The King's Daughter

by Christie Dickason

  Then Belle growled from her place on my lap. My ladies laughed.

  ‘She’s jealous!’ Frederick said with delight. ‘Such a clever girl, to see the truth so fast.’ He knelt beside me and offered Belle his hand to sniff. ‘We must become friends, you and I,’ he whispered to her. ‘I’m sure we two love your mistress more than any other creatures alive.’

  ‘I’ll tell her to bite you if you insist on playing the fool,’ I said.

  ‘I’m not playing.’ Our eyes met over Belle’s head.

  For the next few moments, we both scratched earnestly at

  Belle’s fluffy head, aware only of how our fingers chanced to brush against each other.

  ‘I shall marry him,’ I told Anne and Tallie that night.

  Six weeks later, any chance of the marriage was gone. The reason was even more terrible than the result.

  57

  OCTOBER 1612

  In the second week of Frederick’s visit, Henry was forced by a fever to take to his bed. When I visited St James’s in the afternoon, he greeted me happily and assured me that he merely had a bit of a chill. Only the day before, Frederick and I had watched him playing tennis, stripped to his shirt.

  But Peter Blank told Tallie that the prince had been voiding both stomach and belly for most of the morning, then drinking thirstily between bouts of the flux and vomiting. When Tallie pressed him, Peter confessed that the prince had also been ill twice in the week before Frederick arrived but had sworn all his attendants to secrecy, so as not to spoil the occasion. Then I remembered how pale Henry had looked while we waited in the Banqueting Hall, and how he sat on a chair when I had expected him to stand.

  The following day, my brother seemed recovered. Then four days later, on the twenty-ninth of October, he missed the banquet in Frederick’s honour at the London Guild Hall. The next day, however, swearing that he was well again, he got up to play cards with Baby Charles and Prince Henry of Nassau, who had come to England with Frederick. He did the same the next day.

  Then even Henry could no longer pretend. His doctors sent reports to the king at Whitehall. The prince was pale and lethargic and could not rise from his bed. His head ached. He continued to spew up all that he ate.

  The king ordered a visit to see for himself. My mother insisted on going as well. In the end, all of us – father, mother, Baby Charles, Frederick and I – crossed the park together to St. James’s.

  I scarcely recognised my brother. The doctors had shaved off his fair hair so that they could apply cupping glasses to his scalp to relieve his headaches. Newly-exposed knobs on his skull changed the shape of his head, making him into a stranger who looked something like my brother. The cupping glasses had burnt red circles into his scalp. His face, looking as raw and naked as a skinned rabbit, was pale and gaunt, stamped with dark half moons under his eyes.

  ‘Your majesties…’ Ill as he was, Henry tried to stand but had to lie back on his pillows again. He saw my horrified eyes on his hairless head. ‘Don’t fear, Elizabella,’ he said cheerfully. ‘It will grow out again before the wedding.’

  Don’t weep! I ordered myself. Henry must not know what I see!

  Our father stood back from the bed. ‘He’ll recover,’ he announced firmly. ‘I’ll send Mayerne.’

  The four attending doctors exchanged glances. They understood very well. They had just been stripped of authority. Mayerne was the king’s personal physician.

  The king turned and left. The queen and Baby Charles followed him.

  ‘Elizabella!’ Henry lifted his hand to hold me back.

  I ran to the bed, grasped his hand and stroked it. ‘Dearest Hal! Mend! I beg you! You must!’

  ‘Promise me again,’ said my brother, ‘that you will marry Frederick.’

  ‘Duty and happiness join together,’ I said. ‘Can’t you see how much he pleases me?’

  Henry smiled. ‘I’m happy for it. But that’s mere liking. Promise me also resolve.’

  ‘I swear it!’ I said. ‘On this hand.’ I kissed his palm. Then kissed it again. ‘Grow your hair back as fast as you can!’

  ‘Elizabella…’

  ‘Bessie!’ my father shouted from the outer room. ‘Come away at once! You’ll tire the prince when he needs all his strength!’

  ‘You don’t tire me,’ said Henry. ‘Come back again, soon. I beg you.’

  ‘I will.’ I kissed his hand again. ‘I promise.’

  My father glared when I emerged from the bedchamber. ‘You’re not to visit again, d’ye hear? You’ll catch the contagion.’

  Contagion by illness, I wondered. Or contagion by Henry’s power?

  That night, I asked Tallie to borrow men’s clothes for me again. She brought them, together with the first whispers of poison.

  The Archbishop of Canterbury visited my brother.

  Cold with terror and desperation, I set off to reach my brother disguised as a groom. I entered through the private gate that opened onto the park, using the key that Henry had given me. Then I slipped through the corridors and up the staircase in King Henry’s Tower to the door of my brother’s bedchamber.

  Snatching a glimpse of the Dauphin’s portrait had been easy. This time, people were watching for me, on the king’s orders. This time, they saw me, not my livery.

  ‘I’m sorry, your grace, I can’t let you pass,’ said the man-at-arms on Henry’s door. ‘His majesty fears the spread of contagion.’

  I tried to peer past him into my brother’s room. I could smell the sour stink of sickness and a fug of burning herbs.

  ‘Bring me my sword and hat!’ my brother was shouting. He struggled to rise from his bed. ‘I must be gone! They wait for me in Jamestown!’

  ‘Your highness, you rave.’ The doctor placed his hands on Henry’s shoulders.

  Henry fell back onto his pillows. ‘I promised them I would come! I will disappoint…’

  ‘Henry!’ I screamed. ‘I’m here!’

  Someone inside closed the door before I knew if he had heard me.

  ‘Your grace,’ said the man-at-arms. ‘If you will not leave at once, I must escort you back to Whitehall.’

  I smelled burning feathers.

  I retreated into the park again. Faintly in the distance, I heard my brother screaming. When it grew darker, I tried again through the kitchens, which opened directly onto the park, stealing a flagon of wine to carry with me as a further disguise. This time, I was stopped even sooner, on the outer threshold of Henry’s apartments. I tried once more, through the stables. They were alert for me everywhere.

  The following day, I returned. I was stopped at the outer gate of the palace.

  On the fifth of November, the king was told that his son was dying. ‘Eight years!’ he was heard to shout. ‘Eight years after the plot to kill him along with me!’ He fled to Theobald’s.

  On the same day, first word of the prince’s illness reached the general populace. Prayers for his recovery rose in every church. Ralegh was said to have sent a sovereign cordial from his captivity in the Tower, claiming that his remedy was stronger than any poison known to man.

  I paced the tennis court gallery and stared from the window across the park as if I could travel to St James’s by the forceof my will. Frederick stayed at St James’s, to be near Henry and ready to bring me word of any change.

  ‘You must try to go in my place!’ I told Tallie. ‘They might mistake you for Peter.’

  Again, she borrowed clothes from Peter Blank. Late that night, she crept into my bed chamber and told me how she gained entry, taking a stinking close stool from a chamber groom doubled over with retching in the passage outside Henry’s chamber.

  ‘"I’ll empty that,” I said to him. And he was more than happy to let me.’ She avoided my eyes. ‘In the furore inside, no one noticed another groom coming and going with basins.’

  Even a black one, I thought with terror. The doctors were blind with panic. ‘What are the doctors doing to save him?’

  ‘Their best,’
she said, after the slightest hesitation. ‘They’re afraid, but doing their best.’

  ‘Go back!’ I said.

  She took my hands briefly and went.

  I lay awake on my bed. I must have dozed because I woke the next morning to the sound of shouting and weeping. I flung myself from my bed and ran to the door of my chamber. My maid sat weeping on a stool.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘The Prince of Wales has died.’

  In the corridor, people ran everywhere asking for news, to confirm the news.

  ‘He’s dead.’

  I saw a groom sitting in a heap on the floor of the gallery, wiping his face with his sleeve. Then I heard Frederick’s voice shouting, ‘Where is her grace?’

  Hatless and panting, he burst through the far door, followed by four breathless gentlemen. ‘Your brother lives! I swear it! All this clamour lies. Henry is still alive! I saw him alive only a short time ago.’

  He had run all the way from St James’s to find me and reassure me.

  I clung to him. His heat, even the smell of his sweat comforted me. We went together to pray in the Royal Chapel, then sat side by side in my presence chamber.

  ‘Don’t weep!’ I shouted at Frances Tyrrell and The Other Elizabeth. ‘There’s no need to weep.’ In one hand, I held my Scottish granite in one hand and with the other gripped Frederick’s hand.

  ‘Your brother is strong-willed,’ Frederick reassured me. ‘He believes that God has a purpose for him on earth. He will fight.’

  I imagined Henry drawing himself up and refusing to go with Death, spurning the outstretched bony hand.

  ‘England needs him to live,’ I said. I needed him to live.

  Frederick stayed with me through the day, saying very little. Holding my hand, touching some part of me while we waited.

  ‘Go back to St James’s,’ I told him after supper time passed without eating. ‘See that he still fights. Urge him on.’

  After he left, I sat on Tallie’s stool in my bedchamber, hugging her lute case as if holding her place in the universe while she filled mine at St James’s.

  Shortly before eight o’clock that night, Henry died.

  Tallie ran into my room, still in her groom’s clothing.

  ‘I know already.’ The last unreasoning shred of my hope waited for her to tell me I was wrong.

  I heard a faraway howl like a beaten dog, from the King’s Lodgings.

  ‘How did it happen?’ I asked.

  ‘The doctors are already agreeing among themselves that he died of an ague brought on by swimming at night.’

  ‘Of course they will all agree, to save their own necks! That’s not what I mean.’

  She looked away and pinched her lips tightly together. ‘Your grace…’

  I tried to take her arm but she pulled free. ‘You were there! Tell me!’

  ‘Please… You know enough,’ she said. ‘He’s gone. That’s more than enough!’

  ‘Tell me what happened!’ My wolf spoke, rising up through me from the soles of my feet. ‘What did they do to him? Did he feel pain at the end? Was he afraid?’

  I heard our breathing loud in the air. ‘Which of us do you want to spare?’ I demanded.

  Her eyes searched mine. ‘Though most often out of his wits, he had moments of clarity. I heard him speak once near the end, to ask a question.’

  She seemed to hold me up on the beams of her eyes. ‘He asked, “Where is my beloved sister?"’

  I gasped as though struck in the belly. ‘Did he know you?’ I begged. ‘Did he know that I had sent my other heart to him because I was forbidden to come?’

  ‘There’s more,’ she said. Reluctantly she opened the hand she had been holding clenched against her breast. ‘He gave me this ring for you.’

  58

  TALLIE

  She stumbled and fell as if a hunter’s arrow had pierced her heart. I caught her and called for help. This is the most terrible demand for truth she has ever made of me. God help me, I did not lie, but I did not tell all.

  What good can it do her to know?

  I have betrayed her trust in me. I have destroyed my own joy in being with her, because I must begin to guard my thoughts and tongue again. I am now the secret keeper of truths that properly belong to her, the prince’s own flesh, sprung from a shared womb. Hiding them, even from kindness, I must begin to be false again. Everything between us will now be false again. As false as it was until I showed her Southwark and my true self. I had been afraid of the truth, of springing a fatal leak. I had feared the effort of truth-telling, but it was so simple in the end. I opened my mouth and allowed truth to be born. The hard work is lying.

  I touched his leg to try to pass on her love. The leg was already dead, already gone. No longer part of him. The part of Henry that still lived was shrinking upwards. The fire dying, Dead ash left behind.…

  You’re not thinking straight, girl. You still stink of the sickroomand your own retch. Your thoughts are scrambled by close stools and shouting doctors. By seeing Death place its hand over the prince’s face. By fear.

  She will hear from others how it was. In time. The tongues, the tongues in this place! Rumour will not spare her.

  How the doctors panicked. How they shaved his head and split open live doves to slap against the scalp to ease his headaches. How he screamed and fought them and clutched his head as if trying to pull it off. How they cut open his veins to let his blood flow. How they cupped him until he was covered in bloody welts. How leeches swelled like blisters on his skin and left marks like the small pox. How they dosed and then purged him until he vomited blood and black bile. Then dosed again until his poor body was almost turned inside out. How he struggled and writhed, loosed his bowels, emptied his stomach, and fell back, scarcely breathing. How they split a live cock and slapped it to the soles of his feet. How his pulse faltered. How he struggled for air so that his screams faded to the gurgle in a drowning man’s throat.

  ‘They are killing me!’

  No doctor will report those words. But I heard them and don’t know what to do with them. That was not wild raving. He knew what he said. I saw his eyes.

  He knocked away hands holding the cup to his lips. ‘You kill me!’

  ‘He raves,’ they said. ‘That was always his favourite drink.’

  I saw that cup then spilled on purpose onto the floor. It was no accident.

  She will learn most, if not all, sooner or later. Then she will know that I did not give her truth. Please God, she doesn’t wake and ask for a consoling tune. My hands shake too much to pull music from the strings.

  I must tell her all these things, for both our sakes. But not yet.

  59

  ‘I knew already,’ I said. ‘By the ring you brought me.’

  He would not have sent it if he had merely been afraid to die. He would not betray his own courage at the last moment. The ring had only one message.

  Now Tallie had confirmed that message. Someone had murdered my brother.

  ‘Learn who paid that doctor,’ I said. ‘The one who spilled the cup.’

  We stood side by side like two figures carved in ice. I felt her desire to comfort me and was grateful that she did not try. Her simple presence was the best consolation she could give me. A touch, a gentle word would have shattered me into sharp cold fragments. I had failed to rescue my brother.

  Until the message arrived from Sir Thomas Lake, acting as Chief Secretary, I had thought I grieved.

  Then I learned that Frederick, too, was to be taken from me.

  PART THREE

  The Bride

  We then are dead, for what doth now remain To please us more, or what can we call pain Now we have lost him?

  – Lord Herbert of Cherbury

  60

  ‘Go back to Heidelberg!’ my father shouted at Frederick. ‘I can’t stomach the sight of yer mooning calf-face! How d’you think I can imagine happiness? Permit music? Tolerate celebration?’

  If Frederick o
beyed my father and returned to the Palatinate, I knew the marriage would never take place. Frederick could no longer afford me.

  I devoured news and rumour, although it made my stomach churn. With Henry dead, I was now second in line to the throne, with only the frail Baby Charles between. If he died, then I would be queen of England, the second Elizabeth. Many thought me likely to be queen. Some wise heads in the Privy Council feared a civil uprising to finish what the Gunpowder Plotters would have begun. The treasonable intention to make me queen grew suddenly more plausible, even likely.

  Tallie put on her old re-cut gown from Southwark and went out into the streets of London. At night she whispered to me in little gusts of frosted breath what she heard.

  Pssst, pssst! England still remembers its other Elizabeth on the throne. The English yearn to have a female monarch again. Pssst! They had wanted a man but are disillusioned. They’ve lost the future king they had hoped for. They mock Prince Charles. Pssst, pssst, pssst! There are cries in the streets of London for the ‘Elizabeth the Second'.

  I wanted to tell her that it was too dangerous even to repeat such words, but I listened greedily, all the same, with the covers pulled up to my neck, unable to stop my shivering.

  ‘Do they say how Henry died?’

  ‘Poison,’ she said flatly. ‘That the doctors lied to save their necks.’

  ‘Who is blamed?’

  She clamped her hand over her mouth and looked at me over her fingers.

  ‘Tallie!’

  ‘The king,’ she said.

  Our father, still writing the Stuart history of blood and violent death.