The Lady of Misrule

by Suzannah Dunn

  We’d been at the Partridges’ for a week when the invitation came, via Mrs Partridge: the boy husband wished his wife to join him for a stroll. They were free to meet, we’d been told on our first evening, as long as they remained in public – the herb garden in front of the house was Mrs Partridge’s suggestion – and under proper supervision, which, to judge from Mr Partridge’s glance in my direction, was down to me. Jane’s only response to this message from Mrs Partridge was a nod. No clue as to how she felt at the prospect, although a week in her company had taught me not to expect any. She’d made no mention of that husband of hers all week, but why would she? I wondered if he might be easier, on this occasion: calmer, perhaps, than he’d been at their parting; it was possible, I supposed, that under less fraught circumstances he’d manage to show himself in a better light.

  So, I’d be playing gooseberry: I’d have to stand alongside the pair of them in that herb patch – although of course I could stand at a distance, or at as much distance as a herb patch could offer. Actually, I didn’t care where I’d be standing as long as I was out of that room. A week in the Tower, and playing gooseberry was something to do, a herb garden somewhere to go.

  That afternoon, on the strike of three, as arranged, we closed the Partridges’ front door behind us and there they were, Guildford Dudley and his attendant on the far side of various herbaceous tufts. Guildford was testing something – animal, vegetable, mineral? – with the toe of his boot, but left off as soon as he saw us. The white and gold of a week ago had been replaced by a tawny silk which inevitably did a little less for him, but still, he was a vision next to the pallid, sunken-eyed attendant. Jane should take a look at that attendant, I thought, and perhaps she’d realise she didn’t have such a raw deal after all. I was quite possibly a world of fun, compared.

  I loitered by the door, absenting myself as best I could, resolving not to eavesdrop nor meet anyone’s eye and definitely not that of my counterpart; I couldn’t envisage any cause for solidarity with him, and if his turning his back was anything to go by, he felt similarly. Jane was barely past the bee-fizzy lavender before Guildford – making no effort to lower his voice – demanded to know how she was being treated. I didn’t have to be watching to know she’d shrugged the question off. The detail of her reply escaped me, but the tone was unmistakable: non-committal, if not rather positive. Undeterred, her husband launched into noisy complaint: ‘Because I’m getting all manner of shit.’

  A notable lack of response from his wife – just a frown, I glimpsed, a dutiful expression of concern but her heart not in it nor anywhere near.

  Leaning back on to the wall of the Partridges’ house, I gave myself up to a warming by sun-struck brick. Being at ground level offered no obvious advantage over my usual view of the green so I closed my eyes and was entertained instead by the play of sunshine on the inside of my eyelids. Perhaps, I thought, I should’ve called Twig along for company; then again, he might have expected a walk; it would’ve been mean to lure him on false pretences.

  ‘It’s pathetic,’ I heard Guildford protesting, ‘it’s just a chance to throw rotten eggs at a king and queen, and it’s too much for them to resist; they just can’t stop themselves.’

  That did grab Jane’s attention. ‘Rotten eggs?’ I imagined her frown of concern deepening into one of incomprehension.

  Which he gave short shrift. ‘You know what I mean.’

  I wouldn’t bet on it.

  ‘Our being stuck in here,’ he seethed, ‘is the biggest fucking excitement they’ve had in years.’

  ‘Who?’ Jane asked, and her interest was audibly genuine. ‘Who’s doing this—’ throwing of rotten eggs, as it were.

  He was predictably hazy on the details: ‘Oh—’ and I imagined the dismissive flap of a fine-boned hand, just everyone. ‘Every last one of the bastards. Even the bloke who brings in my breakfast.’

  Not having the benefit of the Partridges’ kitchen close at hand, he was buying meals in from the Tiger Inn, the Partridges had told us, for himself and his attendant.

  ‘Lording it over me, all of them. You can see it,’ he insisted, ‘you can see it in their eyes.’

  My own eyes half opened, to see him strutting up and down a row of sage. ‘I mean, is it too much to expect them to think for themselves?’ Then, vehemently: ‘Little people.’

  At which point, as if summoned, Goose banged through the Partridges’ door, flinging me an acknowledgement as she did so (‘Lady Lily-Loola,’ on this occasion) then stalking off across the bailey. Was Goose a ‘little person’? The day before, I’d asked her where she came from and with a glorious laugh she’d said, ‘A long way away, but not far enough.’

  ‘And you know what? You know what?’ Guildford’s petulance knew no bounds. ‘Why not just have done with it? They want to string me up, do they? Well –’ he flung his arms wide ‘– here I am.’

  Don’t tempt me.

  Jane’s response was merely ‘We’ve been treated well.’ We: she and I, it seemed, were a we.

  ‘Oh, well, yeah,’ was his gloomy rejoinder, arms slapped back to his sides, ‘but they’ll be easier on you because you’re a girl.’

  Or tougher on you because you’re a prick.

  She changed the subject: Any news of your father?’

  ‘On his way.’ Guildford didn’t elaborate, snapped off a sprig of rosemary to lob it over his shoulder.

  Being brought in, more accurately: his father wouldn’t be dropping by of his own accord for the pleasure of some flower-gathering.

  ‘My brothers, too. Tomorrow, probably.’

  Then came fulsome nose-blowing from the attendant, for which Guildford made a point of pausing, head cocked as if ascertaining some fine detail and resuming only when any more discharge would have been life-threatening: ‘But she can’t hold him to blame.’

  The attendant coughed, perhaps from physical necessity but possibly in surprise.

  Jane closed her eyes, emphatically: this, by the look of it, was old ground. She, the soon-to-be-crowned Queen, and blame, for having advanced the claim of a pretender.

  ‘She can’t.’ Guildford circled her, stepping over a patch of chives but not quite clearing it, which drew a disconcerted glance from the attendant, as if we were responsible, too, for the welfare of the herbs. ‘I mean, how can she blame him? What else could he have done?’

  Jane must’ve signalled impatience or scepticism because then he was remonstrating, ‘No, no, this needs to be said,’ and even taking her by the shoulders, from which she recoiled into a fold of arms.

  I’d given up the pretence of not watching. I was just keeping an eye, I told myself. Someone had to, and Guildford’s attendant was more interested in the contents of his handkerchief.

  ‘Because how convenient for everyone to forget what the King wanted.’

  Jane started a small pacing of her own, to shake him off.

  ‘You,’ he said. ‘He wanted you. Not her.’

  Keep your voice down. This helps no one.

  He aimed a kick at whatever it was that had been suffering his attention when we arrived.

  ‘The King’s dying wish was that you succeed him. Has everyone forgotten that?’

  I wondered what was going through Jane’s mind. People said the boy-King had been her soulmate, but people said all sorts of things – whatever best served their purpose – and lately more than ever. It was hard to imagine her being anyone’s soulmate. She gave nothing of herself. Well, not to me, but then again, why would she? Nor to her husband, although if what I’d seen of him so far was typical, that was hardly surprising.

  ‘And you know very well he’d never have chosen his half-sister as his heir. You do know that.’

  She admitted she did, although she allowed no more than a defeated-sounding ‘Yes.’

  ‘But because he wasn’t old enough to write a will—’

  A gesture of exasperation from Jane: Guildford, I know all this.

  ‘—my father had to see i
t through for him.’

  His father, Lord President, protector of the boy-King, his facilitator, the man in charge.

  ‘Because whatever the King wanted to happen, my father had to make happen. And he always did. Nothing ever mattered to him except whatever the King wanted.’

  She didn’t deny it, but nor did she give ground: continuing her pacing, wrapped in her own arms.

  Quieter, he said, ‘My father’s loyal. That’s what he is. Loyal to a fault.’ Then, ‘It’s easy for everyone else: sloping off, switching sides.’

  Which was what Harry had done, although of course it had been more complicated than that. Or, no, simpler perhaps. His son had been captured en route to London by the other side and that had been enough for Harry: he’d do whatever they wanted, say whatever they wanted – and what a prize for them, the turnaround of an earl’s brother – just as long as they let his son go. Which they did.

  ‘Everyone’s pretending it was someone else’s idea to declare you but they should ask themselves what they’d have done in my father’s place. He’s loyal,’ Guildford repeated. ‘Nothing matters more to him than loyalty to the Crown. He’ll be loyal to our new queen, too, if she lets him.’

  That, I hadn’t expected. Nor, from the look of her, had Jane.

  There was a defiant glitter to Guildford’s eyes. ‘My mother’s gone to the Queen. They’ve let her go to the Queen, at Newhall.’

  To pledge her husband’s loyalty, he meant. To beg for his life.

  Jane’s response was no response, just a straightforward, unrelated question which took them back to where they’d begun: ‘Why did you want to see me?’

  He didn’t seem to have an answer. ‘Well, to – I don’t know,’ and an edge of complaint to it, as if she should be the one to know.

  ‘I must go,’ she announced, to no one in particular but I was quick to peel myself from the wall. He didn’t argue, but he did ask her if she’d come again. ‘We’ll see,’ was all she said, and wisely he didn’t pursue it.

  I couldn’t have been less prepared for what happened when I followed her back inside the house: her whirling around to me in the gloom to seethe, ‘Did you hear that?

  Hear what? I couldn’t even properly see: my eyes hadn’t adjusted and for that moment she was just a deeper darkness ahead of me in the stairwell.

  ‘Did you hear it?’

  I couldn’t think: with her there, breathing fire at me, I just couldn’t think. Hear what? About the loyalty – was it that? The mother-in-law begging for mercy?

  ‘King’ she quoted, the word dredged with disgust. ‘Guildford was never King.’

  Then I remembered: king and queen, he’d said; throw rotten eggs at a king and queen, meaning, as I’d understood it, the boy and girl who’d briefly been taken to be King and Queen. That was all he’d meant, I was fairly sure; no more than that.

  She said, ‘He would never have been King and he knows it, he knows it,’ as if I’d dare stand there and deny it. Then she was off, stamping up the stairs. ‘I couldn’t have been clearer about that.’

  And I, for one, wouldn’t have wanted to be on the receiving end of that clarity.

  Halfway up, she halted and turned to drive it home: ‘If he hadn’t gone around acting as if he were King, we wouldn’t be here now.’

  Really? Did she really think that? People said he’d assumed airs, and I’d seen for myself the white and gold suit, but was that so bad? I was as happy as the next person to ridicule him – he did rather lend himself to it – but the fact was that he’d had a part to act, as queen’s consort, and wasn’t that all he’d been doing? Did she think the Queen would be so petty as to seek vengeance for that? Did she really, seriously blame her being held at the Tower on Guildford’s white and gold suit?

  ‘He’s my husband – I can’t help that – and maybe the King did want me to be Queen, but since when did he want the next king to be Guildford Dudley?’ and it was as if she couldn’t even bear his name in her mouth. ‘I’m telling you,’ and it came barrelling down the stairs like a threat, ‘he was never going to be King, whatever his father said.’ With that, she stomped off, calling behind her, ‘My husband could’ve been Duke Whatever-he-liked, but King?’, the words ringing out in the stairwell: ‘Over my dead body.’

  The following afternoon, I watched from our window as perhaps a dozen horsemen arrived together at the far side of the inner bailey and rode unhurriedly across to our house. They were impressively dressed, and their horses beautiful. I’d seen horsemen before down there, of course, but only in pairs at most, distantly, and mid-assignment. Never a show of them, like this, and never at our door. What could a dozen mounted gentlemen want with anyone here? Not that I was worried, because whatever or whomever they’d come for, they were in no hurry, staying in their saddles but slackening their reins and indulging in some back-stretching. Through our open window, I caught snatches of conversation: sons, dogs, a troublesome reeve. Chit-chat. Definitely an off-duty air to the gathering. I didn’t hear anyone leaving the house to greet them, nor did they seem to expect it; they sounded happy enough to be there beneath our window in the sunshine.

  Then came a second, similar group, joining the first with comparable languor, and a third, by which time I’d realised their riding up to the house was simply to leave room for those behind: this was some kind of procession coming to a close here.

  Before long there were dozens of noblemen down there on their wonderful horses. Was Harry somewhere among them? Harry, taking his place as the fine, upstanding man he was supposed to be. And if he was there, would he know I was here? Should he spot me, he might come up. It wouldn’t be easy, though, to have him here; he’d be out of place. I didn’t want him coming up here.

  So, I drew back, unable then to see much more of the oncoming archers than a protracted jostling of bows, and behind them the flashes of sunlight on silk suggesting the presence of standard-bearers. Well over a hundred men in all, was my guess. The green’s already-patchy grass would be getting a good kicking. Absorbed as I was, I jumped when Jane spoke up: ‘Is that the duke?’

  She spoke up but didn’t look up: I could tell the difference, by then, from her voice alone; I didn’t need to tear myself away from the spectacle to know she had her head in a book. I wondered if, in turn, had the hubbub of the crowd and the haze of horses not been drifting through our window, she’d have known from my demeanour that I was witnessing something quite different from the everyday, humdrum business of the bailey.

  The duke? Could all this be for the duke? He’d be arriving under escort, I knew – but this? Horsemen and archers and standard-bearers. A hundred or more men, in all.

  How would I know if he was there? Even if it were easy to distinguish anyone in particular down there, which it wasn’t, I didn’t have a clue what he looked like. But then actually I did – I did see him and I did know it was him in the very instant that Jane offered the clue: ‘Scarlet cloak,’ adding, ‘He always wears it,’ as if he did so specifically to bore her.

  Mid-crowd, a man was indeed dismounting inside an eye-catching bloom of that finest cloth. Got him. ‘Yep, he’s there,’ I crowed; and then, when she didn’t respond, ‘There he is!’

  ‘Is he.’ Sarcastic, as if she’d never been interested.

  Suit yourself. Me, I was avid to see whatever I could of the man who’d run England for the past couple of years then had the gall to ignore a king’s daughter and, in her place, declare his own daughter-in-law.

  The scarlet-sporting duke was joined by four others, fine figures of men but with a residual delicacy of boyhood and an air of dejection. These, I guessed, were the sons, the beloved sons. A huddle of sons, around whom other men busied themselves, conferring and casting around for direction. The duke showed no sign of discomfort, didn’t cower as his sons did; at ease and busy, he appeared, as if he were at least equal to those other men in the matter of bringing about his detention. Which, conceivably, he was: the outstandingly capable duke. Only when he tu
rned in pursuit of one of those men did I see that there was something amiss with that heavy-swinging but light-as-air cloak of his; but not until he turned again did I properly see the splatter, all down the back. An extravagant, glistening mess. Real, actual egg-throwing, then, and it took my breath away to see it because that must’ve been some ride through London. No wonder the sons were unnerved.

  But egg was all it was, and perhaps a little of whatever else people had found to throw that would do damage – which was anything, really, because it wouldn’t take much to put paid to fabric as fine as that. It wasn’t what they might have thrown that shook me, though, it was that they’d thrown it at all. Anyone who wears such a beautiful cloak does so in complete surety that nothing adverse will come its way, and it was that confidence which the Londoners had wanted rubbished. Could I have joined in? However horrible the duke was, however much he’d cheated the people of England, could I have gone to some street corner with my egg or eggs and whatever else, my hands full or with a bagful, and perhaps even scooping up some dung: could I have stood there at the ready and, as he’d ridden by, taken aim and actually lobbed it? No half-measures when it comes to throwing – a throw’s a throw or it’s a mere letting go. Could I have lobbed an egg with the force to have it smash on his back? And then what would I have felt to see its impact, its momentary cling, its nasty slide? There’s no fighting a thrown egg, no negotiating with it; you just have to take it. He always wears it, Jane had said, and there he was, wearing it still, ludicrously sullied though it was. He could’ve taken it off, but there he was, toughing it out. As I watched, he joined the man whom he’d addressed and together they strode from view, leaving the sons at a loss, which was when one of them began to cry: right there, in the middle of that crowd, openly crying, wiping his eyes, his bearing gone. My intake of breath had Jane ask, ‘What?’ and I was just about to tell her – the ruined cloak, the young man overwhelmed – but I found I couldn’t. Not because she’d be upset but because, I feared, she wouldn’t.