“Somebody has to do it,” Francis called back. “Do you think you could take your fancy barges up and down the river if I didn’t? Anyway, the dead don’t care for celebrations.”
The front oarsman shouted, “Doff your cap to the King’s mother and sister.” He reached over, pulled off the woollen hat, and Francis’s hair sprang out, as red and as gold as mine. He quickly snatched the hat back, sat down with his companion and rowed towards London Bridge.
And I sank into sombre thoughts.
If Francis truly earned his living in this way, did Alys live in a rat-filled hovel somewhere on the river? If she did, then there would be no rose petals and marzipan and honeyed milk for me. Well, I would face it for my mother’s sake. I would take fresh lavender in my pomander.
It was a sad party that greeted Edward at the water steps of Whitehall Palace. My heart turned over at the sight of his serious little face. Poor Edward – whom I could no longer scoop into my arms and smother with kisses, because he was now the King. He was peevish at the sight of our wretched faces. He commanded us to be cheerful for his birthday.
“Ah – the little lion cub is sharpening his claws,” Robert said. “Make sure he doesn’t sink them into you, Bess.”
“He’s my brother,” I replied. “We would never hurt each other.”
I brightened as we entered his palace. I still missed the fun of living at court. Women are not permitted to live there if the King is not married.
I slipped away to the portrait gallery later that afternoon. I wanted to see my portrait again, the one I had had painted for my father the year before he died. I wanted to see how much I had changed.
The gallery at Whitehall Palace is as vast as Chelsea Palace. It is like walking in a summer garden, for its rush matting is always strewn with lavender and rose petals.
I had not entered it since my brother’s coronation in February. His portrait now hung where my father’s used to be. It was not the portrait of a King. That had not been painted yet. This was the profile of Edward when his cheeks still had the softness of childhood.
My portrait hung at his left hand. I was nearly thirteen when it had been painted. How sombre my face was. How innocent my eyes were. My glorious hair was restrained by a pearl-studded headdress. Pearls adorned my ears and my fingers. They circled my waist on a thin girdle, and my neck on the three-pearled pendant that matched Lady Catherine’s. The artist had taken great care. There was nothing in it that could have reminded my father of my mother.
My shoulders are so thin, I thought. They remind me of Jane’s. I have a woman’s body now, but I know that my eyes have not lost their innocence. Is this what Thomas Seymour sees?
At Edward’s right hand hung Mary, painted three years ago when she was twenty-eight, sweet-faced and fashionable in rich crimson velvet and brocade, rubies at her neck.
We’re all the King’s pups, I thought, but none from the same litter.
Then I noticed. Above Mary hung a portrait of her mother, Catherine of Aragon. Above Edward hung a portrait of his mother, Jane Seymour. My father had given up my spirited dark-eyed mother for her prissy smile so that he might have a son.
And above me? A blank wall.
I made my way to Lady Catherine, who had entered the gallery at the far end. She stood, head bowed and I think she might have been offering a prayer, for she stood in front of a portrait of my father when he was eighteen or nineteen. He was handsome and straight and strong-limbed.
“I wish I had known your father as a young man,” she said, “before he had to be carried to his throne on a chair.”
I had seen this portrait many times when I had come to court. But now I saw it differently. It confirmed what I should have already seen, something I did not want to see. Take away the sores. Take away the woollen hat. Take away the grime. Imagine a red-gold beard and it could have been Francis’s portrait hanging there. He was more like my father than the two bastard sons he had already recognized: Henry Blount, who had died at the age of seventeen, and my cousin Henry, the son of my mother’s sister. And more like my father than my brother Edward, eating marzipan downstairs.
My head swam.
Had I taken a gift from somebody who might be my brother? Never take gifts from a stranger, for there is always a price to pay. Or was it poison – a poison so slow that even now it was secretly destroying me? Was it a plot to remove me from the succession? Was it a Catholic conspiracy between Francis and my sister Mary? A bastard son can be dangerous. Everybody knows that. He can demand the throne of England if he dares and gather people around him to help.
Shock made me slow-witted as we returned to the King’s chambers. Francis was my only path to the truth about my mother. But if he was my father’s son, how could I hear the truth from a woman who must have been my father’s mistress? Of course I knew that my father had had mistresses, but for Alys to have borne his child… Could I trust her? A mother will do anything for her son. Was my mother’s perfume a bribe from Alys for her son’s rightful name?
Warm wine and sugar restored everybody’s spirits but mine. For the return journey to Durham House, Dudley and Guildford squeezed inside the canopy with us for the wind was spotted with rain. Robert and I were awkward with each other, as if we knew that the games of childhood were over.
We fell silent at the spot where we had seen Francis.
“That’s the boy I want you to find,” I said softly, cupping my hand around Robert’s ear. “Now I need to find him more than ever. There’s something I want to ask him, something he hasn’t told me.” I did not mention the likeness to my father and it was clear that Robert had not noticed it.
He cursed under his breath. “I can’t imagine what a broken creature the mother must be if her son has to fish bodies from the river,” he said.
“Please, Robert.”
“No. Keep away from him. He’s trouble.”
“It’s rude to whisper,” my stepmother said.
We did not speak again. My dreams of sugared rose petals and honeyed milk and sweet talk with Alys had faded as quickly as the autumn light.
Mistress Ellen broke the silence. Her eyes gleamed in the grey light. “I’ll tell you a sorry tale,” she began. “The Second Henry, like all Kings, had a mistress with skin and hair as pale as first snow, so beautiful that she was called Fair Rosamund. She bore the King two children…”
My heart plummeted. The sight of Francis that afternoon had unnerved me. I was in no mood for tales of Kings and their mistresses. I glared at Mistress Ellen, willing the barge to lurch and make her sick. But she was determined to entertain us.
“When he married, his wife Eleanor was so mad with jealousy that Henry built a palace for Rosamund, hidden deep inside a maze,” Mistress Ellen went on. “Only he knew the way. Eleanor sent servants to find it, but they never came back.”
I looked across at Jane and Guildford. They sat perfectly still, their faces pale in the reflection of the water.
“One night, Henry caught his foot in the hem of Rosamund’s night robe and when he left her, he unwound a silver thread like the silvery trail of a snail…”
“Like the silver thread of the Thames,” I snapped, trying to hurry the story to its conclusion. “And it led Eleanor to her husband’s mistress.”
Kat was angry. “Let her spin out her tale, Bess.”
“No, it’s told now,” Mistress Ellen said. She scowled at me.
“I’ll finish it then,” Kat said. “Eleanor followed the glittering thread, past hissing snakes and biting spiders, past trees that had pleated overhead, past the skeletons of her dead servants…” Robert tapped his foot against mine and pulled a gruesome face. But I could not laugh. “…until she came to a pink castle where Fair Rosamund was combing her glorious hair. Eleanor held up a dagger and a cup of poison. ‘How do you want to die?’ she asked.”
My body swayed.
“Dagger,” Robert said.
“Poison,” Jane shouted.
“I’ll finish,�
�� Mistress Ellen cut in. “Fair Rosamund drank from the poisoned cup and fell to the floor – dead.”
My throat tightened. This is how I shall die, I thought. The perfume is already seeping into my skin and slowly killing me.
“On her tomb, they carved: Here lies a rose not pure. She, the once-perfumed wench, now yields no perfume, but a stench.” Kat shrieked in triumph.
I screamed. I blamed the water, suddenly swelling in a sharp gust of wind that brought in dying leaves from the garlanded banks.
But Kat was warming to her audience. “It’s an east wind,” she warned. “We used to call it devil’s breath. Soon he’ll attack with greater force.”
“And when will that be, Kat?” Robert asked, touching my ankle with his foot.
“On All Hallows Eve, of course,” she said, “when the souls of the dead rattle at the windows to speak to us. It used to be a night for good, when we rang the church bells to help the dead on their way through purgatory to heaven. Now it’s a night when you wouldn’t want to step outside, for fear the devil will tread on your toes.”
“What will they do now that Edward has abolished purgatory?” Jane asked.
“I don’t know. Has the King told all these wandering souls?” Robert asked. “They might be surprised to find themselves homeless.”
They laughed. And so he cheered and charmed them all. But I felt only deep dread…felt the poison mingle with my blood. The sight of Francis in his death boat, the drowned girl, the portrait of my father, all conspired to fill my mind with gruesome thoughts of danger and death.
Thomas Seymour had returned from Devon, raging like a sea storm. “A devil of a job John Dudley has passed on to me,” he grumbled. “We need to build more ships if England’s to defend herself against invasion. Our fine forests will have to be chopped.”
“What will our Catholics do then?” I asked.
He shrugged. “They’ll go deeper and deeper into the woods until they become pixies. If they don’t, they’ll face the flames.”
“Faith should keep us alive, not dead,” I said.
“Wise Bess,” he murmured. He stared hard at me. “The river’s brought a bloom to your cheeks. Or was it Robert Dudley? Take care, my little rose. John Dudley will do anything for power. He’ll marry one of his sons to any woman who inherits the throne…after Edward.”
“Do you wish my brother dead, sir? That smacks of treason.”
“No, but he hasn’t got your father’s strong constitution. Your Robert Dudley might marry Mary, if she succeeds to the throne.”
“Then he will taste blood on her lips. Didn’t you once pursue her yourself?”
“Cruel Bess.”
“I was wise just now.”
“Cruel. Wise. Moderate in faith.” He laughed. “Yes, just as a Queen should be… Or a wife.”
“Lock my bedchamber door tonight, Kat,” I said.
“But, child, you hate to be shut in.”
“The devil might come in.”
“The devil doesn’t use doors,” she replied. “He slips through chinks and cracks and you might not recognize him, for he comes in many disguises.”
“Lock it anyway,” I snapped.
I was lavish with my mother’s perfume that night. I needed her protection against a world that had turned as black as the moonless night.
She is thinner than before and I am plumper. Yet her belly is swollen. She tugs my little hands towards it and her sleeves fall back and on the left hand, next to her little finger, is another finger, half-grown, squirming like a maggot, and I laugh and touch it so that it squiggles again, and as she leans over her belly her ribbon hangs loose from her neck, and I see the scarlet mark again that I saw before and she is whispering, “Soon, you shall have a brother, sweet Bess, and it will save my life.”
The sight of her frightens me. Boleyn witch, the man in the woods had called her.
I snapped the lid of the perfume box tight and pressed the bone by the side of my little finger. Then I searched my neck for moles and warts and felt between my breasts for a third nipple.
The devil did enter my bedchamber. This devil had a key. He must have taken off his shoes as the swordsman did when he approached my mother. I only felt his devil’s breath on my neck. I only heard the rustle of his sleeve as he touched my hair so lightly that it could have been no more than a moth, and his words no more than a dreamed whisper: “Oh, your mother was enchanting…you smell just like her…” Then: “They said that may blossom drifted onto your mother’s head,” he suddenly whispered, “lighting up her raven hair like pearls and as she prepared to leave this world, she took one and smelled it. And all the time, not a sound, from her or the crowd. Not one petal fell onto the swordsman or the sword, only onto her.”
Between sleep and waking, with her thin face still fresh in my mind, I burst into tears. “Everybody is willing to speak of her death,” I cried. “But nobody will speak of her life.”
He put his arm around my shoulders. I stiffened, confused. Oh, he was cunning. So silent, so gentle, that he made me think I was dreaming and in my half-sleep I moved towards him, until I remembered.
I screamed for Kat and she came running almost at once, drawing back the bed curtains, letting in the dull dawn. She scolded Seymour. He tried to charm her with jest and tickles, but when she threatened to tell Lady Catherine, he soured. “Cease your noise, madam,” he roared. “I have done nothing wrong.”
“Think of your daughter’s reputation, sir,” she pleaded.
“Hers?” he roared. “It seems I must think of my own, since I stand accused of…I know not what. What are you accusing me of, Mistress Ashley?” She eyed the bunch of keys, but dared not say more. “I am innocent,” my stepfather shouted. “And if you continue with this slander, I shall tell my brother the Protector, and he will punish you for it.”
He left without bowing to either of us.
“There speaks a guilty man,” Kat said. “If you are truly innocent, there is no need to say so.”
The days darkened. Mid-winter imprisoned us with bitter winds and dark fogs. They lowered my spirits, made me brood on the last few weeks.
I had trusted Francis. Now it seemed that he had not told me the truth about himself. Had he plotted to lure me to a hovel on the riverbank where my life would swiftly end, bringing him one step closer to the throne of England? Perhaps his mother knew nothing of it. Yet who had warned Francis to hide his hair under that ridiculous hat so that nobody would see the resemblance to my father?
When my thoughts torment me, as they have done since childhood, I turn to music and dancing. My spirits rose at the thought of Christmastide.
We would go to Greenwich Palace, a small palace on the south bank of the Thames, built to receive visitors who sailed into Gravesend from Europe. This is where my father was born and died. This is where I was born. It is my favourite palace.
Then, too late, I remembered. It would be a sombre celebration: no music, no dancing, no gambling, no cockfights or bear baiting, for it would almost be the first anniversary of my father’s death.
Well, I would wear white and silver again for Robert Dudley and we would dance together in our minds.
Chapter Seven
“You should not be living with a woman who has dishonoured our father’s name,” Mary protested. Her deep voice carried to the painted ceiling. “You should have come to live with me when I invited you. Living with her will damage your reputation.”
“But Mary, Lady Catherine is one of your closest friends. Don’t you miss her?”
She shook her head.
It had been a sombre Christmastide at Greenwich Palace. On this last and twelfth night, people were quarrelsome after so long together without their usual distractions. Robert Dudley, ill with a fever, had already gone home.
“She has betrayed our father’s memory by marrying so soon after his death and without the King’s permission,” Mary went on. “That is treason. And if she had been with child, whose baby would it
have been?” She flopped like an overblown rose in her red damask dress and rubies. Together we made a true Tudor rose, the white against the red.
“But she isn’t, so it doesn’t matter,” I said. “Our little brother wants her to be happy.”
“But he does not want me to be happy,” she complained. “He forbids me so much – my rosary, my Mass, my crucifix.” She winced. Looking down, I saw that she clutched her crucifix: so encrusted with rubies that Christ’s blood seemed to seep from her hand. “And he expects me to eat in the same room as him.” She looked towards Thomas Cranmer, the Archbishop of Canterbury, seated in the corner of the room. “Do you know why his cheeks are so plump for such an old man?”
“No. Does he eat too much?”
“The devil lives inside his mouth and speaks for him. He mocks God’s mystery.”
“No, Mary, he makes God’s words plain for all to understand,” I replied. “Thanks to him, people will soon be able to read the Book of Common Prayer in English instead of Latin… Well…those who can read.”
Now Mary frowned at me as she had frowned every day for the twelve days of Christmastide, even when we had exchanged gifts. She had grown sadder and stouter in the months since Edward’s coronation. She must have been at a forbidden Mass, for her faded auburn hair gave off the smell of incense, like the man in Chelsea Woods.
“And you are different,” she said. “I liked you best before.”
“Before what?”
“Before you grew to look like…her…that woman who stole my father from my mother. I have been watching you this last week. When you laugh and flash your eyes, men – I mean, Robert Dudley…Thomas Seymour – come running. Do they come running for me? No. Jamás. I am too kind, too gentle. I—”
Anger feeds upon anger. Now I spoke with equal rage. “Do you think that men want to kiss a woman whose lips reek constantly of God’s blood?” I cried. “Why don’t you pray to God as we do? And – perhaps you’ve forgotten? – my mother has a name. She’s called Anne. Anne Boleyn. She was the Queen of England and she gave birth to me here.”
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