Behind us, Thomas Seymour was chuckling.
“I know. I was there… A princess of seventeen, forced to watch my father’s puta…” She broke off, crying, and ran from the Great Hall.
“In vino veritas,” my stepfather said. “It seems that she’s drunk on God’s blood.”
Concerned, I followed Mary up the staircase into the gloom of the first floor, into my birthing room: the Chamber of the Wise Virgins. The pungent smell of camphor hit me. Dust dulled the curtains and the bright colours of the tapestries.
My father had wanted no wise virgin daughter, but a son.
I gave up the Pope for this, he had said.
Mary had lifted a small candle from the wall bracket outside the door. Now it lit a chair, a table and an enormous bed, shrouded with purple silk – the bed where my mother had laboured for many hours. I had seen it many times, but the sight still tightened my throat.
My sister was clutching her stomach. She had not seen me behind her. “It was here that the puta spawned her daughter, Elizabeth – infanta del diablo – and I was forced to watch its birth and if I had the chance I would have snuffed out its life…” I had never heard such words spill from her lips and I hoped that I had misunderstood her Spanish. She paused to open a small velvet bag, to take out a piece of lace; a narrow bottle; a lock of hair.
Her relics. Her past.
“The whore sold her body to sit on the throne of Inglaterra; but she sat there for only three years…”
I stood spellbound. Yet my heart filled with pity for her, for her mother had died only months before mine. “Maria, Maria,” I called softly. Her voice trailed away. I went and embraced her gently, felt her bones under my fingers. “Hush, Mary. What’s made you to speak like this tonight? You’ve never blamed me for…what my mother did.”
“The sight of you,” she spat.
She pulled the stopper from the bottle and held it to my nose. I recoiled. “It is poison,” she whispered, “like the one that turned my mother’s heart black, that poor heart that loved your father too much.” She forced the bottle to my nostrils. It reeked of filthy water. “The witch whore sent it to her. I never saw my mother before she died. That witch would not permit it.”
I stroked her hand, full of pity for her ravaged face. Then I gently pushed the bottle away. “Mary, we both know what it’s like to be called bastards, and neglected because we were not princes,” I said. “We both have mothers whose lives were in danger from the moment they gave birth to daughters…and we both let our mothers rule us from the grave.”
“How could our mothers be the same?” she spat at me. She held up the slender candle to my face. “You think that the crown will sit upon your head, sister, if dear Edward dies, just because you share the same faith. But it will be mine. I have worn Christ’s crown of thorns all my adult life and my head throbs with pain. My grandmother was the Queen of Spain. My mother was the Queen of England. I shall be Maria Regina. You are a bastarda.” She hissed the word. “That whore was never married to my father. She signed a document to confess it… She made you a bastarda.”
I ceased to hear any more. It was not the last word that took my breath away – I had been declared illegitimate after my mother’s death – but I did not know that my own mother had signed away my name.
“No…no…no…” I muttered.
“Oh, si, si, si,” she shouted, triumphant. Her voice hissed like the candle. “In God’s eyes, you will always be a bastarda. GO. Go and hide away in the dark.”
I went straight to Archbishop Cranmer. “Please, Your Grace, help me,” I whispered.
As he laid his hands on my head, his voluminous sleeves enclosed me like heavenly clouds. I let my body soften. “God is here, child,” he intoned. “He is helping you.”
I removed his hands, held them so tight that he winced. “I need your help,” I insisted. I had never dared to question him about my mother. “You were with my mother in the Tower at her last communion. Did she say anything about me?”
“She spoke to God, not to me.”
“Your Grace, you are my godfather. Tell me the truth. Did she sign anything before she died?”
He avoided my desperate eyes. “I was shocked by the accusations against her,” he said.
“I don’t mean that.” My voice rose. His attendants closed in, but he waved them back. “The old faith keeps man in a state of awe and ignorance. The new faith lets us hear the truth with our own ears, not a priest’s. You are translating our prayer book from Latin into English so that soon everybody can understand what happens when we pray. Yet you cannot tell me the truth. It is a simple question: did she sign away my royal name?”
He glanced at my brother, who was taking his place at the head of the table, his lopsided shoulders scarcely supporting his head with its heavy crown.
“I…I can’t…” He began to gently push me away from him with his foot, as you do a beggar.
“Take care, Your Grace, let me make it as plain as your prayer book. My brother looks unwell tonight, don’t you think? He often does. And my poor tutor, Master Grindal, burns with fever. What will you do when my sister Mary sits on the throne? Do you think she will forgive you, banning her Mass, smashing her statues and saints, forcing her followers into the woods? She will have those trees chopped down to make your wood pile and you will burn on Tower Hill long before you get to hell.”
His attendants would have handled me as roughly as a common beggar, but he signalled them to leave me, as he did. “May God protect you, Your Grace,” he whispered, “and lead you to the truth.”
Only Alys could do that. But without Francis, I did not know where she was. And if I found out, could I trust her now? Or did she seek to put her son on the throne of England?
Chapter Eight
I went down to the river, watching the winter’s day deepen into dusk from the water steps. Usually this is my favourite time of the year, when all is icy sheen on land and water. The Thames shimmered under its thin crust of ice. Beyond, barges jostled for space at the moorings, their bargemen huddled over warming ale.
The Romans called it Tamesis, the dark river. In my mind it was now the river of the dead.
The clouds thinned and parted. A full moon spilled its glorious light onto the water. I fancied that the moon was my mother’s head floating free. She used to look at me with love and kiss me all the time and cool my feet in the fountain…I remember it all now…so why did she choose, at the last moment, to annul her marriage to my father and leave me without a royal name?
I stared into the glittering water that could take me to Alys, taking care not to fall in, for I knew that the weight of my furs would drag me down to the mud. She could tell me the secrets of my mother’s soul, as no perfume could.
“It wouldn’t be worth the trouble of throwing yourself in, for I’d pull you out,” a voice said. It was a gentle voice with a French accent. “It would be rich pickings for me though – a Princess.”
So silently had his little boat drifted to the water steps that I smelled Francis before I saw him – the stench of death and decay that I had smelled when I first met him. He held up his lantern with bare hands that were clawed with cold. His pinched face flared with sores.
“The river always gives up its dead, however long it takes,” he said. “And when you float to the surface your body’s bloated with stinking water and your eye sockets scuttle with crabs…”
Part of me had longed to see him again, for nobody but his mother could tell me what I wanted to know. And part of me was consumed by anger that he had dared to show his face again. I glanced towards the guards at the top of the water steps. They would not move unless I commanded them, although they watched my every move. “If you do not tell me who you really are, I shall have you arrested now,” I said. “I only have to shout one word – treason – and they’ll take you to the Tower.”
“Shout it then, if that’s what you want.” His lantern rattled as the boat bobbed. Francis looked as wretc
hed as those he pulled from the water.
I leaned towards him, straining to be heard above the noise of the bargemen. “So is it true? Are you my father’s natural son?” I wanted him to deny it.
“Yes. Does it matter?”
“Of course it does. It smacks of conspiracy.”
He raised his eyebrows. “Is it a conspiracy when a woman sacrifices her own reputation for the woman she serves?” he asked. “Do you know that a man can’t lie with his wife when she’s with child? It’s against the church’s teaching.”
Could he see my blush in the near-darkness? “Of course I do,” I said, although I did not know it.
“That’s when men often take mistresses, especially kings. When your mother was with child – with you – your mother chose mine to lie with your father until you were born. It’s common practice. For your father, this was almost the same as being faithful to your mother. For her, it was a way of keeping her husband close by.”
“So we are almost the same age? I thought that…”
“I look older,” he replied. “It’s the life I’ve been forced to lead.”
My rage quietened. I sank to the steps, deep in thought. Icy water seeped into my velvet shoes. How much wiser Francis seemed than me. How little I understood of the world and the way it worked.
“When my mother found herself with child, just before your birth, your mother sent her to friends in France,” he went on. “She left me there to come back to court. She didn’t expect your mother to die so soon, not when your father…our father…loved her so much.”
“Was your mother with her when she died?”
“Oh, yes. But she could not bear to stay here afterwards. She was afraid of protesting your mother’s innocence too much. She would have done it – but for me. So she returned to France and we lived on the kindness of friends until your father died.”
This talk of our mothers was so natural, so welcome that it soothed me. Longing for mine washed over me like the water at my feet. What would I give to talk to Alys for an hour, a minute, a second?
“Where does your mother live, Francis?” I asked. “Is it far?” I smiled at him for the first time.
He was lost for words. I tried to help him, sensing that he was ashamed of his poverty. “It does not matter if you live in a simple cottage or worse, a hovel in the mud… Kat could fill my pomander with fresh lavender and—”
Francis laughed, the lusty laugh of my father, and so loud that one of the guards moved forward. Then he began to mutter, as if to himself. “Nothing can prepare you for what you’ll see and hear. The devil is King there…” His voice faltered. I thought that shame still stopped him from naming some wretched place.
“Where is she, Francis?”
He might have struck me with his oar, for he whispered a word so foul that it stopped my breath.
He whispered, “Bedlam.”
Had I misheard? My heart thudded. Who had not heard of Bedlam – St Bethlehem’s Hospital for lunatics, by Bishops Gate in London Wall, where poor souls shrieked and cried the devil’s nonsense day and night?
Pity drained from me. I was the one who shrieked. “So you’ve chosen to mock me, Francis, like the man in the woods, like Jane, like Mary. You’re as steeped in spite as they are. You’ve preyed on my longing for my mother, just because you couldn’t know your father. It’s—”
“Listen to me—”
“Listen? I’ve listened all my life and what have I heard? Lies. And now – more lies.” I stamped my foot, cursing. “Cranmer won’t tell me the truth. My stepfather won’t, although he tempts me with titbits. I thought your mother would.”
“She will…”
“How can she, when she’s lost her wits?”
“Listen. Bedlam’s full of women who must be silenced because they’re seen to be troublesome,” he said. “There are wives who accuse their husbands of being unfaithful, and daughters who accuse their fathers of…lewd acts. Yes, put such women in Bedlam and they’re silenced. Let them shriek and shout all day and rattle their chains all night and nobody listens. Don’t you understand? You can speak the truth in Bedlam and nobody believes it.”
“Are you saying that your mother isn’t mad?”
“Yes…although it’s a wonder she isn’t, with the sights she’s seen. We came back from France after your father died last year, to offer you the silver box, to offer you the truth. But my mother reckoned without her father. He feared that she’d bring shame to the family by seeking you out, by speaking out. He put her in Bedlam – her own father! He refused to recognize me as his grandson. So I fend for myself. This is why I work like this, to earn money to take us back to France.”
“Do you expect me to believe you?” I moaned. “It isn’t fair. It isn’t fair.”
“No, it isn’t. She’s in Bedlam because of you.”
I did not know what to believe. It is in this way that plots are skilfully woven. Each thread is so perfect that its subtleties cannot always be seen. If this was a plot to bring me down, then Bedlam was the supreme deception. Devious, designed to mislead. If I entered its dreadful doors, I might swiftly disappear.
“So, do you still want to speak to her?” he asked.
I have many weaknesses – my temper, my dropsy, my impatience – but it is my reluctance to make decisions that plagues me more than anything else. If I did not have maidservants to dress me, I would stay in my night robe all day. If I must make a decision, I put it off. Kat is driven insane by it.
My heart thudded with sudden panic. How could I go to Bedlam? Such things are impossible for princesses. How could I escape Kat’s eyes? How could I escape other prying eyes? Bedlam was more than two miles from Chelsea Palace. I saw danger everywhere: in the dark river that could take me to hell or to my death, in my sister’s hatred, in Seymour’s fingers across my neck.
I wanted to be safe in the pink palace behind me with Kat and Lady Catherine and Robert Dudley. As I pondered it all, a long shadow fell across me. Oars creaked in the icy darkness and the wash of Francis’s boat lapped against the steps as he pushed away.
Francis had seen my stepfather, who was snatching a fire torch from the guard to hold over the water. “Who is that boy?” he asked me. He wrinkled his nose. “I can smell his stench from here.”
“Nobody.”
“I’m not a fool, Bess. Princesses don’t talk to stinking boys in stinking boats. Kate has told me about such a boy…the one you saw on your brother’s birthday. Is he another pup mewling for its master?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, Kate says he has the look of your father. London is full of such pups, claiming to be his son. They should be drowned at birth.” Thomas Seymour took me by the arm and pulled me to my feet. My legs barely supported me as he led me towards the fire brazier to warm me. “Look at you, child. You’re angry. You’re distressed. What has he said? Tell me his name and I can warn him off. Princesses are easy prey, Bess.”
For just one moment, I was tempted. I wanted to trust my stepfather. I wished that I did not feel so alone. But I knew how Thomas Seymour would warn Francis – with the mud at the bottom of the Thames. If I gave up Francis now, I would never hear the truth about my mother.
He touched my cheek. “Who is he, Bess?”
“Nobody,” I insisted.
We returned to the warmth of the Great Hall. I was still shivering with shock. Jane lent me her gloves. Kat brought me dry shoes. Edward was waiting, drumming his thin fingers on the table. Mary was already seated at his right hand. My chair waited empty, at his left. I sank into it, shaking with cold, cursing that I had missed my chance a second time.
“All my children gathered together,” Lady Catherine said.
“An ill-assorted trinity, no?” Mary snapped, her voice cold.
My face must have been terrible to see, for Mary whispered her apologies and blamed the wine. But my distress brought no other comment. It was nothing unusual. Twelve days of cramped chambers, stale air and ove
rindulgence had made us all red-eyed and irritable.
The Twelfth Night cake was brought in towards ten o’clock. It was a masterpiece. Baked in the shape of the palace, it gleamed with gilded marzipan. As tradition required, a pea and a bean had been hidden inside. Whoever found the bean would be King of Twelfth Night. Whoever found the pea, would be his Queen. As tradition also required, Edward spat the bean from his mouth to loud cheers. The pea dropped from Mary’s mouth as she ate, but she did not even feel it. Forbidden to carry the rosary beads of the old faith, they had been sewn into the folds of her underskirt and as she touched them, her face took on the rapture that you feel when you scratch a flea bite.
The pea rolled along the table. Jane could have caught it, but she shrank back. So could I. I tried, but it slipped through my numbed fingers and into the gaping mouth of Edward’s spaniel.
A fitting end to a vile Christmastide – a dog on the throne of England.
Kat undressed me. “Thank the Lord. I shall sleep in my own bed tomorrow night,” she said.
And I in mine, I thought. But how shall I sleep with Thomas Seymour prowling like a thief in the night?
Mary. Francis. Their so-called truths robbed me of sleep. Only fatigue stopped me hurling the perfume box from my window into the Thames. I used it instead, although there was little left.
The fragrance brought back the memory of my mother as it always did. I am here at Greenwich. I recognize the twin towers of the tilt yard. There is no frost. The air is scented with may blossom drifting down onto my mother’s hair as she leans from the window to watch the joust. I can feel the wild beating of her heart when she holds me out to my father. It is the first time I have seen them together, the first time I have seen my father when he was young and strong – and there is little doubt that Francis is his son. He smiles at me. He shouts at her. Then they tug me, each taking an arm and a leg, almost splitting me from top to toe.
My father leaves suddenly and her tears splash onto my face like spring rain. They run along my little nose and into my mouth and I do not like the salty taste and soon I am crying with her and I bury my face in her fragrant hair that smells of her perfume. Her body reeks of fear, rank and sour.
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