by G Lawrence
“You have been distracted for a long time.” He sat beside me and smoothed the black silk veil over my hair. “I have sent orders for Elizabeth to be brought to Eltham.”
“In the summer?” This was most unusual. Although Eltham was apart from London, and therefore not so close to the risks of plague and sickness that rampaged in the city’s streets during the summer months, there was still a danger. Hatfield was more remote.
“I think it would do you good to spend time with our daughter.”
I stared into his blue eyes and saw the gentle sorrow there. He does understand, I thought. Even if he says it not in words, he hears my heart.
“I would be happy to see her,” I said, brushing a light finger over his jaw. A rush of love fell upon me. At times like this, when he was once more the caring, considerate man I had fallen in love with, I could barely believe he had ever done me wrong.
*
Towards the end of that month, Elizabeth was taken from Hatfield to Eltham Palace. She travelled in style through London and was cheered as she passed.
It did not matter who her mother was, England’s little Princess was adored by many. Even those who despised me admitted that she was an innocent, and when she was shown to the people, they cried out for her.
This brought me solace. Even if I was loathed, Elizabeth was loved.
Mary had gained permission from Henry to travel separately to her half-sister. Doctor Butts thought the hysteria that Mary had suffered was dangerous to her health. Forcing her to travel as a servant to her royal sister could bring on a relapse, he wrote, so Henry caved.
I went to see my daughter settled into her new home, but whilst there, I tried to reach Mary. I sent a message, telling her I would intervene with her father if she would recognise me as Queen. Mary sent my messenger back in no doubt of her mind.
I tried to set this aside as I took my daughter to the long gallery in Eltham. Elizabeth was a bonny one-year-old and growing fast. Most babes her age were shy with strangers, Elizabeth was not. She knew what stories she wanted to be told at night, and had favourite ribbons, dolls and games. Sometimes it pained me to see how easy she was with Lady Bryan and Shelton. She was close to them, but seemed to know I was her mother.
She was sturdy on her legs, the fastest crawler I had ever seen, and pulled herself up to stand using the furniture. She was not yet talking, although she could say “mama”, “papa” and “urse”, which we took to mean, ‘nurse’, and tried to copy what was said to her. My daughter could nod and wave, and was a master at expressing silent displeasure or happiness. And clearly, she understood what was said to her. Simple commands were obeyed, although sometimes with a scowl.
Elizabeth also giggled often, at the most unremarkable of things. What delight there is in the mind of a child, experiencing everything for the first time! Elizabeth made me feel young, as though part of her sparkling youth had come free of her skin and settled inside mine.
Together we played as sunlight stole through the diamond-paned windows which bore my arms. Her exquisite red hair, lit up like dragon fire, was just starting to tickle her neck. When I passed a hand through it, I was reminded of the touch of silk. Her creamy skin and large, black eyes, so like mine, were captivating. But when she grew restless or annoyed, she was every bit her father’s daughter. Henry’s petulance lived in her little mouth, and when she furrowed her brow and howled, she looked like Henry in a rage.
I had often thought there was something of the child in my husband. In Elizabeth, I saw that child.
I praised her for her efforts at standing and she gazed back with such a stoical, serious face that I laughed. Seeing me chuckling, she grinned and redoubled her efforts. When she fell, her bottom smacking on the hard floor, she looked at me in distress and started to howl. Then I took her in my arms and sang to her. There was nothing in the world that could calm her like my voice.
“Fowls in the frith,” I sang. “The fishes in the flood, And I mon waxe wood; Much sorrow I walk with, For beast of bone and blood. Fowls in the frith….”
Elizabeth would fall asleep, not knowing what I sang, but obeying the gentle rise and fall of my rich voice, lulling her into slumber.
Whilst at Eltham, I took inventory of my daughter’s clothes, and ordered more, along with a contraption to straighten her fingers and cloth for her bed. My daughter had a wardrobe as magnificent as mine, and I was determined that, in all ways, she would outshine her half-sister.
With Elizabeth, I sought to abandon my trials. Gossip was rife at court about my pregnancy. None of my ladies had revealed the terrible truth, but this did not stop malicious tongues wagging.
The Moors say that we were granted two ears and one mouth, so we may only pass on half of what we hear. But this does not hold that what we pass on must be truth. It may be lies.
Some said I had never been with child at all, and it had all been a falsehood, invented to trick Henry and keep his favour. How anyone could believe this when I had paraded a great belly about court for months was beyond me, and strangely, or perhaps not, gossip that I had tried to dupe Henry hurt me. These people compounded my sorrow. They would make my child a fiction. They would deny his existence, making my sorrow into a lie as well.
But they were not to blame. Henry was. If he had had enough courage to announce that I had lost my baby, we would not be in this situation. But Henry was too frightened of what people would say. They might believe I was incapable of having sons, or worse, that he was.
Many times had Henry’s pride cost me dear, but never more so than then.
For his pride, I was lost, abandoned in silence.
Chapter Eight
Greenwich Palace
September 1534
A delicate foot slipped to one side as the lady lifted her hands to clap. The strike of her palms was crisp, perfectly in time with the music. As she whirled to one side, her silk gown of crimson billowing with her, her partner leapt into the air like an elegant stag bounding through the forest. His hands on his hips and his cheeks rosy with enjoyment, he pranced after her as spectators cheered.
Mary Howard and Henry Fitzroy. What a couple they made! She as pretty and complex as a fresh spring day, and he as bold as his father. Although still not permitted to share a room, or consummate their marriage, their approval of each other was as obvious as that of my husband for my pretty cousin, Mary Shelton.
Are your present whores not enough for you, husband? I thought as I watched Henry’s eyes settle on Mary.
Henry wanted to possess what other men desired. Perhaps that was why he had first turned that avaricious eye on me. Once, I had been like Mary; the centre of all attention and lust. She, like me, was careful of her honour, and navigated the perilous path of courtly love with a light step. A careful foot was vital. Step too far one way and all men would think you were their whore, ripe for the plucking and also for abandonment. Step too far the other and all chance at advancement and patronage were lost as men thought you cold.
It is a strange life to lead, is it not? Katherine’s voice entered my mind. It happened so often now that I barely thought it odd anymore. Where women must play both the whore and the virgin at the same moment?
We must be what men want us to be, I replied. Men own this world. We cannot be loose like them, for then we would be set aside. We cannot be too reserved, for then we are ignored. We become the Virgin Mary and the Magdalene in one form. We must be their mistresses and their mothers. Their icons of worship and the demons they fear. That is why we play this game; because they fear us and only in pretence can we become all they expect, removing the peril their fear may bring upon us.
Katherine fell silent and I welcomed the stillness. Although at times my personal phantom and I agreed, there were many more occasions when she said everything I wished I did not think. Perhaps in some ways, Katherine had become the voice of my conscience.
I moved through the ranks of courtiers, accepting bows and well wishes, enduring swift, stolen gla
nces at my belly. No doubt they were taking note of the flatness there. My figure was returning under a regimen of fasting. Henry swore I had become a sparrow, so little did I consume. But I did not want to eat. I wanted to control my body. I wanted something, some power to cling to.
Henry stood with his mistress to one side of the throng, roaring with laughter at something she had said. God’s Blood, did he think he was subtle?
I had to watch as he courted you. Katherine returned to plague me.
With me it was different, I thought. He loves me.
Loves, or loved? He claimed he loved me once too, before he locked me away in the fens.
It was true enough. Did he love so many that he could not decide which he loved the most? Did he love this straw-haired lass at his side? Joanna Dingley was not present, but the parrot was. Just how many women did my husband have? And why? Why did he need them when once he had sworn I was all he could ever want? I believed his problems with his manhood had led to these suddenly more-public-than-ever dalliances. In the past he had been discreet, but I wondered if Henry was attempting to conceal his insecurities by showing off his many mistresses. Surely a man who had two mistresses and a wife could not be at fault in the bedchamber? But I wondered just how often he actually bedded his whores, for he was fragile and often reluctant with me.
I also had reason to think again that part of this show was to spite me. And I was not the only one to note this.
Henry kissed the parrot’s hand and went to his men. I thought to join him. As I walked past, Mary Perrot and others about her bowed. I noted, however, that all she did was incline her head and slightly stoop her foot, as though we were equals. I stopped and stared. Many of my women, who had seen her flagrant lack of respect, did the same.
“Have you injured your back, Mistress Perrot?” I asked coldly. “Or have you forgotten who is Queen?”
“I have not forgotten,” the impudent wench replied. “Nor have many others, Madame de Pembroke.”
Many courtiers gasped. “Do you have a poor memory, my lady?” I asked, bristling with rage. “Or have you forgotten that to fail to address royalty with the proper terms is treason? Do you seek a cell in the Tower?”
Her face paled under flushed cheeks. She was intoxicated, both with wine and Henry’s open admiration. “I have not, Your Majesty.” She dipped her leg to curtsey.
“Be of good cheer, Mistress Perrot,” I said as she rose. “A strong memory is only of use if one has a head. If you carry on the way you are tending, you will have neither.”
I swept away, my head high, as voices broke out behind me, but my heart was thundering. What impudence that sprite had! And it was born from Henry’s devotion. As soon as I was clear of the hall, I sent Nan back with a message for Henry.
“I want that whore gone from court!” I screamed as soon as he entered the room. “She failed to bow to me, insulted me and addressed me as Madame de Pembroke!”
“She was flustered to be spoken to by you,” Henry said, his face red with anger. “She claims you threatened her.”
“Are not all who fail to recognise me as Queen traitors by your own laws, my lord?” I asked. “I could, therefore, demand her head. But I will make do with her exile.”
“I will not send her from court simply for a silly slip of the tongue.”
“You will not send her from court because you want to bed her, often and well,” I said scathingly. “Do you have no care for me, for the pain I suffer to see you with other women?”
“Men serve you, do they not?” he demanded. “They flock to you. Why should I, the King, not take part in the games of chivalry?”
“With me, the games of courtly love are but games,” I retorted. “With you they are not. You encourage this chit to spite me by showing her favour. And if she dares to say I am not the Queen, and you will not punish her, you insult the position that you, yourself, have granted me.”
“You should think more on that position, madam,” he said.
“For you would not grant me it again?” I demanded, mocking the insults he had offered me in other arguments. “You like to say this, do you not? No wonder your whores think ill of me. You feed them insults to throw at me, and Elizabeth. You would have me compete against these women for your pleasure, and you desecrate the sanctity of our marriage in doing so!”
Henry stormed off. He sent me a note later that night, telling me he would not send the parrot from court, nor demand an apology from her. I was instructed to leave her alone and not interfere again. “Consider where you came from, madam, and how you have been honoured,” Henry wrote.
I stared at the parchment. When we had argued in the past, Henry had always come to me. I had rarely gone to him.
This note was his way of telling me those days were done.
*
“She has been sending letters to the Lady Mary,” Jane whispered in my ear as I simmered with rage in my chambers. I had sent my sister-in-law to find out all she could about Perrot. Much had I learned about Joanna Dingley that I did not want to know, but what I heard about the parrot was far worse.
The parrot had been one of Katherine’s ladies, and had served her with open love and affection. She had been brazenly speaking about her support for Katherine, and had opened discussions several times, saying that my marriage to Henry was invalid in light of my pre-contract to Henry Percy. Apparently, Henry had allowed this to be said in his presence, a fact that chilled me to the bone. Courtiers who disliked me, like the Courtenays, the Poles, and Nicholas Carewe, were encouraging her affair with Henry, hoping to reduce my influence. And the squawking parrot had been writing to Lady Mary. I could guess what was in those letters.
The parrot was a genuine danger.
“Can you get hold of one?” I whispered to Jane as we strolled about my chamber, listening to rain hiss against the windows. Outside, a bright sun burned, glaring from behind dark clouds of rain. It cast a strange light over the world. Light was tinged with darkness and darkness with light. The twin sides of life appeared, blended as one. “I must know what this wretch is saying to Lady Mary,” I continued.
“I will try,” she said. “George has men who keep an eye on Chapuys’ correspondence. Perhaps they would be able to do the same to Perrot’s.”
“Good,” I said. “But do not speak of this to others.” I sighed. “I wish my sister were here. God alone knows what business is keeping Mary in the country so long. She has been gone for months, and did not even come when…” I trailed off. An invisible cloth wrapped about my lips. I was not to talk of my son.
His face flashed before my eyes.
I felt Jane’s hand on my arm and I looked down blankly. When my son came to my thoughts, my heart drifted from my body, and all that was left was a hollow cave. If you lifted my heart to your ear, I believe you might have heard echoing sorrow, cresting backwards, tumbling into nothingness. There was an abyss within me. It was all I could do to stop myself tumbling in, falling for the rest of my days.
Jane was staring at me with a blazing expression on her face. Her green eyes were alight with vengeance. It was not surprising. Had she not suffered the same as me, losing children and watching her husband run off to mistresses? George was, at least, a shade more subtle than Henry, but the pain inflicted was the same. I think Jane saw an echo of herself in me, and where she could not fly at George, she wanted to attack the woman who embodied both her outrage and mine.
“Jane,” I said. “Do not do anything rash. Find those letters. If I can prove the parrot is sending messages to Lady Mary and encouraging her dissent, I can have her removed from court.”
“Surely, you wish for more justice than that, sister?”
“Her removal will satisfy me.”
“Then I will do as you command.”
Unfortunately, Jane did not.
*
Henry strode into my chambers, afire with indignation. He was banishing Jane from court.
“For what reason?” I asked coolly.
“That lady has no decorum,” he retorted with equal coldness. “She had a public fight with a minor noblewoman in front of the whole court. I am sending her away to teach her to hold her tongue.” He glared at me and my face froze.
I knew what woman Jane would have picked a fight with and why.
“If my sister-in-law has offended Your Majesty, it is only proper she be sent away to think on her faults,” I said smoothly, cursing myself. I should have seen Jane’s inflamed temper and kept her away from Henry’s mistress. He was angry to be shamed.
Curse you, too, Jane! I thought. Had she obeyed me I might be a step closer to getting one of those letters and proving the parrot was a menace. If she had written in outright support for Lady Mary and Katherine, Henry might have been persuaded to see her true nature. After this, I had little hope of getting hold of evidence. Gertrude Courtenay, one of the parrot’s companions, was a spy mistress, and no stranger to subterfuge. She would instruct the whore to hide her letters.
