Catherine wondered how tall Margaret’s maid Constance had grown since they’d left Yorkshire. She would show that red hair, that Overton hair, in the village, and it would cause talk. Catherine chewed her lip. Her children were the true Overton heirs. A husband would help her keep it that way. But a husband gotten without permission? The land might go just the same. Catherine rose and, folding the letter again, opened the door. She had turned toward the back steps to the kitchen when she heard the shouting below. Creeping to the main stairs, she leaned against the wall to listen.
Lady Anne was saying, “Prepare! I go now!” and Jane Dudley was shrilling to the maids.
Catherine stepped out and Lady Anne said, “Catherine. The king calls for me. You will wash my face.”
“Yes, Lady Anne.” Catherine bounded down to the kitchen and fumbled through her stores for rosemary, calling for the maids to bring hot water.
Ann came in from the laundry. “What is it?”
“Henry has called. She’s going to him.” Catherine’s hands would not do her bidding, and she dropped the entire stem into the water when the girl brought the bowl. “Ah, God’s foot, we are saved. I’m saved.”
Ann retrieved the rosemary and shredded the needles into the wash water. “Let me do this.”
Catherine shook her hands until they stopped trembling and lifted the bowl. “Pray that she looks like a princess,” she said.
“You mean a miracle?” Ann said.
Lady Anne’s women were already doing her hair, and she was ordering skirts to be shown. “That one,” she said. It was blue, with silver threads.
“I wear that one. Catherine, fix my face.”
“Yes, Lady.” Catherine elbowed past the other women and stroked the skin of Anne of Cleves. There was little to be done for her. “Have you powder, Lady?”
“Cosmetic? I wear no false face,” said Lady Anne.
“Not a mask,” said Catherine. “It is almost a physic for the complexion.” She trotted down to her own chamber and found a box. Returning, she showed it in the window light.
“You see? It is almost invisible. Almost not there.” She dabbed Lady Anne’s cheeks and chin and nose. The Lady blew through her nostrils and said, “Am I fine?”
“You are,” said Catherine. “May God shine on you.” She picked up the bowl and left.
The Lady Anne would not return that night, and Catherine meant to stay in her still room with Ann Smith, sorting and arranging. But Martins was upstairs and she could not hear what he did. The third time she went to the stairs to listen, Ann said, “Sit. When the word comes, if the word comes, it will come in thunder. You will not miss it.”
Catherine returned, and Veronica was brought by Agnes to help. She said, “Mother, you have opened and closed that crock four times. I have counted.” She held up four fingers.
Catherine looked at Ann. Ann looked at the child and said, “Your mother is making sure of herself.”
“I will make sure,” said Veronica, re-opening a jar of sage and sniffing. “It is sage.”
“And it was sage the last time you smelt of it,” said Ann. “Sure as this world.”
The palace went to a quiet sleep, and Catherine finally retreated to her chamber, but she lay awake, watching. If Anne had been summoned of an afternoon, perhaps it had been planned for her to go to the king’s bed. Perhaps she was there now, making England well. But the image gave her a chill, and she pulled the covers up and curled into a ball.
8
Lady Anne did not return in the morning. Nor at noon. The sun was already tangled in the western trees when the barge came, and Catherine forced herself to show the kitchen maids how to roll out a coffin without tearing the pastry. She ripped a piece off herself and showed them how to mend an error. The voices rang upstairs, and still Catherine pushed at the roller, saying “You see? Any mistake may be corrected.”
She handed over the job and wiped her hands. Listened. Ann Smith came in with Veronica on one hip. “She’s returned.”
“Can you hear what they say?”
“No. And I will not eavesdrop, neither. Not with this one in tow.” She bounced the child.
“I cannot wait,” said Catherine, but as she crept to the stairs, she heard nothing like celebration. It was the Lady Anne. But she was shouting.
“I sequester no thing. You cannot say I do such action. I am Henry’s loyal subject and his sister. I have been his wife. We give the gifts, one to the other. He give me the cramp rings as a token of love.”
The accent made Anne’s words thick, and Catherine’s ears strained. But the man’s accusation was easy enough to hear.
“There are discrepancies, Lady, and someone must be held liable for them.” A long pause soaked the air. “It is not as though the king has denied you anything. Do you offer gifts in hopes of something to which you are not entitled? Would you shame the king? You will not do it, I assure you, nor will you have your brother’s butter-boys grease your way out of his realm. He has treated you right well, like a sister, but I see the house you keep here.”
Catherine laid her head against the wall. Lady Anne did not respond. Soon, a door boomed shut, and Catherine backed on her toes down the hall, then turned and ran to the kitchen. She did not want to hear the woman weeping. Martins would answer for it. Let him. “Ann,” she said. “That man has attacked her, and her barely in the door. Come, we can hear better upstairs.”
They took the back way, but no one was talking. They loitered for a while, then retired to their chamber. Catherine turned the key and sat on her bed for a few minutes, waiting for any call from below. But nothing came. “I believe she has gifts from the king. That’s something. I heard her speak of cramp rings.”
“Those are toys between friends,” said Ann. “He might give those to anyone.”
Catherine still carried the letter from Eleanor in her pocket, and she removed it. “The rings are a gift. And Martins has made an accusation upon it. It could be his undoing. I may not need to ride so quickly.” She folded the paper twice more, making a packet of it small enough to slide into the cubbyhole of her desk. Ann shook her head, and Catherine pulled it out again. She said, “Take Veronica down, the front way, and listen as you go. I cannot be seen to have my nose in their conversations.”
“Catherine—” said Ann. But she went.
Catherine opened her clothing chest. She secured the letter under a strap in the lid and slid a pair of gloves in to conceal it. Then she sifted through the old unfashionable sleeves and skirts. Something could be made of these suitable to the Lady of Overton House. Not too fine but rich enough to show her station. Spring would come, and she would need looser garments. She might not go at all until the summer, and she would need looser skirts. If the child were to be kept. As she mused, Catherine’s fingers touched an unfamiliar pillow of velvet. She pulled the item out, into the light. It was a soft black bag, one she had never seen before, gathered and tied with a gold cord that ended in two large tassels. Catherine could feel what was in it before she loosened the knot and emptied it into her hand. The bag was full of gold, angels and crowns. And they certainly were not hers.
9
The Lady Anne’s voice could not be ignored, even coming from as far away as her game room. “I write letter to the king,” she was shouting as Catherine came down the front stairs and peeked in. Jane Dudley sat at the table, dealing cards, and the King’s Sister sat across from her, pounding the arm of her chair as she spoke. “He see his error. I will be his wife. I am his wife. This man will be hung like the villain he be.”
“Yes, my Lady” said Jane Dudley. She glanced up when Catherine entered. Her chin lifted, and Catherine backed up a step, waiting for instructions.
Anne of Cleves’s eyes were on the fire that twisted and popped in the hearth. “That girl betray him and now he will see. I will be his wife. I will have the baby now. I not very old. You
have many baby.”
“Many,” said Jane. She laid down a card. “You have a comfortable situation here. Not many would choose to change it. You might be content with this palace.”
“I am queen. I should have baby.” She raised her hand at Catherine.
“You have baby. Two. And you have been in the convent.”
Catherine curtsied and kept her eyes on the floor. “Yes, my Lady.”
“How do you be a widow and the sisters cannot marry?”
“The king granted me leave,” said Catherine. “My case was exceptional. I was carrying a child. My husband paid well for the king’s ear.”
Jane cut her a glance, and Catherine felt the blood take over her face. She added, “He spoke well into the king’s ear, I mean to say. Most of the sisters cannot marry under the king’s law.”
“Ha.” The Lady Anne plucked a card loose, examined it, and threw it down onto the table. “And now you are widow. So you are one of the king’s sisters now. Like me.”
Catherine said, “You have hit the target, my Lady. And would that we were all Beloved as well.”
The Lady Anne put her head back and laughed with her mouth open. The sound was like a blade through the air. “You are the wit, my Catherine. Is she not, Jane?”
“Yes, my Lady, a very ready mind.” Jane lifted a card from the spread in her right hand and slipped it back in, nearer to the left.
Catherine backed silently, then turned and ran on down to the kitchen, where the maid Marjory was stirring a pot of water with a large pewter spoon. The pot was otherwise empty. “Have you not got those hens on to cook yet?”
“The water won’t boil,” the girl complained. She dipped her finger in and tasted it.
“It’s just water. Let it be. You stir all the fire out of it,” said Catherine, taking the spoon. “Go get their heads off, and this will be hot enough when you return.”
“Which ones?”
“The oldest ones. You cannot tell?”Catherine bit the tip of her tongue and counted ten. “One has black feathers in the wings and the other’s comb has been frozen off.”
Marjory stared at the wall, seeming to lodge this information somewhere, then pulled on a cloak and, leaving the door unlatched behind her, wandered toward the poultry yard.
Ann Smith came in with a clutch of vegetables from the cellar and fastened the door. “Whew. I feel a cold wind blowing.”
Catherine slung a handful of sticks on the fire and the embers hissed. “The maids in waiting have been taught only to dip and say ‘my Lady’ and carry their skirts just so and the kitchen girls don’t know how to heat a pan of water. Are we making all of our English girls stupid? It’s no wonder that the queen got caught with her skirts up.”
She slapped the recalcitrant pot and grinned. “But listen to me. The Lady Anne is on fire for marriage. I think she will win the day.”
Ann flicked a knife blade against her thumb and began trimming the tops of some carrots. “You still want the maids all to be Margaret Mores.”
“I want them not to be idiots who cannot learn to kill a chicken before they find their own heads coming off. I want them to pass under the eye of the king’s men unnoticed.”
Ann laid the carrots upon a block in a row and removed their heads at a stroke. “She has been speaking of marriage, has she?”
“She knows the nuns of England must still be nuns, with or without their church. But she laughs at it. She has the heart to fight for him. Will that not go well with him?” said Catherine to the pot. She took the wooden spoon and stirred the water herself, then threw the spoon down in disgust at herself.
“Will it?” She whirled around. “Do you hear?”
“I cry you mercy, I thought you were asking the pot,” said Ann. She scrubbed the carrot skins with a rough clout. “He will set her straight fast enough, I warrant.”
“I heard her say it myself.” Catherine joined Ann at the table. “She wants children. She told it to Jane Dudley. If he had rejected her, she would show it. She would tell it outright.”
“And what did Jane say?” Ann examined the vegetables, stopping to gouge out a black spot.
“She said nothing. Lady Dudley will not be said to have an opinion at all about royal matters.”
Ann leaned forward and whispered, “Lady Anne should get her another new dress and give her thanks to God that she has a head on her shoulders for wearing the hood to it. Her man Harst should tell her if her women will not.”
“Harst was her brother’s man before he was hers and the brother wants the marriage. It may be that she has bought a dress or two too many.” Catherine paused. She could hear her heart thumping in her ears. “I heard that Martins say that the books do not come to a correct accounting.”
“You see? Things are unchanged.” Ann threw down the carrots and took up a turnip. “The king doesn’t care how much money she spends as long as she bows and licks his toe and says ‘your Grace is the godliest monarch on the earth.’”
“I pray that you say right.”
“I did not say it would win her back into his bed.”
Catherine pulled the velvet bag from her pocket and, listening for steps, laid it on the table. “And what think you of this?”
“Very pretty. It looks like it belongs with mourning weeds, though. Lady Anne will not be wearing black any time soon, I suppose?”
“I found it in my storage chest.”
Ann looked at it more closely. “When did you carry it last? I have no memory of it.”
“I have never seen it before.”
Ann laid the paring knife aside and lifted the bag. Squeezed it. Her brown eyes came up to Catherine’s. She pulled the strings and the coins fell onto the table. “Angels.”
“And crowns.”
Ann stirred the coins. “There must always be crowns contending with the angels these days. Put it away.”
“Should I leave it where it was?”
“Among your things? No. Whoever put it there knows where it was. There are no locks in Richmond that are not subject to the hammer.”
Ann palmed the money back inside and knotted the strings. “You must give it over. Put it into the Lady Anne’s hands and say you found it. If someone asks you more about it, you can blink your green eyes and look as astonished as the next woman. Innocent as the day you were born.” Ann hefted the bag again in her right hand.
“I was not born an innocent. I was born with the stain of sin on me.”
Ann’s eyes were dark. She set the bag into Catherine’s palm. “Get rid of it.”
“All right.” Catherine stood, sliding the bag away. “But who put it among my things? And when?”
“I can’t imagine.”
“Could someone have dropped it?”
“Someone who happened to be leaning over your open clothing chest?”Ann shook her head and reached for some onions. “Someone has been in your chest, and the same someone may have seen that your things are packed.”
“If Lady Anne is retaken, it will not matter so much. Benjamin can see to Margaret, and we will have our permission to marry.”
Ann chopped a large onion open and its walls fell apart. She gathered up the broken skins and threw them into a bowl.
“I expect that Margaret would enjoy having your Benjamin to see to her. Keep your chest locked, Catherine. And check it often. If the king comes to believe that his Beloved Sister is deceiving him, no one in the household will be outside suspicion.”
10
Jane Dudley was calling, “Catherine!” and before they could move, her heavy heels came smacking down the stairs.
“Take this,” said Catherine, stuffing the bag into Ann’s pocket. “Hide it in my still room.”
Ann pulled herself back into shape and bent over the remaining onions as Jane progressed into the kitchen. “You’re needed. They’ve
done with the accounts of the wardrobe, and the Lady Anne will have them entertained before we feed them. Put them into a better frame of mind. Can you manage it? Ann Smith, you come too.”
Ann lifted a carrot and waved it. “These must be cooked.”
“Oh, leave them for the maids,” said Jane Dudley. She snatched the carrot and flung it onto the table. “They’re soft as a priest’s peter anyway.” One of the maids wandered in with a handful of clouts from the laundry, and Jane gave her a soft slap on the back of the head. “Get those roots into a pot, will you, girl?”
The girl offered a stiff curtsey but her upper lip went white. “Yes, Madam.”
Ann said, “I will just change my apron.”
She disappeared up the back stairs, and Jane Dudley called “be quick about it” to her retreating footsteps.
“Where are they?” asked Catherine. “Those villains, I mean. Martins and his little court.”
“They’re in back garden,” said Jane, “waiting for someone to worship their codpieces.”
When Ann rejoined them, Jane handed out cloaks and led them out and around the palace. The long back lawn apparently made a fine shooting range, and Martins, when he spied the women, took a wide-legged stance to prepare himself for a stunning performance. Beyond them, a large apple awaited its execution upon a wooden plinth. Catherine hunkered against the wind, and Ann Smith threw her own cloak over her. Jane Dudley hunched under a cape of furs on a stool nearby, the enflamed Barts and narrow-eyed Chandler, mimicking Martins’ stance,beside her.
“I can barely see your target from this distance,” said Catherine. “You haven’t a prayer of hitting it.”
“You shall see, Lady,” said Martins. “You observe how I rotate the dog thusly.” He moved something at the rear of the weapon and a metal pan opened. He made a great show of packing and pushing, then produced a ball which he displayed between forefinger and thumb. “This will replace the point of any arrow in existence.” He forced the pellet into the weapon and took elaborate aim, rocking from one dainty foot to the other. Chandler also posed as if to aim.Finally, Martins’ thumb moved and an explosion enveloped his hand in smoke.
The King's Sisters Page 6
