City of Ladies

by Sarah Kennedy

  “Then I’m gone.” He took a package of cold meat and bread from the kitchen maid, and Benjamin came out, shading his eyes from the sun. William said, “Keep my wife for me, will you, man?”

  “You may depend on me,” said Benjamin, “though I think your wife can keep herself.”

  “You will be glad to have your birds again,” said Catherine. “Perhaps you could bring one back with you.”

  “You keep birds these days?” called Benjamin. “You aim to be a regular gentleman, William. Go build us those draperies, and you can buy yourself a dozen peregrines.”

  “You never flew them, did you, Benjamin?” William asked, swinging himself into the saddle. Reg followed suit, leaping onto the saddle of his brown gelding.

  “Never bitten by that bug yet. But bring me a falcon and we will fly them.”

  William looked happier, and Catherine said, “Ride swiftly now, love.” She threw her husband a kiss, and the men were gone. She said to the dust they left in their wake, “Return safe with my son.” Her hand went into her pocket and she clutched Mary Tudor’s rosary.

  23

  The day brightened, and Catherine was sweating by the time she had collected her things and called for pack horses. Eleanor’s eyes were red and swollen when she came up from the kitchen, but she did not weep in the presence of others. She wiped her nose on the baby’s coverings and held her lip between her teeth.

  “We will find out this killer, even from a distance,” said Catherine. “Turn your mind to your reading in the meantime. It will ease you.”

  “Reading. What good will it do the likes of me?” Eleanor tucked the baby against her chest. “I am not a prodigy, Madam.”

  “No sullen moods, Eleanor. You have as fertile a mind as any girl, and God didn’t put it in your head to go to weeds. Look, the sun smiles upon you. Smile back. Keep a good face on when you are out of your room.”

  “The sun is a jaundiced old man,” grumbled Eleanor.

  Benjamin watched the horses being loaded. “You will return here to comfortable quarters. You don’t want to stay at that house by yourselves. They will lodge you in the servants’ rooms.”

  “We are servants,” Catherine reminded him, “and we are treated well enough there. Your family needn’t bother itself with strangers.”

  “Go to, you are no strangers. I have promised your husband to stand in his place, and if anything were to befall you, it would land on my shoulders. No, you must return here, where I can keep you. I insist. I have just this morning sent for my daughter and she will cry herself to sleep if she fails to see you.”

  “Very well, Benjamin. We will return, but only for tonight to allow the women of Hatfield to prepare a place for us.” Catherine took his hand and he flushed bright red. “Now may we go?”

  “Off with you,” he said, stepping back.

  They rode all the way in silence, and Catherine’s hand went again and again to her pocket, where the letter from Ann lay. But she said nothing to Eleanor, who brooded upon her pony’s thick mane. When they arrived at Hatfield, their mood seemed to infect the air. Elizabeth was fretful and kicked her heels against her chair as Catherine read from the psalms. Then she wandered to a window, where she stared out at the fine, waning day, pulling on a strand of her red hair until it came loose in her hand.

  Catherine set the book down. “Shall I read to you or not?”

  Kat Champernowne was rocking in one corner, her embroidery in her lap. “Sit still, Lady, and listen to Catherine. The air is too cold yet for you to play outdoors.”

  “It was once ‘Princess’ and not ‘Lady,’” said Elizabeth. She lashed out at the leg of Catherine’s chair with her toe and then howled at the pain.

  “You see?” said Kat, rising. “You must learn to hold your peace or evil will come and seek you out.” She lifted Elizabeth onto her shoulder, where the girl sniffed and wiped her eyes.

  Catherine returned the book to the shelf and, walking her fingers down the spines, landed on a copy of City of Ladies. “I own this,” she blurted. “It is genius. She writes of women’s virtues and how learning and discipline make the world go forward.”

  “Yes,” said Kat without looking, “a work of great renown.” She patted Elizabeth and kept walking in a circle. “You must read it out to us one evening when we are more settled.”

  “I will fetch you some dinner,” said Catherine.

  She had ordered a roast of venison to coax both sisters downstairs, but Mary would not leave her rooms. Elizabeth sat next to Kat, and as soon as the meal was finished, Catherine brought a special pudding with currants and almonds. “This might settle you, small lady.”

  Elizabeth squealed and dug her finger into the pudding. Kat gave the fine-boned hand a slap. “You will use a spoon or you will eat nothing at all.” Elizabeth cut her a resentful look, but she plucked the utensil up and fell to the pudding.

  Catherine slipped back down to the kitchen before Kat could order something else for Elizabeth and made up another platter of meat in savory sauce, roasted turnips and carrots, and warm bread. She filled a small jug with French claret and tiptoed up the back staircase to Mary’s apartment.

  Mary Tudor was alone, as she so often was, kneeling at her prayer bench. “Sit with me, will you?” she asked, rising as Catherine laid the meal.

  Catherine sat, her hands folded in her lap, while the king’s daughter picked at the food. Fifteen bites. It was more than Catherine had ever seen Mary Tudor put into her mouth at one sitting.

  “The wine is French, is it not?”

  “Yes, Your Grace. Is it to your liking?”

  “You know my tastes well, Catherine Havens. Catherine Havens Overton.”

  “My husband has returned north this morning, but he will order you a case of it when he returns if you desire it.”

  “And where do you stay?”

  “We have stayed with Benjamin Davies. With my husband gone we will have to beg a bed here.”

  “It is done,” said Mary Tudor. “You need not ask. The house has plenty of rooms unused. You will not stay with Benjamin Davies. I know of him. He is widowed. You will not abide in an unmarried man’s household.”

  “I have a baby with me, Your Grace. She fusses as any baby will. She may disturb your devotions.”

  “A child should be with her mother. She will stay here with you.” Mary dabbed at the corners of her mouth and stood. “Come, we will have it done.”

  They went directly downstairs, Eleanor following along with the baby, and Catherine waited in a room off the gallery while Mary spoke with her chambermaids. Through the rear window, she could see Kat Champerowne walking, bundled under furs, in the garden with Elizabeth, who ran, stumbled, and fell. Kat bent over the wailing child, brushing her skirt until the fit passed, and they walked on.

  “Shall we see the gardens?” said Mary Tudor behind her, but as Catherine opened her mouth to answer, Mary linked their arms and pulled her into the gallery. They walked out the wide front door together. The slap of fresh air made Veronica suck in her breath, and Eleanor closed the clout over her face.

  “What is the child’s name?” asked Mary.

  “The same as yours,” said Catherine. “Mary. But her second name is Veronica and we call her by that.”

  “Let me hold her.” The king’s daughter took the baby and walked on, as though the child were her own. Catherine followed, Eleanor tripping along behind.

  The herbs were in a separate bed in the side garden, and Catherine lingered, running her hands over the spiked stems of the rosemary, letting the baby sniff the sharp scent on her fingers. The sage was overgrown and bent, silvered, in the cold, and Catherine squatted to pinch a few wilted stems from the stalks. The labor pleased her.

  “You are a gardener, like Eve in Paradise,” said Mary Tudor. She sat on a bench with her face turned up to the sun while Catherine moved among the remnants of plants, pruning yellowed leaves and old stalks in the lavender bushes and mounding the soil around the young gro
wth of mint. Some old hips had shriveled on a rose vine at the edge of the garden, and Catherine plucked them off, sliding them into her pocket. The baby wailed, and she looked up. A young woman had appeared, and she was kneeling at Mary Tudor’s feet. Her face was bent over little Veronica.

  “That is my daughter,” Catherine called, picking her way back across the neat rows. “You need not bother the princess, madam.”

  “She and I are well acquainted,” said Mary Tudor.

  “Eleanor has shown the baby to me,” said the young woman. She was thin as a wheatstalk and just as pale. Her hair frizzed out around her cap. “I am Ursula Baynham. I work in the dairy. Are you not worried that the child will catch cold?”

  “She is well padded,” said Catherine, brushing her hands clean as she came across the garden. She sat next to Mary Tudor and opened the baby’s blankets. “You see? Not a drop of moisture has come through. Children need a certain amount of the clean air in their bodies.”

  “Is it not dangerous? The air, I mean?” asked Ursula.

  “Only when it bears disease,” said Catherine. “And there is no malady about this house that I have smelt.”

  “It may be no disease, but the little lady suffers from a sudden pain in the belly,” said Ursula, “and I am sent by Kat Champernowne to seek you to examine her.”

  “If you mean Elizabeth, I am not here as her physician,” said Catherine. “I oversee her meals, that is all.”

  “I beg your pardon, but you are sought.”

  Mary Tudor rose, her lips tight. “You must go, Catherine. Eleanor and I will keep the baby.”

  Kat came around the corner of the stable and called, “The Lady Elizabeth—” but stopped when she saw Mary Tudor. She hurried forward and curtsied. “Elizabeth complains of her belly. We can find nothing the matter with her. Perhaps you might have a look?”

  Catherine curtsied to Mary Tudor. “If I may have leave to go. I will stay if you prefer it.”

  Mary Tudor waved her hand. “No. Go tend to the little bastard’s bellyache. God forfend that she die too soon. Or too speedily.”

  24

  Catherine and Kat led Elizabeth, wailing, up the broad stairs to the apartment of the second royal daughter. Elizabeth threw herself onto the floor, tossing a stuffed doll one way, then the other, by its yarn hair. When Catherine knelt beside her, she rolled to her back and lay staring at the ceiling.

  “I hear you are in pain, young Madam,” said Catherine. “Tell me, where does it hurt you?”

  “Here.” Elizabeth placed her hand on her middle. “I feel that I am full of poo.”

  “You may very well be,” said Catherine. “May I have leave to touch you?”

  Elizabeth flicked her eyes toward Kat, who nodded. “Yes,” the child said. “But it pains me.”

  “I know it does. I promise to be gentle. You tell me if I hurt you.” The child lifted her hands over her head and Catherine placed her palms on the thin ribs. She pressed ever so softly. “Does that hurt you in any way?”

  Elizabeth shook her head. Her hair was loose and it clung to the rushes in bright strands.

  Catherine moved her hands down. Elizabeth wore heavy clothes, and she couldn’t feel well enough through the layers. “May I remove your apron?” Elizabeth nodded, and Catherine unknotted the linen garment and slipped it off. The skirt and bodice the child wore were thick wool. “This clothing,” she said. “Is it of your lady’s choosing?”

  “I hate it,” said the child. “It itches me mightily and it is ugly.”

  “I would think it might scratch you indeed. This weave is too dense for your size. Let’s put you into something else.” Catherine rolled Elizabeth over and loosened her ties. “Who has trussed her up like this? I wonder that she can breathe.”

  “Her limbs must grow straight,” said Kat, “and we do not get the clothes we once could expect from the king. I have written but I receive no response. This skirt was made from one of the maids’ old frocks.”

  “God’s wounds, no wonder the fabric is so weighty and stiff. Does the king not think of his daughters at all?”

  “Shh,” said Kat, shutting the door.

  “Tush, let me get this girl undressed.” Catherine stripped the skirt off. Elizabeth lay in her tattered, patched shift, and Catherine could now feel the small hips and protruding belly. Elizabeth cried out when she palpated her, and Catherine said, “You are indeed full of something, my lady.” Catherine glanced over her shoulder at Kat. “Will you have one of the kitchen girls make up a dish of rhubarb and prune stewed with some honey and bring me some fresh lettuces to the kitchen?”

  “Where will I find such things? The spring is too young yet.”

  “There is rhubarb growing along the south side of the house,” said Catherine. “The stalks will do. The lettuces are sprouted in front of it. I expect the store room has some prunes. Apples will do if there are none.”

  “Of course,” said Kat. She went, closing the door firmly behind her.

  “And you, Elizabeth,” said Catherine, raising the child to her feet, “must take some exercise to move things along inside you. I know you would prefer to lie here, but put your trust in me. Your body wants to be free of all that.”

  “It hurts me. I fell in the garden and scraped my knee.” Elizabeth lifted her shift to show off the soft new scab. The garment had been mended all over, and one patch was coming loose.

  “I know it does. But we will go outside and watch for bluebirds, and that will take your mind to a more beautiful place.”

  Catherine searched through the trunks until she found a lighter skirt for the child, threadbare at the hem and too short, and walked with Elizabeth around the garden. Kat walked along beside her, wringing her hands.

  A young woman brought the sweet stew to them, and Catherine said, “You will eat this all up, and while you have your rest I will prepare the other for you.” They sat together on the crispy grass in the high cold sun, and Elizabeth ate, complaining all the while that the fruit would not go down.

  “It will go,” said Catherine. “And it will push the other on out. Mind me now, or that old dress will have to go back on. And, Madam, it is a hideous thing indeed. If you eat, I will have Eleanor make you a fresh one from one of my summer skirts.”

  Elizabeth gulped down the rest, and Catherine walked her back to her chamber and undressed her for a nap. The girl was still sleeping when she’d finished the lettuce juice, and Catherine left it in the hands of Kat. “I have given my word to return to my house tonight, but we will be back at first light to see how she does.”

  Kat held Catherine’s arm as they walked down. “The Lady Elizabeth is not a barnyard animal upon which you may test the properties of your plants.”

  “They are not my plants, and I am not the one who bound the child up like a piglet,” said Catherine, freeing herself with a jerk. “And as I recall, it was you who asked me to treat her. Now if you will let me go, I will see to her condition at dawn.”

  Eleanor watched Catherine wide-eyed all the way back to Benjamin’s house, and, over supper, Benjamin himself laughed out loud at the story. Diana Davies had arrived from London, and she joined them at table, sitting beside Catherine, who carved the mutton leg for them all. The girl yawned, her hand over her mouth.

  “You should sleep, Diana,” said her father. “Go on, child.”

  “No, please! I want to hear about the princesses. What is it like, Lady Catherine? Are the young ladies covered in gold and jewels?”

  “They have barely clothes to their backs,” said Catherine, lifting a slab of meat. “And what they have is not decent.”

  “It is impossible!” Diana lowered her spoon. “The king would not let his children go poor.”

  “Not all of his children do without,” said Catherine, “though I only work on the distaff side of the household. I expect the young prince is outfitted just fine.”

  Diana sputtered and complained until her father shooed her off to bed. “You will have royal night
mares, daughter. Get you to bed or you will have bags under your eyes.”

  Diana kissed Catherine’s cheek and bowed goodnight to her father and departed as she was instructed. Eleanor slipped out behind her.

  “What did they say when you stripped the girl?” Benjamin said, once his daughter had gone.

  “I didn’t strip her bare. I simply took off the thick wooly thing they’d stuck her in. Poor child, it’s a wonder she could stand up at all.”

  Benjamin cleaned his teeth with a wooden pick. “So you have come over to the side of the Protestant bastard at last, have you?”

  Catherine emptied her wine goblet and set it hard onto the board. “I am on no one’s side. I order food for the two daughters. The little one was ailing with an obvious constipation and I did what I could do to ease her. She’s a child. That’s all. Her religion is not my concern.”

  “There are some who would let Elizabeth Tudor choke on her own shite and laugh all the while. There are some who would stuff a footstool for the Lady Mary with Elizabeth’s guts.”

  “Don’t be vulgar. Anyone with a thread of humanity would have given the child a physic. It’s nothing more than her mother would have done.” Catherine’s teeth caught her tongue. “Her lady-in-waiting, I mean to say.”

  “Indeed.” Benjamin’s eyes narrowed. “The Boleyn woman couldn’t ease her own pain. And someone must find her daughter a husband before she gets much older. God help the child.”

  “God works through human hands,” said Catherine. “As does Satan. And a husband? Honestly, Benjamin. The girl is not yet five.”

  Benjamin scratched at the beard on his cheeks and yawned. “I have nothing to say to the methods of heaven and hell, but I know a girl who needs to be spoken for when I see one. Now Mary Tudor is different. That young woman is too mad for a husband. Did you say your prayers to the Virgin as you made the child drink your potion?”

  Catherine pushed back. “What makes you say that?”

  Benjamin leaned his chair onto two legs and regarded Catherine at a sharp angle. “Your husband has enough on his hands trying to be lord of his manor. Poor man, made an heir when he was raised to be a priest. He knows little of women, less of women like you.”