Traitor's Kiss

by Pauline Francis

  Since May Eve, he had grown more and more like my father as a young man – in the fullness of his lips, in his red-gold beard, now matted and stiff with dried spittle. He took off his cap, made a short bow. Only his hair was different. He had tugged out handfuls, exposing the sores of scrofula.

  “Francis? What are you doing here?” I asked. “Where’s your mother?”

  His eyes wandered up to the rotting roof and back to the filthy flagstones. Then they settled on my face. He drew back his lips over his dirty teeth and laughed, so strangely that I did not know whether he might be mad or not. “I wanted nothing of your world,” he said. “I told you that on May Eve. It’s false, where a promise means nothing, where only lies flourish…”

  “Where is she?” I asked again.

  “She’s dead.”

  My heart lurched. I must have cried out loud enough for the old woman to tell me to stop my woman’s wailing. I touched Francis’s cheek and watched his tears twinkling in the candlelight, each one as perfect as the pearls on Lady Catherine’s brooch.

  “How?” I asked. He did not reply and I rattled the bars to keep his attention. “I’ve not ridden like the devil all the way from Enfield only to ride back without knowing.”

  “Dudley came to warn me that your stepfather was wild with grief, wild for power, was asking about a red-haired boy in a death-boat,” he replied. “He had to act before Seymour did, so he said.”

  “He’s right. He promised that he would do it for me,” I told him. “I’ve been ill, Francis, and alone…”

  “…so I agreed to let him pay our passage to France. He sent in his clothes for me, and his mother’s dress and a wig for my mother. She was beautiful again.”

  “When was this?”

  “Ten…twelve days ago,” he replied. “We had to wait for the right tide to take us to Gravesend. My mother boarded the barge quietly, made no fuss until we were in the middle of the Thames. Then she begged to be brought back here. When I refused, she threw herself into the river, just past London Bridge, where…”

  I pictured Alys in the water, where the river churns against the bridge, her beautiful dress floating, her wig toppled by the current. I imagined Francis’s skilled hands reaching for her, except that the sides of the barge would be too high.

  “The guard said that when some people are given their freedom, they want to return to their prison. I refused to go to Gravesend alone…” Francis paused to sniff back his tears. “I had to find her body. I rowed up and down the river until…until she came back to the surface. I weighed her down with stones and let her drop…”

  I could not let myself weep with him. If I did, I would never have stopped. I would never have had the strength to ride back to Enfield. “How did you end up here?” I whispered.

  “The barge man must have sent word to Dudley. He brought me. Or rather, he paid some of those men outside to drag me.”

  Anger raged through me, so great that I struck the bars and the clatter brought other wretches from the shadows, rattling their chains as if to protect Francis from me. “I’ll never forgive him,” I shouted. “He had no right to do it…unless it was to protect you from Tom.”

  “He did it to protect you, not me. He knows that nobody believes the truth in Bedlam. We all know it.” Suddenly, his face took on a different look – of fear and panic. “I can’t stay here. My mother could ignore the hell that she was in. I can’t.”

  As I listened to him, my mind was racing. How could I help Francis? If I paid to have him released now, where would he go? Where would he be safe? I could not be seen with him. My disguise would not fool for long.

  “Francis, what shall I do?” I asked.

  His eyes hardened at my question. “It’s not for me to decide,” he said.

  “Please, Francis. Tell me.” He did not reply. If he had begged to leave Bedlam with me, I could not have refused. But he was not a man to beg, I knew that. I wiped the grime from his cheek with my glove and kissed his still soft skin. “I don’t know what to do,” I whispered.

  He turned his back on me and was soon lost in the seeping fog.

  I fled from Bedlam. Some of the children followed me to the little church and I paid them to lift me onto Troy. As I rode back to Elsynge Palace, the damp dawn did nothing to dry my tears. Near Enfield, the fog lifted. I remember being taken from my horse, washed, put to bed. Blanche asked no questions. Like Kat, she did not want to know the truth.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Hatfield Palace, Hertfordshire

  21 January, 1549

  Less than an hour ago, a scream tore me from my sleep and I ran outside, only to learn that Kat and Master Parry had been taken to the Tower.

  Now Tyrwhitt is holding out the silver dish to me. Close-up, I see that the sugar roses it holds are misshapen, like baby cabbages, not made with Maggie’s skilled fingers. Unlike Blanche Parry, Tyrwhitt is after the truth now as much as I ever was. He knows about the sugar rose that Thomas Seymour brought to my bedchamber in Chelsea Palace. If he knows that, how much more does he know?

  Only time will tell. The thought of the days to come sickens me as much as the thought of eating one of the sugar roses.

  “Sugar stirs the blood like nothing else, does it not?” he asks. “Try one.”

  “I am not a child to be tempted with sweet things,” I say, stupefied.

  He bites into one of the roses and I see that he is not accustomed to such sweetness, because he has lost none of his teeth, although the bottom ones lean like tombstones.

  How does he know about the sugar rose that Tom Seymour brought to me on my birthday? It cannot be from Kat, unless he questioned her last night. Was it from Thomas Seymour himself, or his cook, Maggie Payne?

  I want to run away from him as I did from Seymour, but I am too afraid. “Am I your prisoner?” I ask.

  Tyrwhitt smiles briefly, his lips pale with sugar. “No, of course not.”

  “You have already arrested Kat and my steward, so if I rode from my palace now, would you call your guards to bring me back?” My voice drops to a whisper. I am thinking of my mother, taken from Greenwich Palace, in broad daylight for all to see her shame.

  “Ah…well…yes. If you left before we had talked, I would think you guilty, madam. The King and his Protector thought that, in view of your youth, you should not be questioned in the Tower.”

  “So I am your prisoner, and therefore I must be on trial.”

  He glances around the schoolroom. “Do you see other men here who will judge you? No. We are alone, just to talk.”

  But he does not talk. He looks lovingly at my books on the table, as if he wants to teach me rather than interrogate me. Tyrwhitt picks up a volume of Virgil and flicks through the pages until he reads: “… latet anguis in herba.” He pronounces the Latin words as skilfully as I would. “There is a snake lurking in the grass,” he translates.

  “I know what it means, sir. I knew that when I was ten years old.”

  “Who is the snake lurking in the grass?”

  Does he mean Francis or Tom Seymour?

  My brave show of confidence deserts me. Terror uncoils in my belly and takes me by the throat. I cannot speak. Scarcely more than a month since my last ride to Bedlam and still the horror of it stretches my nerves to breaking. Blanche Parry never asked where I had been that foggy night, neither did she tell Kat that I had left the palace. Kat put my low spirits down to loneliness and the loss of Lady Catherine.

  Tyrwhitt is waiting for my reply. My mind produces something witty, in spite of the trembling body that keeps it alive. “I know only one thing about snakes,” I say. “A snake never stays the same. When it casts off its skin, it is a new snake. It can strike again and not be recognized.”

  “Mmm…yes, you are right.” He puts the book carefully in its place. “So let us begin. From this last Christmastide to Twelfth Night, there has been talk of nothing else at court: Thomas Seymour – and you. He has sought to marry you since Lady Catherine’s death last
summer. He boasts to all who will listen – and that includes Mistress Ashley – that he kept on his wife’s ladies-in-waiting to serve you. If he is accused of planning to marry you without the King’s consent, he may face a charge of…treason.” He curls his tongue over the last word. “If there is anything you wish to confess now, it would be seen – as I said – as youthful folly.”

  Ah – now we have it. He has spelled it out as clearly as Kat used to spell my first words. He wants evidence against Thomas Seymour. If I admit to youthful folly, he will use it against him. He will not care that my reputation is sullied.

  But – and this is far more dangerous – if the King thinks that I agreed to marry Seymour without his permission, this is a treasonable offence for us both.

  Once I would have laughed at the last charge, for it is too ridiculous to be true. But now I cannot laugh. Kat is in the Tower. Concern for her makes me moan, as Lady Catherine did on May Eve. I cannot bear to think of my dear Kat in that dreadful place, never knowing if…or when…they will come for her.

  “Do not harm Kat,” I plead. “Please. She has done nothing wrong.”

  He leans forward. “And – you?”

  I lean too and we almost touch, for we both have large noses. I raise my voice so there can be no mistake. “I cannot answer for my stepfather, but I would never marry without the King’s permission. I would do nothing that would cost me the throne of England.”

  “A young girl could be flattered by such a man as Lord Seymour.”

  “Flattered?” I give a little laugh, loud enough to show my disdain. “I am Henry the Eighth’s daughter. I am the one with power. My stepfather is a man who desires it, like most men. To marry me would have been a triumph for him, not for me. That is why I would have refused him if he had asked. In fact, I shall never marry at all.”

  “Mmm…yes…so I have heard. And Lady Jane Grey too…”

  Tyrwhitt’s eyes alight on the sugar roses again, already melting in the heat of the fire. “Did Lord Seymour take sugar roses to Lady Jane Grey’s bedchamber before she was dressed?”

  “I do not know – I did not ask.”

  “Perhaps he favoured you above her? Why would that be?”

  I am so filled with pride that I fail to see the snare he has set. I think only of Jane with her prim little mouth and hollow chest, who would never make a great Queen like me, and when I reply, it is with careless, boastful words. “She is a child, sir, and I am a woman.”

  “Ah…” The rose petal sticks to his tongue and I am sickened by what I have said. His mind is sword-sharp and threatens to stab me.

  His eyes gloat. He has caught me up to my neck in mud, like a fish that is as good as dead. I have said too much. Now Tyrwhitt knows that I am proud of my womanhood. He will think that I used it to attract Thomas Seymour.

  Like mother, like daughter. That’s what he thinks, although he does not say it.

  Within the hour, he has snared me. Have I learned nothing?

  Chapter Nineteen

  28 January, 1549

  “You were smiling in your sleep,” Tyrwhitt says. He must have run out of peppermint pastilles, for his breath is sour.

  It is only seven days since he took charge of my palace and I am exhausted. He has questioned me every day.

  I startle at his voice and open my eyes. How long has he been watching me as I slept at the schoolroom table? Worse, did I shout out secrets in my sleep?

  The fire hardly flickers and the windowpanes sparkle with evening frost. I must have slept for a long time. Small icicles glint on the inside frame. Like jewels, they flash their rainbow light across the floorboards and onto my throbbing forehead.

  “I’m still tired.” I yawn and stretch and to my shame, sweat seeps from under my arms. “I sleep badly without Kat.”

  “Perhaps your conscience keeps you awake?”

  “No.”

  Tyrwhitt is exhausted too. He huddles in his glossy brown fur. He does not want to be in my draughty palace. He wants to be in the warmth and glamour of my brother’s court. Did he think that he would be gone by now, clutching my confession of my “youthful folly” with my stepfather or – and this is far worse, being a treasonable offence – of my agreement to marry him without the King’s consent? To succeed in wrenching a confession from me would be a big feather in his cap.

  Is Tyrwhitt’s skin thick enough to return to the King’s Privy Council without it? It seems so translucent in the candlelight.

  He stifles a yawn. “Did you seek to marry Thomas Seymour without the King’s permission?” He must have asked me this question a thousand times. And I have answered a thousand times, “I would never marry without the permission of the King and his Privy Council.”

  “Did you behave foolishly with Thomas Seymour when you lived at Chelsea Palace last year, when your stepmother was still alive?”

  I do not reply. I know when to be silent. This is not a treasonable offence, although it has sullied my reputation, and so I shall never admit it.

  I curse my stepfather in my mind. It is because of him that I was sent away from Chelsea Palace and did not see Lady Catherine before she died, or the living daughter that she bore. Sorrow makes me flippant. It always does. “That is only two offences,” I say. “My mother was accused of twenty-one.”

  “I can find more if you wish.”

  “She was accused of unseemly behaviour with her brother,” I say. “Have you questioned my brother…the King?”

  Why did I say it? I seem to have the devil in my mouth.

  He is as horrified as I am. “Your vile words do you no justice, Your Grace. I advise moderation.” Tyrwhitt taps the edge of the table. “Well, we have all the time in the world, unlike those in the Tower. Let us rest. I shall go to my bed and you to yours.”

  I drag myself to the garden door. My bones ache.

  My eyes frighten me. In the window glass, they are as shrunken as an old woman’s.

  It is Tyrwhitt’s habit to bait me when I have almost escaped. As I turn the handle, he says, “Whatever Mistress Ashley confesses, she has shown herself unfit to care for you, the King’s sister, and she will not be allowed to return here, even if she is freed…or if you are still here.” I swallow hard, but the lump in my throat almost chokes me. “I have asked my wife to be your new companion.”

  My voice trembles. “I don’t want your wife. I want Kat. Send her back to me, sir.” I am crying again. I am sick of my tears, for they do not cool me. They scald my cheeks. And they make me a child, not a woman. “She’s all I have, sir. Don’t take her from me.”

  Every tear must weaken me in Tyrwhitt’s sight, for I cannot control them. Yet he is moved enough to pat my hand and summon Blanche Parry to take me to my bedchamber. By dawn, my hands and feet are swollen with dropsy.

  Chapter Twenty

  5 February, 1549

  Tyrwhitt reeks.

  The smell is on his skin, his hair, his beard – the smell of my brother’s court, of music and dancing, of all the things that I miss. Although I dislike it, my feet dance.

  The door – the one that leads to the Great Hall – bursts open to reveal his wife, this tall Elizabeth, elegant in her high-necked dress of dark silk, who barely curtsies in the doorway. It is her perfume I smell on his skin. He must have sent for her, although I do not want her. Her disdainful glance reminds me that I have neglected my appearance. I look down. Yes, the bodice of my dress is stained. My fingers are so swollen that I cannot wear my rings.

  Tyrwhitt clears his throat. “Elizabeth…my wife, Elizabeth,” he says. “She has come to stay.”

  So it is done. Kat will not come back to me now and I must bear it as best I can, although it is like torture to me. I can hardly stand.

  “Princess Elizabeth,” I respond. I force myself upright, and smile so as to appear a young girl, although I feel like an old woman. “Welcome to my palace, madam, although I did not invite you. No doubt you are impatient to see your husband, since I have detained him far too
long, as he has detained me, a prisoner in my own palace.”

  “I have prayed for you, Your Grace.” She towers above me, although I stand as tall as I can.

  “Why?”

  Her small eyes travel up and down my swollen body. “And so has Archbishop Cranmer. He sends you a gift to bring you solace.” She hands me the most beautiful book I have ever seen. Cherubs and angels crowd its dark red cover, around golden letters: The Book of Common Prayer. Cranmer is my godfather and this is his great work of translation from the Latin version.

  “I do not want it,” I say. “He has not been a loyal godfather to me.” I throw it onto the table. “What news from London, madam? Births, marriages…” I stop myself.

  “The Act of Uniformity has been passed. By spring, everybody will have to worship from Cranmer’s prayer book.”

  “Not that sort of news, madam. I mean news from the Tower. Have you seen Mistress Ashley?”

  “Yes, Your Grace. She has been moved to a more suitable room…” My heart leaps with relief. “…a more suitable room for questioning. It is the darkest room in the Tower, so dark that it is impossible to distinguish night from day. Unfortunately, there is no glass in the window. She says that she is too cold to sleep.”

  I bite my lip. “Please let her have a fire. She hates the cold. Please.”

  “Perhaps she will, one day.” Tyrwhitt smirks. “We have not had a burning at the stake for many years.”

  My breath quickens. Kat has too much air in her draughty prison. I do not have enough in mine. “Open the window, please,” I beg.

  “No!” Lady Tyrwhitt says. “An east wind is blowing today.”

  Devil’s breath, Kat called it.

  The stench of Lady Tyrwhitt’s perfume sickens me. When she escorts me back to my bedchamber, I forbid her entry. “If you are to live in my palace, madam, leave off your perfume. You smell like a cat on heat and it makes my stomach heave.”

  She recoils. I thought she might slap me as you do a wilful child. But she only whispers furiously, “You were the cat on heat.” Then her eyes brim and she looks away from me. “I was with Lady Catherine when she died. It would have broken your heart to see her.”