‘I have had my sport. The wench is none the worse. She pretends harm too much.’
‘I wonder, Sir Francis, if Queen Anne will judge so lightly of this matter: that one of the King’s gentlemen should use a maid from her own household so badly.’
‘The Queen’s household? I don’t recall seeing ...’
‘Lesser servants are invisible to gentlefolk.’
‘Sweetheart,’ Sir Francis knelt beside me. I felt his breath, warm on my cheek. ‘Pretty sweetheart, I’ve done no harm. Damn it.’ There was anger in his tone. ‘What is a girl like you doing out in the parkland alone, tempting a man to distraction?’
The other man promptly answered for me. ‘Walking the Queen’s spaniel.’
Who was this man who knew so much about me?
‘Queen Anne is a sanctimonious bit ...’ Sir Francis checked himself. ‘Tell the Queen of this,’ he snarled into my ear, ‘and your friend here will beg for his bread. Remember this. And now, pretty sweeting, I’ll take my leave.’
‘I’ll wager you’ll not ruin me, Francis Weston,’ my rescuer called after him. ‘You’ll have to find me first. Where I abide the King’s law is impotent.’
A Londoner’s voice, slow as a countryman’s with a hint of another county. For a long time we were still, like a tableau, I on the ground with my eyes tightly shut against shame and insult, the Londoner standing behind me, saying nothing. I felt I didn’t know who I was any more. Behind my eyes I saw myself lying naked on the gravel although I felt my skirts about my ankles.
He spoke gently. ‘Tis bitter cold. You should go back to your mistress. I will watch for your safety. Do not fear Sir Francis Weston. I’ll wager he’ll not bother you again.’
I didn’t know I was cold. I didn’t feel anything. Furtively, I reached under my skirt to pull up my stocking. I fumbled to tuck it inside the garter at my knee but my fingers were too stiff with cold so I just let it fall to my ankle. I stood up. I didn’t turn to face my rescuer. I thought by hiding my face I could hide my shame. If I saw him I might remember who he was. Better to keep him unknown.
‘Thank you, sir. Now I must find the Queen’s dog,’ I mumbled, turning in the direction of the palace.
‘Fear not for the safety of the little dog, Avis,’ he called after me. ‘I saw him trotting in the direction of the sergeant’s gate. He is likely already returned to the Queen and eating sweetmeats from her hand.’
His voice was one I thought I knew; there was something about the way he said my name. Who are you to know my name, I thought, recalling that Sir Francis had said the same to him.
I was still shaking when I washed my face and hands at the conduit in the inner court. The icy water stung my grazes like scores from a knife and turned my shivers into an ague. When I looked up towards the Queen’s chambers on the first floor I was relieved to see little Purkoy at the window where he usually sat. If the window was open, I didn’t notice.
Mistress Shelton was nowhere to be found so I sought out the mother of the maids to request that I be allowed to go to my aunt to get ointment for my scratches.
‘I am surprised that a girl your age should be so very distressed at a fall on the gravel. I would not have supposed you to be so easily shaken,’ she said. She stared into my eyes for so long I had to look away.
*
Aunt Bess led me through the laundry into the steamy drying room with its large fire, racks of damp sheets and baskets piled with dried linen ready for the boys to carry to the napery on the morrow.
‘We must make do with the firelight while it lasts. Now that our daily work is over we may not burn candles until the fire dies, and then only sufficient to light us to our pallets.’
She left me sitting by the fire warming my fingers and toes, which were stinging with the cold. By the time she returned my hands hurt so much with the sudden change from cold to hot that I could not hold the goblet. She had to hold it to my lips as if I were a babe while I let the warm, bitter liquid drizzle down my throat. She fetched ointment of yarrow and comfrey and bathed my wounds.
‘I am keeping you from your supper, Aunt. Everyone else has gone to the great kitchen.’
‘No matter. Your father keeps me well supplied with bread.’
Aunt Bess did not prod me with questions. That was not her way. She sat quietly by my side, patting my hand, her long serious face full of concern and kindness, and something else that I had never seen before; a secret kind of smile.
‘Avis,’ she said at length, ‘something or someone has upset you. You did not get those scratches just falling on the ground and you are so very much shaken. If you cannot talk to your mistress at court you must talk to someone you can trust, your mother, I think.’
‘No, no, not Mother, she will worry for me. I will not distress my mother.’
‘You could tell me, if you feel the need.’
So of course, I told her, with tears, what had happened that afternoon.
‘Who is this courtier, this Sir Francis Weston?’ my aunt asked. ‘I know nothing of him. Is he one of those new men who were created Knight of the Bath at Anne Boleyn’s coronation?’
‘I think so. I may have heard him playing his lute in the Queen’s chambers.’
‘Did you think that he would ruin you for your carpenter boy?’
‘What carpenter boy?’ It was being so helpless that had distressed me so.
‘And you did not recognise the man who came to your assistance?’
‘Only that I thought he might be someone I once knew and had forgotten.’
‘Do you now meet so many people, Avis, that they are easily forgot?’
‘I didn’t see his face, only heard his voice. He knew so much. He knew me, he knew Sir Francis Weston. He even knew Purkoy, the Queen’s little dog. And he said things he should not have said about my mistress, things I don’t know. My mistress is all but betrothed to Sir Henry Norris, but this man accused Sir Francis Weston of dallying with my mistress despite having a new young wife.’
‘A man who makes it his business to know so much of other folk could either be a useful or mayhap a dangerous friend to own.’ Aunt Bess brought a trencher of bread and cheese. ‘The drowsy poppy mixture will work more slowly with something inside your belly, Avis. You don’t want to be staggering like a drunk on your way back to the inner courtyard.’
‘He seemed kindly, to me at least. To Sir Francis he was arrogant. He said that he lived outside of the King’s jurisdiction and could insult Sir Francis as he pleased, with impunity. How can that be Aunt Bess?’
‘Was there a stink of the river about this man?’ my aunt demanded, suddenly very alert.
‘His boots stank of silt and salt.’
‘Did they indeed. Well, if this be so, I think your rescuer is a river man. Every man that works upon the river is not a scoundrel you know, Avis. The Magna Carta decrees that the great rivers of the English kingdom are owned by all men alike. The boundaries of the city of London end at the banks of the Thames. The corporation has no jurisdiction over the River Thames that flows through London, and neither does the King,’
‘Goodness, Aunt Bess, you talk just like Master Lydgate on his ferry at the Queen’s water pageant.’
In the firelight I caught again, that secret, half smile on my aunt’s usually solemn countenance.
‘I know no river man excepting Master Lydgate and he is old,’ I told her. ‘This man was young, or so I thought by his voice.’
‘I’d best get a lantern to light you to the inner court,’ my aunt said hurriedly.
I did not speak of the accusation Sir Francis Weston had made against Mistress Madge; that she had greater fish to fry than himself. Surely, he referred to Sir Henry Norris, groom of the stool, the King’s closest servant, and her almost-betrothed. Who, at court, was greater than he? Only the King.
*
On my return an hour later the window was wide open and Purkoy was no longer there. Three boys were in the courtyard below. One held a lantern, an
other a bloody bundle wrapped in sacking while the third cleaned a mess of blood and little bits of fur from the cobbles. I remembered when I had watched Tom strike a rat with a mallet, scoop up the bloody mess and put it in his sack. I gulped back an urge to retch.
‘Where have you been, this last hour, you idle wench,’ Mistress Madge bawled, leaning out of the window. ‘Don’t you know that the Queen’s little dog has fallen to his death. It is no use weeping, girl,’ she scolded. ‘You took him out. The fault is yours. You put him by the open window.’
‘I fell in the park and dropped the lead. Purkoy returned alone. It was not I who brought him upstairs and opened the window.’
Yet even while I panicked that I would take the blame, I contemplated that surely, no one would want to open a window on such a cold afternoon and furthermore, the little dog would be afraid to jump from such a height.
‘Come upstairs, promptly, Avis, and explain yourself,’ Mistress Madge said.
I found my mistress and the Queen’s ladies arguing about who should tell the Queen that her little dog was dead.
‘Considering that she may be in a delicate condition, someone must tell her very gently,’ Lady Lee said, ‘or she will discover what has befallen poor little Purkoy as a terrible shock.’
She wore black damask silk and stood by the fireplace reading from a prayer book that hung by a silver chain from her waist. Queen Anne liked her ladies to be pious, like this.
Mistress Madge appeared to be very much intent upon searching for a particular embroidery thread.
‘You are her cousin, Madge. It is your duty to go to her,’ Lady Lee said. ‘Everyone admires your soft and gentle manner.’
‘Everyone who is male,’ Mistress Holland said.
‘Do not insult my virtue, Bessie.’
My mistress glared at the large amount of bosom that overflowed from Mistress Holland’s bejewelled bodice. ‘My Lord of Norfolk might enjoy a bosom so much raised upon his sweetheart, but my cousin, the Queen, will not suffer her ladies to dress immodestly.’
‘I will cover myself with my linen promptly if the Queen appears. Who are you to find fault with me? Tell me, Madge, does the Queen know what you were about this afternoon while she rested upon her bed?’
‘You should go to the Queen, Mary,’ Mistress Madge said calmly, turning away from Mistress Holland and smiling sweetly at the little duchess. ‘You are the Queen’s cousin also.’
‘Pray, do not ask me to tell the Queen that her beloved little dog is dead. For whoever gives her the news will surely have her head bitten off.’
‘Then ask your father, my Lord of Norfolk, to go to the Queen.’
‘I cannot do that,’ the little duchess pleaded. ‘Everyone knows that they do not like each other. My father is well known to be a man who speaks plainly. He will stride into her chamber and tell her bluntly that the dog is dead, and stride out again with no more sympathy than if he were reporting the result of a tennis match she’d laid a bet on and lost.’
Mistress Holland began to laugh. ‘That’s my lord, straight to the point and no messing about.’
Lady Lee turned to an older lady. ‘I wonder, Lady Boleyn, would you go to the Queen? You are her aunt, after all.’
‘I am her aunt by marriage only, as you well know,’ Lady Boleyn answered. ‘My husband is her chancellor and happens also to be her father’s brother. That is all. There is no familial bond between myself and Anne Boleyn.’
‘And no love either,’ Mistress Madge muttered.
‘There is gossip that the King has a new mistress,’ Bessie Holland said. ‘If the Queen knows ought of this she will be in a rage, especially if the King has been lying with his new lady this afternoon while she rests on her bed hoping that her belly is doing its duty.’
‘Hush, Bessie, no more if you please,’ Lady Lee said. ‘The King and Queen’s sleeping arrangements are their own private business.’
‘Not when others are obliged to keep their secrets. Now my Lord Norfolk and I, we believe in keeping everything out in the open. Thus there is no skulking about in corners and hence nought to gossip about.’
‘And not much fun either,’ my mistress sniggered.
‘If Lady Rochford had not been banished for trying to rid the court of the King’s former mistress she would willingly have told the Queen of the little dog’s demise,’ Lady Lee said.
‘Yes, Jane is always willing to do whatever is asked of her. She is far too eager to mind other people’s affairs; and look where it has got her.’
Lady Boleyn beckoned her maid to tidy her needlework and left the chamber.
Lady Lee sighed. She wasn’t pretty like my mistress. Her nose was too long and sometimes the tip of it wobbled when she spoke. She rarely smiled. And she had a way of looking at Mistress Madge out of the corner of her eye that I didn’t like. I thought that she must surely go running to the Queen to tell tales of what she saw and heard. ‘Queen Anne has ever been a gracious and kindly friend to me since we were children,’ she said. ‘We are almost like sisters. Yet I would fear to bring her such terrible news for worry that ought should happen as a consequence.’
For a while the ladies occupied themselves with their reading or needlework. Lady Lee took a turn around the chamber and took up her book of hours again. All of the ladies wore such a book. They were gifts from the Queen. I wished I had one but of what use was a prayer book to a maid who could not read?
Aunt Bess’s poppy mixture was beginning to take effect. I could feel myself falling into sleep as I stood leaning against the wooden panelling. I thought that my mistress had forgotten me. After a while, Lady Lee smoothed her skirts and called for her maid who rearranged the short veil of her hood.
‘There is nothing else to be done but that I must go directly to the King’s apartments,’ she announced. ‘It is right that he should tell the Queen about her beloved little dog. Concerned as he is about her delicate condition, if indeed such be so, and mindful of what happened last time, His Majesty will do so more tenderly, methinks, than any of us are able.’
I heard no more. I was aware of Mistress Madge putting her arm about my waist and leading me away through the candlelit palace.
*
I awoke beside Mistress Madge in her big bed; dreamlike and cosy inside the heavy curtains.
‘I had to beg the Chin to lend me her maid last night to undress me,’ Mistress Madge complained. She meant Mistress Jane Seymour. She had devised names like this for several of the Queen’s ladies. Lady Rochford, sister in law to the Queen, was given the title my Lady Secretary because, Mistress Madge explained, ‘she has no business of her own to occupy her time so she minds other people’s business most efficiently.’
‘Who undressed me?’ I asked, for I had awakened in my shift.
‘I did, of course, and kept you by me so that I could take the greater care of you during the night. No one can ever accuse me of not looking after my little maid.’
I thanked her and apologised for the trouble I had caused.
‘What is this potion your aunt has brewed?’
‘Poppies and something else, a secret of my aunt.’
‘I think I might like to have a little phial of this concoction to keep by me for the nights I cannot sleep.’
‘You are not easily aroused in the mornings as it is, mistress, a dose of this and you would sleep all day.’
‘Not easily aroused, dear me, we’ll see about that, tonight. Oh Avis, what an innocent you are.’
*
That evening, I had to bring clean sheets of the best cambric cloth wrought with silken thread and sprinkle distilled water of violet and jilly flowers on the curtains, sheets and bed covers.
I had to wash my mistress’s body in milk and her hair in rose water, and I had to comb it by the fireside until it was dry. She cleaned her teeth with a powder of rosemary and alum and washed her mouth with wine.
‘May I trust you, Avis,’ she asked, ‘with my secrets?’
She tol
d the boy to put up my bed in the outer chamber and sent me to find the Chin in her lodgings with a message for the Queen that Mistress Shelton was feeling a little unwell and was unable to attend Her Grace in her privy chamber that evening. My mistress was indeed flushed but more from excitement than sickness, I thought. She went early to her bedchamber and lay on her bed wearing her new brocade nightgown with her fair hair spread out on the pillows.
‘Leave the outer door unlocked,’ she told me, ‘and take another dose of the poppy medicine,’ for she had sent the boy to my aunt early that morning.
I am not so innocent as you believe me to be, Mistress Madge, I thought, if you think I don’t know that you are waiting for a gentleman. I took not a sip of the potion. I wanted to stay awake to see who he was. Perhaps it would be Norris. Maybe, it might even be the King.
The door opened so quietly, I barely heard it. A single candle lit the gentleman through the outer chamber to my mistress’s door. He knocked gently and the candle lit the features of a young and handsome man.
‘Pretty Sweeting, l am here,’ he said, and I knew his voice.
In the doorway she embraced him, took his hand and led him into her chamber.
I thought they would hear me shaking violently on my bed. I wrapped the blanket tightly around me and still I shook.
So it was true, what I had been told yesterday in the park. Sir Francis Weston was my mistress’s lover.
Chapter 19
September 1558
It is the Lord’s day. My husband did not attend the Mass with us. He has gone about his business in his ferry. I dared not ask him why he does not keep the promises he made on the day the searchers came. Michaelmas approaches and I suppose he must earn enough to pay his company dues.
Our neighbours do not question my husband’s absence. Neither does the priest, for he is new and knows no one and has so suddenly arrived in our parish that all talk today has been of the unexpected disappearance of the other. Goodwife Trinder believes he has been arrested for heresy and will be burned. Goodwife Napier puts on a serious face and nods her head.
Mayflowers for November Page 18