by D. L. Bogdan
“Her Grace is expecting?” I manage to say.
“You didn’t know?”
I suppose she did look heavier, but I was so caught up in my own triumph that I didn’t think much on it.
“Oh! It’s kicking now!” She takes my hand, drawing it toward her belly.
I extract it before I can make contact. “No, no,” I say quickly. “That will do. I have felt babies kick before.”
Elizabeth’s face is stricken.
How can I tell her without completely destroying her that my touch will curse it? That it will curse me? To touch it, to feel the life stirring inside . . . yes, I have felt that before. I have felt it and savored it, only to lose it. I cannot do it again. I will not. All I have loved has been lost to me. All I have given has been taken. I am constrained to propagate the Howard line and so I shall. But now, as my father has told me, it is a business, as any breeding business, whether it be horses or falcons or children. Nothing more.
I rise from the bed and avert my head. I cannot look into those eyes anymore, those eyes so lit with hurt that no apologies will ever amend the damage done today.
I quit the room, closing the door on her sobs.
A baby . . . my fifth child. My first with her. How long will this one live? Long enough for me to love it before it is taken away, or will God be kind and reclaim it before I can grow too attached?
There must be another way to survive this. There are many degrees of love. Perhaps I can love this child in a manner different from my first family. If I look at it as though it is a battle that I am directing from a hill . . . yes, from afar.
From safety.
Elizabeth Howard, Winter 1513
I thought he would be happy. I thought this would change everything. After everything he has endured, I thought . . . I hoped. But it has changed nothing. He is as abrupt and distant as he ever was. He does not come to me as my husband. He sleeps in a separate chamber and I refuse to crawl to him, begging for a scrap of affection. I have excelled in my wifely duties only to be repaid by coldness and neglect.
And I will not stoop to forcing anyone to love me.
“You must be patient,” Queen Catherine tells me before she retreats to Havering-atte-Bower to meet the king and his French hostages. “You are very young and I appreciate how difficult it must be for you, but you must try and consider the situation from Lord Howard’s perspective. You must see that his indifference is a cloak for his fear.” She reaches out to stroke my hair with a gentle hand. She has gained a great deal of weight with this pregnancy and her fingers are swollen like sausages. I pity her. There are very few people who can carry off a pregnancy while remaining as attractive as I.
“If only he’d let me help him,” I lament. “I want to help him, Your Grace. I want to . . . love him.” I bow my head in shame, as though it is a sign of weakness to harbor such an acute desire.
Queen Catherine offers her slow smile. “Of course you do. And I’m convinced he wants to love you, too. Talk to him, Lady Elizabeth. Reassure him that you and your child are here to stay.”
“But how can I reassure him if I don’t know it’s true?” I ask her. “What if . . . what if . . . ?”
The queen crosses herself. “Don’t think in what-ifs, Lady Elizabeth. Our Lord does not think in such a fashion. Everything happens for a reason and all for our own good even if we do not understand its meaning at the time.” She breaks into a low, melodic laugh and takes my hand. “There, there, child. Do not fret. Your confinement is about to begin. Soon you’ll be holding your baby in your arms. I think Lord Howard will soften once he looks at his little one for the first time, don’t you?”
“Yes, Your Grace,” I reply without conviction as I dip into a curtsy, indicating that for me the conversation is over. I don’t know what else to add to it that will not set me into a torrent of tears.
Queen Catherine nods and I am dismissed from her side, praying all the while that she is right and that once this child is born, the happy family life I have always dreamed of can begin.
I cannot say I was much loved as a child; I kept company with my siblings, true, and my parents did not beat us. As the child of a duke, I was ever reminded of my purpose, to glorify Buckingham’s name, to make a good alliance. Every piece of instruction ever received was to that end. It is safe to assume Lord Howard’s upbringing was similar, if not more harsh.
But our children will be different. I will not delude myself into believing theirs will be an upbringing void of politics, that we will not gain from the alliances made. Our station guarantees certain expectations and sacrifices. But with those will come compassion and, above all, love. Love and friendship. Our children will talk to us, seek our counsel. We will be a close family.
Hope surges through me. I will not allow myself to entertain the possibility that fantasy always eclipses reality. It will be as I determine it. It must be.
As I enter my confinement in November I learn that the queen has miscarried. My heart is gripped in mingled compassion and terror. She has known such great pain since arriving in England. The loss of her first husband coupled with the successive losses of the king’s children must take a toll.
I do not understand why some are favored with such ill fortune. Yet the queen still smiles. She sends me wishes of good health and a safe delivery during my confinement and claims she cannot wait to see my little one when it arrives.
She has suffered almost as much as my husband, yet retains her kindness and warmth. What strength of character does this queen possess that equips her to grapple with such extensive loss while Lord Howard, my strong soldier, remains broken?
I am shut up in my chambers with the curtains drawn to prevent bad air from entering and upsetting my humors. The deprivation of sunshine and the brisk breeze I so enjoy causes me to quake with sobs. I have hours upon hours to dread the act of childbirth and ponder life’s darker aspects. To think I must remain holed up in here for an entire month! I can only read and sew so much before losing my mind, and no one comes to entertain me. The Howards are preoccupied with their own affairs and they will not even let the children visit lest I contract an illness from them. As much as I appreciate their courtesy, the loneliness is unbearable without the shrill laughter and pleasant chatter of my little sisters and brothers-in-law to lighten the mood.
On 6 November, I turn sixteen. To my amazement Lord Howard remembers and spends the whole evening with me. Everything I desire to eat is brought up from the kitchens. We lay out the platters on the bed as though it is a great dining table and sit to our feast in our nightclothes. Lord Howard is so unlike the man I have come to envisage, sitting there with his bare legs crossed in front of him like a child. As I regard him I shiver. He is in fine form, outdoing most men half his age. No wonder he is such an able soldier. If I wasn’t so great with child I’d devour much more than the food tonight. . . .
I giggle, shocked and embarrassed over my wild thoughts. “I never thought to see you do something so—spontaneous,” I tell my husband.
“I’m not a complete dullard,” Lord Howard says, but his voice is gentle and the smallest trace of a smile plays upon his lips. “Besides, I suppose it’s time we started trying to make a better go of it.”
“Yes,” I agree, my voice soft. I bow my head.
Lord Howard averts his face, drawing in a deep breath. He reaches for the platter of cheese, selects a piece, then hands it to me.
I stare at it a moment before taking a bite.
“You are to be the Countess of Surrey,” he says with a bright smile, his black eyes gleaming in triumph. “What do you make of that?”
“I like it very much,” I tell him in honesty, for who can resist a title?
“And someday you shall be the Duchess of Norfolk,” he continues, leaning his elbow on his knee and his chin on his fist, regarding a point just above my head as though he is glimpsing into a future filled with glory.
“That will not be for quite some time,” I say in deference to Thomas Howard t
he Elder.
My lord Howard waves a dismissive hand. “It will be sooner than you think; the man’s seventy.”
“Lord Howard!” I cry, scandalized. He speaks of his father’s future passing with such cool nonchalance, as though he is some foreign dignitary whose tie to him is distant and abstract. He is only as good as his hereditary titles. I shiver.
He shrugs. “I am only doing what you so advocate, speaking the truth.”
I am forced to laugh. “My pragmatist.”
He offers a decisive nod, then stretches out on his side, propping himself up on an elbow. The expression he regards me with is almost tender.
“You are feeling well?” he asks, his tone almost timid.
I nod, recalling Queen Catherine’s advice about reassuring my lord. “I’ll bring you a healthy son, Thomas,” I say, addressing him by his Christian name for the first time. Familiarity seeps through our guard. I am overcome with the longing for an intimacy that stretches beyond the physical. I reach out my hand. He takes it, stroking my thumb. The fire and energy that accompanies our every touch surges between us. Never have I experienced this, not with Ralph Neville, not with anybody. It is something that frightens and fascinates me at once.
“I—have something for you,” he says, rising to remove the trays scattered across the bed and setting them aside before retrieving a gilt box he had set on my bedside table. He sits beside me once more, opening the box to reveal an ornate gold signet ring. He places it in the palm of my hand.
“It’s quite heavy,” I comment as I admire it.
“Meant to last,” says Lord Thomas. “Look.” He turns the ring upright. “See the bezel? It is the Howard arms newly acquired in recognition of our victory at Flodden.”
On the ring’s bezel is a lion ready to pounce. An arrow pierces its tongue through. It is a symbol of the Howards’ power. Of Lord Thomas’s power.
“We’ve come full circle, Elizabeth,” he tells me, his eyes lit with triumph as he takes my right hand, sliding the ring up on my middle finger. It is weighty and wholly unfeminine, but it embodies all my lord represents. I am determined to treasure it. “We were raised up to be cast down to be raised up again. But now we will stay up. And we will keep going. Up and up and up . . .” He raises his eyes to the heavens, his hand still gripping mine with the urgency I have so come to expect from him.
“What happens when we can go no further, Thomas?” I ask him, scrunching up my shoulders as a strange and inexplicable fear overtakes me.
Lord Thomas shifts his gaze to my face. His eyes are as fierce and proud as the lion on his signet ring. “We are without limit, Elizabeth. You’ve heard the adage ‘We will go as far as we can go’? Well, we will go farther yet.”
I do not know how to respond to this. I can only pray he is not as free in his speech around the wrong ears.
There is no giving voice to my thought. Lord Thomas isn’t obtuse. So instead I withdraw my hand and make a show of admiring my new gift.
“It’s lovely, Thomas,” I tell him, leaning forward to kiss his cheek.
“Wear it with pride,” he orders. “Remember, you are a Howard.”
I begin to tingle as pride courses through me. Never have I been more convinced of another human being’s capacity for greatness as I am of my husband’s, of my Thomas Howard.
Just as I begin to relish my newfound affection for my husband, he informs me that he will be leaving.
“I have to demobilize the navy,” he tells me, standing at the end of my bed, looking into my face without quite meeting my eyes. “And there are repairs that need to be made before winter. Everything must be in order for spring.”
“You cannot wait until after the baby is born?” I demand, balling my fists at my sides. “You’re to leave me here to have the baby by myself?”
“Babies are born every day. My presence is not required for its arrival.” His voice is as hard as his eyes.
I blink back hot tears. “Please don’t go.” My voice is wavering. I cannot believe I have reduced myself to begging. But he is the father of this child. How dare he even contemplate leaving us at this crucial moment? “Please. It is our first child!”
He purses his lips. “It is not my first child.” He removes his cap, running a hand through his hair in frustration.
“It is your child nonetheless,” I remind him, sitting up to reach out for his hands. It seems confrontation is avoided when we touch. If I can just reach him. . . . If I can hold him, reassure him with my embrace.
But he is too quick for me, evading my outstretched hands and stepping back. He is shaking his head. There is a desperate wildness about his eyes that causes me to shrink away from him.
“God’s body, Elizabeth, don’t you see?” he breathes. “I can’t stay for this. I can’t!”
With that he stalks out of the room.
“Go, then!” I cry to his retreating back. “And I don’t care if you ever come back!”
When his footfalls can no longer be heard, I lie back against my pillows, too angry to cry. All I can think of are the nasty things I wish I had said to him when he was in the room. It is too late. Too late to be cruel, too late to be kind. He is gone.
I am drawn from my bitter reverie by the creak of the door. Has he returned? I sit up, smiling before I can help myself. I will forgive him, of course. I will throw my arms around him and tell him how happy I am that he has decided to put off his trip till after the baby’s birth. . . .
I turn my head. It is not my lord; how naïve of me to assume he would have any regrets. It is my stepmother-in-law, Agnes. She enters with a basket of sweet-smelling herbs, setting them on the window seat before sitting at my bedside.
She expels a heavy sigh. “You know what the problem is?” she asks. Of course I know that she is more than eager to tell me. Agnes can be helpful, but she is nothing if not interfering.
I scowl, waiting for her to enlighten me.
“You cannot just shut your mouth,” she says. “You have to learn to let things go. Do you think it is easy living with a Howard man?” She offers a rueful laugh. “Do you think it is easy living with any man? Lady Elizabeth, I urge you to rein in that temper of yours, for Lord knows your husband isn’t about to take control of his.”
I fold my arms across my chest. My breasts have become so swollen and tender with the pregnancy that they cannot bear the weight and I drop my arms to my sides, expelling a little cry of pain. I bite my lip.
“It isn’t fair,” I murmur in despair.
“Life is not fair, Lady Elizabeth, and marriage may well be the greatest injustice of all,” Agnes tells me, her voice harsh but her eyes soft with unshed tears. “But it is our lot and we have to make the best of it. Stubborn rebelliousness will get you nowhere.” She draws in a breath. “Do you remember Lady Plantagenet, Lord Howard’s first wife?”
“I was not an intimate of hers, my lady, but I do remember her,” I say, my heart throbbing with unexpected jealousy as an image of the ethereal beauty with the rose-gold hair conjures itself before my mind’s eye.
“Lady Plantagenet was fair and fine,” says Agnes. “She was strong and at times she could be defiant, but she was subtle. She was endearing.”
“I am not Lady Plantagenet! I will never be! I don’t want to be!” I cry. “He will appreciate me for who I am or not at all!” Hot tears begin to course sure and steady trails down my cheeks. “After all, I don’t expect him to be Ral—” I cut myself short, bowing my head.
Agnes takes my hand. “Don’t excite yourself so, my dear. Of course you don’t.” Her voice is soothing. “And you do not have to be anyone but yourself. But using Lady Plantagenet as a model of wifely submission cannot hurt, hmmm?”
“So it is all up to me?” My tone is laced with bitterness. “I am to amend my ways and repent and submit while he does nothing but break my heart again and again?”
Agnes turns her head away a moment. When her eyes fall upon me at last, they are filled with a sadness as unfatho
mable as eternity. “Harden your heart, Elizabeth. Harden your heart until it becomes impenetrable, like a fortress. It is the only way to survive.”
She leans forward, kissing my forehead before quitting the room, and I am alone again, my heart aching and far from hard.
All I can think about is the life stirring within me and of the father who will miss its entrance into this world.
Anyone who tries to claim that one forgets the pain of childbirth is either mad or never had children. It is truly the most dreadful thing I can think of, lying abed for hours upon hours, certain I am being ripped in two. My back throbs with a constant ache, my abdomen has been cramping for twenty-seven hours, and my legs are so restless I want to leap out of bed and run about the room.
The midwife Tsura Goodman, deliverer of many Howards, was brought from the country to attend me. She has since been retained as a nurse and knows more about children and childbearing than I would ever want to.
She does her best to soothe my pain with soft words and gypsy songs that transport me to another world, a world beyond the pain and the wretchedness of being a woman.
The queen sent me the Girdle of Our Lady, which is rumored to alleviate the agony of childbed, but it doesn’t do a thing and I can hardly be grateful for the thought, so distracted am I by the pain. Even Tsura Goodman’s tender ministrations are proving ineffective.
Attending my torture is a small army of servants, Howard women, and Lady Agnes. My father-in-law is even present; he sits in a corner ordering cup after cup of wine till he is slumped over, watching me with rheumy eyes that threaten to close at any given moment. It is terribly embarrassing. I wish they would leave me alone, except Tsura, who is the only one capable of bringing the child forth and the least annoying of the assemblage.
“Come now, darling, it’s time to push,” Agnes coaxes, propping my pillows up behind me. I want to push her away but am gripped by a pain so fierce that it causes me to reach out to her instead, seizing her hand in urgency. “Come now! Push!”
