The King's Sisters

by Sarah Kennedy

  “No,” she said. “My fancy carries me away.”

  “We are no strangers, Catherine, nor giddy children. We have known each other too long. You have asked me to bring you here and so I have. And now you stand there. I don’t know what to do to win your faith.”

  “My faith?” Her knees shook. Her feet would not go forward. “You would ask me that when we’re tossed from one belief to another. It’s a wonder that the isle of England doesn’t sink under the weight of our errors in faith.”

  Benjamin looked away. “I meant your faith in me and you know it right well.”

  Benjamin spat into the hearth and Catherine sat on the bench. He put his hand on her thigh. She did not move it away. “Say to me outright that Margaret is lying. That you are not promised and that you have not been abed with her.”

  Benjamin smiled. “Jealousy? I can see that you are green-eyed, but are you possessed of the devil that goes with it?”

  “You answer me with questions.”

  He put his arm around her waist and pulled her onto his lap. He pressed his lips against her neck, then nuzzled her jaw. “Will you not allow me to prove myself in public, as you asked?”

  Catherine’s arms went liquid, and her legs ached. She sat astraddle him and let him kiss her mouth. His lips were hot and soft, and she held him to her. She was afraid.

  He stood, hauling her to her feet. “Downstairs. Come on, Catherine.”

  “I won’t be made a fool before the entire house.”

  “I would never make a fool of you. And what of me? My reputation is not so stellar that I want the whole world gaping at me. I want this settled as much as you do. She is in my house, Catherine.”

  She raised her left palm, then lowered it and held up the right. “Swear it to me.”

  Benjamin took the left one between his own and kissed it. “It is an insult to God to swear. Christ tells us to speak truth plainly,” he said.

  She withdrew her fingers. She would have to hear it. “We will go down, Benjamin.”

  But Margaret Overton was not in the great entry hall. Nor was she dining. Catherine searched the back courtyard while Benjamin questioned the maids. Catherine had entered the small stable when it began. But it wasn’t a call. It was a cry. A wail. Then a shriek.

  43

  Margaret Overton lay in the front hall, twitching and moaning, when Catherine came running back in. Benjamin and Constance knelt on either side of her, holding her arms down. Her head twisted back and forth, and Constance was trying to force a wooden spoon between the afflicted woman’s teeth.

  Benjamin said, “Catherine, will you help us?”

  Catherine pushed her way past Connie and pressed her hand down on Margaret’s forehead to stop the thrashing and said, “Margaret. It’s Catherine. Do you hear my voice?” The woman began to thump against the floor, first her chest, then her legs.

  “She’s got a demon in her,” offered one of the kitchen maids from a corner. “We found her under the stairs, down on her knees like a goat.”

  Catherine tried to pry open one of Margaret’s eyelids, but her head tossed from side to side. “Give me the spoon.” Connie let loose and Catherine wedged it into her mouth.

  One of the maids had begun to pray to S. Valentin, and Connie said, “Skull shavings. Is there a tomb?”

  Benjamin said, “What?” Constance said, “Scrapings of a man’s skull. It is the best treatment for falling sickness.”

  Catherine studied Margaret. The color in her cheeks was red as raw meat. The color of life. The color of exertion.

  “Hold her more gently,” she said. “Let her work out the fit.”

  Benjamin said, “A skull?”

  Catherine resituated the spoon. Margaret opened her eyes and Catherine saw recognition there. “You’re upsetting the whole household.”

  Margaret closed her eyes again and flopped. Catherine held her head down and said, “Skulls are an old remedy for falling sickness. The German physicians have proved it ineffective.”

  “Will you let her die then?” asked Constance.

  “She is not on her deathbed,” said Catherine. She sat back, curling her legs under her. Margaret flailed more slowly. “They say that Julius Caesar suffered the falling sickness. And Petrarch. It is often said to be a sign that God has entered the body.”

  “Does God enter the body of a woman?” asked the maid. She’d stopped her praying and crept closer.

  “If God is God, He may enter the body of whoever pleases Him,” said Catherine. “Do we not speak of Christ as our husband?” She pressed harder on Margaret’s forehead.

  The maid leaned over Catherine to look at Margaret. “Then what is the cure?”

  “Some recommend tisane of mugwort or foxglove,” said Catherine. “It has never been clear to me how it is to be administered without choking the victim, but we might try. Valerian is said to be efficacious.” She looked over her shoulder at the young maid. “Go and check the stores. Do you know what the letter ‘V’ looks like?”The maid shook her head, and Catherine made the sign with two fingers. The girl nodded and ran off down the back stairs. Catherine bent her head close to Margaret’s ear. “You do not suffer from the epilepsy.” She said to the others, “Leave us.”

  Ann and Reginald were coming downstairs together. “How does Margaret?” Ann called as they approached. “We have almost been bowled over by the maids.”

  Benjamin herded everyone away, and Catherine said again, “Margaret.” She put her hand on the heaving chest and waited until Margaret opened her eyes. Then she drew the spoon from her mouth.

  “Where am I?” said Margaret Overton.

  “You have suffered a fit,” said Constance, and Catherine said, “Get away, Connie. Go.” She smoothed Margaret’s dress. “They say the falling sickness has come upon you.” She let her hand move on past the bodice to the skirt. A child was blooming there, to be sure.

  The wind blowing through the front door brought in the spicy scent of the city, urine and old meat and horse sweat, and Margaret pulled back her coif to let her hair free. She breathed in, closing her eyes, and laid one hand over her breast. “So you are arrived. I am never to be free of you. It’s no wonder I am ill.”

  “You were not in danger, except from yourself,” said Catherine. She pushed herself to her feet and stood back to let her sister-in-law gather herself and rise.Margaret’s back was to the door and to Catherine she seemed a dark blotch on the bright canvas of the day. “You have revived splendidly.” She called Benjamin, who appeared from the dining gallery with the others. Catherine took a breath, blew it out. Said, “And now that we are all assembled and recovered, shall we settle this matter of a marriage and a child?”

  Margaret’s features flattened, and Constance trotted to her side. Ann and Reginald moved to Catherine’s right. The young maid crept up to the edge of the staircase to watch.

  Benjamin regarded both groups. “You line up like armies on the field,” he said, “when you should be a family. There must be truth among us all.”

  “How should we be a family when there is neither love nor trust among us?” asked Margaret. “My father and my brothers made those properties what they are.” She thrust Constance forward. “This is my brother’s child, and she is no more bastard than that one is.” She pointed at Catherine. “Your mother was a whore. You know what you are. And your son along with you. My brother knew it, as well. Will I stand before my father in heaven and tell him that I have let his land and tenants go out of the family and into the hands of this woman and the children of her sin? That you have all and I have nothing? That I did nothing to regain my position?”

  Margaret’s face showed lines of strain, and the rims of her eyes flamed as though she might weep. Constance stared at the floor, her hands folded neatly in front of her. She could have been Margaret’s daughter. She could have been Veronica’s sister.
r />   Catherine’s thoughts flew back to a Christmas when she was a child, still the foundling of Mount Grace Priory. The Overtons had not yet placed their daughters in the convent, and the name only meant the great family who had bought the old Havens properties. Catherine had been sitting at the feet of the prioress, absorbing tales of holidays of old. The snow had come deep that year, and the nuns had gathered by the fire under the reading room. The hearth was green with fir boughs, and someone had hung mistletoe over the one window. Far past sunset, the old nuns sat with Mother Christina, drinking wine and warming their feet. At midnight, they exchanged gifts—embroidered linens, candied fruits, soaps scented with daisy or lavender. For the first time, Mother Christina let Catherine stay awake, and after the stroke of twelve she pressed into the girl’s hand a parchment roll. When Catherine flattened it across the stone pavers before the fire, she saw a drawing of a building, surrounded by fields studded with sheep. When Catherine asked what it was, the prioress said, “Havens House.” Mother Christina leaned down and tapped the sheet. “This was my father’s home before the Overtons took it. Everything was Havens back then. But he died.” She sat back and drank. The firelight etched the bones under her skin, and she said, “Keep that, Catherine. And remember that it is Havens House.”

  The prioress had been her mother. And it was her sin that had brought Catherine into the world to be the heir to that house. Something turned deep inside her, and Catherine said, “But I am an Overton too.” She could almost see it, the fields outside sloped down toward the village. The old center rooms, thick as a castle’s keep, embroidered with the new wing and ornate door the Overton men had added. And beyond it, the village, still called Havenston. The past would always haunt the present, like the face of a risen, but bloody, Christ. “The house was my family’s before it was yours. It was my husband’s. It will be my children’s.”

  “You may fashion a legitimate ancestry out of your pride,” said Margaret, “but I was born a true daughter of my father from my mother’s married bed.” She pulled herself up straight, but Catherine remained an inch taller. The two women were within striking distance, and Catherine felt her fists clench. Her fingertips thumped. She clamped her teeth against her lower lip and began to count in her head.

  Benjamin stepped between them. “I want no scratching between sisters,” he said, “but Margaret, you must deny this story of our marriage now.”

  “You deny it?” asked Margaret.

  Benjamin’s expression softened in disbelief, as though his sternness had been made of wax. “You will not maintain this to my face, will you? Before witnesses?”

  “Here is my witness,” Margaret said, yanking Constance forward again.

  Benjamin shook his head. “No true witness will say we are married.”

  “I will say this,” said Connie. “You came to Overton House on pretense of seeing to the wools and the works in Mount Grace. You made love to my mistress. You spoke loving words and on those words you won her bed. It is a marriage before God if not before a priest. It is a consummated marriage. And you have got a child upon her body. And we will have Overton House and Catherine will go back to Richmond to work in the kitchens, where she belongs. And there she may call herself by whatever name she will, because no one will know her and no one will care. And her bastards will have no names at all.”

  “The girl has grown quite a tongue,” said Benjamin, “but I will not have my mouth bridled on her word. And if you’ve got a child in you, then God help it because it’s got a liar for its mother, and that sin will land upon its innocent head.”

  “It is your child,” Margaret insisted.

  “And how do you reckon anything of mine has gotten inside of you?” Benjamin said.

  Margaret blanched. “You. You drank. Of an evening. Perhaps you do not remember.”

  “There is not enough wine in all of France to fortify me for such a deed. Or to make me forget it.” He beckoned to Reginald. “I am done here.” The man bowed and they headed for the stairs.

  “Wherefore would you go?” asked Margaret. “You belong here. With me.” She pulled at his arm and he jerked away. “You no longer want me?”

  “I never wanted you,” said Benjamin. “You are as brazen as a stable yard goose. I wonder that the lightning does not bolt from the blue and strike you.”

  “Benjamin,” Margaret said. “Will you leave me desperate and alone?”

  “I will leave you as I found you. I have spoken kindly to you. And this is how you serve me?” And he walked upstairs, Reginald following. Ann looked at Catherine, and she said, “Go on with them.”

  “I will not stay where I am scorned.” Margaret huffed out.

  Catherine went after her, hooking her arm in the courtyard. “Wait.”

  Margaret turned, but she did not free herself. The two women stood, linked, and Catherine saw beneath her sister-in-law’s face the girl she had been when she entered the convent, a spoilt, angry daughter flanked by a prideful brother and father. Her mother had ordered in the clothing and small luxuries for the private room while Margaret had watched, blank-faced, with her twin huddled behind her. That twin was dead. The parents and brother also dead. And the absent brother, Catherine’s William, also gone now to God. Margaret’s skin was threaded with care lines, and in them Catherine saw a map of their lives—their paths leading relentlessly back to those days of their nunnery, when Margaret had been the wealthier, but Catherine had been the more favored.

  But Margaret spoke truth when she said that Catherine had been the bastard, the child of her mother’s and her father’s secret sin. The pity came up in her like fever, and, even as the memory of Margaret’s crimes spilled over her, she could not drench it.

  “Whose child is that?” Catherine said. “Sister, tell me the truth. Were we not once friends, back in the days of our girlhood?”

  Margaret let her fingers twist into Catherine’s sleeve. “You have all the glory of my fall. You have overthrown me, and I have nowhere to go. Nowhere to be. No husband and no position. And no brothers no more.” Her speech broke, and she let her arm fall. “I have hated the very ground you stepped upon, even though it is Overton soil. You’re the mare who rides over my heart in the nights. And now you trample me by daylight, as well. I have shamed myself beyond repair. You will hear it all anon, flying in on the wing of rumor, but I have no wish to speak my dishonor to the open air. Let me go in peace.”

  Peace. “Go, Sister.” Catherine released her, and Margaret sent Constance for their horses. Margaret walked to the road, and over her head, Catherine saw some ravens, scrolling their black marks across the clear sky. “I wonder what they seek,” she said to no one.

  Ann came out at the sound of the animals being brought around. Margaret and Constance, with their men, gathered themselves and left. No one spoke. No one wished anyone fair weather or fast hooves. “Look,” said Catherine. “The birds want something.”

  Ann shaded her eyes. “Food and shelter. They have each other and they settle their disputes with a few cross words.”

  “An unkindness,” said Catherine.

  “Oh, they have no real feelings,” said Ann.

  “No, I mean that is what we call them. ‘An unkindness of ravens.’ I have heard them called ‘a constable.’ after the king’s ravens in the Tower.” She listened as the riders clopped away. “We are the same,” she said to the space her sister had occupied.

  Ann said, “You and those birds?”

  Catherine said, “‘And since that I so kindly am served, I fain would know what she hath deserved.’”

  “What is that?” asked Ann.

  “The poet. Thomas Wyatt. He wrote of being shamed by a woman.”

  “Benjamin has not been shamed,” said Ann. “At least not by Margaret.”

  “It is not only the men whose shame matters.” The birds settled into the trees and began scolding one another. “A
n unkindness indeed. Come, Ann. We must finish this journey of ours. We ride home to Mount Grace. If this child is to live, its mother must be married before the king can catch up to us.”

  44

  They were back at Davies House the next day. Catherine and Ann had only to bring down their bags and chests to be ready, and they spent the hours helping the maids prepare meat and bread and apples. Benjamin finally came to the kitchen, searching out Catherine.

  “You will come upstairs and dine with me. Let these girls do the work.”

  “Come on, Catherine,” said Ann. Her face was pimpled with sweat. “We’ve been working like Trojans for hours.”

  At the table, Benjamin was triumphant. “Your sister is conquered. Martins has vanished. You are free. And I am here by the grace of a sonnet.”

  “How is that?” asked Catherine. She flopped some meat onto her plate but did not eat it.

  He settled and folded his hands in his lap. “Did I not tell you the story? When they took me before the judge down in Dover, he required me to prove that I was the man I said I was. I offered to describe the translation I have done of the Psalms. To say the last sonnet I penned. But he stopped me after only a few lines. I think I proved myself well enough.”

  “You have translated the Psalms?”

  Benjamin’s face twisted into a wounded expression. “You think me incapable of rendering them?”

  “You have written a sonnet?”

  Punching his chest with the side of his fist, Benjamin pushed his chair backward. “What? Now you think I cannot rhyme? Make a conceit?”

  “I think of you as making money more than love poems.”

  “Ah, then. I will have to show you my many depths.” He tried out a grin with one side of his mouth, and Catherine felt her cheeks warm. But then he turned sober. “The judge had no interest in seeing them, I will tell you that.” He ripped a chunk of bread from the loaf and mopped up the sauce around the leg bone on his plate.