind her, and lowered her meat pie.
“Leave the pie, Lady Grey,” the queen said, sipping from a silver wine cup, her amazing eyes commanding Kate from over the rim.
“Yes, Majesty.” Kate set the dish before them.
“Tell her, Robin,” Elizabeth said, not taking her gaze from Kate’s face.
“Should I, Bess?”
“We command you.”
“My lady Grey, the Earl of Hertford is to be married.” Dudley bowed to Kate from where he sat.
Kate smoothed her gown and stood. She had expected the announcement, but not so soon. Smiling, her face calm—indeed, she suspected, benevolent—she nodded to Dudley. “Please give His Lordship my best wishes for long life and happiness.” Though she did not look at Her Majesty, she felt the sharp sting of the queen’s malice. Or was it satisfaction?
When Kate did look into the queen’s face, she saw something quite different: a sadness, as if Elizabeth regretted her cruel intent. Regret was a rare thing for this queen, and Kate thought she must have mistaken the expression.
“My lady Grey,” Elizabeth said quietly, “you seem tired. Rest in your chamber tonight and on the morrow we will walk in the knot garden and laugh together about men and their infidelity.”
“Thank you, Majesty,” Kate said, forcing a smile as she backed to the chamber door, sensing the queen’s royal stare following as she left the room.
In the hall outside the queen’s apartments, she leaned against the wall, laughter wanting to escape.
“Do you ail, my lady Grey?” a red-coated yeoman officer said, stopping to offer his arm.
At that, Kate did laugh, a bit helplessly, seeing several people stopping to stare. “I do not ail, sir. I have never known better health.” How could she explain an unknowable changeling queen to a man? He bowed. She curtsied and they walked in opposite directions. She kept her hand against her stomacher, hearing the slight crackle of her wedding contract as she pressed.
Smiling as she heard it, Kate saw others passing smiles in return. They must think me in rare humor, she thought, which amused her more, though she knew there was something near hysterical about this mad desire to laugh, to cackle, to shriek with mirth.
She took a hall that led her to Jane Seymour’s room. When she was announced, Jane came out to greet her and drew her to the fire. “Sister,” she whispered, “do not look so happy, or you will surely give all away.”
“ ’Tis easier to say than to do.”
Jane nodded, fortifying herself with a cordial of wine into which she dropped a tincture of poppy.
Kate, needing her head about her, refused a cup. “Dismiss your servants, my lady.”
Once they were gone, Kate withdrew her marriage contract, and spoke with serious intent. “Keep this safe for Ned. I dare not have it in my room. I don’t doubt Lady Saintloe searches my chests when she can.”
Jane Seymour reached for the parchment, but Kate wanted to look at it, memorize it, before giving it up. She stared at the bishop of London’s wax signet seal, the signatures, the—
“Jane, where is the priest’s name?”
Jane looked over her shoulder. “Perhaps he made a mark. Not all priests can write a fair hand.”
“What was his name?” Kate asked, her former good humor completely swept away.
“I know not if I heard it. A priest is a priest,” Jane said. Putting a calming hand on Kate’s arm, she laughed. “Edward will know it. It is a trifle. There is naught that need alarm you.”
“Hide it well,” Kate said, handing over the contract, not completely reassured.
Moments later, she hastened from Jane’s rooms, coming face-to-face with Robert Dudley in the hall.
“My lady Grey,” he said, bowing slightly, his Gypsy eyes alight. “I would not have thought that you would look so . . . so refreshed.”
“My lord, I think you would have easily thought it.”
His face bore the mark of scarce-hidden high good humor. “Perhaps. But how is it that you find such a ready friend in my lady Jane? Ah,” he said, bowing again, more deeply and in a mocking fashion, “I am obviously no judge of women’s minds.”
Kate turned her back and walked away, speaking in a voice that would carry. “My lord, I could accuse you of much, but not of lacking good judgment of women.”
Some distance away, she heard him laughing and pounding on Jane Seymour’s door, from whom he would gain every secret in minutes.
CHAPTER FIVE
“It is a natural virtue incident in our sex to be pitiful of those who are afflicted.”
—Elizabeth Regina
St. Augustine’s Feast Day
May 26, 1562
Aline of carracks and smaller fishing boats beat their way up the Thames River toward London as the queen’s barge nudged the Thames seawall and rounded into the quay of the great water gate at Greenwich Palace. When winter had turned to spring, the court had traveled from Hampton Court to Richmond for Eastertide and, since that palace now reeked beyond the power of the best pomanders to sweeten, the court was removing this day to the queen’s birthplace.
Seated on the barge immediately behind Her Majesty’s, Kate could smell the clean salt air of the channel as she felt the river mist cool her face. She heard the shriek of seagulls and the flap of rigging against taut canvas sails well above the amusing gossip Lady Saintloe retold for the third time in as many days.
Sailors lined the forecastles of passing ships, doffing their caps to the queen with shouted greetings. Obliging, Elizabeth cried her appreciation across the water: “Ho, my good seamen! We bid you find safe harbors.”
Kate could see Ned and Dudley ahead on the royal barge’s deck, kneeling beside the queen in her great chair as she argued with her councilors, who were uncomfortably seated before her on the first rowers’ benches. Attending her were
the cautious William Cecil, stroking his beard over his heavy gold chain of office, and the even warier Sir William Paulet, the queen’s treasurer. Elizabeth had not chosen reckless men to advise her and usually followed their leanings, unless they leaned too far in the opposite direction of her own desires, as they were this morn.
Kate heard the queen assert her prerogative in a dissenting voice that carried easily between barges. “It is our will that we must delay our meeting at York city with the Scots queen, Mary.”
Cecil spoke reasonably, forcing Kate to lean forward to hear. “Majesty, all preparations for this meeting have been made final. Much treasure has been spent. The queen of Scots has assembled her lords for her progress south. And more, Majesty, it is an opportunity to persuade her to forsake her claim to your throne, which would give English Catholics less cause for estrangement from your rule.”
Elizabeth glared at him. “Mary, that popish pretender, can wait.” Her next words were more restrained and said with a satisfied smile. “Worthy Spirit, we will send our portrait in our stead.”
There was no more to say, Kate knew, especially when the queen called her chief councilor by his special name. Cecil was her Spirit, Robin her Eyes, a mark of her special favor. No other person, least of all Kate herself, had such honor.
The queen’s voice now rose in command. “Therefore, my lords, we would send our troops to France with all speed to help the Protestants being so cruelly slaughtered by the Catholic de Guise party. The weak Medici queen regent, Catherine, seems helpless to stop their rampages against her dissenter subjects.”
“But, Majesty,” her treasurer, Paulet, had the courage to respond, “we helped the Protestants in Scotland and in the Hollander provinces. We cannot help all, or we are bankrupt.”
Elizabeth, lowering her hood, allowed her hair to blow free about her face, looking more an ancient temple goddess than a modern ruler. She said a single word meant to stop all further discussion: “Pish!”
She rearranged her skirts, displaying her beautiful long fingers heavy with jeweled rings. “As all know, it is in the nature of our womanly sex that we must have care of those who are persecuted in Christ’s name.”
Kate smiled to herself, knowing that an English army to aid the Protestants had taken on this holy importance once the Huguenots promised to hand over the city of Calais to English troops. The loss of Calais three years earlier, during her sister’s reign, still roiled the country, and Elizabeth longed to regain this ancient city, English since Plantagenet rule and the last of England’s French possessions.
“Highness,” Cecil said in his unhurried, scholarly way, “such a war will be costly. The Huguenots request over three hundred thousand ducats and ten thousand troops. Your treasury will not bear—”
Elizabeth’s tone cut him off with a solution only she could offer. “We will sell Crown lands. There is no greater cause for their use.” She lowered her voice, but it rang clear. “And know you not that it pleases our English Protestants and shows our love for them?”
Cecil bowed his head, accepting what no wise councilor could debate further.
Then, in a voice that carried easily across the short distance, Kate heard Dudley begging to be allowed to command the French expedition.
“Nay, Robin,” the queen answered, her voice no longer a queen’s but a woman’s, yet all the more unassailable. She thrust her hand out to halt his further entreaties. “I could not bear to be parted from you. Your brother, the Earl of Warwick, will go in your place.”
Every courtier knew well the finality of that answer, although Kate thought she saw Cecil shudder within his black robes to hear the queen so boldly declare her need for Lord Dudley’s presence. And under Mistress Ashley’s always alert, protective glare for her Elizabeth, no lady of the bedchamber dared look knowing at the queen’s words.
Earlier, Her Majesty’s ladies had been dispatched hugger-mugger to the following barge, when Elizabeth had announced that strong talk of war was no conversation for women’s ears.
Her Majesty could deny her own womanhood by talking war and yet, womanlike, be unable to allow Robin to leave her side, both views declared in the same hour. Though Kate was amused, she had learned as a child that no subject ever laughed before a sovereign laughed. Now, as a woman, Kate also understood how difficult was separation from the man you loved. Bound by blood ties, she and Elizabeth were now as one in their hearts.
As oars were shipped at the quay, and in answer to Kate’s silent prayers that she would not have to attend the queen immediately, Elizabeth moved swiftly with her council past a row of kneeling servants and courtiers. She swept through the fountain court with bare acknowledgment and into the council chamber to continue her war plans.
Kate knew that Parliament must authorize further monies for large levies of troops and provisions. Gaining the agreement of Parliament men always necessitated much wily planning.
Slipping quickly away, Kate made a detour to the common jakes, hoping to find herself alone for a few moments. The unusual pressure she’d felt of late had returned. Please God, it was her flux at last.
Commanding a passing usher to guard her privacy, she entered the jakes, yet sweet-smelling with clean rushes and rosemary boughs on the floor. Quickly, she lifted and examined her innermost shift, dropped it and leaned her head against the door, suddenly dizzied. Moments later, she straightened, her expression controlled, and knocked on the door, which the usher opened at once.
Withdrawing a coin from her pocket, she gave it to him and walked with a fixed smile toward the queen’s apartments. Three times she had been with her lord husband as his wife. Except for their wedding day, Ned had been very careful to withdraw in time. Was she to be caught out like any foolish village maid after one tumble?
At first, Kate had thought her flux had not come because missing it was nothing unusual; it had ever been so with her. Though it was also well-known that all female problems were righted with the breaking of the hymen.
The second month she had thought her flux absent because she had lost a good stone of weight. Facing Elizabeth Tudor every day, hiding the great secret of her broken oath, had quite taken her appetite. Even lark pie did not tempt her.
But there was no denying that she had now missed her flux thrice. And that required any woman of sense to have quite different thoughts.
Kate clenched her hands under the Flanders lace on her green velvet oversleeves, her senses scrambled with fear. So many women died in childbirth or later of uncontrollable fevers. Would she? But quickly, joy overtook her as she imagined a blond child running free on the greensward of Eltham, Ned waiting on his knees with his arms open. Every step toward the queen’s apartment raised another question. If this were truly Ned’s babe growing in her, was it destined to be the next Earl of Hertford, or the path of her own and Ned’s disaster?
Kate passed through the presence chamber, which was bustling with grooms, ushers and guards arranging the queen’s gold cloth of state over her throne. Lesser servants were dusting everywhere, for the presence was well lit and aired from large open windows overlooking the Thames.
As Kate exited around bowing servants, Ned rounded the corner, his face scarcely inches from hers.
He stepped back, bowed, looking hurriedly about to see who might be curious. “I must be with you, sweetheart . . . tonight or I am for Bedlam!”
Quickly scanning every passerby, she curtsied, her smile remaining fixed. “The queen will surely need me unless she is late in council. Ned, I cannot plead my teeth or my belly now.”
He seemed not to hear what she was trying to tell him.
“My love, tonight, or remember I die,” he whispered, his gaze bright on her and scalding with its urgency. He bowed in parting, courteous for all to observe, though his knuckles were white as he gripped his sword and walked on, his heavy boots snapping the rushes beneath his feet.
Directing her steps to the queen’s apartments, Kate passed sweating porters with chests of gowns sh
e would need to see aired immediately. The wardrobers were probably waiting for her. She hurried past Elizabeth’s precious virginals and lute as they were carried through the doors to be placed in the inner chamber.
Mistress Ashley, Mistress Perry, Lady Saintloe and Mary Sidney—Robin’s sister—were all directing the flow of traffic.
“Where have you been, my lady?” Ashley asked.
Kate lifted her brows. Her father, the duke, would have been severe with such questioning from a lower rank, but she knew Ashley was being protective of her lifelong charge, as usual.
Saintloe spoke over Kate’s head to Ashley. “Our lady Katherine seems flushed.” Then, with more curiosity than sympathy, she asked, “Are you ill again?”
Kate shrugged. “I am but a poor sailor, madam.”
“What a pity then that you will not be with the queen’s party when she reclaims Calais.”
Kate smiled a counterfeit smile, which she made no attempt to improve. “I doubt not that you, madam, will be sailor enough for all Her Majesty’s ladies.”
Keeping her wits, though they seemed to be flying away faster than she could gather them, would be a problem with Lady Saintloe, who always wanted to play at words to see what she could detect that remained unspoken.
Instinctively, Kate ran her hand across her stomacher, sensing for the first time her belly’s slight swelling with what she carried. Aware that Saintloe’s eyes were judging her as they always did, Kate smoothed her stomacher again and shook out her skirts. A natural act, after all, and nothing for Saintloe to think on.
Every royal possession was in its place, every picture hung, Her Majesty’s gowns and linen unwrinkled and her books at hand when the queen came late from her council, having missed her dinner and not calling for it. For the first time this entire spring, Kate was hungry—indeed, ravenous. Now she must feed her child, but not grow conspicuously. Not yet. Ned must have more time to gain the support of Cecil and other powerful lords at court, perhaps even Dudley. If anyone could sway Elizabeth, it would be her sweet Robin. Who could plead the case of frustrated love better? Though he still seemed unable to advance his own case to completion.
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