The King's Sisters

by Sarah Kennedy

  “But if he wanted her—” countered Catherine.

  “He is not a king to want again what he’s cast off once.”

  “It would be the easier course for him,” said Catherine.

  “And when has he taken the easier course in matters of love?”

  “She is great friends with the Lady Mary,” said Catherine. “Perhaps she will speak for it. Or for me.”

  “Stay away from the Lady Mary. She still has the stink of Pope on her. At least you will spare yourself a scaffold on her account.” Ann lowered her face against the filthy spray.

  Catherine thought a while. “Henry will break up the Howard girl’s household now. Her women will all have to go.”

  “Mmm. As I say, you must get to Yorkshire. Your sister is likely already headed that way. You can protect what’s yours. And you can hide yourself if need be.” Ann set her chin in her hand and stared ahead, into the fog.

  Catherine said nothing more.

  Richmond Palace emerged from the haze, and the two women stood, bracing themselves, as the bargeman steered toward the dock, drew them in, and tied up the vessel. Sebastian held out his arm, and Catherine took it. She offered hers, in turn, to Ann, and they joined the small group disembarking. The air smelt of rotten fish and cold mud and Catherine longed for the spicy scent of clean Yorkshire sheep and blooming gorse. She imagined she could smell the dirty lanes of London, wafting down the river from the east. The bile came up her throat again, and she vomited into the grimy water. The bargeman was asking the man with the hand cannon whether he’d seen the execution. “See it?” the man said. “The stuff spattered me all over.” He dug a stained cap from his pocket to prove it. “That child had more blood in her than a fatted pig.” He nudged the bargeman. “Hot, too. Felt it hit my face, I did.” The man climbed onto the dock and disappeared, whistling, down the road.

  “We are become an island of beasts,” Catherine blurted, wiping her mouth. “I fear God has turned His face away from us all.”

  2

  “All may be well,” said Catherine the next morning. She had come down to the kitchens from serving the morning meal, and she sat next to Ann at the table near the smaller fire. The big kitchen was a mess of hired cooks, brought in to prepare the great Valentine’s Day meal. The king’s younger daughter was coming, and the air was a cloud of flour.

  In the lesser kitchen, a dirty-faced girl was pouring ale for Sebastian, who was turning the spit. The highest iron pole held three skewered chickens, and he turned the impaled bodies with a doleful hand. Catherine said, “There is talk. The Lady of Cleves believes she will be queen again, as sure as my hand has nails. I will wait and see how the tide turns. If they marry again, the mood will shift. Tonight may show us something.”

  “She is a fool,” said Ann softly, “and she should put a stop to her party. Someone should tell her. And then you must go from here. You think you can linger at this place, feeding her house and hoping on a dream, while someone is gobbling up your properties?”

  “The queen was a child,” said Catherine, lifting a bunch of carrots from a basket. “He has murdered a little girl this time.” She yanked a wilted frond off. “But the Lady Anne is a woman and she likes to wager. She has the brother behind her.”But she knew that Katherine of Aragon had had the whole of Rome behind her, and Catherine bit her tongue. She chose three turnips and an onion and shoved the basket aside. “These are almost pig food. What has become of the order for fresh vegetables?” She stood and shook the dust from her skirt. Catherine watched the maid at the fire struggle to help Sebastian. She pulled at one flopping, naked wing and let her skirt flutter near the flames, but when she shrieked and lifted it almost to her knee in escape, he simply stopped his work and stood, studying a spot near her chin until she grew bored and moved away.

  “Girl,” said Catherine. “See to some ale for the man, will you? Let him work.”

  Sebastian set himself to turning again, and Ann put a jug of ale within the maid’s reach, but he did not touch the cup after she had filled it. The girl perched on the edge of the hearth, her chin on her fists, and watched. She seemed very small indeed. Catherine wondered what father and mother had sold her off to the palace. She said to Ann, “Elizabeth will be here any moment. Do you think the king will come to the masque?”

  Agnes, Catherine’s own maid, came in from the laundry on the last words. She was hunched from cold and headed for the fire. “Madam, they say the queen ran through the palace to the king begging for her life and he shut his door in her face. They say she was screaming like a madwoman.”

  The little maid stared up, her mouth open. Sebastian set the spit into a notch on the frame and squeezed one chicken thigh. Blood squirted, and he took up the pole again. Catherine muttered, “Don’t say that. This palace is in enough disquiet without talk like that,” She whispered into Agnes’s ear, “and now that he believes himself our pope, he might put on a halo along with his crown when he comes searching for another woman.” She said aloud, “Do not gossip. Where are the fresh vegetables?”She dumped the old ones back into the basket.

  “They’re in the big room,” said the Agnes. “I’ve got the younger girls paring them.”

  “Very good. I cannot breathe in here.” Catherine rose.

  The pastry chef, painted in sugar and sticky white almond paste, presided over the baking room next door, and the two women ducked past him and his prissy band of helpers into the small side room, where Catherine kept her books and the better silver. She said, “Now, what else shall we have butchered? Lady Anne has ordered a pig and two swans. Those are readied.” She checked off the items with a short quill. “Do we have the pheasants?”

  “Being plucked behind the stables,” said Agnes. “And what of those old turnips? Who will eat those?”

  “Ann and I will eat them. For our health. You may join us if you like.”

  Agnes’s mouth twitched. “It’s a masque, Madam. There’s going to be sweeties.”

  “Sweetmeats will give you the bellyache,” said Catherine. “They will make you sleepy.”

  “I have the stomach for them,” Agnes said. “I will see to the plucking.” She got her cloak and headed out.

  Through the half-door, Catherine watched the young woman go, dragging the spit girl along with her. She sneezed in the flour-haze. “It is perhaps too soon for him to come? But he will maybe send one of his Council?”

  Ann said, “To think that we will wear masks and dance and stuff ourselves like Romans. God should strike us down. Christ in the East, it makes me sick.”

  “We must obey when she says we must and hope for the best of this.”

  They wandered back into the kitchen, and Ann perched on the edge of the table. “If God’s going to strike, He needs to bestir Himself quickly.”

  “If you think of it, she’s not so old and she’s put up no fight against him. Maybe he is broken from this and will be happy to see her.” Catherine lifted a couple of eggs from a bowl and turned them over at the window, then held one to her ear and shook it to listen for rot. It sloshed, and she set it aside. “He’s done it before. He could show at the door, dressed as Robin Hood again or some such silliness. He could be Achilles. It might lift his spirits.”

  Ann said, “Shaking the pus out of that leg of his all over us. My God, it twists my guts. He wouldn’t have her before, but if what she says is true, it didn’t stop him from running his fat hands all over her. Can you imagine it? A man feeling a woman every night for half a year, then turning her out like a dog that won’t hunt?”

  Catherine leaned over and whispered. “It is sure she has a letter. The brother of Cleves says that the king has had her in bed and must take her to wife again. I heard her speak of it.”

  “Well, he will deny it,” said Ann. “He already has. He thinks her as ugly a woman as I am.”

  Ann had grown slender after they moved to Richmond,
unused to the leisure hours of being in a former queen’s service, even though her shoulders were still wide and her hands were calloused. Her hair looked thicker, even when she pulled it severely back for fear of getting a strand in the food. Here, she went by the title of lady-in-waiting, and her silk skirts shone with embroidery and fit her neatly at the waistline. Her skin was smooth and fair. She would have her choice of pastries and joints of meat at the masque dinner.

  “Stop staring at me,” Ann grumbled. “What is it? Is the sweat pasting my dress to my back?”

  “You look as fine as any woman here,” said Catherine.

  “Hmph. Fine as any mower’s wife, you mean.” She fetched a basin of water and began rinsing the dirt from the eggs as Catherine shook and approved them, scrubbing the shells with a rough clout. Ann said, “How many do you think that girl had in her youth? The dead queen, I mean?”

  Catherine said, “Sh.” But then she shook her head and added, “I keep recalling last Christmas. She was all jests and dresses. She danced with the Lady Anne. They didn’t even notice when Henry went to his bed. The queen should have been playing at dolls, not at court.” Catherine handed over two more eggs. “But we were all friends then. The sun shone on us all. Nothing seemed very sinful.”

  “The world does not seem to want women to keep friends. The ones she had leapt to blame her, quickly enough. Is it true that the king has ordered women to be spied upon?” An egg splattered in her palm, and she wiped off the mess. She threw down the soiled clout and chose another.

  “He laid down orders about any queen of his. It’s treason to conceal any misbehavior. Even from her childhood,” Catherine said. “I don’t know how many men the Howard girl had, but I hope she enjoyed them. They were probably the greatest pleasure she ever got.” She could taste the words, bitter on her tongue. “I will hope he proves a better husband next time.”

  “You think he will reform his ways? Study the past, Catherine. He only changes when desire turns his sails. You couldn’t have foreseen this. But here you are, and you must save yourself.”

  “Lady Anne would be a good wife to him. She loves him. I know she does.” Catherine gave her the last pair of eggs and gazed out the window.

  “How is that possible?” asked Ann. She took up the bowl and ferried it to the pastry chef. She returned with a couple of hens, their stiff claws hugging her thumbs, and tossed them onto the table. “You don’t know what she thinks.”

  “Christ, Ann, I’m in knots.” Catherine wrung her hands and, horrified at how much they looked like her mother’s in the motion, stopped and tucked them into her pockets.

  “Here,” said Ann, shoving a chicken over. “Put yourself to work stuffing that.”

  Catherine ripped an old loaf into shreds and jammed them into the dead bird.

  “You’re putting dry bread into that,” said Ann, taking Catherine’s wrist. “Listen to me. You still have the house and the land. You are still young, Catherine, and still beautiful. If it is not Lady Anne, his eye will light on someone else in time. But time is something we do not have. But we must go from here.”

  “Perhaps something will happen tonight.” A woman’s voice called from above stairs, and Catherine stripped off her linen apron. “It is Elizabeth. This killing will have her in a passion.”

  Ann said, “I think I hear a batch of unfolded napkins summoning me.”

  A small girl with blue eyes and unruly red hair showed her face around the door to the laundry, and Catherine said, “Veronica, go down with Auntie Ann, will you?”

  “Yes, Mother.”

  Ann took the child’s small hand in her rough one and swung her. The girl giggled and let herself be lifted onto Ann’s hip.

  One of the other kitchen maids came from the still room, rubbing her eyes, and Catherine snapped her fingers in the placid young face. “Wake up. It’s almost the middle of the day. Ann has laid a couple of old hens just there, and you will need to put onions and garlic in them. Be sure that all of the pin feathers have been stripped out.” The girl blinked slowly, and Catherine clamped her lower lip between her teeth before she spoke. “There’s a masque on tonight, child. Wake up and move your bones.”

  Richmond Palace was a cavern, and the voices carried all the way down. Many voices. Catherine set her feet gently on the stone steps as she ascended, preferring to make no sound at all than to set the hollows ringing with the clack of her heels. Her skirt whispered behind her, though, and she lifted it above her ankles. No one was at the landing, and Catherine wondered if her hearing had fooled her. “Hallo?”

  Footsteps padded around a corner. It was weasel-faced Jane Dudley, one of the Lady Anne’s women, looking less nervous than usual. She said, “Catherine. Let someone else manage the kitchen for once. The little one is here and we need you. She’s in a fit of grief.”

  “Give me until you count one hundred.” Catherine ran back downstairs, calling for Ann Smith. “Is there anything sweet? Any tart left from yesterday?”

  Ann came in, carrying a pile of clean clouts. “Let me see what’s in the pantry,” she said. The child Veronica dawdled behind her.

  Catherine squeezed past the pastry chef’s round buttocks and pulled plates and cups from a cupboard. She took a jug of ale from the floury table and poured a goblet, and when Ann reappeared with a plate of pear tart, she grabbed it and slapped it onto the side table. “I can make three servings of this.” The chef sniffed and closed his eyes, unable to gaze upon an old tart, but Catherine sliced it, then slid the plate to Ann. “Will you arrange these and bring them up in a few minutes?”

  “Is she frantic?”

  “I haven’t seen her yet,” said Catherine. She poured half of the ale into one cup. She had good henbane on the high shelf in the still room, and she slipped down the empty hall and fetched a pinch for the drink without speaking. Ann was behind her when she turned.

  “Keep this one separate,” said Catherine. “On your life.”

  Ann shifted her eyes toward the cup and away again. “She will want to see Veronica.”

  She stepped aside to reveal the child.

  Catherine bent to her daughter. “You will come up with Auntie Ann. You will curtsey to the Lady Elizabeth and do as she bids you. She will be taller but you are not to comment upon her appearance. You will not suck your thumb. Have you any small token of your sewing?”

  Veronica trotted away, but returned in seconds holding a delicate handkerchief. A daisy with two leaves was embroidered in one corner. “I have done all of the petals.”

  “A perfect choice. You will fold this and present it to the Lady Elizabeth as a gift.” Veronica crushed the fabric against her chest.

  “You can make you another,” said Ann.

  “The Lady Elizabeth will have nothing from you at all if you keep it. Would you greet her empty-handed and make her sad, while you keep all to yourself?”

  Veronica unfurled the handkerchief and regarded the work.

  “I will give it to her.”

  “Good girl,” said Catherine, kissing the child on the top of her coif. “Come up with Aunt Ann.”

  Someone screamed upstairs, and Catherine ran.

  At the center of the great front hall, The Lady Anne of Cleves was bent as though in prayer. Light from the high windows stabbed the dingy air, and Catherine stopped in the middle of one golden shaft to determine whether she should go on or retreat. Jane Dudley was posed with one hand against the wall and the other flat on her chest. Two other ladies, their backs to Catherine, were leaning, in hand-waving conference, toward each other.

  “Catherine,” said Jane. “You must revive her.”

  Catherine pushed on through. Elizabeth Tudor lay on the floor. A cry slipped out of her and echoed from the ceiling far above them, and Lady Anne stroked the bloodless forehead, saying “Dear child, dear child. Come back to me.”

  Elizabeth Tudor was
thin, even for an eight-year-old girl. Too thin. Her shins stuck out from the skirt like the legs of a marionette as she thrashed, and Catherine squatted beside her, pressing down on her chest. “Elizabeth? Elizabeth, I am Catherine Overton, speaking to you. What ails you? Tell me where you are hurt.”

  Elizabeth cast her eyes over the stars and sun painted overhead and let them come to rest on Catherine’s face. She put her hand up. “I am sick to my death.”

  “Are you able to stand?” The two women tittered softly, and Catherine snapped, “This child is ill. Have you hauled her across England when she cannot even balance upon her feet?”

  Jane Dudley came forward. “They are not responsible for her feet. I know these women and they have done all that becomes them to keep her from here tonight.”

  Elizabeth scrambled up. “But come I would. And I am here.”

  The women all dropped to their knees. The Lady Anne of Cleves said, “My child, you are recovered. A great joy.” She smiled. She might have been beaming upon the girl, but even in her brightest moments of pleasure, the Lady Anne of Cleves, the King’s Beloved Sister, had a face like a plastered wall. “You will dance with us this evening?”

  “Stand,” Elizabeth shrilled, and the women all unfurled. “It is here,” she said, pointing to her narrow breast. No one spoke, and Elizabeth poked Catherine. “Here, I say. Here is where I am injured.” Her voice spiraled upward, like thin smoke. “I have been robbed of my peace of mind. I am stuck through the heart. They will try to marry me to some nobody. Some farmhand. Some lesser son with pustules on his face. I will not. I swear it, do you hear me? I will not!” She was panting raggedly. Her face was white. “They will kill me if I disobey. I will die first. But I will never marry. Never. And I will not dance like one of their trained bears.”

  Ann and Veronica turned the corner, and Catherine said, “You should take a draught to level your spirits, Your Grace.”

  Veronica came skipping when she saw her mother, then skidded to a stop and fell into a curtsey. Elizabeth pinched the smaller girl’s chin and asked, “Is this my doll?”