by Nell Gavin
My words even in sleep, we both knew, were treasonous.
“I was speaking to him.” I was shivering and my voice shook. “I was not speaking to thee—if in fact I spoke at all! I remember not, except for having said that in my dream.”
“To whom didst thou speak, if not to me?” He looked around himself dramatically, and waved his hand. “I see no one else.”
“The man who forced himself on me when I was young.”
“Was that thy dream just now?” His voice still carried the ominous inflections, softly encouraging the cornered animal to move closer and allow Henry to strike. He thought I lied about the rapes, and thus was lying when I said I dreamed them. He believed, much as the women in the French court had believed, that rape was merely seduction and a weakness of the victim. He did not accept my stories as truth and viewed them as an insult to his good nature and his intelligence. Knowing this, I had stopped speaking of the topic very early on.
“Aye. It was most . . . horrifying. It was not you to whom I spoke, Your Grace. I beg your forgiveness for having spoken out of turn.” I had not phrased my words so formally for several years when addressing him in private, but his voice demanded it. “I am most humbly sorry.”
He still stared. “Come back to bed,” he ordered. His voice had not warmed toward me.
“Yes my lord,” I said. Feeling both terror and embarrassment, I slipped into bed. I pulled myself into the fetal position with my back to Henry, and when he edged closer to me, I pulled away. He tried again, and again I moved from him. I just could not be touched, even knowing how unwise it was to spurn him.
Henry lay there and thought for a moment, then rose and left me to spend the rest of the night elsewhere.
“Do not leave me, Rex. Please—” I whispered to him as he stood. He continued toward the door as if he had not heard.
He did not return the following night.
Chapter 4
•~۞~•
I visited Elizabeth on occasion. In the beginning, I explained that holding her and being near to her somehow had the effect of causing my breasts to become engorged. I would sacrifice my visits in order to hasten the drying of my milk, I said, and so saw her very rarely for weeks. When my milk finally dried, I ventured in to visit her.
She had not grown more beautiful with time, nor had she grown to be more male. I held her and waited to love her. I did not love her with that visit, nor with the next one or the next, so I concentrated instead on the details of her existence, speaking to the nurses about her feedings and the schedule she kept.
It was all the concern I could offer her.
In return, she did not cling to me or need me. The focus of her adoration was the wet nurse, not her mother. When she cried, I could not comfort her at all, and had to turn her over to Sarah, who would hold her to her breast and let her suckle while I watched.
I knew nothing of infants at all, and did not feel myself fit to be a mother. The women entrusted with Elizabeth seemed so much more adept than I in making her happy and keeping her well. I felt a sinking sensation each time I paid a visit, for I was neither loved nor needed by my child. This was, in fact, the way I was raised, and what I had been taught was proper, but something inside of me suggested that perhaps Sarah’s role was the one to be envied. I resolved to earn back the love it is a mother’s right to know, and yet each day I found reasons not to go to my daughter. Petty reasons.
Then, Henry ordered Elizabeth moved to another location, away from us for a good portion of the time, removing any possibility that I might come to know her and grow fond.
Had Elizabeth been a boy, I would not have had the dreams and the fears. I would still have a husband who nightly raced to my side—and I would have welcomed him. Things would have been very different, and I blamed the baby for that. I did not hate Elizabeth; I did not feel enough toward her to hate. I merely did not like her much, for she was the cause of all my grief.
I thought of this as I watched her look up at me from her cushions, cooing and kicking and punching the air with her fists, a princess, but motherless except for a servant named Sarah. Then I turned and left the room and, except for high level plans one must make for a child of royalty, I gave her not another thought until next time.
It was, of course, my loss more than hers. She had others to take my place, whereas I never had another child that lived.
When she was near at hand, Henry found more time than I for visits to the nursery. He fussed, and spoke to her, and held her. He found in her more beauty than I could see, and more worth. Knowing what questions to ask, he grilled the nurses about bowel movements, and her progress at smiling or rolling over. He asked about the foods Sarah ate that might have turned her milk and caused Elizabeth a colic. He took strict note of Sarah’s diet, and had her eat the best the cooks could prepare, eliminating onions and other items he had heard could give a baby gas. He reported all this to me, and I listened dazed and uninvolved in it. There was much in the care of an infant that I did not know, and it seemed to me to be overwhelming, all taking place in a land foreign to me.
۞
“And yet, I am amply skilled at motherhood. I truly am.”
“You never gave yourself a chance.”
I sink into numb anguish and regret, seeing the baby and now finding her to be sweet and beautiful. How could I not have responded to the sweetness of the child? I remember another little girl whom I loved, but only had for a very short time. I wish to pass along to Elizabeth the feelings I once felt toward other children, but it is too late. I am gone, having made it her fate to be motherless for the entire span of her life.
I find one small grain of comfort. As Elizabeth grew, there were kind souls who took pains to tell her how proud I had been of her, and how dear she was to me. They described the joy I felt whenever she came to me, and how I could not bear for her to leave my sight.
For once, I do not cringe when I see my story distorted. God bless them for giving her that. God bless them.
Can I love her from here? I force love out of me in her direction. I push it on her. I love her. I love her. Can she feel it? Does she know? Would she condescend to love me back? In shame I think “no” and let the love flicker for an instant, then stubbornness takes hold, and I love more furiously. I need nothing in return from her. I will love her no matter what she thinks of me, or how fiercely she condemns me.
Still living, grown old but still alive, Elizabeth feels it, and begins to cry in deep hard sobs, not knowing what has caused her to do so. She has only the faintest recollections of a mother, and has been taught the woman was a villain. Even still, she has spent her life loyal to my memory, a gift I did not earn and for which she received nothing in return. She thinks of that mother now and cries, and I force the love on her still. Something is broken inside of her and somehow my efforts help her just a little.
I have earned a punishment in my neglect of her. I receive affirmation rather than words from the Voice.
A child is not a prize, nor had for some purpose other than to love it. It does not matter what form the child takes in its gender, its appearance, or the state of its health. It is a part of the life force that is God, and is a blessing. I do not place conditions on the outcome by saying it must look a certain way, or possess a certain skill, or be of one sex versus another. It is placed with me so that I might nurture, guide and teach it—and learn from it. It is not given to me so that I might find it lacking, or blame it for all that goes wrong, or abuse it, or abandon or neglect it.
Each child entrusts itself to its caretakers in a form wholly helpless, and depends upon those caretakers for unconditional love, the right of every human child. If I betray that trust, my reward may be an all-encompassing hunger for a child and the inability to have one, or receiving a child only to lose it.
I think I already know what my punishment is. A scream rises within me. I will lose another child.
The deaths of three little girls had been preparation for Elizabeth
. I had every reason to value a female child because I had painfully lost three of them. I was given the chance, and when tested, I failed for selfish reasons.
“You did not abuse her, nor did you abandon her. You took great pains to assure her future as your own looked more bleak. You were not a fiend toward her. You merely forgot she had worth in her own right, and focused all the blame for your fate upon her.”
“And so?”
“And so you will know how it is to be devalued for having been born what you are.”
“Will I lose another child?” It is a terror that I will always carry with me.
“Perhaps not. It is up to you.”
“I will not lose another child. I will do anything to prevent it. I will sacrifice anything.”
“Remember that you said that.”
I am silenced with fear. I hear a warning in the words.
The skeletal structure of my next life plan has already been set forth. The design in this plan is that I learn self-effacing service. Lessons in duty and discipline will continue. There will also be corrective punishment: I will be on the receiving end of tongues as sharp as my own, and I will not have the freedom to protest or respond. Lastly, because I failed a test with Elizabeth, I will now face that same test again under even more difficult circumstances.
In the Orient is a land called Cathay, or “China”. There is an ancient tradition called Astrology, which is commonly thought among the Chinese to portend a person’s future and determine his worth. Within this discipline it is said that a female child who is born during the Year of the Horse is not marriageable, or rather, cannot find a husband except among those who cannot find acceptable wives. Worse is the fate of the female infant with the misfortune to be born in the Year of the Fire Horse, which occurs every 60 years. Large numbers of these female infants are put to death, for they will not find anyone to marry them at any price, and a woman’s value is based solely upon her ability to marry well. If they live, they are destined for hard servitude and a lifetime of societal contempt.
We are all subject to the rules and beliefs of any society we select and, in Cathay, the horoscope is one of the most important defining factors of a person’s life. It will stay with him throughout life like a birthmark, and will influence the way he is treated, and so influence the entire span of his life.
In this realm, horoscopes are treated as valid in the sense that they are self-fulfilling. If, within a society, a child is deemed unmarriageable because of her time of birth, she is unmarriageable because it has been declared that she would be, and will suffer for it. All who believe in Astrology and act upon their beliefs make its influence real. Because of this, Astrology is considered here to be as important as the physical situation in the life plan of a person destined for birth within such a society. In preparation for arrival in Cathay, the horoscope is carefully plotted in advance down to the moment of birth so that it is in concurrence with the life plan. That which is the soul’s destiny, that which is not determined or influenced by society’s interpretation of the birth time, will take place—or not take place—regardless of the position of the stars and what they predict.
The plan is that I will be born in Cathay in the Year of the Horse. My position in the family will be as unwelcome daughter to a couple with several other daughters, but no sons. My physical surroundings will be reasonably comfortable by comparison to many, and my appearance will be satisfactory. However, I will not be male. I will be held accountable for this, and for the trouble I bring my family as they attempt to marry me off. A husband will finally be found for me and in my 24th year, the Year of the Fire Horse, I will give birth to a female.
Beyond that, I may write the story as I choose.
“Remember that there are times when that which appears to be a virtue can be a burden to you. You have learned duty, and will learn it to an even greater degree. However, you must be wary of it, and decide to whom you must be most dutiful. Duty, more than any other thing, will have the potential to betray you.
“Remember, also, that there are times when that which might seem to be a grave fault is actually your greatest asset. You are willful, defiant and stubborn. Where you are going, females who possess those qualities are more than unacceptable—they are contemptible, and seen as an abomination. You will learn to subdue your will to such a degree that it might be thought you have no strength at all. However, it is your will that you must call upon, and your ability to defy others, and your refusal to give in, for it is only these three things that might save you from wrong choices. You are equipped for what you are going to face. You can succeed.”
I do not want to think of all that now. I do not wish to dwell on the future yet.
PART 6
Remember Me When You Do Pray...
1534-1536
Chapter 1
•~۞~•
There were several palaces where Henry, or Elizabeth, or I—or we—stayed from time to time. Our main residence was Hampton Court, built at great expense by Cardinal Wolsey until Henry saw it and fancied it for himself. At Henry’s subsequent hinting, Wolsey was forced to offer it to the king as a gift (having little choice but to relinquish it). The king accepted it guiltlessly and graciously, added some improvements, and moved his court from the sprawling Whitehall Palace to Wolsey’s former home. Meanwhile, Cardinal Wolsey went elsewhere, a poorer man.
The palace boasted hot and cold running water, an elaborate sewer system that removed substantial waste deposited by substantial numbers of palace occupants, and a wing of kitchens where hundreds upon hundreds of kitchen servants prepared food for several hundred people at a sitting. It was the finest, most inventive and most modern dwelling any king had ever inhabited.
Within the palace were rooms that had ceilings painted to resemble the night sky, dark blue with a myriad white stars. Large gilded cherubs peaked out from every arched beam and every corner of the chapel, fairly cluttering the ceiling and walls. The rooms were massively high, and elaborate stained glass panels that displayed my initials and Henry’s (and sometimes Cardinal Wolsey’s, poor man) went from ceiling to floor. There were tapestries larger and more richly detailed than any to be found elsewhere hanging upon each wall, and paintings, and the finer examples of my own handwork.
The feasts laid at table boasted peacocks (skinned, then prepared, then replaced within their feathered skins and served), truffles, game, and every gently-seasoned rare delicacy the cooks could prepare for the royal family and the upper nobility. Any dish the royalty or higher nobility waved away untouched was offered to the lower nobility, who would otherwise eat simpler fare such as meat pies. Anything sampled and rejected by either group was distributed to the poor, who daily lined up outside the castle gates for scraps.
I sometimes tasted food and rejected it solely because it pleased me to share with the poor outside, particularly on those days when I had passed them and seen their faces. I even viewed it as a form of religious fasting, to pass over and share a dish I loved in order to eat a dish less pleasing. On the day of my coronation I, rather giddy with excitement and anxious to give thanks, took one bite each from 23 separate dishes, then waved each one of them off to the crowd at the gate while everyone watched, disapproving and aghast. At court, it was considered improper, selfish, spiteful and boorish to share with the poor, rather than with the privileged and well-fed.
Hampton Court’s bricks–hundreds of thousands of them–were painted in checkerboard red and black. The walls that enclosed the lavish gardens were painted white with red crosses (this was Henry’s solution to the irritating and persistent problem of courtiers who insisted upon urinating there - they would not dare relieve themselves upon a wall that displayed the Holy Cross). Gargoyles and statues shone in bright yellow or blue.
Overlooking the courtyard on a wall near our apartments, Henry had installed a huge monstrosity of an astronomical clock that could, it was said, be read from a mile away, were it not enclosed by walls. It was, along with everything
else at Hampton Court, intimidating, stunning, excessive, magnificent and fantastic.
Colorful flags and banners flapped in the wind above the courtyard, where scores and hundreds of people merged and converged as they moved to perform their daily business. The courtyard sometimes held a population larger than many a village, and was filled with liveried footman, pages and servants, entertainers, color bearers, soldiers, foreign dignitaries, carriages, horses . . . It made one dizzy to look out a window at them all and watch. Of course, when I was in the midst of them, the scene was entirely changed. They all ceased their activity and stood at attention, or with knees bent and heads lowered–every one–and let me pass.
I felt that Hampton Court was a huge, cold, unwelcoming place, and one I did not much favor for all its color and finery. Forced to live within its walls, I made the best of it, and passed my days.
Chapter 2
•~۞~•
During the summer, we always went on progress throughout the country, packing up ourselves and our entourage, then touring England to reassure those who resided outside of London that the King was in good health and concerned about their welfare. It was at such times that we moved between the various palaces and viewed our holdings.
I had always looked forward to this festive season. I loved to travel, and I enjoyed the excitement and change of scenery. I most loved the opportunity it afforded me to give directly to the English subjects by passing out alms, or sewing clothing and distributing it among the poor.
I sent messengers on ahead of us to gather up a list of the families most in need. When we arrived, I then gave them the shirts my ladies and I had made, and money or livestock, or I arranged for medical care–whatever was needed. I was invigorated whenever we were on the road, for it was the season when I was busiest, felt most useful, and was most at home.
