The King's Sisters

by Sarah Kennedy

  Catherine sat at the table. She’d left a bowl of apples here earlier, thinking she heard men in the back, and now she set to dividing them, the firm from the rotten, and laying the useable ones on her left. She said, “The maids copy the ladies. All they want to do is gossip and bicker and flirt with the boys who bring the wood. It will put them into trouble.”

  “Perhaps Lady Anne might set aside the gambling and dreaming and have a care for her household,” said Ann. She lifted a handful of cloth, sniffed it, and slapped it into the water again.

  “The ladies pretend not to understand what she says,” said Catherine. “I pity her, by my troth, Ann. The king needs to tell her aye or nay. To keep her in this waiting is a tyrant’s trick.”

  “Are you speaking of Lady Anne or yourself?”

  “When do you think he will come?”

  “Benjamin? As soon as he can. If he is honest. But if I were Lady Anne, I would get my marriage or I would get it out of my mind.” Ann scrubbed the filthy clothes together and transferred them, dripping, to a steaming rinse pot.

  Heavy-soled shoes came clopping down the stone stairs, and Catherine put her finger on her lips. Jane Dudley called from the front kitchen door and for a second time the apples were left where they lay.

  “What is it?” Catherine asked, wiping her hands on her apron as she entered the kitchen. The hearth had burned down, and the pot upon it was cooling. The supper joint had been left to blacken on the underside, while the top was bloody and raw. “Where is Sebastian?” Catherine flipped the skewer and secured it, then opened the back door and scanned the grounds. Sebastian was nowhere in sight.

  Jane Dudley watched Catherine from the doorway. “This is no task for a lady. Come upstairs. You’ll stink of grease if you stay down here.”

  “And who will feed the people up there? Our spit-turner seems to have taken himself off.”

  She wiped her brow with her forearm. “What is wrong with the young ones these days?”

  Jane shrugged. “The same as always. They are not beaten and so they run wild.”

  “I will not beat them.” Catherine removed the pot and held it to the window. It contained nothing but a dry scum at the bottom and she slammed it onto the grate over the small oven. “I will not beat anyone.”

  “Get one of the older maids to take a stick to the girls. That’ll bring them around,” said Jane.

  “No, that’s not the way.” Catherine searched for the salt tub and found it behind the kindling. “Look at this.” She picked wood slivers out until she could get enough of a pinch to season the meat. Then she heaved the skewer over again and sprinkled a second coating over the whole thing. She flung open the back door and almost ran into Sebastian, who pushed past her with a brief apology and took up the spit. Still Jane stood in the doorway, and Catherine finally asked, “What is it, Jane? Is someone in need of another hand at cards? Is there a codpiece that requires veneration?” She caught her lip in her teeth. “Forgive me.” She stepped into the hallway with the other woman.

  “The Lady Anne has need of a physician’s touch. She asks for you.”

  Catherine stepped backward.

  “If she needs doctoring, you should call her physician. I manage her kitchen. That is all.”

  Jane twisted her mouth into a knot. “You are aware that the king has called Lady Anne to him twice?”

  “Yes. And I am aware that she has come back again.” But now Catherine came forward.

  “What is it? Is there news?”

  “Has she caught the fatness from him?” Ann Smith said. She glanced back into the kitchen. Sebastian had turned the meat once and was picking at the black crust. It dripped blood from the raw side. “If that’s the sort of cooking that gets done, she’ll thin down quickly enough.”

  “Ann Smith!” gasped Jane. But then she chuckled. Then she coughed and straightened her face. They all watched as Sebastian, grunting, locked the skewer into place, palmed the sweat from his neck, and sat for a drink. Jane said, “No, it’s not her diet. There is a rumor abroad that the Lady Anne carries the king’s child.”

  Catherine grabbed Jane’s sleeve. “The Lady Anne has been in the king’s bed? So he’s taken her back as his wife in troth?” The arm stiffened, and Catherine let her go.

  “As far as I can determine, she is still a maid. You must examine her. You must speak to her of women’s things.”

  “Has she missed her flowers?”

  “I cannot ascertain that. Sometimes she seems to say yes and other times no.”

  “And I am to be the one to explain to her how she might or might not have gotten a baby inside of her, is that it? Is that all?”

  Again, the shrug. “Someone must do it.”

  “Good Christ above us. She is the same age that I am. Surely someone has shown her the bare elements of the procedure. Has she not seen a mare in season? One of her bitches?”

  Another shrug.

  Catherine rubbed her forehead. A finger of pain stabbed at her right eye, but she said, “Very well. Lead on.” She caught of glimpse of Ann Smith, arms crossed, in the doorway to the laundry as she followed Jane Dudley from the kitchen and up the two staircases to the Beloved Sister’s chambers.

  Anne of Cleves perched upon the edge of her great bed. Still in her prim nightclothes though the sun gleamed from its zenith, she folded her hands and nodded as Catherine came into the room behind Jane Dudley. The two women curtsied and the King’s Beloved Sister nodded. Jane withdrew backward, leaving Catherine alone with Anne of Cleves.

  “My Lady, how do you?” asked Catherine. She was still balanced in a curtsey.

  “You judge me. The belly,” said Anne. She laid her hand on Catherine’s shoulder and pulled at the edge of her sleeve.

  Catherine rose. “My Lady. May I lay hands on you?” She put out her left hand, palm up, then pulled it back and offered the right instead. “I must touch you.” Anne slid backward on her haunches until her feet stuck out like a child’s. She seemed a complete innocent as she watched Catherine scrub her hands together to warm them.

  “My Lady, I believe that you and I are almost of an age,” said Catherine. She approached the other woman and laid her fingers on Anne’s throat. The life was pounding hard under the skin. Anne was frightened, and Catherine put her palm softly against the insistent pulsing. “I will not hurt you. I will look at your eyes now?”

  Anne poked her head forward as a hungry pup might, and Catherine laid her thumbs along the lower eyelids. The skin was clear and firm, the eyes bright. She felt the forehead. It was cool, slick with a light skim of sweat. The breath smelt of ale and the musky, sick sweetness of new rot. She should have her teeth examined, Catherine thought.

  “We are one age?” asked Anne of Cleves.

  “Almost.” Catherine lifted each of Anne’s broad hands and flattened her fingers. The nails were smooth and pink, the knuckles softly dimpled. “Will you lie down, please, Lady?”

  Anne put her head on the pillow and swung her feet onto the bed. Catherine removed the blue silk slippers and squeezed the ankles. The woman had dropped some weight in the last months, but her legs were strong. Catherine could feel the seams between the muscles. The blood channels stood out behind her knees, and Catherine, laying her palms there, felt the warm thudding. The kneecaps were solid and prominent. Her skin was hairy.

  “And Lady Mary? The king’s daughter. She is our one age,” said Anne.

  Catherine’s hands stopped. “You might say so. Within the year.”

  “She is good girl. She will visit us soon.”

  “She would be a great companion to you.” Catherine moved to the Lady Anne’s side. “Now I will put my hands upon your belly, if I may have your leave.”

  Anne nodded. Her skin felt as any well-fed maiden’s might, with a comfortable roll of velvety fat. Anne smelt faintly of soap. The only remarkable feature was the
wide spread of dark curls, visible through the linen, that sprouted not far below her navel.

  She was hairy all the way from her ankles. “When did you have your flowers?”

  “Flowers?”

  “Your woman’s bleeding. Your monthly?”

  Anne scowled at the canopy. “The days of rain. Yes. During the rain.”

  It had rained half the days of the last month. “Tell me of your visit with the king.”

  “He send for me.” The Lady Anne hoisted herself onto her elbows and watched. “He have me to eat the meal with him. Like his wife.”

  “You sat at table with the king?”

  “Yes.”

  This was good. “And were you abed after or before?”

  Lady Anne lay back again. “I have the pain.”

  “Where is it?”

  Anne placed her hands over Catherine’s, adjusting Catherine’s fingers to her lower belly. “This place. This is the place for the babies. I pray for it. I have been told that prayer will do much. That the king may bring me to life.”

  Catherine nodded, but her hope was twisting away like a specter at dawn. The Lady Anne was perhaps fuller than she ought to be. “Let me touch you on the ankles again?” She felt her way down Anne’s thighs to the knees, then to the ankles. She had been right the first time. The legs were unswollen. She lifted each of the hands in turn again, this time kneading the wrists. She laid them down carefully on the yellow silk cover. “Was your visit with the king satisfactory?”

  Anne of Cleves lay unmoving. Then she said, “The king sit beside me. We eat the white fish and drink the sweet wine.”

  “That is all?”

  “He give me the gift of handkerchiefs. They have bluebells. Very pretty.”

  “And you left him then?”

  “He kiss me.” Anne sat up and touched her right cheek. “Here. And he whisper into my ear that I am his Beloved. His lips touch me here.” She tapped her right ear.

  “Have you had any sickness of the stomach? Any puking?”

  “I drink the sweet wine. It sits in me very happy.”

  “May I look upon your belly? Under your shift?”

  Lady Anne clutched the fabric, then let go. Catherine pulled it high enough to gaze upon the skin. Smooth and pink. No dark line. No swelling. She adjusted the shift further upward. The breasts were small and pink. Catherine covered the Beloved Sister again and stepped backward to allow Lady Anne to slide forward enough to put her feet upon the carpet. “Lady Anne, you do know how a child gets into a woman, do you not? The only woman I know of who got a child through her ear was our Lady Mary.”

  “The Lady Mary?”

  “The mother of our Lord,” said Catherine evenly. “You know that a woman must take a man inside of her to get a child. The man’s male part into her female part. Between her legs.” Anne’s upper lip tightened and her left hand cupped her mound. “It is what that girl queen did. It is very dirty. They say treason. They cut her head off.” Anne made a chopping motion against her palm with the side of her right hand. She did not look altogether displeased.

  “You did not do this act with the king? This act of putting the male part into the female part?”

  “I have been told that I must pray. He is the king. His breath is royal.”

  “But it is not divine.” Catherine placed Lady Anne’s hands onto her lap, then helped the feet back into the slippers. “I will fix you a tea, Lady, and it will tell us your condition.” Anne’s eyelids lifted and she pointed to her chest. The blue. I will have the blue gown with the gold threads.”

  Jane Dudley flew into the room. “I will do the dressing if you will bring the tea.” Anne was absorbed with the unfolding of the skirt, and Jane added under her breath, “It had better settle this matter for good.”

  14

  “Will you fetch me some lettuces?” asked Catherine, entering the kitchen. She expected to find Ann Smith.

  Instead, two maids leapt at her words. One of them was the grubby Marjory. They had been sharing a pot of ale, and one of the cups slopped over onto the floor. “What does it look like, Madam?” asked the smaller of the girls while Marjory ran a dirty clout over the spill, smearing it into the grease.

  “Do you not know lettuce in the garden?” Catherine snapped. “It is the most common of leaves. We eat it as salad.” Catherine took the clout from Marjory, who’d remained on her knees. “Now go on outside.”

  The maid pushed herself to her feet, and a coin dropped from the pocket of her apron. She grabbed at it and shoved it away from sight, but Catherine held out her hand.

  “What is that?”

  The girl’s jaw muscles clenched, in and out, and she cast a rabbity look at her partner, who’d plopped back down. “’Tis nothin’. Found it in the gravel out back and didn’t hurt no soul to pick it up. Temp’rence’ll say it’s so, won’t you?”

  Temperance was a riot of disorder, hair falling from under her coif, hose a lattice-work of holes, showing all the way up the leg she’d hoisted onto the bench. She gnawed diligently at the corner of her little fingernail. “Aye. Found it in them rocks. It’s not nothin’ to nobody. Nobody says it’s gone missin’ neither.”

  “And you didn’t think to make your discovery known?” asked Catherine.

  The two girls kept their eyes on each other. Temperance’s mouth had scrunched into a resentful smirk. “Not given our wages to do no thinkin’, Madam.”

  Catherine’s palm itched to slap the grin off the dirty face. She sank her fingernails into her palms and counted ten. There was no baby. There was no baby in Lady Anne. To claim a false one would ruin all. Ann Smith came through from the laundry, with Veronica on her hip, and stopped, surveying the kitchen scene. The child squirmed to be set down, and, when Ann had freed her, ran to her mother with a tablet of letters.

  “You will see, Mother, that I have finished making my name in full.” The little girl held up the work, and Catherine relaxed her fists.

  “Very handsome, Veronica,” she said. The letters were perfectly formed, and the child had decorated the capitals. “I’m pleased.”

  The two maids slid toward the door, and Catherine said, “Not just yet. Give me the coin.” She suddenly couldn’t recall their names. “You.”

  Ann Smith said, “Marjory. What have you got?” The girl jammed her hands into her pockets and Ann shook her by one arm. “Give it over.” Ann reached into the pocket and retrieved the silver. “Is this what you require, Catherine?”

  “It is.” Catherine held out her palm and Ann dropped the coin into it.

  “I found it,” insisted Marjory.

  “Aren’t you the girl with the lucky stars shining upon you?” said Ann. “She found a couple of silk ribbons last week. And Temperance found a lace cap the day before that.”

  “They’s stuffs layin’ about like nobody wants ‘em,” said Marjory. She stuck out her lower lip. “It’s everwhere a body looks. Just throwed down like trash.”

  Catherine said, “It is not your concern what is thrown down or what is left. You do your tasks in the kitchen and you leave things where you find them. Do you hear me? Now, go find me that lettuce. See if there are prunes in the cellar.”

  Marjory and Temperance made a show of studying Catherine’s closed hand, then sidled out without another word or shadow of a curtsey.

  “God’s blood, the young ones these days are full of demons,” said Catherine. “They will have us all in the Clink.”

  Ann fetched a crock of prunes from the pantry and set them on the table. “Here is your fruit. It’s true, they are full of the devil. But it is also true that the household things are strewn about like floor coverings. It is almost as though someone means to tempt them to steer off course." She cut her eyes at Sebastian, who set the skewer in its notch, bowed, and walked out the back door.

  Catherine set a pot of water over the
fire. “She is careless. And she teaches the women around her to be the same. But a lady ought to be able to trust her women.” Catherine stared out the back window at Sebastian, who was headed for the bushes. “That woman is no more with child than Sebastian is.”

  “The Lady Anne?”

  “Yes. She has not even been in the king’s bed. Someone has put it into her head that the king can breathe a baby into her. Can anyone be that innocent? At her age?”

  Ann sat and let Veronica crawl onto her lap. “Is she honest?”

  “What has she to gain by being otherwise? Do you think she means to trap the king with a pretended baby? That would be the end of her.”

  Ann’s eyebrows went up. “It might work long enough to get her back into his bed in truth. At least long enough to get her head chopped off.”

  “How vain would he have to be to believe that his presence has got her with child?”

  Ann twirled a loose strand of Veronica’s hair and said nothing.

  “Yes,” Catherine said. “Perhaps that’s it. It’s a fool’s plan. And I haven’t time to play the fool with her. And she is hairy all over. Legs, belly. I think our Harry would not bed a hairy woman.”

  Ann grinned. “You could cure her of that.”

  “I would have had done it with a carving knife if I had known. There’s not enough arsenic in England, nor cat’s dung neither, to burn it all off. It’s not been taken off for months, if I am any judge. Not since before she was with the king.”

  “Is that why you give her lettuce?” Ann asked.

  “She is constipated. There’s only one thing she’s carrying.”

  Ann snorted. The girls were returning, chattering and pulling wounded faces at one another. Sebastian returned as Temperance scuffed across the threshold as though she meant to break it free. She slapped the leaves down and curtseying with a simper, retreated. Marjory went behind her without so much as a nod of her head.

  Catherine sifted the offering. The lettuce was small, torn and dirty. “There is better than this right at the path’s verge. Large leaves. Those two are so full of piss and vinegar they may never be worth anything.”