Shutting his ears to the sound of wood splintering, he wondered how different he was from Kate and Edward. He had recognized the source of Cecil’s amusement.
Robert smoothed his wrinkled doublet, then put one hand on his sword hilt to halt its tripping movement and walked toward the soothing sounds of a consort playing in the presence chamber and the dancing master calling the figures.
His legs longed to sit astride a horse, heedlessly riding down red deer over fields and into woods with Bess at his side, as they had done so often, and not to think about youthful fools who had the same hopeless dream as he himself and now must surely pay. He shrugged. He saw no other course open for them. Their marriage, combining Tudor and Seymour blood, had sealed their fate. Unless . . . ?
Unless there had been no marriage.
Kate nearly lost her footing on the slimy stone steps of the Traitor’s Gate, the huge iron grate crashing down behind her. She had no more tears, having lost the last of them midway on the Thames between Hampton Court and the Tower. Her feet and hands were numb as from winter cold, though unseasonable summer heat still shimmered over London.
The Lord Lieutenant stood on the small green before the Church of St. Peter in Chains, the last buds of hot October drooping around its blood-soaked sward, fed with the lifeblood of the queen’s mother, Anne Boleyn, Kate’s own sister, Jane Grey, her father and others without count . . . and perhaps soon her own blood. A troop of yeoman warders stood behind her. So many for just one small woman? She gestured toward them with a faint smile. “My Lord Lieutenant, I am but one maid and you have need of no such great protection from me.” There, at least she still had a noble voice.
He bowed, his gentleman’s face blushing at her words. “My lady Grey—” he began.
“Countess of Hertford,” she corrected. Now that she was exposed, she would claim all that was hers by her marriage right.
He bowed again. “Please you to follow me.”
“It pleases me little, my lord, but I will not be the first woman to be unjustly lodged here. It would give me pleasure to be received in the Bell Tower, where Her Majesty was kept when her sister, Queen Mary, sent her here for the same unfounded treason.”
Kate did not know what had given her such a strong spine, braving it like a rogue on the scaffold to win one last laugh from the hanging’s revelers. Perhaps the babe, heavy in her belly, increased her courage. She also knew that every word of hers would be reported to others. She meant them to bring her credit. She shivered, knowing also that she might need to borrow from that store of strength at some future date.
“I am sorry, my lady, but my orders are to lodge you in the Beauchamp tower.”
So, no decent quarters. “I am ready, my lord,” she said, her head rigid in case a tremble escaped from inside her body and gave her fright away, making her guilty in the eyes of all who kept close watch.
“It is my duty,” the miserable man explained.
“Come then,” she said, taking his outstretched arm, pretending to gaiety, “since it is also my duty to bear the queen’s anger for love of my lord of Hertford, we will do our duty together and with good heart.”
As they ascended the narrow winding stone steps up to the tower, Kate prayed to be alone within minutes. She would be able to keep this brave pretense for no longer. But she had to know one thing. “My lord of Hertford, is he to be arrested and dragged from his bed, wounded though he is in the queen’s service?”
“I am at liberty to tell you nothing, madam.” He coughed. “Forgive me, but I received word of your coming only a short time ago. I will have a fire laid and food brought. Your maids—”
“Must be sent for, good my lord. I’ll want Sybil from Hampton Court and two more from my husband’s Westminster house, as is due my rank.” Now go, she wanted to scream at him.
He left immediately, but not before making a pitiable face at the door, placing his hand on his heart. He had no liking for this duty. But was he a friend? Would he send a message of warning to Ned in France? As she asked herself the question, she knew the answer. He had a tender heart, but it was treason to go against the queen’s orders.
Kate sat before the cold fireplace, scarcely knowing where she was as the day waned, shadows growing outside the narrow, barred window on the opposite curving wall. Had the queen known of her babe despite the farthingale that had hidden others before her? No. Elizabeth would have acted immediately upon such knowledge. Who had exposed her? She had to think.
Saintloe? No, that lady would not risk imparting such knowledge, waiting rather to take what advantage she could of Kate’s exposure.
Dudley! He was the only one who knew and feared having such knowledge. But she wasn’t at all sure. Though she was certain that half the court was in on the secret. Jane could keep nothing to herself. God blast her bones! Kate’s heart pounded in her chest. She had thought ill of the dead, but it could hardly worsen her condition. Then, too, surely her own belly in the last month must have raised questions from those at court who always watched and whispered. Only the queen’s ill health for two months past had saved her for so long.
Now Ned must be warned. But how, and was it too late by hours, a fast ship already in the channel making for France with the queen’s arrest orders? She feared for him, as she longed for him. At least, if he was quickly brought to stand trial with her, they could be together for their son’s birth. It was Ned’s right, and hers.
So, deep in endless circling thought, Kate scarce knew when the coal fire was laid and lit, but as dark night fell she was glad for it. The cold of five hundred winters seeped from the stone walls, penetrating to her very marrow, and set her to shaking, unable to eat the hot dinner that the Lord Lieutenant’s wife delivered with her own hands.
Robert Dudley pleaded London business the next day and the queen gave him leave to tend to it, begging him to hurry his return. The business was true enough. He wouldn’t lie to Bess. But he had not been ordered to refrain from the Tower while in the city.
He concluded his business with his tailor and booter, then rode the winding streets of Cheapside, stopping at several merchants, buying a fruit tart on Thames Street and then on to St. Paul’s. Paul’s Walk was crowded with easy slatterns, vendors hawking everything a large port city of nearly seventy thousand souls had to sell, a city now recovering from a hard summer of pocks, plague and the sweating sickness, so that some doors and windows were already thrown open to air and a few shops were busy again. As the cold nights came on to halt sickness, the court would remove to Whitehall across the river for Christmas celebrations.
He stopped at a jeweler’s stall, looking for a Twelfth Night present for Bess, but the man had only small and inferior jewels, nothing suitable for his queen.
He rode on to the Tower’s western gate and presented himself to the Lord Lieutenant. “I would see Lady Katherine,” he said.
The man bowed. “My lord, I have sent for the lady’s servants, but I have no instructions regarding visitors.”
“I am come from court, and this lady is my sister-in-law.”
The man looked pained and uncertain.
Robert thought he needed but a slight jostle against his conscience. “I’ve come to offer the poor lady what comfort I can.”
The man blinked and swallowed. “A short visit then, my lord, since I have no instructions against visitors save for my lord of Hertford.”
Dudley bowed. “I am grateful, sir.”
The man stiffened. “I but do a hard duty, my lord, no more, nor less.”
Robert followed him silently up the familiar stairs. He could say much the same, though it meant the lives of three people.
He must save Bess from the consequence of her own deep-held suspicions. He knew she could not live with herself if she took these young lives in a fit of fear, and he did not want his Bess hardened forever by regret she could not undo.
Also, he had to save the lives of two young and very stupid idiots. He accepted some blame. He should have warned them more, s
topped them, rather than standing by, amused. He’d had some faint idea that another’s love and marriage might bring Bess to . . .
Kate, wrapped in her cloak, was warming herself by the fire, her belly thrust before her, freed of its farthingale and kirtle. “My lady,” he said quietly, closing the heavy door.
“Have you come to glory at your handiwork?”
He had never seen her so outspokenly bitter, and he could not blame her. “I have come to offer you a way to save your head and Edward’s, too.”
At that, Kate looked at him, her face already thinner and shadowed with sleeplessness and pain. “Ned . . . The queen has arrested him?”
Dudley nodded. “He should be here within a fortnight.”
Her head tipped back and she closed her eyes. “Jesu, Robert, how could she?”
“Kate,” he said, wondering still at her willful ignorance, “it is treason to take the virginity of a lady of the blood royal.”
“Then look to your own head, Robert.”
He had never seen her like this. His timid, dutiful, pale sister-in-law now seemed to have grown as large with courage as with child. He swallowed some anger at the accusation, but would not be detracted from his purpose. “Kate,” he said, sitting on the settle beside her, without touching her, “I have come to help you, if you allow it. Have you so many friends here that you can turn one away?”
Her mouth flew open, but he shushed her. “Think before you answer, Kate. The queen feels betrayed by your broken oath and threatened by a plot she thinks you and Edward have to take her throne.”
Kate sat up, her face hot with exasperation.
“Stop!” he shouted. “Do not plead love. That is no balance against the laws of treason and broken oaths to a sovereign . . . to this sovereign, who spent all her miserable youth dodging the snarls of treasonous plots.”
He saw her chin go up. Good. Defiance would keep her in spirits while he did his work. “Kate, hear me, you will receive no other offers of friendship.”
Her lips quivered. “The Parliament will not allow this. After all, I am in Henry’s will. Surely that will save us. You know I do not want the throne, indeed dread it.”
He lifted her cold hands with his and held them tight against his doublet. “Listen to me; listen to someone who wants only your good.” He said that truth so that he wouldn’t choke on the coming lie. “The queen thinks that you are not truly married. If you cannot prove it, it means you stay here for your life and Edward’s head rolls on the green below before a cheering mob.”
She shivered at the image, and he damned himself for such necessary cruelty.
“You know we are married, Robert,” she said, her eyes pleading the truth of her words. “You helped us.”
“By what priest?” he demanded.
“I don’t know.”
He did not show his relief at that information, but made his words as terse as his heart would allow. “There is no proof of my aid except for the word of two desperate people in the Tower facing a trial for treason.”
“Ned’s old servants know.”
“Who do you think the queen will believe . . . a traitor’s loyal servants, or her own fears? She sees only your ambition in this, and that alarms her past forgiving.”
Kate’s shoulders sagged. “You would not testify for us.” It was not a question.
“I could not, but . . .” He grabbed at her hands slipping from his. “It need not come to a trial. Don’t you see, Kate? If you tell me where you have the marriage contract, I can prove you are lawfully married and save Edward’s life.”
“I beseech you, Robert, for charity, save Ned and my babe. I care not what happens to me.”
Dudley nodded, able to offer nothing more.
She raised her head. “Would Her Majesty not allow us to retire to Hertfordshire?”
Despite her hopeless words, he saw hope in her eyes, and, God help him, he fed it, damning himself for a fraud as he spoke. “I’m sure of it, Kate. Just let me prove you are not defiled unlawfully and perhaps she will soften and consent to your union.”
She did not think further, but answered him immediately, rash as ever, but he blessed her for it. “As you will, Robert. Jane had our marriage proof put away for safekeeping, since I feared Lady Saintloe would spy and discover it. The witnessed contract must still be in her rooms, if they are now free of the pocks’ vapors.”
He took a deep, relieved breath, looked around the room, noted the garderobe with its familiar stinking closestool, and changed the subject. “I was over a year in this very cell, Kate, and my father, John Dudley, before me.” He pointed above her head and she looked up with him. “See there, high over the mantel, my father’s name and mine carved under the bear and double ragged staff. When you despair, look at my name and think that I am doing all in my power to save you and Edward, and have full knowledge of what you suffer.”
Dudley loosed his hold on her and stood. He bent and kissed her cold cheek, then quickly left.
He claimed his horse from a stable boy below and rode hard through London and onto the Windsor wagon road, galloping past Richmond for Hampton Court in the quickly gathering dusk. He would keep his promise to Kate to do all in his power. He had not lied in that, although there was no way the queen could let their marriage stand, which would save them from beheading or burning, both punishments for treason. Kate, perhaps due to her advanced pregnancy or just the shock of her fall from favor, did not seem to comprehend what she faced. His horse pounded on through the night, Dudley’s head spinning at what he must do. Rather to be a named whore with a head, he thought, than a countess without one. Surely Kate wouldn’t choose the block to life, even life without Edward. He wasn’t certain, but he had set this course and now he must follow it.
Above all else, he would save his Bess from the folly of taking the lives of two foolish young lovers. This one act could take from her the love of her people, alienate some in the council she relied on, and shock her Parliament, which was already at odds with her over her reluctance to marry and to produce an heir. Not to mention the need for more and more subsidies and levies for France.
Kate and Edward would pay for their ill choice, but not with death, if he could stop it. And perhaps, just perhaps, when all danger was past, Bess would relent and allow them their freedom.
The rutted road was dangerous in the dark. Rather than risk a broken leg for his horse, Robert stopped at the sign of the Great Heron, waking the innkeeper and his wife, who gave him a cold supper and enough ale to warm his jittery insides, which were sadly in need of heat.
With his horse rested, Robert reached Hampton Court two hours after dawn, knowing that Elizabeth, always an early riser, was already sending for him. After stopping by his rooms to hastily change from his dusty travel clothes, he raced upstairs and down halls to Jane Seymour’s former apartment, drawing out the key she’d given him to open the unguarded door. He smiled at the memory of her shy hopefulness as she had pressed the key on him. She had been such an unlikely and most tongue-tied seductress, he had kissed her from mercy.
Searching through her possessions packed in chests to be taken to Westminster or offered to the high palace servants, he was nearly frantic, his hand slipping easily through the gowns and sleeves without touching parchment. He was kneeling in front of the last crate of kirtles, hoods and shoes when he found the contract, stuffed in a pair of green embroidered slippers to shape them.
Well and good! Her maids could not read to know its importance. He sat back on his heels, relieved, spreading the contract on the floor. He pressed at the wrinkles until the heavy parchment lay flat.
“Robin, at last you are come.”
“Majesty,” he said, kneeling. “I beg leave to speak to you . . . alone.”
Elizabeth smiled and waved her ladies into the anteroom. Sour-faced Saintloe looked suspicious and Mistress Ashley worried, but they were accustomed to obedience, or pretended to it.
“Rise, Robin, and tell me how it is in Lond
on.”
“Unusually hot days for October, Bess.”
Still smiling, she took his hand and held it to her cheek. “Do I cool you, my lord?”
“No, Bess, London is all snow and ice compared to the heat your hand rouses in me.” He wanted to take her in his arms. She wanted it, too, but he retrieved his hand and stepped back from the heady scent of roses that enveloped her.
Parry had not as yet been at her pots of color, so Elizabeth’s lashes and eyebrows were still pale, giving her that somewhat amazed look he had seen in her child’s face. He kissed the inside of her wrist for the memory.
“What do you have for me?” she asked, looking about his person for a present, her face as alive as he remembered it when she had captured her Goose in the courtyards at Greenwich.
“Only myself, Bess. Nothing in London suited you, but I have put the best jewelers in fear of their lives unless they find the most perfect pearl to hang on the ear of the most perfect queen of my heart.”
He kissed her hand again, and each of her long, slender white fingers. She was vain about her hands and had the right to be, seldom covering them with gloves and always keeping them in full view.
As he bent, the parchment in his doublet crackled, reminding him of his duty. He pulled the document out and presented it, knowing better now than to suggest she sit to prepare for a shock.
“What is this?” she said, frowning, squinting a bit from nearsightedness.
“It is the marriage contract of my lord of Hertford and my lady Katherine Grey.”
Elizabeth dropped it onto the tiled floor and stepped away as if it were a foul thing. “No!” she said. “It’s a forgery.” She whirled away, then back again. “How came you by this?”
Robert saw that her suspicions, always near the surface when it concerned her throne, now showed plainly. He knelt again. “Majesty, I went to the Tower and Lady Katherine told me of the marriage contract and where it lay, thinking to save Hertford’s life. I found it and brought it to you.”
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