Virgin

by Robin Maxwell

  She had only herself to blame, Kat knew. She had done nothing but encourage Thomas Seymour’s flirtation with Elizabeth, seeming to forget that he was a married man. Frequently she asked herself how she could have been so stupid, but each time the excuse was repeated: because she herself adored the Admiral to distraction, despite his obvious weaknesses. And if truth be told, she still believed that if somehow the Princess and he could be married, his only fault would be that he would make too much of Elizabeth. Perhaps she was mad, but it seemed to her a match made in Heaven.

  Coming into the bedchamber, she saw Blanche Parry standing over the bed and placing a cool compress on Elizabeth’s forehead. Blanche had insisted that the sudden change in living arrangements had caused Elizabeth’s ill health, as Cheshunt was near a large marsh, and its rooms therefore more dank than Chelsea House. But Kat knew the truth. These illnesses were simply the Princess’s terrible emotions displayed in bodily form. She mourned for Seymour's loss as much as she suffered for her disgrace. Though Catherine had written kind letters to Elizabeth, and replies had been sent the Queen Dowager, the girl believed that all trust between them had been irrevocably lost.

  The Princess had, in the first weeks under Sir Anthony and Lady Denny’s sympathetic hospitality, attempted good cheer. Roger Ascham and his wife had, of course, joined them in their new home and he’d immediately set up his schoolroom to continue Elizabeth’s education. Always cheerful and mellow in demeanor, he pronounced the new atmosphere far more conducive to study than the old, and silently gave thanks for the absence of Elizabeth’s untoward preoccupation with Seymour.

  Of late, with the Princess’s illnesses, there had proven to be too much free time at Cheshunt for Ascham’s taste. However, in Elizabeth’s household he had found not only a most brilliant pupil but a congenial family of friends in the Ashleys. John Ashley was himself a scholar, and the two couples spent many happy hours in discussion and argument over the classics, punctuated by much laughter and merriment. The only bone of contention that marred the friends’ congeniality was the subject of Thomas Seymour.

  Ascham’s Cambridge colleague, John Cheke, had written to him of the Admiral’s alarming schemes and his desire to draw the young King into them. But the normally levelheaded Kat, perfectly named for her feline protectiveness of Elizabeth, never listened to reason on the subject of the Admiral, to the extreme annoyance of her husband and the exasperation of Ascham. The tutor had, from the beginning, done his best to warn the Ashleys of Seymour’s villainy, and been forced to watch helplessly as the disastrous events at Chelsea House had unfolded. Now all he could do was lend his optimism to Elizabeth’s new circumstances. Soon the Princess would be well enough to continue her studies and forget about Seymour. Though love had confounded and blinded Elizabeth’s wit and reason, there was no reason she should not now revert to the modest and virtuous young woman she had been before Thomas Seymour had exploded into her life.

  With a nod to Blanche Parry, Kat closed the door quietly and moved to the bowl and pitcher on the table beneath the window. Into a glass flagon she poured some water and half of the new powdered potion she’d been given by the apothecary, the foul odor of it twitching her nose. The taste of it, she reckoned, would likely turn Elizabeth's stomach, but something needed to be done about the pain in the girl’s head, and the man had promised relief with his “special powder.”

  As Kat approached the bed with the medicine Elizabeth moaned again, and Blanche Parry shook her head somberly. One look at the Princess told the story. She had again lapsed into delirium. Her normally milk-white skin shone with a sick gray pallor, and there were rust-red circles under her closed eyes.

  “I came as fast as I could,” Kat said quietly.

  “She’s been in this state since you left,” murmured Blanche. “Just dead to the world and moaning like a sick cow.” She looked at Kat with terror in her eyes. “She cannot die of it, can she, Kat?”

  “I think not, but then, I’ve never seen a headache so dire before, either. We shan’t think such things, Blanche. We’ll just get this down her throat. Come now, lift her head.”

  Just then Elizabeth uttered a sound, urgent in tone, that was something more than a moan, though less than a word. The women leaned forward, for she was about to utter it again. This time, however, her lips moved and no sound came out of them at all.

  “Say again, Elizabeth,” urged Kat. “Say again, dear girl. We cannot understand you.”

  “Thomas,” she uttered feebly but clearly.

  The ladies Ashley and Parry stiffened and could not bear to meet each other’s eyes.

  “Thomas,” Elizabeth cried louder now, her strength fueled by delirium. “Thomas, Thomas!”

  Kat’s eyes filled with tears, and she turned away so quickly that the foul liquid sloshed over the top of the container and soiled Elizabeth’s coverlet. Irritated, Blanche snatched the flagon from Mistress Ashley’s hand, and as Kat fled the room, Blanche dribbled some of the potion between Elizabeth’s parched lips.

  At the door Kat, blinded by tears, ran headlong into Roger Ascham.

  “Kat?” he said, taking in the waiting woman’s appearance. “The Princess … ?”

  “My fault!” wailed Kat Ashley. “My fault!” She rushed past the tutor and down the corridor.

  Greatly alarmed, Ascham pushed open the bedchamber door just enough to convince himself that Elizabeth had not died of her infirmities. He sank back against the door frame heaving a sigh of relief, but wondered in that moment if the Princess or her retainers would ever recover from the misdeeds at Chelsea House. Despite his displays of optimism, Roger Ascham was anything but sure that they would. In fact, where Thomas Seymour was concerned, it was probable that the worst was yet to come.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Catherine lay in her great bed gazing mildly at the women who stood in small whispering knots round her room. She had not felt mild an hour before when, at the advanced age of thirty-six, she had successfully pushed her first child into the world. She had been altogether undignified, she remembered. Her ladies had certainly never heard such colorful oaths emanating from the mouth of the Queen Dowager before, and the thought of their shocked faces strangely pleased her.

  But then, everything pleased her at this moment. She had a healthy daughter, and though the nearly two-day labor had proven exhausting and had left her achy and raw, she had survived. The child was beautiful — a perfectly shaped head, deep pink bud lips, and long dark curling eyelashes. If she were lucky, thought Catherine, little Mary would look like her father.

  The sudden memory of Thomas forced a short stabbing pain through Catherine's chest. Thomas. He had afforded her her wildest unspoken dreams — a young, handsome husband, virile and exciting. A man that had loved her as much as she had loved him. And he had given her a child, one whom she would live to see grow into a magnificent woman. Mary would have all of her mothers worldly wealth and the finest humanist education, and she would certainly bring her mother great joy But now Thomas must needs depart their lives. His darker gifts had nearly stolen her sanity, and she flatly refused to end her brilliant life a beaten shell of a woman, slave to her misguided passions. She was more than that, deserved more. As soon as she’d regained her strength, she would speak to Cranmer about the divorce. Word had come down to her of Thomas’s outrageous and highly treasonous plots against the Crown. Somerset, too, had learned that his brother was working against the government and called Thomas before the Council to explain himself. He had stunned them by refusing to attend, and only when threatened with imprisonment had he apologized for his behavior. The Protector might have taken harsher measures against his next of kin, but had chosen to be lenient — some said because of the Queen Dowager's pregnancy. In any event, Catherine knew that she and little Mary must separate from Thomas soon, or when he fell from grace, they would fall along with him.

  Catherine lifted a hand and beckoned to Elizabeth Tyrwhitt.

  Her stepdaughter approached the bed
with an expression of the sweetest delight. “Do you wish to hold Mary again, Your Majesty?”

  “In just a moment, Elizabeth. What I do wish is for you to call my physician, Doctor Huick.”

  “Of course, madame. Are you sure you wouldn’t like a sip of wine first?”

  “Perhaps in a while. Just go now, my dear.” Then Catherine grabbed Lady Tyrwhitt’s hand. “Thank you kindly for your help in my great hour.”

  “Oh, you’re welcome, Majesty. And it was a great hour! We were all so heartened by your courage.”

  “And by my fine oaths,” added Catherine with a smile.

  “And your fine oaths indeed,” said Lady Tyrwhitt.

  Catherine's happy expression was a sun that warmed her stepdaughter’s heart. She moved from the bed and had just placed her hand on the door when it was thrown open with such force that she jumped back to avoid being knocked over. Thomas Seymour blew into the room like a gale.

  “By God’s precious soul!” he fairly shouted. “I’ve a daughter!” He strode to the cradle where the rocker rocked the infant girl lying in milky sleep.

  “I will not disturb her,” he said, and gave the babe a brief pat. “She’s a beauty, my little girl. Looks like her mother.” But Seymour's jolly bluster did little to hide the bitter disappointment he clearly felt for his wrong-sexed child. As he moved to the great bed and gave Catherine a smacking kiss, nearly a dozen people pushed into the room — the Lords Dorset, Sommers, and Blaylock, and several ladies of the household who, Catherine knew, were deeply besotted by her husband. These were “Thomas’s people.”

  “And where are you off to in such a hurry, Lady Tyrwhitt?” Thomas said. “I’ve brought wine for us all. A celebration! Just stay for a moment while we drink a toast to my daughter and my beautiful wife.”

  Sommers and Blaylock were filling the cups they’d brought with them from a wineskin and handing them out to the ladies and gentlemen, the wet nurse, and even the midwives who had finally packed up their instruments and were making to go.

  “To the great health of Lady Catherine and Mary Seymour,” Thomas said, holding up his cup.

  He was very good at deceit, thought Catherine, watching him from her bed. It came naturally to him, like a fish swimming. He seemed to fear nothing, perhaps had no clue what danger he was concocting for himself, and though he had made great shows of shame and remorse for his most appalling behavior with Princess Elizabeth, Catherine was sure he never did feel it. Thomas fooled everyone with displays of wild emotions but, she realized in retrospect, the emotions had nothing whatsoever to do with anyone but himself. It pained her to think that the love he had shown her was pretended, but she was determined to remember it as she had believed it to be then, and not in bitterness. It was over now with her and Thomas. But she would not have changed her time with him for all the world.

  “Good ladies,” Seymour announced, waving his cup of wine toward the women who had attended Catherine at the birth, “I thank you one and all for your service, but now I perceive you are well and truly exhausted by your labors and deserve some rest.”

  Her ladies, laughing and glad to be relieved of their chores, came one at a time to Catherine’s bed to kiss her hand or cheek and wish her well before slipping out the door. It was only when Elizabeth Tyrwhitt came forward that Catherine realized that with her stepdaughter’s departure she would be quite alone with Thomas and his people. The thought gave Catherine pause. She clutched Lady Tyrwhitt’s hand and pulled her down so she could whisper, “Hold and stay with me now, my dear. The doctor can wait for an hour.”

  Without questioning, Lady Tyrwhitt retired to a stool in the corner near Catherine's bed. Thomas shot the woman a strange look as he approached his wife and sat beside her. He picked up her hand and kissed it with a dazzling boyish grin.

  “You amaze me, Catherine. You’re so … well.”

  “Did you think your aged wife would wither and die in childbirth?” she asked impishly.

  “Of course not, sweetheart, but you look as if you could rise from your bed and run a race.”

  In spite of herself she laughed, seduced by his utter good humor and devastating charm.

  “But you know,” he went on, becoming suddenly serious, “you might have died, Catherine. So many women do. And we’ve never discussed your will.”

  “My will?” Despite Catherine’s new and intimate understanding of her husband’s true nature, Thomas’s words and the complicated tapestry of meaning that lay behind them were like a hard fist to her belly.

  He saw her recoil, but he persisted. “Surely you must wish me … and your daughter … and any subsequent children we might have, to inherit…”

  “My considerable fortune,” she finished for him.

  She saw all the charm drain suddenly from his expression, boyish no longer.

  “You shall have a will, Catherine.” He spoke to her as he would a child. “Any sensible person of means has a will.” He was not bothering to lower his voice, and all in the room, save Lady Tyrwhitt, were beginning to titter nervously.

  Catherine grew enflamed. She swept the room with her gaze. “You would laugh at me?” she said sharply to the assembled group.

  There was silence, and now Thomas’s minions squirmed with discomfort. But Catherine’s ire had been roused. Before this she had comforted herself with the notion that Seymour had no evil intentions, meant her no harm. But suddenly it was clear. He wished her dead! He needed her fortune for his plans.

  She found her voice and it was indignant. “You come to me demanding a will, do you?” His silence was stony. “Well, I tell you my demand. I wish my physician be called.”

  “He’s already been summoned,” said Thomas coldly. “I sent word to him myself. I think he may be away.”

  “I wish my lady Tyrwhitt to fetch him now.” said Catherine, shrill panic beginning to rise like bile in her throat.

  “You’re getting overwrought, sweetheart,” said Thomas, reacquiring a soothing tone. He then moved quietly to Lady Tyrwhitt on her bench. She, confused and undone by her mistress’s discomfiture, became more so when Seymour leaned down and whispered, “May I lie beside Catherine on her bed? She clearly needs comforting.”

  “I … I …” Elizabeth Tyrwhitt was lost for a sensible reply. Here was the lord of the manor asking permission to lie down with his own wife.

  “Of course you must comfort her, my lord,” she finally stammered, and was instantly heartsore to see the look of horror that passed across Catherine’s face.

  His people, thought the Queen Dowager as Thomas gently laid himself full length beside her, carefully tucking her head in the crook of his right shoulder — his people are enjoying the sight of my humiliation. They’re laughing at me, laughing.

  As Thomas kissed her cheek, Catherine realized with a shudder of fear how completely Thomas had her under his control.

  This is not safe! she wished to cry out to her only ally, but Elizabeth Tyrwhitt, sitting stone still on her bench, was paralyzed by her own mortification. There was nothing to be done now, thought Catherine, but wait for the arrival of Dr. Huick, and pray that Thomas Seymour's evil intentions were simply a measure of her overzealous imagination.

  Thomas could see that Catherine believed the physician was on his way. He perceived this flicker of hope in her eyes as clearly as her knowledge of his immoral design. Of course Huick was not coming. At least not now. He had been paid well enough to keep him away forever, though that, Thomas mused, was unnecessary. If the salve worked as well and quickly as it was meant to, Catherine would have no memory of the good doctor’s presence at all. “Good” indeed. The man had been bought much more cheaply than Thomas had ever dreamed — he who had been Catherine's personal physician for eleven years. It had not mattered to Seymour if the doctors motives were corrupt or, as he suspected, selfless. It was whispered that Huick’s family had fallen on hard times, and that twenty gold crowns would keep his old father out of debtor’s prison. It mattered only that the physic
ian remain unreachable until Seymour sent word that he might finally attend the Queen Dowager.

  The services of Thomas’s other confederate in this scheme had been even cheaper to purchase. John Meaken had served under his command in France during the skirmish at Montreuil. When a French cavalryman had come from behind wielding a battle-axe at the helpless sixteen-year-old standard-bearer’s head, Thomas had taken the Frog down with a well-aimed slice of his broadsword and saved the soldier’s neck. Meaken’s outpourings of gratitude to his savior knew no bounds, and he’d made a heartfelt pledge to return the favor in kind one day

  It would be foolhardy, Thomas knew, to visit an apothecary himself, especially to acquire so questionable a potion. “Flying salve” it was called, and was reputedly used by witches in their black ceremonies. Delusions were the result of rubbing the concoction of henbane, datura, and belladonna into the skin, and wild visions were said to be produced. Some even believed they could fly whilst under its influence — hence its name. Overuse of the concoction caused death. So he’d sent Meaken to fetch it. The young man, already in Seymours debt, was overawed that the commander who had once saved his life — now High Admiral of the King’s Navy — should come to him for the returned favor. He had fallen over himself to comply, and had never asked for a reason nor questioned the motives of his hero. He was told the name of the apothecary and of the ointment, and given a purse to pay for the stuff. He had, as honor demanded, refused to be paid for the mission.

  As Seymour bent his head to nuzzle his wife — who, he noticed, cringed visibly at his gesture — he made sure the sheep-gut finger cot was firmly in place on the middle finger of his free hand. Then quietly he slipped his hand into a pouch at his waist, dipped the protected finger in the tiny jar of flying salve, and lightly coated it with the ointment.

  “We’ve had a fine letter of congratulations from the Protector,” announced Seymour loudly and sarcastically. This served to set his friends in the room agog and made his gesture of grasping Catherine’s wrist seem most natural. The salve-anointed finger was thus hidden from view, and as he continued his boasting talk, quoting liberally from the letter signed “your loving brother,” Seymour began slowly massaging the tender flesh of her wrist with the odorless ointment. She seemed altogether unaware of her poisoning. Poor Catherine, Seymour mused. What a pity that a woman should be worth more dead than alive. And she had been good to him. Had loved him. Provided him with a child, albeit a girl.