Traitor's Kiss

by Pauline Francis

  I burst into fresh tears. “How shall I manage without you?” I asked.

  “You have managed without a mother all these years,” she replied. “How will you know the difference?” She let me kiss her. “You are not out of the woods yet, Elizabeth. This scandal will haunt you for years to come.”

  In Chelsea Woods, no men came from the trees, except Robert Dudley. I did not expect to see him. He had made no contact with me. Even my brother had not sent a word of goodbye.

  Kat helped me from the litter and rode to a discreet distance to let us make our farewells under an oak tree, thick with new leaves.

  Robert dismounted. In the same woods where I had been called the Boleyn bastard, we faced each other. My heart lifted at the sight of him, until I saw that his face was a mask of dislike and anger. “I didn’t need to look for you in Bedlam,” he said. “There was talk of little else at the May Day joust…of you and Tom Seymour.”

  “He kissed me, Robert. I didn’t kiss him,” I said. “You feared Francis, yet the danger came from my stepfather.” I was trying not to cry. “Alys told me the truth and I was so happy when I came back…so happy that I said too much. If Tom’s tongue loosens and lashes out, he might seek out Francis…”

  “Why? I don’t understand.”

  “Tom is desperate for power, you know that. He’ll say that he uncovered a plot to topple the King and my brother will thank him and…”

  “But Tom doesn’t know Francis’s name or where he lives.”

  “He has spies everywhere. How long would it take him to flush out a boy who works on the river?”

  “It won’t happen,” Robert said, his voice more soothing. “You imagine it will because you’re upset now. In a few days…”

  “In a few days—” I almost screamed. “Lady Catherine says this scandal will haunt me for a long time. Robert, will you promise, although you dislike me today and you don’t know what to believe…will you promise that if Francis or his mother are ever in danger that you will warn them to leave England? Give them money to go, if you have to. Will you, Robert? For me?”

  His expression softened. “Yes, because I should have protected you better. I shouldn’t have let you go to Bedlam alone.” He took a rose from his cloak pocket and handed it to me.

  I breathed in its beautiful fragrance, felt my mother in the shadows around me. “I don’t know when we’ll meet again, Robert. I won’t be allowed to have visitors at Hatfield Palace, not even you. It will be worse than before, because now I’ve lost Lady Catherine’s trust, perhaps her love.”

  Kat signalled that it was time to be on our way, but I did not want to leave him. He helped me into the litter, began to draw the curtains.

  “Remember what you said at Shrovetide, Bess, when you spoke from your heart in public? Life is an illusion. We all see what we want to see, whether it is real or not. Pretend this is an illusion. Pretend that Francis is safe in France with his mother. If you don’t, then you’ll be as lost as they are.”

  I cried. I choked on the tears that I shed for my mother, for Lady Catherine, for Alys, for Francis – for the whole world. Robert held me. He did not try to kiss me on the lips as Tom Seymour had done, but he kissed the nape of my neck. My spine tingled, and I forgot all other kisses, even my mother’s.

  “God speed you and protect you, sweet Bess.”

  I looked at his face which was so dear to me. In the passage of time, his childish cheeks would harden, as no doubt would mine. His soft lips would tighten and I wanted to kiss them before they did. His skin would sprout black hair like Maggie Payne’s, not soft gold as it was now, and I prayed that mine would not. “And you, sweet Robert.”

  At the last minute, he tried to kiss me, as he had done on my birthday, when I was his moon, his star, his fairy queen. I turned my face away. “No, Robert. We must love in private, never in public. We don’t know who might be watching us. I’ll have to live quietly at Hatfield for a long time, until the King invites me back to court. One day, Robert, when we’re alone…”

  “You’ll always have me, Bess. Wherever you are…wherever I am.”

  We parted – he to return to London and me to take the dusty road to Hertfordshire.

  I had come this way almost a year before with expectation of great happiness with Lady Catherine. Now I was returning to my palace in disgrace, alone, except for Kat and hanging over me a scandal that might haunt me for years to come.

  I held Robert’s rose all the way from London, peeling away the damp petals. By the time we stopped for our first night on the Great North Road, its petals had shrivelled in my hand.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Hatfield Palace, Hertfordshire

  Scandal made a prisoner of me that lonely and cruel summer.

  I had too much time to lick my wounds, to curse myself for what had happened. I went over the scene in the kitchen many times. Had I been to blame? Had I encouraged my stepfather in any way? I heard Lady Catherine’s pitiful moan, saw her clutch her swollen belly as she called out, “Traitors!” and sometimes her face and belly became my mother’s when she had let me pat her belly and promised me a baby brother.

  When their faces haunted me to the point of madness, I sought fresh air. I walked in the garden where my mother and I had played hide-and-seek and lingered by the fountain where she had dangled me to cool my feet. And if it rained, I went to the nursery where she had steadied me on my rocking horse. I curled up on my little silver-tasselled bed, my mother’s box and Lady Catherine’s book side by side on the pillow, breathing in the scent of leather and roses.

  As August gave way to early autumn days, I waited to hear the news of Lady Catherine’s child. Would she forgive me in the joy of motherhood? Would she invite me to Gloucestershire to see her baby?

  On my fifteenth birthday, a rider, dressed in Seymour livery, came early to the main door. I ran downstairs, only in my night robe, eager for news of her child, and for her invitation.

  Kat was already at the open door, pale-faced, and by her side Blanche Parry was weeping. Kat held out her arms for me and I buried my face in her bodice. “My dearest Bess, Lady Catherine is dead,” she whispered. “Childbed fever took her as it did poor Jane Seymour. I said it would be dangerous at her age. Tom Seymour has a healthy daughter, named Mary.”

  I sank into grief at once. I was carried to my bed, almost senseless with the sorrow of it. By nightfall, my body was swollen with dropsy, worse than last Christmastide, more swollen than the bodies that Francis took from the Thames.

  In the weeks that followed, Lady Catherine’s death took me to the brink of madness. I had seen enough lost souls in Bedlam to make me fear losing my mind. I held onto it, although I stared into the abyss many times.

  “Am I with child, Kat?” I asked.

  “Foolish girl, of course not,” she said. “One kiss doesn’t make a baby – only a fool,” she said.

  When I came to my senses, every tree stood leafless, every flower long gone. The silver woods of Chelsea and the hell of Bedlam were as far away as the moon that was now sharp with frost.

  When I was well enough to be left with Blanche Parry, Kat visited London. Without her, the restlessness that comes from anxiety overwhelmed me. I fretted for Francis in his gruesome boat, and Alys, chained to her wall.

  Kat came back bursting with news of Thomas Seymour – unwelcome news.

  “Tom Seymour weeps for his dead wife and baby; but he keeps her ladies-in-waiting to serve you when you marry him.”

  “Tom Seymour boasts of becoming your brother’s Protector with bribes of money and sweets. If he doesn’t curb his behaviour, he’ll be in the Tower by Christmastide.”

  “Tom Seymour talks of a secret plot to take the throne from your brother. If he can find out who the plotter is, he’ll have the fellow hung, drawn and quartered and spiked on Traitor’s Gate.”

  Tom. Tom. Tom. It hurt my head.

  I had fretted. Now I feared for Francis. I even feared for myself.

  Thomas S
eymour is not a man to have his power curtailed, I thought. If he cannot have the King in his grasp by marrying me, will he expose Francis, proclaiming himself a more worthy Protector than his brother Edward? Another pup mewling for its master, he had said on Twelfth Night. Such pups should be drowned at birth.

  I had asked Robert Dudley to warn Francis of any danger. Had I asked too much of him? Why should he do it? How could he? I longed to be able to warn Francis. But Bedlam was too far and I was still too weak.

  Two weeks before Christmastide, we removed briefly to Elsynge Palace in Enfield, less than a dozen miles from London. In our absence, Hatfield Palace would be cleansed and made ready for the twelve days of Christmastide, which we would spend alone, for no invitation had come from the King. It was no more than I expected, but I missed him. I missed everybody, even Mary.

  Kat and Master Parry, my steward, had business in London. My isolation at Enfield hurt even more. So close to where I had lived so happily – yet now so far. In my still-tortured mind, I saw Lady Catherine, her pretty palace, her perfumed roses leading down to the river – all for ever beyond my reach.

  Soon, it was other images that came to haunt me day and night. I saw Francis at the bottom of the Thames – because of me. I saw Alys still chained in Bedlam – because of me. They had given me back my mother and asked for nothing. Now I must give them something in return: a safe passage to France.

  The months of near solitude at Hatfield Palace had taught me that there would be nobody to help me. I had once found the courage to go to Bedlam alone. Now I would summon up that courage to return.

  It is easy to ride out on a foggy night. Everybody sleeps early, for there are no stars and no moon to keep them watching at the windows. Fog dulls and muffles every sight and sound. I would be no witch riding alone through the black night. I acted out the simplest illusion of all: I rode out as a man. I took my stallion, Troy, for he was swifter than my gentle mare. I led him slowly across the cobbles, slipping a coin into the gatekeeper’s hands. Blanche Parry was sleeping like a baby when I left. Even if she had glanced at me in half-sleep, she would not have known me. I wore black breeches and black riding boots that had belonged to Edward, and they pinched my feet. I wore the black cloak that had hidden me last May Eve. It still stank of Bedlam.

  My hair was troublesome. I twisted and pinned and netted it until my arms ached. I thought of the piglet boys from Shrovetide. I would wear no false beard, although I wished for more hair upon my chin, like Maggie’s. My throat thickened at the memory of her kitchen, warm and sweet with sugar.

  In my saddlebag were clothes for Alys, stolen from Kat. I could find nothing that would have fitted Francis. Inside my cloak pockets was enough money for their passage to France. I would force Alys to take it.

  I was one of the unhappiest people to cling to a horse, so unhappy that Troy smelled my fear rising from me like the steam from his flanks. He reared and refused until I calmed him with sugar.

  Mile after mile I galloped. On the Great North Road I feared walkers most. Riders and carters would have no need of a horse but an exhausted man on foot could steal Troy as soon as look at me. So I did not dare trot or canter.

  As we plunged through the damp fog, I remembered the story that Maggie had told me, the one that every Gloucestershire child heard at its mother’s knee – the one of a dying witch who regretted the evil she had done in her long life. She wanted a Christian funeral when she died, and she begged her children to tie up her coffin with chains so that the devil could not claim her back. They did as she asked. But the devil did come for her. He rode in on a horse with spikes ridging its back, to punish her for turning to God. He broke open the coffin chains, brought her back to life and sat her on his horse. “She can still be heard screaming in the hills,” Maggie had said.

  I was that wretched woman. Pains shot down my legs, through my buttocks, down my arms. Would I slowly die on the back of my horse and be condemned to ride this road for ever?

  Grey fog, brown fog. Then the black fog that told me I was close to London. Before the city wall, I recognized Moor Field and its little church, its spire swallowed by fog. In agony, I dismounted, tied Troy to a tree and entered the church. I sank to the flagstones, crying out in pain from my tormented limbs. The stink of the floor made me heave. Here people had recently relieved themselves, and not just of their sins.

  Above me was Christ’s body, bent low by his cross, the blood on his hands and feet seeping through the whitewashed walls. My father had destroyed the monasteries. My brother was destroying the churches. Such a waste, I thought, the whitewashing of the old faith into the new. One faith, one Christ. But I liked the new faith. Without it, I would not have been born.

  I went the rest of the way on foot. It is a terrible thing to be alone in London after dark, even if you are dressed as a man. But soon I forgot my tormented limbs and strode like a man. No wonder men walk this world. They wear no dainty shoes and silk to slow them down.

  This was no night of merriment and magic, of whispered secrets and softened footsteps like last May Eve. It was a night for evil, when the stench of the fog itself catches the back of your throat, and clogs it with terror.

  When I had first come to Bedlam, I was haughty and arrogant, although I did not know it. I had thanked God that I had been born to the King and Queen of England. Now I saw the horrors with the eyes of an outcast myself and the sight unsettled me. The stone alcoves of London Wall were crammed with children who clung to my cloak, like leeches to wounds, sore-skinned, filthy-faced and barefoot. Their eyes begged. I wanted to give them money, but I dared not draw attention to myself, dared not risk being robbed of the money I carried for Alys.

  If ever I were Queen, I would help these wretches. I would have them eating out of my hand and they would never go hungry again.

  No questions were asked at the gate of Bedlam. The silver coin gave me entrance once more. I remembered to pay for a candle. Then I pulled my cloak around my face, held my breath and prepared to step into the filthy gloom.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Alys would weep again when she saw me. She would say that I was as brave as my mother. My agonized limbs hardly carried me through the vile cloisters where screams pierced my consciousness and set my heart racing, to the windowless corridor to her cell door.

  I paused. There was no scent of rosemary and mint and may blossom – only a sour stench. I smiled at my foolishness. It was now December, not May and their scent would have long since died. There was no clicking of her knitting needles – only a scuttling and a scampering.

  My heart thudded as I went in.

  Alys’s chains hung loose. Her ragged clothes were neatly folded next to them, wriggling with rats. I held my candle to every corner, to make sure that she was not huddled there.

  Her cell was empty.

  My heart lifted. Francis must have taken her to France.

  I forced every aching muscle to move again. Like a drowning woman gasping for air, I ran through the cloisters. I would never have stopped running but for the creature that came from the shadows, whether at the sight of me or by chance I did not know. Wreathed in the fog seeping through the skylight, it rose, like a writhing sinner in hell’s smoke; but only as far as its clanking chains would allow.

  Hypnotized by the sound, I could not move. Then the creature tried to stand. It was a woman who must have once been tall and straight, now bowed by chains.

  I held up my candle. “Alys?” I called. I saw that this was some other woman, wrinkled and almost bald. She watched my candle shine onto a pool of water and bent down to lap it. My stomach heaved. I paused to let the feeling pass. Then I turned to go.

  Behind me, I heard a sharp intake of breath, like a sword swishing through the air. The sound rooted me with fear. I shuddered, as if something cold touched my neck. It had happened, as I had always feared. A swordsman had crept up behind me and I was not kneeling in readiness; I had not made my peace with God or spoken my words of forgiveness.
But there was no flash of silver, no pain, no eternal silence. Instead a voice called, “Traitor!” and rough hands gripped my neck through the bars, knocking off my cap.

  I fought with the fury of somebody who fears that death is close. Pushing my feet against the bars, I pulled myself away long enough for the hands to briefly slacken and release me. I slumped to the ground, hair uncoiling, desperate for breath.

  The angry voice quietened to a whispered question: “Lady Elizabeth?”

  I looked up at a young man. His face and clothes were blurred in front of me, but I made out his turquoise hose and the orange silk that showed on his velvet sleeves and breeches. He wore a short ruff, though unhooked and hanging loose, and an orange plume in his cap. Where had I seen these clothes before? As my breathing calmed, I saw that the buttons had been torn from his doublet, the buckles from his shoes.

  They were Robert Dudley’s clothes, though now the worse for wear. He had worn them when he came to dine on my birthday. But it was not Robert clutching the bars. It was Francis.