The Baker's Daughter Volume 2

by Bonny G Smith

  He laid the brush aside and lifted Maria Elena from the delicate little chair. He laid her on the bed and made love to her with a passion that surprised even him.

  When darkness fell, he dressed himself in the peasant garb he always wore when he visited her. Maria Elena had refused his repeated entreaties to allow him to give her rooms in the castle. This would not have been for his convenience, but hers; would she not like to live in the castle, which was high on a hill above the town? She had explained in her charming, soft, lisping little voice that she was frightened of the big castle way up on the hill. And he guessed that she was shy of the haughty people that she would find in it. Maria Elena was not poor, he saw to that, but she lived humbly. She loved her little house and the fine things he had given her with which to decorate it and make it comfortable. And with this, and now the baby, she was vastly contented.

  After a while he had begun to see the wisdom of her ways. The little house on the edge of the town was an oasis, a place of tranquility and rest where he could go to forget that he was a prince with awesome responsibilities.

  Maria Elena had lately taken to pretending to be asleep when he left. He knew that she lay wakeful, he could tell by her breathing; but she always cried when he left her, and she knew that this distressed him. This was her way of allowing him to depart without the upset of a goodbye. He kissed her brow, pulled his hat down over his ears, drew his cloak tightly about him against the breeze that always blew up just at sunset, and started the long walk back up the hill.

  As he walked he watched the sun disappear and the stars come out one by one into an apple green sky. By the time he reached the castle the sky was midnight blue and awash with stars.

  And for the hundredth time he asked himself, why, oh why…

  Richmond Palace, May 1554

  It was a perfect May day; the sun shone and a slight breeze blew, carrying on it the scent of gillyflowers, stocks and the lilacs that bloomed in profusion all along the river bank. Puffy white clouds dotted the sky. Elizabeth turned her face up to the sun. After two months in the Tower, a ride on the river in the royal barge seemed as if it must be a dream. And yet here she was.

  Well did she remember the last time she was on the river! It had been on Palm Sunday, and it had been cold and pouring rain. On the day before, a delegation from the Council, headed by the Lord Chancellor, had come to her at Whitehall at the dinner hour to inform her that she was to be conveyed to the Tower. Her damp rooms on the water had, at that moment, yielded a boon; she had become familiar with the tides. If she could delay just long enough, the tide would flood and they would have to wait until the morrow. If she had learnt anything from Sir William Cecil, it was that buying time could make the difference between success and failure…or life and death.

  Elizabeth regarded the twenty men. “I must see my sister,” she said calmly.

  “It is not meet,” replied Gardiner, “for the Queen’s Majesty to converse with a suspected traitor.”

  “Suspected?” Elizabeth replied coldly. “Show me the evidence, sirs, that supports such an allegation!”

  “There will be no argument,” Gardiner replied. He nodded at the Marquis of Winchester and the Earl of Sussex. It was they who would see the princess to the barge that would take her to the dreaded place.

  As the men filed out of the room Elizabeth glanced out the window. The rain was coming down in a steady downpour. She turned to Sir William and Sir Thomas. “My lords,” she said. “I demand to see my sister. She cannot know of this plan. I have her word that she would not allow me to be condemned unheard, nor to suffer my death without the opportunity to see her.”

  The marquis eyed her assessingly. He was an old man; he had known Anne Boleyn. Except for the color of her hair, Elizabeth was her mother all over again. She had the same quick wits and a bewitching way about her. Forsooth, she was not going to bewitch him! He had his orders.

  “I am sorry, Your Grace, but that is impossible,” he said. “It is by the queen’s order that we are here. You must come.”

  The earl of Sussex hesitated and instantly Elizabeth’s gaze swung onto him. Sympathetic?

  “My lord,” she said, holding out her hand, “surely you cannot refuse me the opportunity to at least write to my sister? What harm could that do? And it might do me much good!”

  This was not the first time that Sussex had felt uncomfortable with the way the princess was being treated. The queen’s health was not good, the prince of Spain seemed to be delaying his arrival in England on any available excuse, and time was fleeting. This girl might someday be queen. She was also his niece; his mother had been half-sister to Anne Boleyn’s mother. He must follow the dictates of the Council, but he did not want to do anything to prejudice this girl against himself.

  Sir Thomas turned to Sir William. “I see no harm in it,” he said. “And she is a king’s daughter, after all. You, Mistress,” he said to Kat, who had stood throughout the whole affair as if pole-axed. She had been taken to the Tower and rigorously questioned during the affair of Thomas Seymour and the thought of going back there again made her blood run cold. “Bring paper, ink and quill.”

  Elizabeth said, “I have all I need here, my lord,” and without hesitation she sat herself down at her writing desk. She knew that this letter might be the only thing standing between her and an ignominious death; she must write as she had never written before.

  “If any ever did try this old saying, that a king’s word was more than another man’s oath, I most humbly beseech Your Majesty to verify it unto me…” She wrote and wrote, the only sounds in the room the scratching of the quill across the paper, the rain pelting the windows and Kat’s quiet snuffling. When a log on the fire shifted and fell in a shower of sparks onto the apron of the hearth, all four of them jumped. Kat seized a poker and saw to the fire while Elizabeth continued writing, and Sir Thomas and Sir William stared out the window at the gray, sluggish river.

  Elizabeth strove to mix just the right amount of supplication, without sounding craven, with righteous indignation at the suspicions levelled against her. It was a dangerous line to walk. She reminded Mary of her promise, exacted at Cecil’s behest (Good Cecil!), not to listen to the accusations of others against her, nor to allow her to be condemned for want of coming to her prince, as poor Thomas Seymour had been. It was an apt analogy; her feelings of calf-love for Seymour aside, the fact remained that he had been executed by his own brother. Somerset had later lamented that if he had seen his brother and spoken with him, he would never have allowed the execution to take place. After reminding Mary of her promises and of the unfortunate events that had allowed one brother to murder the other, she once again firmly denied all the accusations against her and restated her unshakable loyalty to the queen. At the end there was still half a page left blank. That would never do…someone might take it into their head to write words not her own. She lined and scored the blankness, signed her name, and handed the letter to Sir Thomas.

  A strange thing happened then; Sir Thomas had knelt before her, taken the letter from her, and said, “Your Grace, I will deliver this letter unto the queen with mine own hands.” And with that the men departed, leaving her to listen to the rain and wondering if Mary would consent to see her.

  She had not; and so on the next day (the tide having done its duty!) to the Tower Elizabeth had gone, and there she had stayed for two long months. Every day, at every sound, she thought that her time had come and that her life was to be forfeit to the queen’s, or to the Council’s, suspicions. Her greatest fear was at night; she truly believed that some dark evening men would come and take her, and silently do away with her.

  But as time passed her fears lessened. If they were going to trump up evidence against her and execute her based on it, as they had her mother, they would have done so quickly…would they not? She did not see the first glimmer of hope until almost a month had passed and then one day Kat, who had been allowed to stay with her, reported the news that Sir Thomas Wy
att had finally been executed. Poor man, she thought. God alone knew what they had done to him to make him implicate her, but Kat, who had ingratiated herself with the guards, and so got all the news, said it was not so. From the very scaffold Sir Thomas had declared to all the people who had come to watch him die that the princess had not been privy to the uprising.

  After that she breathed a little easier; literally, because she had finally been allowed to walk on the leads outside the Bell Tower, where she was housed. Not long after that she was allowed down into the garden, but her visits there were brief; she wondered if the reason for this supposed kindness was so that she could contemplate the very spot on which her mother had lost her head.

  A month after that, Sir Henry Bedingfield, he of the beady eyes and nervous manner, had come to tell her that she was to be moved to Woodstock, in Oxfordshire, and that he was to be her guardian there.

  So! She thought. They planned to do away with her in the country instead, where none would know! She had eyed him levelly and asked, “Sir Henry, if my murdering were secretly committed to your charge, would you see to the execution therefof?”

  “Certainly not!” Sir Henry had promptly replied, meeting her steely stare without flinching and with a great deal of indignant bluster. Despite her fears and suspicions she found herself believing him.

  Two weeks later, on the very same day on which her mother had been executed eighteen years before, she had boarded the royal barge, bound for Richmond. It would take four days to reach Woodstock Manor by easy stages; she was to spend the first night at Richmond Palace with her stepmother, Anne of Cleves.

  And so they had set off down the river on this beautiful day, the first real taste of freedom she had known since being sent from Ashridge to Whitehall. She was not free; she knew that Woodstock was to be another prison and that Sir Henry was her gaoler. But for now, the sun was shining, the wind was blowing, and there on the water steps of the palace she could see Anne waving and dabbing at her eyes with a linen square. She had been only six years old when Anne first came to England to marry her father, and she had just lost Jane, the only other mother she had ever known. She had been prepared to love Anne, and so had Anne come prepared to love the royal children. A connection had been forged between them that was tied with the bonds of genuine love and affection; this bond had grown over time rather than diminished.

  # # #

  “Ach, meine Liebchen, ich habe dich so sehr vermisst! Ich habe solche Sorgen um dich!” cried Anne, unable to restrain her tears of gladness at seeing Elizabeth after so long.

  Elizabeth had grown reserved over the years, especially after her dreadful experience with Thomas Seymour and her other stepmother, the ill-fated Catherine Parr. But it was impossible not to share Anne’s enthusiasm at seeing her after so much time.

  “I have missed you, too,” she said, and laughing and crying at the same time, she fell into Anne’s ample embrace. How stout she had become!

  “Kommt,” said Anne, placing her arm around Elizabeth’s shoulder. “Let uss go into der palace. I haff prepared unt feast for uss. Jusst the two, eh?” Anne eyed the others and said, “All off you gentlemanss, dere iss much food for you in der great hall. Der princess unt myself, vee shall dine alone. Vee haff much to discuss and dere iss but little time.”

  Sir Henry started to protest; the princess was his charge and under his protection; but Anne would not hear of any other arrangement.

  “Might not von haff privacy to speak viss one’s own childt?” she demanded indignantly; for so she regarded Elizabeth.

  “Come, man, it shall be all right,” said Sir John Thame, who had been called upon to accompany the princess to Woodstock along with Sir Henry. He slapped Sir Henry on the back, almost causing him to tip over where he stood. “I trow that the duchess will provide the princess with no files or saws with which to break out of the palace!” He was a large man with a hearty manner, full of humor. “What,” he said, addressing Anne, “is that toothsome aroma?”

  “Ach, dat iss der venisson from mine own park!” declared Anne. “Der princess unt myself haff much to say. Vee go to mine own rooms, yah? You gentlemanss, eat your fill unt enjoy der goodt vine from my country!”

  Sir Henry still looked dubious, but Sir John seemed content with the arrangement. And he would have two stout fellows guard the doors to Anne’s apartments.

  Anne took Elizabeth’s hand and led her away.

  Once behind the doors of Anne’s apartments, Elizabeth could not restrain her tears.

  “Ach, komme her, meine Libeling! Weine nicht, weine nicht…” Anne gently rocked her to and fro until her tears abated. When Elizabeth’s sobs finally subsided into hiccoughs, Anne said, “Sagen Sie Anna alles daruber…Tell to your Anna all off it…”

  Suddenly Elizabeth broke their embrace and began pacing the room. Anne recalled Henry doing the same thing when he was excited or angry. How like him she was! Those smoldering eyes, that purposeful stride!

  “It was horrible,” said Elizabeth vehemently. “Horrible! And so shameful! They brought me to Traitor’s Gate, Anne, as if I were one of those despicable persons who sought to overthrow the rightful sovereign! Am I not heir to the throne myself? Would not I be undermining my own position by taking such a stance? And do you know what I did?”

  “Tell your Anna efferything,” replied Anne. “Vat did you?”

  Elizabeth stopped her pacing and ran her hand under her running nose from finger to elbow, a gesture so childlike that Anne had to stifle a grin. “I sat right down on the stone wall outside the door to St. Thomas’s Tower in the rain and refused to budge!”

  # # #

  “In der rain? Tich, tich, you couldt haff caught your death of coldt!” scolded Anne.

  “Yes, that is what Sir John Brydges said to me! But I said,” and with this Elizabeth resumed her pacing, “that there had landed as true a subject as ever landed at those dreadful stairs! And then Sir John said that I must needs come in out of the rain, and I said that better to sit there in the rain, than in a worse place! And then all the warders shouted, ‘God preserve Your Grace!’ Even my lord of Sussex, good man, began to weep on my behalf! I have many friends, Anne, many!”

  “Off course you haff,” said Anne. It was best to let the girl get it all out.

  “Many friends,” Elizabeth repeated, with a faraway look in her eyes, as if her statement had brought something else to mind. Suddenly she brightened. “They were afraid, Anne, I am convinced of it, to take me through the streets! There might have been an attempt to rescue me. The people love me, Anne, they are for me! But when they came to take me away in the pouring rain, all were at Mass for Palm Sunday, and it was a river journey. So no one saw, no one knew, until it was too late. But today, Anne! You should have seen the people today! They flocked to the river bank to cheer for me and wave! And guess what else?”

  Anne smiled and shrugged.

  “The Hanseatics must have known of the plan to remove me from the Tower, for they fired their guns in salute as my barge went by! Why, the whole thing turned into a royal pageant! At first that made me fearful, but then I realized that as long as the people are for me, Anne, they cannot do away with me with impunity!”

  Anne nodded. “Dat iss so,” she agreed.

  Elizabeth was silent for a few moments and then her expression darkened. “And then the questions began!” said Elizabeth. “Weeks and weeks of questions, meant to wear me down. They sifted me very narrowly, Anne, but there was nothing to tell!” Elizabeth reached the wall and turned abruptly, her long red hair flying behind her. “I shall own without reservation that a rebellion aimed at putting myself and Courtenay on the throne gave my sister adequate reason to have me questioned. But to put me in the Tower!” Anne shook head sympathetically. Elizabeth stood with an elbow in each hand, her eyes swimming with tears. “But Anne, I am innocent! Surely my sister must know that!”

  “Tich, tich,” said Anne. “Off course she does, meine Liebchen.”

  “But
does Mary not realize that others might have used her willingness to put me in that dread place as an excuse to do away with me, as they did Jane? At least my cousin had already been tried and convicted of treason! But they could not try me, Anne…and they knew they could not. They had not even enough evidence to charge me with any crime! Oh,” she said, her arms now flung wide, “I know my sister was many times threatened with the Tower by my father and my brother. But neither of them actually carried through on that dire threat! Thought she not of that? And was not Thomas Becket murdered in cold blood before the very altar at Canterbury because King Henry II muttered the words about no one being willing to rid him of such a troublesome priest? My sister’s very willingness to see me placed in the Tower must have spoken volumes to those who have an eye to my undoing!”

  Elizabeth’s voice rose higher with every sentence; there were spies everywhere, and Anne feared for her stepdaughter. It was best to try to steer her away from the subject of the Tower, and the ignominy of being put there by her own sister; but who was queen after all.

  “Ven der prince comes der queen shall soften her moodt towards you, I am certain off it,” said Anne.

  “Hah!” replied Elizabeth scornfully. “If he ever comes, you mean! Did you know that my sister has had prepared for her betrothed an elaborate throne, and that even now it sits beside her own? She is acting like a lovesick fool, all say so, and scorn her for it!”

  Was there no safe subject, wondered Anne? Elizabeth paced up and down, up and down, and out flowed all her cares and woes. All of these were related to the rebellion, Mary’s treatment of her since she had triumphed over the rebel traitors, and her own scathing contempt regarding the queen’s imminent marriage. Elizabeth had been able to share her concerns with no one for months; Anne must let her do so now, regardless of the risk. She shook her head in disbelief, nodded in agreement, clucked her tongue at all the right moments; but part of her mind was harking back to her own betrothal and marriage.