by Nell Gavin
I grew suddenly tired and serious. “I would that I could make the statement true. And that I could make the same statement false with regard to her husband.”
Emma sighed while I grunted my way out of the whalebone girdle. I breathed deeply once I had been freed.
“What are thy charms, I wonder?” she asked musingly, helping me into the bath. “Hast thou ever wondered why?”
It was not intended as an insult, nor did I interpret it thus. Since our childhood together, Emma had always taken shameless liberties with me, addressing me in private as her equal rather than her mistress, treating me more as her cherished friend than as her social superior. I would never have asked her to do otherwise; her friendship weighed more than decorum (and if any were listening, she had sense enough to address me with respect). “Aye, I’ve wondered.”
“Hast thou no feelings for him? It all seems quite strange to me.”
Would it sound mad? I trusted Emma, even though I had kept my feelings for Henry to myself, this long while. “I have looked into his eyes and seen someone . . . wouldst thou know what I mean? He seems . . . familiar.”
Emma nodded. “Aye.” She gave me a steady look while an expression of understanding crossed her face. It was followed by a shadow of concern.
“I could not be so free with him except for that.” I shook my head and laughed, blushing. She would think me mad indeed.
Emma did not probe. She looked at me. Then she quietly attended to sorting through my things before bedtime while I sat in the tub and washed myself.
I was embarrassed, thinking I had spoken like a mad woman. While I had spent many hours examining the phenomenon in private, the sensations were too odd to confess aloud. It was a recurring sensation of familiarity where none should be, as it had been with Hal. It was a deeper familiarity than we had earned in our time together and behind the eyes was someone who was not my sovereign. Henry was someone with whom I should be able to laugh and fight and play and, true to my peculiar sense of this, he encouraged and expected those things of me as he did with no one else. He was someone I should . . . know.
The affinity with Hal had been similarly odd, quick and strong, and Hal had responded to my confession with amazement for he had felt the same. In both cases, there was a connection that was almost electric, but the sensation within me felt differently.
How do I describe this? It had felt as if Hal and I moved side by side, while with Henry it felt as if he and I were facing each other—or perhaps facing off. With the one, I heard a soothing, beautiful ballad on a harp and was transported to a place of great joy and comfort. With the other I heard a joyous jig with tin whistles and drums, and I danced, feeling as I did a queer sense of coming home. In both melodies there was a deep passion, different in type, but the same in strength and meaning. I could not say which one I preferred. I loved them both.
I heard myself thinking the word “love” with regard to Henry. It was the first instant when I did. My body answered with a sharp rush of adrenaline and a prickly anxiety. My plan was not working as it should and I resolved to look no more into his eyes. I should not feel love.
Oddly, at that second, Emma had formulated her thoughts and encapsulated them in two words. She looked up and simply said: “Watch thyself.”
“I want to go home, Emma,” I responded. “I am fearful of the outcome of this.”
“His interest is never long aimed toward any maid. He will tire of thee.” It sounded as much a warning as a reassurance. Emma reached for an apple and handed it to me. Still soaking in the warm water, I took it and bit. “Eat,” she advised. “Then sleep. Perhaps it can be viewed more cheerfully in the morning.”
In the morning I reported to the Queen and discovered that it had, in fact, been she who had arranged for my rich accommodations. I was struck dumb by the fear of what it must mean, and struck so hard by the absurdity of my predicament that I nearly burst out in a laugh.
She was cloyingly pleasant toward me, welcoming me back with an effusive, yet cold-eyed greeting, and with excessive concern for my health and happiness. She referred to “my husband” rather than “the King” as she had always spoken of him in the past. She closely questioned me about the comfort of my quarters and often clapped her hands to send a servant scurrying to add to it “in order that I might please my husband, whose concern for your comfort must become my concern as well,” she explained.
Emma concocted a list of preposterous requests for me, so that I might take advantage of this.
“Silken bedclothes,” she said. “Thou must sleep nestled in silk lest thy complexion suffer. And it must be silk woven by a particular Mandarin tribe—name it as you wish—and a man servant to rub thy feet after a walk in the garden—no two, for one must rub thy shoulders. And thou must have a warm bath once a week, not just once a month—no, every day. NO! Twice per day, and the water must be precisely the warmth of child with a fever that is dangerous but not threatening, and thy clothes must be warmed to that temperature as well so that you suffer no chill in dressing.”
“Anything else? Mustn’t they twice daily dispatch envoys to find a feverish child and ensure the temperature is accurate? Thou dost plan poorly indeed, to forget.”
“It tires me to work so hard for thee, thou thankless ogre,” Emma sighed. “But I will give it more thought and tell thee anon what thou dost need, so that the queen might again honor thee with her service.”
With each of Katherine’s false pleasantries and overdone efforts to please me, I raised pleading eyes toward hers then lowered them in shame. My demeanor became timid and submissive. I was ashamed and sorry for something I had not done, about which I dared not speak, and for which Katherine would not forgive me.
I was soon pushed to the outskirts of her inner circle. Those who had come with her from Spain closed in around her like veiled black birds and allowed me no nearer her than the farthest edge of the room. Katherine’s orders were now relayed by them.
They were joined by some English ladies who had earned Katherine’s trust in the years since her arrival. They all spoke Spanish in my presence, except when sharply addressing me directly, and were chillingly distant toward me. I was not invited to the inner sanctum of their daily lives, and was edged out of their society more and more as Henry’s obsession grew greater and less discreet.
The young Princess Mary followed suit. Her eyes would only meet mine in a manner that was condescending and disdainful, and her remarks toward me were curt and contemptuous. Henry had been neglecting her of late, and was finding far more time for me than he was for his daughter. I was fond of the girl, and confess more pain from her treatment of me than her mother’s. I tried placating her. I tried gently prodding her father to take more notice of her, but he brushed my hints aside.
The final insult took place at a dance when Henry had once again manipulated his position in the circle to be across from me. Unfortunately, I was standing next to the Princess Mary who held her arms out to her father, delighted, thinking he had made the effort in order to dance with her. I turned my back on both of them and curtsied to another man and took his hand instead, while Henry looked after me and the Princess Mary’s face fell with understanding and hurt. Henry could be cruel in his single-mindedness. I burned with shame for him, and anger on his child’s behalf.
From that moment on, Princess Mary made every concentrated effort to bait and insult me. I was never able to withstand insult in silence, and responded with hurt and fury while she moved more solidly behind her mother. As fond as I was of her, she said things to me I could not overlook. And so—and to the death—I would be her sworn enemy as well.
Meanwhile, Katherine persisted in her efforts to goad me into a reaction with her insincerity. Had she not been my queen, I might have slapped her. I was seared by Katherine’s fire-hot “warmth” and frozen at the same time by the snaps and snubs of her ladies. There was no comfortable place for me. There was no safe place to hide.
Those who were not
entirely within Katherine’s confidence chose not to be within mine for sides had been drawn, and my side did not appear to have much hope for winning. I still retained good friends for, indeed, I had some. I had Emma. There were also my companions from the music room whose interest in me was not political. And there were a few men who would forever be loyal toward me for, somehow, they felt themselves to be in love with me and fully sympathized with the King. I was still receiving true kindness from some quarters, but the balance of my day was fraught with anxious discomfort over snubs and gossip.
I lived in shame and contrition for months, then could live that way no more. It was she whom I was protecting with my refusals of Henry’s advances. My modesty was largely based on loyalty toward her. For how long must that loyalty be tested? For how long must I be apologetic for having done nothing to her? She did not fool me with her sweetness and I wondered: When would her forgiveness come? She, who went to chapel for hours each day, must certainly have heard that Jesus Christ spoke of forgiveness. Where, I wondered, was mine?
I grew resentful. Honor, like love, is not conditional. A vow of loyalty cannot be withdrawn, once uttered—not, at least, by someone such as myself who tried with full sincerity to live with honor. Because of my vows to Katherine, I owed my queen my loyalty, and I was bound by my honor to reject Henry for her sake, regardless of her treatment of me. However, I was not the saint I had once wished to become. My eyes gradually became more guarded and my glances less cowering.
Katherine enjoyed her small punishments, dispatching her ladies to do the mean-spirited work she really had in mind for me. I came to enjoy mine. I came to wear new gowns in her presence, gowns commissioned by the King and richly embroidered in gold, as well as the jewels he had awarded me. Noticing it immediately, Katherine became sweet as treacle, and her ladies more cruel. In response to this, I grew increasingly haughty and arrogant. My hand gestures grew more expressive to set off my new rings. Katherine’s mouth grew beatific with false pleasure and feigned approval; I lifted my chin to expose a gold choker and smiled.
I would never have brought her harm. With all my other faults, I was not one inclined toward evil intent as I have been accused, nor toward evil acts. I was inclined, one might say, toward colorful retort. I did not take the “high road” as I might have. I shot arrows in response to being hit, and with Katherine this came to be a full time occupation. When the pain reached a certain level and my outrage exceeded my capacity for restraint, I could not resist fighting back, and did so until the ill feelings erupted into world scale enmity.
Finally, Katherine exposed her real self to me and only play-acted for the benefit of those outside her circle. The fight became ever-so-slightly more honest. I thought honesty might bring some relief and resolution, but the situation never improved. In fact, it steadily worsened. I had not counted on the depth of her hatred toward me.
I did not admit this to myself until far into the battle, for her approval was of utmost importance to me, but even had we not found reason for enmity, we were incompatible and should have disliked each other. Katherine was obsessed with God and purity and the condemnation of all who were not. She had no humor and no skills. She was inflexible, solemn and sanctimonious, preferring the company of Spaniards and viewing all others as foreigners, even in a country foreign to her. She dressed only in black, like a nun, and her Spanish ladies wore only black or other solemn colors. She and her company were tedious and dreary and self-contained and I found no pleasure or warmth in their presence. I thought of them all as yammering large black crows.
I, on the other hand, was vivacious and sociable. I was raised to be French, so I enjoyed engaging in flirtatious banter with men and fussing over my appearance, two of the most grievous sins to the Spaniards who prized modesty and lack of adornment. I may as well have plied my trade in a roadhouse, they felt, for choosing gowns of yellow or blue or for wearing jewelry that was ornamental and not religious. They were even scandalized to learn my favorite color was vermilion, as if beauty should only come in shades of gray.
As for my conversations with the men . . . well! The women crossed themselves and pressed their lips and hissed in whispers. The married ones among them showed up in their beds because God willed women to subjugate themselves to their husbands’ base desires. Aside from that, their society was solely with other women. Even mere conversation with a man was viewed as scandalous.
I would have been grateful for Katherine’s exclusion of me had the repercussions not been so humiliating and so painful, and had I not cared quite so much.
Katherine no longer had the power to dismiss me from her service. She tried begging him and appealing to his higher nature, and found that Henry would not allow it. In fact, he even insisted (against the protests of both) that we sit (in intense and immeasurable discomfort) on either side of him, when playing cards. Hence we both were forced into the other’s society, each now avoiding the other whenever possible, and hurling our small punishments like spears into the fray. The punishments grew larger as time passed, and at the height of our battling I hurled spears of the sort I would never have imagined myself capable of sending to anyone.
Katherine gathered her ranks about her and initiated fire from every direction, but never directly. She assigned people to fight her battles for her. She maintained her poise and an expression of wounded purity while giving cruel instructions phrased as “wishes” in gentle, wistful tones, delivered with sighs. She concocted and spread slanderous rumors while contriving to appear as though she were reluctant to divulge the information. She asked questions, listened carefully, then twisted my answers and had her party pass them along, quoting me out of context and rephrasing my statements in such a damning way that I could not deny having said things which, though benign, became abominable in the retelling.
Her faction would insult me and bait me, then gasp when I responded in kind, as if words I spoke in my own defense were somehow more ghastly than their own unwarranted attacks. They would never mention what they had said to provoke me, or take responsibility for much of my angered speech. Instead, they would repeat my oaths without repeating their own, and whisper accusations of poisonings because I, outraged, vehemently wished “all Spaniards in the sea.”
Katherine feigned disappointment in my “disloyalty” and “lack of character” (but never to me) and ever played the victim, all the while scheming to discredit me further and bring harm to me. She stirred up a whirlwind of ill-feelings and ill-will by “hesitantly” mentioning to people—for their own good, she assured them—that she had overheard me making vicious remarks about them, making certain that none within her circle of influence would vacillate toward loyalty to me.
I had never witnessed such a plethora of hypocrisy nor had my stomach ever churned as it did when, during this onslaught, I was forced to watch Katherine in chapel with her hands folded in solemn worship, her face raised and carefully arranged in an expression of innocent, long-suffering purity and endurance.
Had she more imagination, she might have timed her moments of prayer to coincide with the angle of the sun so she might always be seen in a shaft of light!
She played her subjects for fools and succeeded. They took her at face value, rallied to her defense and screamed to see me hanged, when who among them knew the souls of either of us and could judge? Her satisfaction in this was grim, but she derived pleasure from it, far more than she could and yet escape without punishment. Taking their cues from Katherine, her supporters aped her behavior and did as she did, earning ample rewards and praise from her at my expense.
Worst of all she—all of them—lied about me. They lied. I could never endure a liar.
There was no hope of reconciliation, and we came to hate each other with a hatred unbecoming to a lady and a queen. We were now mortal enemies. War had been declared, and would be fully fought until the death.
And as yet, when this war first became real—and for most of its duration—I had done nothing. Whatever I felt
for him and whatever I wished, she could have Henry. I did not want him at this price.
However, I had no choice, for there was no price Henry would not pay to have me.
Chapter 5
•~۞~•
Despite the attentions of the King, I was still free to speak to, and perhaps to flirt among, the men at court. I had no heart for it, having caught sight of Hal on rare occasions. The scar was torn open again, just as I had known it would be. Because of this, I flirted in the manner of one who knows with certainty that no man before her is, nor ever could be, her one true love. I had neither care nor concern for the men, and had no mercy.
I was being crushed from all sides, from Katherine, from Henry, from the ladies, and from the pull in my heart as I looked toward Hal’s figure retreating down a corridor. I forced myself into cheerful spirits, and having done so, took little note of the impact I had on those around me except to sense that, somehow, I was drawing more notice than I had previously. It was partly due to Henry’s partiality toward me, partly due to my being marriageable once again, but mostly due to the force of my character, which I now gave full rein, having not the strength in my heart to disguise it.
I was a woman all would see when she entered a room, with a voice and a laugh all could hear. Were I a gem, Henry said in the lyrics to a song he once wrote for me, I would be a ruby, full of blood and passion and sparkling red flames.
My mother queried often with tight lips: “Hast thou no shame at all?”
To which I would reply nothing, and retreat to my chambers where I lay awake in the dark.
There were many men who found themselves smitten with me as I pushed through this phase of my grief. Most admiration came from musicians and friends, but there were other men as well, and some of these forced attentions upon me that were not welcome. I had the unwitting misfortune to aim my charms full-force upon one man in particular, who was most decidedly the wrong one. These charms landed upon fertile soil where they grew into a weed most difficult to eradicate.
