The King's Sisters

by Sarah Kennedy

  Veronica hopped down and tugged on Catherine’s skirt. “Mother, I am full of piss as well.”

  “Child!” said Catherine. “That is no way for a young girl to talk.” Veronica plugged her mouth with her thumb and Catherine pulled it loose again. “Forgive me, Daughter. It was I who said it first.”

  Ann said, “Come, I’ll take you, Vere.”

  Catherine stoked up the fire in the second kitchen and watched the pot refuse to boil until Marjory finally tiptoed back in behind her and laid more lettuce, big, fresh leaves, on the table.

  “Will that do for you, Madam?” Marjory’s face was pale and puffy.

  Catherine lifted the new stems, smelt them, and nodded. “You understand that you could find yourself swinging from a noose if you are taken as a thief, young as you are, don’t you?”

  The maid sniffled, and Catherine peeled a few of the leaves free. She held one up. “It looks almost like a green sail.”

  “Madam?”

  Catherine went to her still room and returned with some rue. “Look at the difference in the shapes. Even dry, you can see how this one curves and folds upon itself, like the petals of a flower. It’s a potent medicine, not one to be taken in quantity. It is as though the leaf warns us that the physic within it will bloom when ingested. In large amounts, it can kill. In small amounts, it heals. The lettuce lights itself from within. It wants to be consumed.”

  Marjory plucked the dry leaf from Catherine’s hand and held it toward the window. “Does it speak to you, Madam?”

  “In its manner,” said Catherine. “The whole garden speaks with God’s voice, if you listen. It is the breath of God that pushes forth both leaf and flower.”

  The kitchen maid put her tongue against the rue, and Catherine laid her hand on the thin shoulder. “No. It contains poison. I do not jest.”

  The girl threw the leaf on the table, and Catherine set it far aside. She ripped the lettuces in half, then in half again, put them into a bowl, and ladeled hot water over their tops.“That will be enough.” Catherine tied the rue into bundles, and held the bunch upside down. “When they are fresh, you hang them. Like so.” She took them away from the table and by the time she returned, the lettuce drink was ready. “Stir a spoonful of honey in, will you?”

  Marjory did as she was bidden, clacking the spoon against the edge to knock off the stray drips just as Jane Dudley came downstairs. “Have you the physic for Lady Anne?” she asked.

  “Just here,” said Catherine, pouring a cup of the tea. She ladled out some prunes and laid them on a plate with a chunk of bread.

  Jane sniffed and wrinkled her nose. “Would this cure me?”

  “No. I’ll fix something suited to you.” Catherine waited until Jane’s footsteps reached the top of the steps. “Where is Temperance?”

  “Out in the yard.” Marjory dusted the floor with her toe.

  “You must instruct her that picking up things will put her into water as hot as that tea,” said Catherine. “And the taste will be just as bitter as the rue.”

  “What will you do with my coin?”

  “It is not yours. Learn that. Learn it now. I will return it to the Lady Anne or her steward. I will tell her that it was lost and now is found. I will not say your name nor Temperance’s. But you must take your lesson from this. You must.”

  Marjory touched her throat. “I am too young to be hanged, Madam.”

  “You are older than Queen Katherine was by more than a year. And her youth did not keep her head from rolling into the straw when the axe fell.”

  15

  Just after the midday meal the next day, Lady Anne’s wailing began. The waves of agony reached all the way down to the still room, and Ann Smith, who was sewing while Catherine fanned some old herbs, smelling for mildew, put her hands over her ears. “Is she crying because she is not with child?”

  “She is probably in pain with her purging,” said Catherine. “And she has another letter from her brother.” She rehung the stems and began mashing wort for an infusion. Veronica hopped onto her lap. “Jane says he insists that the king marry her again to save the Cleves honor. Why will he not decide? This waiting will be the death of me.”

  “Yes, what an honor she would have if he takes her.” Ann stuffed the pillow she was making with dried lavender blossoms and began to stitch the last corner closed.

  “A weighty gift to be sure.” Catherine inhaled. “That scent is heaven. You sew like the angels.”

  Ann handed Veronica a single heavy-headed stem. “That’s for you. Don’t shake it or the beauty will shatter off.”

  Veronica held the lavender to her nose. “This pillow is for Mistress Dudley? So that she will not scream and shake so? Is that right, Mother?”

  “Sh.” Catherine put a finger on her daughter’s mouth. “Lady Dudley has her spells. But a small girl does not see such things, nor does she speak of them. A small girl looks at her toes and says nothing, as though the greatest truth were written in the cracks between the pavers.”

  “It is tiresome to be a small girl.” Veronica laid her head against her mother’s breast and waved the dead flower back and forth. “When will I be old enough to see her spells?”

  “Oh, Vere, it’s difficult to know. Our eyes are not our own. You may note well enough but your eyes must not be seen to understand. It’s hard to explain.”

  “Jane has high aims for her children,” said Ann. She bit off the thread and squeezed the pillow. “This should please her, don’t you think?”

  “If anything can,” said Catherine. She set Veronica onto the floor and scraped the wort into a cup of wine. “I suppose she has so many that she can sacrifice a few to her aspirations. Children, I mean. I hear that the boys are raised to overreach themselves. Even if I had as many sons as she has, I would prefer them not to stretch their necks so far out.” She looked into the cup. Ann said nothing.

  “When the young roosters stretch out their necks, Auntie Ann or Agnes chops their heads clean off with a hatchet,” said Veronica. She slapped the board with the side of her hand. “Like that.”

  Catherine clapped her hand over her daughter’s. “That’s right, Vere. Just like that. Remember it and keep your head tucked in. Now you two stay here in the quiet while I deliver these.”

  Holding the pillow under one arm, Catherine carried the treated wine upstairs. The sobbing had ceased, and the palace throbbed with silence. Jane Dudley’s door stood ajar, and Catherine found her in bed, one arm flung over her forehead. A chambermaid sat on a stool nearby, squinting at the embroidery in her lap.

  “Jane?” Catherine said softly. “Are you awake?”

  Jane gripped the bed curtain and tried to sit up. “I’m cold, Catherine, and yet I sweat so. My heart. It twists like a snake in my breast. Here. You feel.”

  Catherine set the cup on the table and slid the pillow behind Jane’s head. “Lie back and let me feel it.” She pushed the other woman down. “Put your head there and breathe. Not so fast, Jane. Your air will run off with your body like a wild mare. Quiet. Slow and steady.”

  Jane turned her damp, pale head so that her nose was mashed against the lavender-stuffed linen, and Catherine laid her hand on the woman’s narrow breast. The heart went raggedly, to be sure,but less like a viper than the fluttering of a small bird trapped within the bones of Jane’s thin chest. She smelt of stale urine and woman’s blood, like a stagnant bog.

  “Breathe more slowly. Slow. Hold your air if you must.”

  “What is to become of us if this brother will not cease?” Jane muttered. “He is insisting upon the marriage. What will we do if he gathers an army against us?”

  “What is ailing you?” asked Catherine. She glanced over her shoulder at the maid. “Leave us. And latch the door behind you.”

  The girl tossed the needlework into a basket and sauntered out. The door swung closed slowly behind h
er. After a few seconds, the latch was pulled and the door clunked shut.

  Catherine said, “Would she not be happier if he married her? Would we all not breathe easier?”

  Jane twisted her neck and her head flopped back and forth until Catherine lifted her to sitting. “He will hate her for it. She will steer us backward.”

  “Drink this.” She put the wine to Lady Dudley’s lips. “It is physic. It will calm you.”

  Jane gulped the draught, letting it run from the edge of her lip and drip from her chin. Catherine wiped her face with a handkerchief. When the cup was empty, Jane fell back again, and Catherine smoothed the soaked hair. “Tell me. What is it?”

  “If she is queen, this island will be at war.”

  Catherine started back. “Jane, you let your fancies ride you for this? Lady Anne has had pleasant visits with the king. That is all. You infect the very air with your worries.”

  “Why did he make another foreign marriage? It puts the whole world against us. My children.”

  “We all have our children to place in the world, Jane. Yours have greater advantage than most. They will go as far as you push them. But a mother can aim too high. It is not wise. Nor is it safe. Now sleep and let these fears fade. Let your fancy take them for clouds and a summer wind will come to carry them into the sun. You’re letting the devil into your intellect. Come, we live in England, not the duchy of Cleves. If he takes her again to wife, it is not for us to nay-say him.” She beat down the urgency in her voice.

  Jane turned onto her side and seemed to sink toward dreaming. She shoved her nose into the pillow again. “She will turn him again to the old ways. And the Catholics will devour us as tidbits. My children.”

  Catherine stroked Lady Jane’s hair until the woman was snoring, then she took up the cup and tiptoed out. The maid crouched across the hall, twirling one loose lock of fair hair. “Shall I go in, Madam?” she asked.

  “She sleeps,” said Catherine. “Will you wait here? The lady needs rest and silence, but if she wakes, I want someone close by to hear her.”

  The girl nodded, and Catherine went on her toes all the way back downstairs. The two kitchen maids were preparing the late meal, pulling cabbages apart while Sebastian turned a joint of pork over the hearth.

  Ann Smith entered from the laundry, carrying an arm load of kitchen towels, and surveyed the room. “How much have you finished?” she asked.

  Marjory said, “Almost the basketful, Madam.”

  “See that you do them all.” Ann’s eyes met Catherine’s. “How does Jane?”

  “She is excited beyond her spirit’s capacity. Such a condition makes a woman feel as though she is splitting her skin. She’s afraid that the talk of marriage will put her children at a disadvantage. She talks of a return to the Church.”

  “All mothers worry about their children. Don’t they?” said Ann.

  Marjory laid down the blade and swiveled on the bench. “That fat shadow Master Martins has been back here and I heard Master Harst speaking to him.”

  “What of that?” asked Catherine. “He is here half the days of the week. Has he found something more?”

  Marjory’s eyebrows went up. “I heard Master Harst say that the ledger books should be returned to Lady Anne and asked what Master Martins thought of it. And Master Martins said nothing to it. My father used to say that if a man’s heart is clean, his thoughts are always ready to be known. Is that fat man honest, Madam?”

  “Back to work, Marjory,” said Catherine. “Let the ones who are paid to keep the books keep them. The thoughts of the king’s man are his own. We have nothing here for him to find.”

  “Yes, Madam,” said the girl, picking up her knife.

  “Are you so sure that nothing will be found?” asked Ann.

  “I am sure of nothing these days but what I stir with my own hands,” said Catherine.

  Sebastian drank a long draught of ale and turned the scorching spit.

  16

  The whispering had been going on in the writing room of the King’s Beloved Sister since the latest letter’s arrival. The women of the household served the noon meal, but the Lady Anne did not come. They put out the cold meats for supper, but still the Lady Anne did not appear. Jane Dudley sat with Catherine and ate nothing. The other women filled their plates at the lower end of the table and stuffed themselves in silence. Ann Smith had elected to remain in the kitchen. Catherine spun her slice of leftover roast pig with a chunk of white bread and lifted a slice of the soft apple from the sauce to her mouth. She had ordered it to be flavored with sage and she savored it upon her tongue before she swallowed. But the chunk lodged in her throat and she had to swallow a mouthful of ale to get it down. One by one, the women drifted from the table, leaving Catherine and Jane Dudley alone.

  “What do they speak of for so long?” asked Jane. Her fingers clung, white-knuckled, to a silver spoon. “They are just numbers. They reach a certain sum or they don’t.”

  “The letter, maybe?” asked Catherine. “From Cleves?”

  “Yes. That brother. What does he think? That the king has gone blind in the last two years? I have a note from my John. He says there will be no remarriage for our Lady Anne. Let’s pray for it.”

  Catherine choked on another bite and spat it onto her spoon.

  “And how does your husband?”

  Jane Dudley smiled. “He complains of his stomach, but he has always carried his worries in his belly. I would send you to him if he would allow it. You could give him the cure.”

  Catherine shook her head. “I prefer not to serve men. I tend women’s ailments.”

  “So you say. Why is that, Catherine? They say you once tended men. Your own husband. You might be at court if you sought a place.”

  “So might you. And yet here we are.”

  “My children are at court. And I am here because I pity the Lady Anne and the situation pleases me. I do not mean to stay until I die.”

  Catherine made a demonstration of looking about the great dining hall. It was dark, and the timbers of the high ceiling seemed to hide faces in their grains.

  “My son is there, too. I would that I had my own books and garden about me.”

  “The holy sister still lives, cloistered somewhere inside you?”

  “No.” The word came out fast. She sat silent for a moment. “The work of my hands brings me closer to God.” She looked into Jane’s eyes. “Without priest or priory. I will not be here forever, either.”

  Jane threw her spoon. Retrieved and spun it, then tossed it again. “And what do you hear from Mount Grace?”

  Catherine considered the question. “Benjamin and my father have improved the flocks by three dozen. We have more wool than our women can work through in the year.”

  “So your church is a drapery now.” She pushed back the chair. “I see why the priory and priests are of so little concern to you. The buildings make a better profit as they are. Benjamin is a good husbandman then?”

  “The profits are the result of labor and diligence. I have good stewards, and my father finds that the business eases his old heart. I like the planning of it. Do you see a fault in that?”

  “And you have made Benjamin Davies your knee-scraping servant?”

  “Benjamin Davies has invested good monies in the Mount Grace wool. He was a friend to my husband and did much to try and bring him to a fair reckoning with his troubles. Would you have me withhold his earnings?”

  Jane arched one eyebrow. “It is far from me to say what you might or might not withhold from him. That is surely the king’s prerogative.”

  Catherine studied Jane’s face but saw no flicker of knowledge there. Or condemnation. But she stood and said, “I have been a loyal subject of my ruler. There is work to be done below.” She ran to the kitchen, calling “Ann, are you here?” Veronica sat at the table, head bent over a s
crap of paper. A prayer book lay open before her and Catherine could see that she was toiling at the first words of Psalm Twenty-Three. “You do well, Vere,” she said. “Have you eaten?”

  The little girl laid her head back so that Catherine could pat her smooth face and said, “Marjory has given me a pie with pig and carrots. She promises that I might have a rhubarb tart if I finish my letters.”

  “Good girl.”

  Ann came in. “Is the conference still underway?”

  “Jane says that he will not marry her. How long can this struggle go on, Ann? Does John Dudley know who the king might marry?”

  “Mm. The royal fish might feed multitudes, but only if it were fresher.”

  A door slammed upstairs and they both stopped to listen. Shouting shattered the air, and Veronica pressed her new quill into the parchment. No one moved, and another door boomed overhead. Catherine placed her hand on her daughter’s shoulder. A woman’s footsteps hurried past the top of the stairs. The heavy accent of the Lady Anne’s voice came to them, but not the words. The lighter tremor of Jane Dudley’s voice followed hard upon. One of the younger maids peeped in and withdrew again without fully showing herself.

  “Catherine!” Jane called.

  Catherine lifted Veronica into Ann’s arms and shooed them toward the laundry. She swept the girl’s writing onto a high shelf and turned her attention to the hearth. Sebastian stepped back.

  “Catherine!” Jane Dudley stepped into the kitchen. “Did you not hear me?”

  “Forgive me. The fire was taking my attention.” Catherine feinted a poke at the burning kindling. “It keeps wanting to go out.”

  “The Lady Anne needs nourishment. She is in a state.” Jane was clutching her skirt in her hands, crushing the velvet.

  “There is food on the table. Lady Jane, will you take a drink?” Catherine went to the pantry, almost tripping over a little maid who scurried out of her way. She poured two cups, walked to her still room to stir a helping of the wort into one, and returned. “Here. You have had a trying morning.”