The Light in the Labyrinth_BooksGoSocial Historical Fiction

by Wendy J. Dunn

  Kate continued to stare at Madge, too confounded to move. Bells rang out the hour and singing voices drifted from the nearby chapel. Kate turned her head to listen more closely. Her heart drummed so loudly in her ears she seemed deafened.

  Madge grabbed her arm. “Come you. The Queen does not like it if we are late.”

  Kate didn’t need Madge’s introduction after all, not when she was helped by one of the Queen’s wolfhounds. She read alone in the Queen’s library, when a young dog burst into the room. Tongue lolling, it scampered this way, and then the other, as if searching for another exit. Seeing her, the dog shook its head and barked in greeting, its friendly, amber eyes full of trust and attention.

  Gracefully prancing over to her, it sat, scratched at its hindquarters and turned towards the door in expectation. The dog barked once more, and Francis Knollys entered, a leash in his hand. “There you are!” He then noticed Kate, and bowed. “Pray forgive the interruption, Lady. I made the mistake of letting him loose, and he was away before I could grab him.” He kneeled beside the sitting dog and put the leash back on his leather collar. “He’s a puppy, really; he’s just so big I sometimes forget all the training he still needs.”

  She smiled. “Are you his trainer?”

  He looked up, amused. “If I was, I would soon be asked to look for other employment. This wolfhound and another were a gift from my family to the Queen. They still know me best, and she requested that I get them used to their new home before I take them to meet with Urian, the Queen’s older wolfhound.”

  “Why is that?”

  “The Queen worries that Urian will be jealous. She thinks if they have the smell of the court and their new mistress, he’ll accept them with greater grace.” Knollys stood, and then turned as if he remembered something. “Forgive me, I have not told you my name.” He bowed again to her. “I am Francis Knollys, knight. And who may you be, my lady?”

  She lowered her eyes, her cheeks warming. “I am Katherine Carey, the daughter of Mary Stafford, she who once was Mary Carey and before that Mary Boleyn.” She studied him and chewed her lip. Was he yet another who knew she was the daughter of the King? “My friends call me Kate or Kat, it matters not.”

  He smiled. “I choose Kat, if you will honour me by calling me friend.” He examined her closely. “I have not seen you before. You must be new to court.”

  “Aye, new to court.” Kate turned her head away from him, brushing away her tears that blurred the frieze of plump putti decorating the length of the wall. As if disputing their grotesque, oversized figures, they tumbled and played in blithe innocence.

  “Pray, may I sit down?” Knollys asked, stepping towards her.

  Her cheeks burning, she nodded and bent her head.

  Sitting on the stool beside her, he began talking to her, asking questions about her life at home, and telling her about his. He was the eldest son of a family that spent more months at court than at their family estate while in service to the King. Coming to the end of explaining his duties at court, Francis studied her.

  “You say you’re the daughter of Mary Boleyn? Forgive me, I have just realised you’re the niece of the Queen.” Again, tears blurred her eyesight. She could no longer read the poetry in the book on her lap. Does he know I am the bastard daughter of the King?

  “This is not a happy time?” he asked.

  She cradled the side of her face and shook her head. He frowned at the open door. He leaned closer and quietly said, “This is not a happy time for many at court. I have lived here since a small lad, long enough to recognise the cesspit smell of plots. Believe me, I know the Queen concerns herself to ensure a better and more just England. For that, she has my loyalty.”

  Realising he thought she wept because of her aunt, Kate forgot her own worries. “Is it as bad as that?”

  “It depends on the Queen giving the King a son.” Francis swung his full attention to the open door. “Come, boy. Come, Brutus,” he said to the dog, tugging on its leash. He hurried to the door and securely tied the dog to another chair, one placed on the other side of the door. When he came back to Kate, he moved his stool even closer to her. “If I shut the door, it would look suspicious, and not only for your good reputation. Young Brutus will warn us if anyone approaches. Now, we can speak freely. But softly, lady. Softly.”

  In answer, she leaned towards him. “You spoke about the Queen giving the King a son.”

  His blue eyes narrowed. “Aye, it all hinges on that. If she fails, the plots will begin again in earnest. I tell you this because you are her niece and should be on your guard. There are many you should be careful of—Cromwell, for one. He is a skilled hunter who sets up his traps with great care.”

  “My aunt mentioned him.” Kate remembered the strange tension between her aunt and Cromwell when she had met him in the King’s throne room. The puzzle falling into place, she moved suddenly, almost dropping her book. “My lady mother told me he is one of the Queen’s men.” She spoke more to herself, than to Francis.

  “I mean no disrespect to your lady mother, but she has been away from the court long if she thinks that. Allegiances change quickly when power is involved. Did you not know that the Queen once threatened to behead him? He hates her and plays a heady game of politics against her.”

  “But what of the King? Surely he protects my aunt?”

  Something shifting interrupted them. Knollys turned to the dog and Kate turned too. Brutus had dropped to the ground, laying his head on his front paws, his eyes shining in a stream of light from the window. He appeared relaxed and ready to go to sleep. Knollys spoke. “We have only met today, yet I feel I can trust you. Tell me, am I a fool to do so? Can I speak the truth to you?”

  Kate lifted her chin. “I am the Queen’s niece. I would rather die than betray her.”

  “Very well, but pray remember that these confidences I tell you now put us both in danger. As for your question about the King, Cromwell has his ear. Already, he seizes on the King’s discontent with his marriage and plants seeds of doubt about his wife, or whether God blesses their marriage.” Knollys stood before going to the door to undo the dog’s lead. “The King no longer protects the Queen, only the son he hopes to see born next year.” He bowed. “Lady Kat, I hope to see you again, and soon.”

  Kate stared long at the empty doorway. For a while, she sat there, smelling dog and stables, and a scent belonging to Francis alone.

  Swimming in waters too deep for her, she thought about everything that had happened since her arrival at court—everything that had turned her life upside down. Furious with her mother, grappling with her new identity as the King’s daughter, surrounded by who knew what, now it seemed coming to court also did strange things to her heart. She could not get back to reading, no matter how hard she tried.

  Wanting time alone to think, Kate slipped back unnoticed to her chamber. Inside a woman sat at the writing table. A quill in her hand, she wrote in the same book Madge had recently shown Kate. Madge’s back from attending the Queen? But then the woman looked over her shoulder. Prematurely aged, the face of Madge’s twin hinted only a pale echo of her sister’s healthy beauty.

  “Mary!” Kate said in surprise.

  “Good morrow, coz.” Mary, as if waking from a dream, seemed to take in Kate’s disorientation. “I did not mean to startle you, but Madge told me she had our book. I thought to use these few moments while the Queen has no need of me to come here and write a verse or two.” She placed the quill carefully in the inkpot and inspected her ink-stained fingers, sighing. “I do not know how this happens. I try to be careful, but still I soil myself. No matter how hard I wash, I cannot get off all the ink.” Going to the washbasin, she grinned and youth returned to her face. “The Queen will tease again, but perchance her smiles will make my black nails worth it.”

  Kate approached the table. Still wet, the newly written text stood out on the page of the open book. “May I read what you have written, coz?”

  Mary grinned, scrubb
ing her hands. “You can but try! My handwriting is as bad as Madge’s, but at least we can decipher each other’s.”

  Kate sat, pulled the book towards her and slowly made sense of the words. She laughed. “Oh, this is good. And amusing. You are so clever to write such verse.”

  Her cousin reached for a towel and dried her hands. “I am glad you found it to your liking. I have mulled over the verse all this morning. I think if the Queen hadn’t freed me from her service until this afternoon, it would have driven me mad.”

  “But how do you do it? How do know what words to write? And write in verse! What a gift you have!”

  “As for words, that’s easy. All you need do is listen. Sometimes I feel like a magpie, gathering bits from here and there to build a nest for my eggs. Verse? Have you not tried it? All of us can do it, if we put our mind and heart to it. I think verse is part of us, just as much as the songs we hear from birds are part of them.”

  Kate hid a smile at Mary’s seriousness and studied the book. “I am trying to write poetry, but I don’t think I am very good at it.”

  Mary came over to her. “Then you must keep trying. 'Tis time for me to go back to the Queen. If you don’t have anything else to do, why don’t you look through our book and see what you can add to it.”

  Kate almost bolted up from the chair. “I can’t do that!”

  Mary laughed. “I always say to Madge that ‘can’t’ and ‘do’ marry not; but do, and you will find you can. If you cannot think of your own, why not write the words of a poem or song you know and would like to share with us. Many poems in this book are copied from other books.” Nearby bells rang out the new hour. Her cousin grabbed the cloak tossed over the back of a chair. “I must be away. You are fortunate, Kate; the Queen has not asked you to do any more than attend her for a short time each day and be a companion to your brother. Why not use this free time to your advantage? Madge tells me you love to read. Writing is the other side of the coin. You might discover you enjoy it.”

  She padded to the door and quietly shut it behind her. Alone again, Kate sprinkled sand to dry Mary’s verse and then flipped the pages. There were short verses, long verses, riddles, and bits and pieces of Latin with their English translations beside them. Some pages of the book were in Madge’s or Mary’s writing, but there was also writing that came from different hands. Finding a love poem, Kate read it out loud. The yearning, the desire, the grief of love unreturned almost made her weep.

  The poem brought to mind Francis Knollys. He was so handsome, years older than she. Her cheeks warmed to her memory of almost crying in front of him. He probably thought her a silly, ignorant girl, one in need of his greater wisdom. Yet did she do him justice? His concern for her aunt had embraced her as well. Embraced me? Holding her hand over her heart, her emotions twirled around and made her dizzy, almost ill. Words popped unbidden in her mind, and she could not rid herself of them—or of the image of Francis taking her into his arms. Her insides felt just as peculiar as the day he had strode by her in the gallery, unaware of nothing else but keeping those two wolfhounds under tight restraint.

  Now she had spoken to him and sat close enough to see the black, thick eyelashes framing his dark blue eyes. And his lips! Wide and generous, with a smile that gleamed with white, straight teeth. She shivered, remembering his sweet breath so near to her. Kate turned to a blank page in the book and reached for the quill, writing:

  My love,

  Dark and gentle

  My heart is his.

  Forever.

  Forgetting to lift the quill from the paper, she stared at the words. My heart is his? Forever? Black ink blotched beside the splotches of her tears.

  10

  A SLIM BOOK IN HER HAND, Kate opened the door to the Queen’s dim bedchamber. The sight before her shocked her into stillness and silence. Unaware of her, seated on a bench and locked in a tight embrace, a man and woman kissed. Ghostly winter light shrouded them and dulled the colours of their rich robes into almost tones of greys. Only the human sounds they made and the increasing passion of their kiss showed that the man and woman belonged to life and were not ghosts themselves. Kate almost cried in fright when someone put a hand over her mouth and grabbed her arm, pulling her back into the Queen’s privy chamber.

  Rubbing her sore arm, Kate waited in mute, smouldering anger as Madge closed the door, cutting off the weak light escaping from the room. Winter’s gloom enclosed her until she adjusted to the change of light. It did not stop Kate from glaring at her cousin’s back. “God’s teeth! Why do that?” When Madge gave her no answer, not even apology for hurting her, Kate snapped at her. “Why are you here?”

  Madge spun around and faced her with fury. “Fool!”

  Kate stepped back, her growing anger crumbling under Madge’s far more heated assault. “Would I be here without the Queen’s knowledge?” Madge’s gaze returned to the shut door. “And you? Are you in habit of going into rooms without knocking first?”

  Kate glanced down at the book in her hand before braving her cousin once more. “I wanted to return the Queen’s book. She asked my brother for it this morning, but it was I who had it.” She tightened her mouth and, like Madge, checked the door of the bedchamber. “I didn’t want Harry to get into trouble.” She studied the floor. “The guards let me in. How was I to know that I would find Lady Margaret with a man in the Queen’s bedchamber?” She turned to her cousin. “Is it Lord Howard?” Time after time in her aunt’s chambers, Kate had observed how the King’s niece used any excuse to go near him. How he also came close to her. It was like they danced without music, without steps other than dictated by a force that throbbed between them, and that few could mistake. “Why are they there? What’s going on?”

  Madge led Kate to another window-seat embrasure on the far end of the narrow room, where windows overlooked the Thames. Candles in wall sconces lit their way. She gestured. “Sit down.”

  Feeling once more out of her depth, Kate set her aunt’s book on the table next to the window and did as she was told. Attending first to the door that led to the gallery, Madge sat beside her. “Give me your vow that you will not say a word to anyone about this.”

  Kate jerked around. “How can I vow without knowing if it touches my loyalty to the Queen.”

  Madge straightened and crossed her arms. “As if I would ever be disloyal! Never! Believe me, this matter is known to her, and I am here in her service.”

  Kate relaxed, knowing Madge was one of her aunt’s few close confidants. “Very well, you have my vow. I swear on my immortal soul that I will hold my tongue.”

  “Good.” Madge leaned against the cushions of the window-seat. “I am here on guard, for them.” She waved a hand at the door and gave a tight smile. “If I hadn’t gone to the privy, I would have caught you in time.”

  Bewildered, Kate frowned. “Guarding them? Jesu’, why?”

  Madge tilted her head and cupped a cheek with her hand. Kate stirred in discomfort as her cousin fixed her attention on her. Madge sighed. “This is what you must never tell. Poor Margaret. Poor cousin Tom. They wed in secret last November. Margaret confessed to Queen Anne and begged for her help. The Queen desires to do what she can, but there is too much at stake.” Madge paused as if in thought. “It is doubtful the King will take kindly to his royal niece presuming her own choice of husband. Heads have rolled for less cause. All the Queen can do is to let them come to her bedchamber when she is with the King—and wait for a time when his black humours give her less reason for grief. While she waits, I keep watch.”

  Pondering her cousin’s words, Kate turned to the window. Driven by the wind, the tidal Thames frothed and tossed around the royal barges. The wind, a raging giant, buffeted its fury upon the palace’s walls, holding them at siege. How it howled with frustration, beating all its power on stone walls that kept them safe.

  She turned back to Madge. “They come here? In the Queen’s own chambers? It is that wise? Surely the Queen risks bringing upon herself
the King’s anger?”

  “Mayhap.” Madge reached for the tiny jewelled book hanging from her girdle, snapping it open and close. Madge smiled at her reflection in the gold of its cover. “See you the gift of the Queen? 'Tis a psalm from the Bible. She gave me the girdle book when she thought I needed to think about more serious matters than the posies I read and write.”

  Guessing her cousin desired to change the subject, Kate shook her arm. “But what of the King? Won’t he be angry with my aunt?”

  Madge spoke slowly as if thinking out loud. “Mayhap. Even more considering that Tom is a Howard and thus her own kin. Believe me, she was not pleased to be embroiled in Lady Margaret’s schemes, but the deed was done and the marriage consummated. Only a trusted few know about Meg and Tom, and we all protect them. With the same arrow leaving them love-struck, the Queen could not help but pity them. She allows them the privacy of her chamber, as does our cousin, Mary, wife to the King’s bastard son.” Madge reached into the deep, secret pocket of her gown and brought out the manuscript of shared poetry. “Look at what Lady Margaret writes to her Tom.” She turned to a page and gave the book to Kate.

  My heart is set not to remove

  For where as I love faithfully…

  Kate read on, touched by the heartfelt words.

  “There’s more,” said Madge.

  Despite her thick layers of clothes, Kate shivered. Her fingers, numbed by the cold, clumsily turned the page to read on.

  Wind rattled the window behind her. The rain hit the glass like small stones, the large droplets bursting and forming into tiny rivulets that raced down the glass. Something moved in the upper corner of the window. A cobweb, broken into parts, swayed in the current of air from the crack between window and stone. Another darting movement drew Kate’s attention. Locked together on the cobweb’s edge, two spiders tumbled, one big and black and the second, a paler spider, half the size of the other. Their legs a mass of confusion, the two spiders twisted and fought, going one way and then another. The colour of the smaller spider reminded Kate of her fingertip held out to candlelight.