“I think that when we write, we should broach the subject of the jewels,” said Seymour to Catherine.
“I do not know, Thomas. Perhaps leave it till later.”
Elizabeth was staring at them quizzically.
“My brother-in-law—” Catherine began, but Seymour interrupted.
“Your sister-in-law” he said. “The pair of them are conspiring to keep from Catherine certain pieces of jewelry your father gave her whilst they were married.”
“Why?” asked Elizabeth, heart swelling to be so well trusted as this.
“Because the duchess now holds herself above the Queen Dowager. Because she’s a —”
“Thomas.” Catherine placed a gentle hand on his arm. “Well have the jewels in good time. For now I think we should thank our stepdaughter for her counsel and her offered help.” She turned to Elizabeth. “If you would write your own letter to Edward, we’ll have ours ready by tomorrow. Thank you, Elizabeth.” She embraced the girl enthusiastically.
Seymour leaned forward and grasped the Princess’s delicate hand, clasping it warmly between his two strong, manly ones and smiling gratefully.
Elizabeth smiled back, hoping desperately that the expression on her face did not reveal the chaos she suddenly felt at Thomas Seymour’s touch. The sweet sense of familial affection had, in the space of a moment, evaporated like the dew on a summer rose. She stood and, perhaps too abruptly, begged her leave. As she exited the bedchamber she heard through the door Catherine’s sudden squeal of laughter. The thought that Thomas had grabbed the Queen Dowager caused Elizabeth to blush furiously — and to burn with terrible jealousy.
I must gain control of myself, she thought with conviction. He is my stepfather and she my beloved mother.
But as Elizabeth hurried back to the safety of her apartments, she was anything but convinced.
Chapter Three
The sun had not been up an hour and already the Princess and Master Grindal were embroiled in a debate so heated that the temperature in the chilly Chelsea House schoolroom was rising quickly.
“Clearly,” insisted Elizabeth with conviction, “Plato meant for his descriptions of Atlantis in the Timaeus and Critias to be taken as allegory or metaphor for his notion of the ideal state.”
“It seems anything but clear to me, Princess,” her tutor replied tartly. “Why would Plato have had to invent Atlantis to expound on his ideas of a Utopian society when he had previously, and more than once, expounded upon them in his other works, without any geographical references?”
“Then you are saying you believe the great civilization to have been a reality?” Elizabeth demanded with more than a touch of skepticism.
“I am merely pointing out that on no less than three separate occasions in those works,” said Grindal, “Plato took great pains to assure the reader that his account of the lost continent was not myth, but the true history of the world, handed down from Egyptian priests to his own ancestor Solon. He wrote many other works which were allegorical, and in those he allowed the reader to know them as such.”
“Still —” Elizabeth insisted.
The heavy schoolroom door swung open. Elizabeth and Grindal turned in unison to see Thomas Seymour ushering into the room a girl the Princess knew to be nine years old, but whose tiny, doll-like figure looked to be no more than six. Though Elizabeth had seen her only once or twice before, there was no mistaking Lady Jane Grey. No one of the court children was more deadly earnest, bookish, or somber than poor little Jane.
“Good morning, Princess, Master Grindal,” said Thomas. “Elizabeth, you know your cousin Jane.”
The miniature person attired in an unadorned, high-necked gown of brown wool curtsied without smiling, first to Elizabeth and then to the tutor, looking neither of them in the eye.
“I’m happy to say young Jane has become my ward,” announced Seymour, his normally loud voice somewhat subdued. He began a circuit of the schoolroom, casually fingering books without looking at them, spinning the world globe as he went by it. It was the first time he had made such an appearance, and to Elizabeth he appeared strangely stiff in his movements, as though the atmosphere of erudition and the smell of ink and vellum made him uncomfortable. “She’s taken up quarters in the north wing with her servants,” Thomas said, then addressed Jane. “I think you’ll be happy there, will you not, my dear?”
“Oh yes, my lord.” She looked up at the admiral with what Elizabeth supposed to be her happiest and most adoring smile, but the girl’s sadness was so palpable that the expression appeared pathetic.
“Would you like to join us now, Lady Jane?” asked Grindal gently. “We’re just debating some of the finer points of Plato.”
“I’m very eager to begin, Master Grindal,” she said, trying to meet his eye, “but I’m awfully tired from my journey —” she looked away embarrassed — “and my head is aching badly.”
Elizabeth spoke up suddenly. “Why not let me take you to Master Roberts? He’s our apothecary. He’ll have something for your head.”
“No, thank you kindly,” said Jane. “I think I shall lie down. I’ll join you with great enthusiasm tomorrow morning.”
Seymour, uncharacteristically reserved, nodded to Elizabeth and Grindal and, placing a hand on Jane’s shoulder, led her out. When they had gone Grindal sighed and stared thoughtfully out the classroom’s leaded window.
“She is very sad, is she not,” said Elizabeth.
“I think she is the saddest child I have ever known. Her tutor is a friend of mine. He says she possesses a most brilliant mind, and it is set entirely upon her studies, which have become her entire life. They alone give her joy, for what constitutes the rest of her existence is so appalling.”
“How can that be?” asked Elizabeth, puzzled.
“Lord and Lady Dorset are the most heartless of parents. We are not a society that dotes on our children, you know that, Princess, but the Dorsets go far beyond normal insensitivity, all the way to cruelty. Never is a kind word spoken to the girl. She is whipped and beaten for behavior for which other children would be praised.” He paused briefly, then continued. “I am not in favor of the practice of purchasing wardships. It has always seemed to me a form of slavery — buying and selling small children for profit in the guise of giving them a superior education in another man’s household. But I must say, in this case I believe the Lord Admiral’s wardship of Lady Jane is a godsend for her.” He looked gently into Elizabeth’s eyes. “I know you will show your cousin the greatest kindness.”
“Of course I will. We’ll try to give her a little joy.” Elizabeth smiled wryly. “Here at Chelsea House there’s more than enough happiness to go round.”
Chapter Four
God is good, thought Elizabeth, watching the sun break out, all in an instant, from behind a swiftly retreating storm cloud. The Thames was set to glittering, its riverbanks coming alive in the light. From the deck of the Queen Dowager’s barge Elizabeth could see the commoners who’d flocked to the shore to watch the vessel float majestically downriver, taking the tide to London. She wondered if, when they’d woken this morning, the people’s first thoughts, like hers, had been of Edward. It was the King’s birthday, and whilst all of England celebrated, Elizabeth had opened her eyes with an especially thankful prayer that her dear brother had been born. Certainly she adored him, but had he not survived his birth, she mused, her father would have died a deeply unhappy man. Now England had its third Tudor king, the dynasty was intact, and Elizabeth was a beloved princess of the royal house. It was good to be alive.
The rest of her party had come on deck with the advent of the sun, and she regarded them with quiet affection. The Queen Dowager and John and Kat Ashley were immersed in lively conversation. Catherine, Elizabeth observed, looked especially pretty when she spoke, her rather plain features becoming animated by the energy of her fine intelligence and interesting ideas. And now that the period of mourning for Henry was over, all the ladies had donned their merriest
colors.
So too, she noted, had Thomas Seymour. He might be a peacock with his luminescent greens and blues, the French lace collar, the silk stocking revealing the curves of a muscled calf. Finding herself staring, she turned her attention to Lady Jane, with whom he conversed. Elizabeth had observed that whenever Thomas spoke to Jane Grey his tone became subdued, his manner somber. The conversations were, however, punctuated by his attempts to coax a rare giggle from the almost morbidly serious girl.
There! She was laughing now. Thomas, Elizabeth thought, had the rare gift of making people happy.
“Princess Elizabeth.”
She turned to find that in her reveries she had missed Thomas Parry’s approach.
“Parry! You sneaked up on me.”
“A bear climbing out of the water onto the deck of this barge could have surprised you as easily,” he said, looking in the direction of Elizabeth’s line of sight. Thomas Seymour’s bulky arm had just gone round Lady Jane’s birdlike shoulder.
Elizabeth flushed furiously and averted her gaze over the rail at the river.
“Thank Christ the weather’s changed,” said Parry, gracefully changing the subject. “’Twould have been a shame had the festivities been ruined by rain.”
“True. October can be so dreary,” Elizabeth agreed, grateful for his tact.
“I’ll be having a word with the Protector about your accounts,” said Parry. “He’s been late for several months now with your household allowance.”
“Shall I speak to Edward directly?”
“I think the duke may be similarly late — or perhaps simply stingy — with the King’s allowance. Edward may not be the one to approach for redress on this.”
“I cannot believe Somerset would withhold Edward’s money.”
“It’s some time since you’ve been at court, Princess. Things have changed.”
“How so?”
“You’ll see for yourself in the next few days. Then we’ll discuss it. All right?”
“Fair enough,” said Elizabeth. She enjoyed her servant’s easy way with her. Thomas Parry was devoted and loyal, and he had happily begun treating her with the respect due an adult in the past months. He suddenly leaned down and whispered in her ear.
“You look very lovely today, Princess.”
“Thank you, Parry.”
“Roses in your cheeks,” he went on. “And you’ve grown tall as a woman.”
Talk of the physical made Elizabeth suddenly squeamish. It reminded her of her gangly body’s recent surprises — the budding breasts, the red-gold hair sprouting under her arms and between her legs. She’d recently begun her monthly courses, and the female rituals that accompanied them had been presided over by the clucking ladies Ashley and Parry.
“Isn’t she a sight!” exclaimed Parry suddenly. The barge had turned a bend in the river and the palace at Hampton Court had come into full view. It was perhaps the grandest of Henrys castles, with its many buttressed walls and high peaked towers, bright-colored banners flying from the gilded vanes glittering in the sun.
Trumpets sounded as the barge docked at the palace’s long wooden quay. Vessels were arriving one after the other, bearing noble passengers and their trunks stuffed with all manner of finery for the three-day birthday celebration. Elizabeth disembarked and, followed by her servants, entered the River Gate. More trumpets echoed in the palace’s enormous central courtyard, and now a yeoman holding a bullhorn to his mouth called out the arrivals.
“The princess Elizabeth! Lord High Admiral and Lady Seymour! ...”
Thomas’s head swiveled instantly to glare at the yeoman’s announcement. His face went quite red, and when he turned back to Catherine, who walked regally at his side, her arm in his, he was fairly spluttering with rage.
“Did you hear that! They’ve left off your title as Queen Dowager!”
Elizabeth could see that Catherine too was shaken, but her extreme poise ruled the moment. She pulled Seymour along and into the palace, mounting a wide stone staircase to the residences.
“It’s all right, Thomas. We will see to it,” she said.
“I’ll see to my brothers neck!”
“Shhh — don’t give them the satisfaction of seeing you angry.”
“Let them see!”
“My darling,” she soothed him with her voice. “We will have our day”
And the jewels.”
“And the jewels,” she repeated indulgently. “We have just to find the proper moment —”
“To wring the good duchess’s neck.”
“Husband!”
Seymour sucked in a breath to calm himself. “You’re right, sweetheart. They’ll not succeed in their nefarious plots.”
“And we have Edward,” she reminded him.
“Yes,” he said, brightening noticeably. “We have Edward.”
They had arrived at the apartments assigned them — Catherine and Thomas a large suite, and the Princess and her retinue an adjoining one beyond it. In the two suites, two sets of servants had begun unpacking the gowns and doublets to uncrush them.
Elizabeth found her rooms very grand, but through the still-open communicating door she could hear Seymour grumbling again as he stared out the mullioned windows across to the north wing. Elizabeth moved closer, pretending to fetch a basket of slippers, and dumping them out so she could pause and eavesdrop on her stepparents.
“You see which apartments my brother and sister-in-law have appropriated?” Seymour said to no one in particular. And as no one responded, he answered himself, “The queen’s apartments. Your old rooms, Catherine. They see themselves as king and queen. ‘Protector’ quite clearly did not suffice.”
“Will you stop now?” Catherine said, her voice scolding, but as she came up behind Thomas her arms twined about his slender waist. She leaned against his back and laid her head to the side. “I can feel your heart beating,” she said in the voice of a woman contented.
Seymour turned and took her in his arms. “Now what can you feel?” he asked with gruff sensuality.
Flummoxed, Elizabeth dropped the leather slipper she’d been holding and Thomas’s eyes fell on her kneeling outside his door, she having had no time to look away. A moment later he turned his gaze from the Princess and covered Catherine’s mouth in a deep and devouring kiss.
Elizabeth, cringing with humiliation, darted back into her bedchamber. By the time Seymour looked up from the kiss, all that was left in the doorway was a toppled basket and a half dozen scattered slippers.
Waiting for a moment to approach Edward at the start of the small family dinner in his private chambers, Elizabeth observed her brother closely. In the eight months since his accession he had grown considerably. Now ten, he was a tall boy but slender, and so pale of skin that many thought him unwell. But he was actually quite sturdy, and exuded a proud, pulsing energy that reminded her of their father. Princess Mary, all in black despite the cessation of mourning, had just received a warm kiss from Edward. He seemed mightily pleased with her gift, which Elizabeth could not make out, Mary’s back being to her.
It had alarmed Elizabeth to see Mary drop to her knees as she approached the King, not three times as they had their father, but five times. She wondered if the protocol must extend therefore to herself, though it seemed to her not only excessive but slightly ridiculous, and she then resolved for three. Mary moved away and Edward stood alone, suddenly looking quite small next to the immense, heavily carved Bed of State. Feeling suddenly and inexplicably weak-kneed, Elizabeth stepped forward, gift in hand. When she finally stood before Edward, towering over the miniature king, she dropped to her knees once, twice, three times as had always been customary. But when she rose from the third, Edward’s expression silently commanded that she continue her obeisance. Twice more she made the elaborate curtsy, knowing that all eyes were on her to discern whether it was the King’s pleasure or displeasure that was bestowed upon his youngest sister. Her faced burned with sudden humiliation at having to grovel
to the little boy whom she had coddled as a babe and comforted in his weeping just months before. When she rose from her final curtsy, however, Edward’s face was glowing with such sincere happiness to see her that the moment of embarrassment was forgotten. He stood on his tiptoes to kiss her cheeks.
“Your Majesty,” she said. “They told me you were growing like a weed, but I’d say more a sapling.”
“And you’re looking more like our father than ever.”
“What! Hairy and rotund?” exclaimed Elizabeth, feigning outrage.
“No, silly,” he giggled. “I mean as he did in the portraits of him as a handsome young man.”
Relieved that Edward and she retained the sweet familiarity they’d always shared, Elizabeth held out her gift, wrapped in blue velvet and tied with silver cord.
“Happy birthday, Edward,” she said smiling.
He took the package in his hands and felt the weight of it. ” ‘Tis light,” he said, squeezing the present with his fingers through the wrapping. “Hawking gloves? Embroidered stockings?”
Elizabeth answered only with an unreadable expression.
“Mary gifted me a purse full of gold coins,” he bragged.
“Then you will be disappointed in my gift.”
“I shall not.”
“I promise you will be,” said Elizabeth, wondering if the five curtsies had been an idea of Mary’s which, along with a purse of gold, was meant to curry favor with the impressionable young king.
“I cannot guess,” Edward announced finally, and tore open the wrappings to find a cambric shirt, almost every inch exquisitely embroidered in silk threads of purple, silver, and gold.
“It’s beautiful!” he cried, holding the shirt up before him to examine it. “Did you really do it all yourself?”
“Every stitch. Till my fingers bled,” she exaggerated dramatically.
The Virgin Elizabeth Page 4