The Queen's Sorrow

by Suzannah Dunn

  In his mind’s eye, he could see the queen: the set of her face, and those bright, staring little eyes. He imagined her resolute busyness within a put-upon, pained air. The visible tension across her shoulders. Beyond that, he couldn’t imagine – he couldn’t imagine how she must be feeling. ‘Dismay’ was a weak word for it. A fierce dismay, then. A scorching dismay. To have believed herself to be cosseting a little one for those many, many months. To have been cosseting him: breathing his breaths for him, eating his food for him, and at the end of each day settling him down, inside her, to sleep, while she dreamed up futures for him. And then to realise that in fact there’d been no one, there’d never been anyone there. Just herself, alone as ever.

  For Rafael, though, the news meant something quite different from what it meant to everyone else in Hall. The royal couple’s weekend away was the beginning of the prince’s leave-taking, he sensed. A show of husbandly concern before he deserted her. This was the beginning of the end. After the weekend, the prince would raise the subject of his going to France. Rafael imagined the prince’s impatience to return to his life, his relief that it was finally over for him in England. He could get back to the proper work of a prince: ruling his lands. Ruling, not sitting around waiting to be invited to share rule here: an invitation that now would never come, now that the blessed marriage had been proved to be anything but. And England, anyway: why on earth would he want to rule this place? – a country that couldn’t even burn a handful of heretics without descending into anarchy. That was probably how he saw it. And there’d be no talking him round, Rafael guessed. He’d done his duty, as far as he was concerned. He’d endured more than he should ever have had to, and now he was off.

  After supper, Rafael went to his room. He waited up for Cecily until midnight, but she didn’t come. He’d thought she might, but wasn’t surprised that she didn’t – and, in a sense, he was relieved. He didn’t know quite what he’d have said to her. He didn’t know what she’d have said to him, but he did know that whatever he’d have had to listen to, it wouldn’t have been good. This wasn’t good news for her. Nothing had changed, and that was the worst possible news for her. Even bad news – what she’d have regarded as bad news, the birth of a healthy prince – would have been better, because at least she could have tried to make decisions. At least she’d have known what she was likely to be in for, at least for the near-future. But this: this just meant more of the same, more waiting, more nothing. An ageing, heirless queen but still, despite everything, alive, and still married, and still, presumably, with a chance – however slim – of a future pregnancy. Despite all that England had been through, for a whole year, it was back exactly where it’d started.

  Rafael had no idea of what he’d have said to Cecily, but he’d have liked to try to offer comfort. She probably wanted to be left alone, which he understood, but he doubted it was for the best.

  And, anyway, there was a change coming, for her. Hadn’t she realised? – he’d be gone, within days.

  He barely slept, lying there in his bed while the hours turned slowly around him and drew back the night.

  In the morning, Cecily, too, looked exhausted, and the child appeared clinging, fractious. Rafael only saw them from a distance – a distance which, he felt, she’d contrived. She half-met his gaze, to give him a brief, wan smile. It twisted his heart. Talk to me. She didn’t come up to his room that day – a day during which there was a burning, news of it reaching the house by suppertime and spreading along the queue for Hall. The victim of the burning was a woman whose crime had been to advocate the Bible in English. How wonderful, she’d declared before the kindling was lit, to be able to hear the word of God. The burning had been bungled, was what people were saying: no one fanning the flames, the guards and officials battling instead with the crowd. Her legs had burned away to mid-thigh but then she had to wait until reinforcements arrived and the pyre was re-built, re-lit, and properly tended.

  People were saying, too, that the woman’s first grandchild had been born on the previous day. After Francisco was born, Rafael had been surprised by his excitement at the prospect, one day, of a grandchild. He’d never have foreseen that. Then had come the realisation that, because fatherhood had come so late for him, he’d be lucky to know any grandchildren.

  He couldn’t believe that the queen wouldn’t be horrified when she discovered what’d happened, if she learned about that grandchild. She couldn’t be unchanged by what she’d just endured. Surely she’d be humbled: it’d be hard, now, to believe that God was on her side. And she’d know, now, what it was to lose someone. Yes, she’d lost her mother and her little brother, but this: a baby. And she had lost a baby, that’s what had happened to her: there should’ve been a baby in that now-abandoned nursery. That nursery, which she’d furnished by months and months of meticulous stitching.

  Cecily warned him she wouldn’t be coming, that night: she whispered it as she brushed past him: ‘Tonight, I’m … going visiting.’ He was pleased she’d told him; he was grateful for that. And of course, of course: she’d have to go and see Nicholas’s father. That, he understood; he’d been expecting it. They’d have to talk about what to do now that nothing had changed: now that what could have changed, hadn’t. He lay awake for a long time, that night, wondering what exactly they were discussing. He knew nothing of the terms of their discussions, knew nothing of any understandings – or indeed misunderstandings – between them. He’d tell her anything and everything about his marriage, if she wanted to know: he’d tell her whatever she wanted to know. He wanted to tell her. True, he hadn’t told her about Francisco – about Francisco’s conception – but he would. He was sure he would. It just hadn’t yet come up. But as far as he was concerned, it was no secret between them.

  Knowing she was away from the house, he wasn’t listening for her, that evening; but he did listen for Antonio’s tread on the stairs. Possibly, though, he wouldn’t ever return; perhaps he’d just go. Perhaps – as he’d once said – everyone would just go, every Spaniard, before all Hell broke loose. Perhaps he’d join them and go back to take over Rafael’s life, or try to: his work, his wife, his son. Rafael was adrift from every other Spaniard in London. It was as if he wasn’t Spanish, any more, living in this English household, speaking English, loving an Englishwoman. He could so easily slip through the net, sink down here and stay. But he couldn’t let that happen. He’d give it a week and then, if he hadn’t heard what was happening about a return home, he’d somehow get to Hampton Court Palace and make his presence known. Because of course he was going home. Of course he was. He was going to go home to his little boy. He remembered Francisco once telling him, ‘When you’re old, you’ll still be my daddy.’

  He would if he could.

  The next day, Cecily didn’t come to him. Nor the next. She was avoiding him, he realised, and she was good at it; he couldn’t even catch her eye. He recognised what she was doing: after all, he’d done the same, back when he’d first realised he was in love with her and that there was nothing he could do; he was going to lose her. Not only was she focusing on squaring up to her future, but she was withdrawing from him in anticipation of the wounding that was coming her way. Better to get it done, was how he’d felt when he’d tried to distance himself from her, but he knew from his experience that it didn’t work. Don’t do this, he willed her. But he didn’t go to her. He knew he shouldn’t try to force this. He’d have to give her time. Wait for her to come round. She was reeling, that was obvious even from the mere glimpses he had of her. She wasn’t alone in that – a sinking-in was visible in all the Kitsons’ servants’ widened eyes, distracted gazes. Rafael could see them thinking, We’re lumbered with a queen who’s mad and, even though we’re all excommunicated now anyway, she’s going to keep on trying to turn us Spanish and she’s going to go on and on burning people.

  Nights, he didn’t sleep, not properly; he waited for her. On the third day, he did approach her, on the way into Hall, but she was flustered
, exasperated and unwelcoming – ‘Rafael – don’t – please – not now’ – and declined to meet his gaze. There was no give in her. This was worse than he’d anticipated: he suspected she was trying to put him away from her as if he’d never been close. Well, that really wouldn’t do. I can’t help you, Cecily, unless you let me. He didn’t know how he could help, but he’d find a way. He’d be able to ease her misery somehow, if only for the briefest time. If she’d give him a chance. But she was shutting him out, hard.

  Thereafter, he stopped going down to meals. He couldn’t face a repetition of her rejection of him. Besides, he had no appetite. His stomach was busy enough, gnawing at itself. Occasionally, feigning malaise, he visited the kitchen when everyone else was in Hall and begged a little bread and cheese. That was how he kept himself alive. Otherwise, he mostly kept to his room. He had to be where she could find him, as soon as she was ready. Somewhere they could have privacy immediately, giving her no chance to back off, to try to postpone. This waiting for her was so unlike his usual dozy wishing away of time. He was alert, poised. He wasn’t giving up on her while she was trying so hard to get him to do exactly that.

  He didn’t write to Leonor and Francisco. It’d always been his intention to write ahead in case he didn’t survive the journey but, now that the time was near, he simply couldn’t imagine a letter of his ever reaching them. They seemed utterly beyond his reach. Inhabitants of a different and long-ago world. It was as if he didn’t quite believe in them, any more.

  He couldn’t have written, anyway: physically, he couldn’t have done it, because he couldn’t hold his quill properly. He was afflicted by a tremor. The sensation was of his blood being fundamentally altered: no longer liquid, perhaps; not smooth, warm and settled, but grit-like, chafing at him from the inside. And there was a pain above one eye, too, like thumb pressure. When it was at its worse, its most insistent, he had to sit for hours concentrating on his breathing to hold it at bay.

  Sometimes he found himself blaming Nicholas for Cecily’s non-appearance: if it weren’t for that pathetic, needy child, she’d be here. Other times, he missed the little lad intensely and blamed her: if only she’d allow him over here, then Rafael would be telling stories to open up that sullen little face.

  He was waiting for Cecily and for his call home, not knowing which would come first, but willing her to be ahead of any messenger. The gap was narrowing, though, was shutting down on her. He willed it to stay open; he felt his vigilance might just be able to keep it open.

  On the fifth day, the realisation turned hard inside him: she wasn’t coming. She didn’t feel able to come, or didn’t feel she should. Maybe something had been said when she’d been to see her husband. Whatever the reason, her failure to turn up at his door was a message which he could no longer pretend not to be hearing. She was going to stay away.

  And she thought he’d just melt away as if he’d never been. Well, she was wrong about that.

  His decision was instant and compelling: he knew what he should have been doing. He’d been trying to keep the peace, he’d spent his whole life trying to keep the peace and look where that’d got him. Up here in his room, he’d been lying low, keeping his head down, and it’d solved nothing. I will not do nothing. He could do better than that. He could do better by her.

  The queen was the answer – if he could get to her, if she permitted him to see her. Hadn’t she said to him, ‘If there’s ever anything I can do for you …’ Cecily and Nicholas aside, no one in England had more than spared him a glance, the sole exception being, bizarrely, England’s queen herself. And her small, bright, serious eyes had seen straight to his heart. He felt now – was it fanciful? – that she’d known that one day she might be in a position to give him the help he needed. They’d shared an extraordinary intimacy during those few brief times together. She’d understand. He still believed – more than ever, in fact – that everyone in England had her wrong. They had her more wrong than ever, regarding her as a deluded, ruined, vengeful queen. He believed that she hoped and tried, and if she was sometimes slow to see her errors, she was then quick to admit to them. She had no pride – none at all – and never offered any defence. She was his only hope and he prayed that despite her recent trouble – perhaps even because of it – she’d rise to what he was going to ask of her. If there’s ever anything I can do for you … It was a far from good time, to say the least, to be asking anything of her – asking even just to see her – but he had no choice, had no time and had to trust that she’d forgive him the intrusion into her grief.

  He braved a quick trip for a shave, then went to the steward to tell him that he needed to get a message to a contact in the queen’s household: could that be done? He acted confident, and the steward didn’t question it. He wouldn’t have known Rafael’s role – or lack of it – in relations between the Spanish royal household and the queen’s, and he’d seen him called to the palace before. It certainly could be done, he assured Rafael: no problem. And he took the letter addressed to Mrs Dormer, for passing on.

  In the meantime, if Cecily did turn up, he wouldn’t tell her what he was planning; he didn’t want her to feel that she had to try to talk him out of it. That night, he surprised himself by sleeping, waking later than usual so that he was anxious that he might have missed a response from the palace. Not until late morning, though, did a liveried messenger arrive: a pallid, wall-eyed lad who was to accompany Rafael on that long river-journey to Hampton Court Palace. The lad said nothing for the whole journey but there didn’t seem to be malice in the silence. Irritation, perhaps, but no malice. Rafael guessed he might’ve been drinking the previous evening – he had that look about him. As did most of the English, although it didn’t usually keep them quiet.

  The weather wasn’t bad – there were spangles of sunlight, even, on the water – which was wonderful to Rafael, and fitting. He drew in the tingling river-air and rested his gaze, having been so long hemmed into his room, in the middle distance. He’d envisaged spending the journey thinking through what he intended to say, first to Mrs Dormer and then, if successful in his mission, to the queen. He didn’t, though; didn’t think of much, just let the journey take over. Slumped down in the boat, giving in to its rocking, he became aware of how wholeheartedly exhausted he was: the dead weight of his legs. He felt faintly sick, too, but the nausea had been niggling at him for days, had nothing to do with the boat’s motion.

  Not far on from Whitehall, he must have fallen asleep; he was woken by the cessation of the rowing. He shook some life back into his limbs, offered his thanks to the puffing, disdainful oarsmen and clambered behind the lad up some deserted riverside steps. Then they were off down a similarly unpeopled path – long, broad, gravelled – towards the buildings. There, the messenger headed for a small, plain, unguarded door, opening it on to a barely lit, elbow-cramping spiral staircase. Up they both struggled for two flights to a door which gave on to a gallery, the bare walls and floorboards of which seemed to extend for ever, even around corners, so that, after a while, Rafael wondered if perhaps they were back where they’d started or had even passed it again. They’d still seen no one nor heard a sound. Finally, through a guarded doorway and up a broader, wooden staircase was a gallery that couldn’t have differed more from the previous one: many-windowed, thick-carpeted, and gilt-panelled. Not far along, under the impassive gaze of a quartet of guards, he was handed over to an occupant of a room behind an immense oak door: a young, expensively dressed woman who smiled distractedly at him.

  Mrs Dormer was inside the tapestry-shimmering room; she rose from a chair. ‘Mr Prado –’ there was a faint note of enquiry in it. Her smile, though warm, didn’t dazzle: those months of confinement alongside the queen appeared to have taken their toll. She came towards him and he hurried to greet her properly, already thanking her for having allowed so far, but she shook it off – the greeting, the explanation – by gently taking his arm. ‘She’s ready for you,’ she said, guiding him towards a door.


  The queen’s room was east-facing and instead of sunshine was firelight. Ladies – six or seven – were at the fireside and the most richly dressed of them was the queen, her gown midnight-dark and starred with pearls. She was being helped up, and a hefty, rubied cross swung and bounced at her bodice. Rafael bowed, and stayed bowed as she approached.

  ‘Mr Prado,’ her deep, level voice sounded no note of surprise. She indicated with the lightest of touches to his shoulder that he should straighten. Her face – fireside flush like a graze down each cheek – was expressionless, passionless where before it’d been lively with enquiry and concern. Her eyes looked smaller than ever in slack, puddled skin.

  He said that he was very, very sorry. He didn’t specify; he didn’t need to.

  She seemed to consider what he’d said, and he guessed she was unaccustomed to hearing it. Then, ‘Thank you, Mr Prado.’ Careful to reveal no emotion. Careful, too, though, to give it weight: ‘Thank you.’ She inclined her head towards the bay of a window.

  There, looking down on to the now black river, she remarked, ‘You’ll be going home soon.’