by David Walton
Vaughan released his arm and began to pace. "There are rumors. The Duke of Northumberland may pressure King Edward into disinheriting Mary and naming a Protestant heir instead."
"Nonsense," Parris said.
"All too probable. Northumberland will not relinquish power easily. Her Grace will be in danger. She must know what he plans."
Parris did know what Northumberland planned, but he wasn't about to tell Vaughan. The nobles of the land were arming against the day of the king's death. Mary had the best claim to the throne, but the country was divided, some longing for the return of the old faith, some wanting to avoid it at all costs. Parris himself wanted a Protestant monarch to continue Edward's reforms, but he didn't want to be part of the fight.
"You're in his rooms all the time; you hear what he and the duke talk about in their secret conferences." Vaughan sidled up to him and hissed in his ear again. "Or must I tell the king about your guest last night?"
Vaughan wore the self- satisfied smile he used when he knew he had someone's complete attention. He was no fool, despite his foppish appearance; the man spoke Latin, Greek, and French, and had a keen mind for politics. But Parris knew what Vaughan did not: that the king might not even survive long enough to be told. He was at his palace in Greenwich now, seeing almost no one, and waiting for the end.
"This is treason," Parris said. "Please leave."
Vaughan laughed. "It'll be the talk of the court. Stephen Parris, the king's physic, a demon worshipper. Mutilating the dead to cast the king's horoscope. You'll be lucky to last the night."
"No matter. I'm the king's man."
"I don't think the king will see it that way."
Parris held the door open. "You're finished here."
"No second chances."
Parris made no reply. Vaughan tipped his peacock feather hat and sauntered out.
CATHERINE wanted to leave, but she was afraid to turn her back on Tavera. His gaze seemed to bore through her whenever he looked her way. He spoke mostly with Mother, but his eyes moved constantly. Blanche continued to cower behind Catherine's back.
"I have only been in the country for a few months," Tavera said, his
Spanish accent pronounced. "I tried to pay my respects at the palace, but I was not allowed an audience."
"Few are, these days," Mother said. "The king has not been well."
Tavera's pale eyes betrayed no emotion. "In what particulars? Has your husband told you anything?"
"Only that we should pray for the king's health."
"Are you sure? Perhaps he let slip when he thinks the king will die?"
"Stephen would never say such a thing."
"Of course not. Excuse me, I forget my manners." Tavera's eyes traveled the room. "But you would tell us, would you not?" His voice was like gravel.
"Sir?"
"Your cousin has told me of your loyalty to the True Faith. You would tell us if you knew anything of the king." His eyes flicked to the wall, to the door, back to her. "In these dark times, those of us who are still friends of the Princess Mary must remain faithful."
Mother regarded him steadily. "And how might the friends of the princess be rewarded?"
A smile crept across Tavera's face, but it didn't make him look any more cheerful. "She is ever ready to reward those who love her. Any stains on your family name would be . . . forgotten . . . if your service is valuable to Her Grace."
"And if my husband . . . ?"
"The princess understands what it is to be a woman," Tavera said. "She spent much of her life submitting to the whims of an evil father. Act soon, and she will be your ally."
Mother swept her fingers at Catherine as if brushing her out the door. "Master Tavera and I must talk alone."
Catherine stared at her. "But—"
"Now, Catherine."
Catherine curtsied and made to leave, but before she could, Cousin Vaughan returned, with Father just behind him. "My lady," Vaughan said, "we must take our leave."
"So soon?" Mother said. Vaughan kissed her hand, and the two men left.
Father's face was like thunder. He and Mother glared at each other for several moments until Father's mouth twisted and he chuckled.
"I don't see what's funny," Mother said.
Father shook his head. "That fool is climbing into deep waters."
Catherine remembered the creature and the book in her hand. "Father?"
Mother pressed her fingers to her temples. "Leave us, Catherine. Say no more of this."
CATHERINE retreated to her room, Blanche right behind her. As soon as the door was shut, Catherine cornered her.
"You knew him, didn't you?"
Blanche's dark hair had pulled loose from under her cap, and her eyes were wide and frightened. "Who?" she whispered, almost too low for Catherine to hear.
"That huge Spaniard. Who is he?"
Blanche's lip trembled. "You heard his name."
Catherine studied her. "You're from Spain, aren't you? Not from France."
Blanche's eyes darted fearfully. She put a knuckle to her mouth and bit on it.
"I know you're a Jew," Catherine said gently. "I've seen your prayers on Saturdays. And the foods you avoid."
Blanche covered her face in her hands and began to cry. Catherine touched her shoulder. "I won't tell. It's our secret, honest."
"I did live in France. For three years, in Calais. With my father."
"And before that?"
"I was born in Valladolid, Castile."
"What's your real name?"
"Blanca."
Catherine smiled. "Of course." She guided Blanche— Blanca—to the bed and helped her sit down.
Blanca wiped away tears. When she could speak again, she told her story in a shaky voice.
"Diego de Tavera came to our town three years ago. He brought many priests and soldiers with him and announced what he called a 'Term of Grace.' We were conversos, outwardly Christian, but everyone knew it was a sham. We had ten days to burn our Talmud and convert to Christianity, or Tavera said he would burn my father to death and then torture my mother and sisters and me until we recanted.
"My father brought me with him to court in Toledo to petition the emperor to stop Tavera. While we were gone, there was a procession in the streets to honor the Virgin Mary. My youngest sister emptied a basin of dirty water out the window without looking, and it splashed on a statue of the Virgin.
"A mob stormed our home and set it on fire. They grabbed my mother and sisters when they ran out and dragged them to Tavera. By the time my Father and I returned home with the emperor's letter, it was too late. Tavera had burned them all at the stake."
Blanca was crying again. "Juana, my youngest sister, was only seven years old. We left Spain that night and fled to France."
Catherine clasped Blanca's hand. "What happened to Tavera?"
"Nothing. He went on to do the same thing at the next town."
"You started over? Learned a new language?"
"I already knew French. It was the language of the court, even in Spain. My father taught me when I was small."
"Where is your father now?"
"Our neighbors in Calais started to get suspicious. We claimed to be Christians, but they knew. We boarded a ship for London to start over again, but my father died on the voyage."
Catherine had never known any of this. She had imagined a romantic past for Blanca— a French princess on the run, perhaps, waiting for her true love to pass her a message that it was safe to return. This was different. This was real. Blanca couldn't have been more than thirteen years old when her mother and sisters had been killed, and only sixteen when she lost her father. Catherine blushed to think of this daughter of a rich and important Spanish family waiting on her hand and foot.
A servant brought a platter into the room: sliced bread and meats, lentils, a cake of raisins, cheese, and wine. Blanca arranged the meal on a small sitting table.
"What was your home like?" Catherine asked.
&n
bsp; Blanca busied herself serving, until Catherine wondered if she'd heard the question.
"Happy," she said finally. "We had everything we wished for: meat on the table, pretty things to wear, sweets on feast days. Though we had to pretend to be Christians, and follow our own customs as best as we could in secret.
"My father was an important man of business. I didn't understand what he did, but it was something to do with foreign trade. Many people owed him money. They treated him with respect, though most people knew we were Jews." Blanca laid a cloth in Catherine's lap. "I didn't realize until that day how much they hated us."
The meal served, Blanca left for the kitchen, where she would eat her own lunch with the other servants.
Catherine thought of Blanca's memories and wondered about Father. She was aware enough of political realities to know Father could be executed if his human dissections were found out. At the least, he would lose his place at court. Would they have to leave the country and wander from place to place like Blanca, pretending to be someone else, fearing for their lives?
She didn't know what to think of Father's crime. Perhaps it truly was evil of him to rob those men of a proper Christian burial— most people would think so. When she thought of it, though, she was more curious than appalled. What did the body look like inside? How did it work? Were the arms and legs controlled by strings from some central location, like a marionette?
When she finished her meal, there was plenty left over, and she thought again of the tamarin, if that's what it was. As far as she knew, it was still in the house. It had turned invisible, or something very like it. Was it a ghost, then? Or a demon?
If Father didn't have time to solve this mystery, maybe she could. The first thing to figure out was whether it was a spirit or real flesh and blood. That was easy. If it was flesh and blood, then it would need to eat.
She placed the platter of leftover food on the floor. Then she left her sitting area and retreated to the far side of the room, where she settled on her bed to wait.
The afternoon light dimmed, and wind rattled the windowpane. Rain began to spatter the sill and soon became a hypnotizing downpour. She was sleepy, and keeping a sharp watch on the food became difficult. Just as her eyelids began to close, the cake of raisins jerked and disappeared.
Her breathing quickened, but she forced herself to remain still. The storm muted the day's light, but not so much that she couldn't see her room clearly. There was nothing there. Yet the meat began to twitch, and a corner tore away and vanished. In a few minutes the meat was almost gone, and Catherine still couldn't see even a hint of the thing eating it.
She waited. Slowly, like the first stars appearing in the night sky, the
barest sense of the tamarin appeared. The outline sharpened, and the colors became distinct, but she could still see the wall through its body. She would have sworn it was a ghost, had a piece of her sliced meat not been hanging from its mouth.
It chewed and swallowed, now as solid as she was. Despite its shockingly human face, it wore no clothes, and its body was covered with brilliant orange- red hair, as bright as any tropical bird. Instead of hands, each arm ended in sharp pincers, and each of its back legs ended in a pair of curved hooks that seemed ill- suited for walking. Its multiple tails waved and intertwined around a thicker, spiked one. Despite all of these oddities, its most striking feature was its yellow eyes— not the color of corn or wheat, but brilliant, like sunshine. They were blazing straight at her.
It snapped up the last of the meat with its pincer- hands, never taking its gaze away from her. Catherine began to wonder if it could distinguish between the meat on the platter and the meat on her bones. She had heard of the cannibals of the Indies wild men who ate their own children. Maybe this hadn't been such a good idea. She took a small pillow from her bed and threw it, hoping to startle the tamarin away, but to her amazement, the pillow flew right through its body.
The tamarin didn't move. How could it pick up and eat solid food, and yet not be touched by a pillow? It didn't even seem to have noticed.
Hooves clattered against the courtyard outside, and the tamarin tensed, poised for flight. Catherine rushed to the window. It was Father, riding out to attend on the king, his cloak streaming with rain.
Only then did she realize she had turned her back on the tamarin. She whirled, but it wasn't by the meat platter anymore. Where had it gone? She felt motion behind her, and turned again to see the tamarin's spiked tail swinging toward her, aimed at her back. She screamed and dodged away just in time.
She ran for the door, made it through, and careened down the stairs, not daring to look behind her. On the last step, she tripped and fell onto the stone landing, scraping her elbow, but she barely felt it. She jumped to her feet again and kept running. Mother appeared and called after her, but Catherine had only one thought: she had to reach Father. Mother wouldn't understand, wouldn't believe her. She raced to the stables and climbed onto her horse, not bothering with a saddle, and galloped out into the rain.
Mother and Henshawe ran out behind her, shouting, but she ignored them. The pelting water was cold and streamed into her eyes. Halfway across the courtyard, a shadow flew toward her, only visible because of the disturbance it made in the water. The horse reared. Its back was wet, and she reached for its mane, but clutched only empty air. She fell hard to the paving stones and rolled away from the thrashing hooves. Her right leg twisted beneath her, on fire with pain. She tried to stand and found her leg wouldn't support her weight.
Henshawe eased a halter over the frightened horse's neck and led it back toward the stable. Mother helped Catherine walk, her reprimands lost in the noise of the rain. Father rode out of sight, unaware of what had happened. Leaving Catherine to face the tamarin alone.
INSIDE, Blanca helped Catherine out of her wet clothes, and Mother wrapped her in a thick blanket. She pressed a steaming cup of chocolate into Catherine's hands, a bitter drink recently imported from Spain and gaining popularity at court. Mother dismissed Blanca and pulled up a chair to sit across from Catherine.
"You love your father, don't you?"
Catherine nodded, wary of the direction this conversation might take.
"I love him, too," her mother continued. "No, don't give me that look. I love him more than you know." She wrapped her thin fingers around her own cup of chocolate and breathed in the vapors. "Did I ever tell you he was there when you were born? He was actually present, at the birth. The midwives were horrified. They ranted and screeched at him, but he wouldn't budge. Ever the physic, he had to see for himself how the body worked.
"Of course, the midwives told everyone, and it was a great scandal, but I loved him for it. He was there, you see. He wasn't off riding or shooting or making a business deal. He was right in the thick of it, next to me, looking at everything, asking questions, cheering me on. When they finally lifted you out, bloody and squalling, the tears were running down his cheeks."
Catherine took a sip from the bitter chocolate, scalding her lips, and wondered why her mother was telling her this. If she loved Father so much, why did she scold him all the time? Why did they barely touch anymore? Saying what she thought around her mother could lead to a long lecture, but Catherine took the risk. "He's the same man now," she said. "Still searching for the truth."
Mother shook her head. "It was an admirable trait before. Now it's an obsession. He'll keep throwing himself against that stone wall until he destroys himself, and us with him."
"Is that why you always fight?"
"Someday you'll understand. You'll have your own children, and they'll mean more to you than the world. A wife has to defend her children, even against her own husband." She put a hand on Catherine's knee with a wry smile. "Not that I expect you to be easily cowed. But sometimes, despite all you say and do, your husband won't be dissuaded from folly. When that happens, as a mother you have to close ranks. Your first responsibility is to your children. To salvage what you can." She wasn't even looking at Ca
therine anymore. "Even if they hate you for it."
Catherine laughed and clasped her mother's hand. "I don't hate you."
"Just remember that, what ever I do, it's out of love for you. I know you don't want me to find you a husband. I know what you want to run your own life, to discuss politics and money and be the equal of a man. You don't see what I see. You haven't lived long enough. Romantic stories end badly, more often than not."
Catherine relaxed. So that was what this was all about. "Don't worry. I know better than to fall for Thomas Hungate."
Her mother's eyes drifted past Catherine again, as if seeing something in the far distance. "I know you do," she said.
