The King's Sisters

by Sarah Kennedy

  When the girl had pulled the door closed, Catherine teetered to the small hearth and laid the bowl on the stones. “Will you have your hair washed?” she asked.

  Mary Tudor came like a child and sat, her legs folded under her.

  “No, Lady. Not on the floor. On this.” Catherine dragged a cushioned chair backward to the fire and guided Mary Tudor into it. “Lay your head back, on this pillow.” Mary obeyed, and Catherine wet a soft clout in the fragrant wash and rinsed it through the dry hair. Mary sighed, and Catherine squeezed the milk water through again and again, then worked the skin with her fingertips. “Let it rest now. Then we will flush it out.”

  Mary had closed her eyes, and Catherine tiptoed to the door, the basin balanced on her hip. The maid was crouched in the hallway, and Catherine whispered, “Bring clean water, heated.” By the time the girl had returned, Mary was breathing through her mouth. Her skin was pocked and pasty, and her eyebrows showed bare patches, as though someone had pulled at them, hard. Narrow lines had begun to radiate from the lips. Catherine had remembered her as a stern woman, but a handsome one. A royal one, above the common sort of person. Now she was beginning to show a mortal’s decay, the lines of the skull beneath the skin. If she were to get a husband, she would have to be quick about it.

  Catherine sat on the pavers beside the sleeping Mary, watching the hearth flames contend with the air. She drove a stem she’d plucked from the royal daughter’s skirt into the fire and,when the blossom end sparked, waved it like a banner until it burned itself out. She pitched the scorched stub among the logs and chose another. It had just bloomed with fire when the hesitant knock sounded again. Catherine tossed her little torch away and fetched the new basin from the girl at the door. She arranged the rinse water under the hanging hair and began gently to work the water through. Mary stirred, snorting softly as she came awake. She said, “And I will be young and beautiful again, will I?”

  “You are still young,” said Catherine, “and you will always be beautiful. You are the king’s daughter. All the tales say that you must be the most lovely lady in the land.”

  “If I am to be so, then do not the stories say that I must hide my face to save the young men from themselves?”

  Catherine got a polished wooden comb from the table and sat again to untangle Mary’s wet hair as it dried. “I don’t know that story. Tell me.”

  “Or is it that I must be veiled so that I can have a husband before my younger sister?” A drop of acid had fallen into the flow of words.

  “The younger sisters always destroy the elder ones, do they not? They will marry off that little brat before they find me a man.”

  “Who will have her?” asked Catherine, though a nub of pity clogged her throat. Elizabeth was red-haired and quick-witted, like her own Veronica. Strung tight, like a high-voiced lute. Daughters of shame. Catherine swallowed hard and kept combing.

  Mary threw her head forward and plowed her hands through her hair. “It feels new,” she said. She pressed it against her face. “Like a summer garden.” She lifted it back and smiled. “You are still the lady physician, Catherine.”

  Catherine got to her feet behind Mary and lifted handfuls of hair toward the fire, letting them fall through her fingers as they dried. Mary sat quiet, letting her work. The hair was indeed softer. Finally, Catherine said, “I am glad for your joy. Will you sleep now?”

  Catherine took the basin to the door and sent the maid in to fix the bed. She bade Mary good night and headed straight for the kitchen.

  “Ann!”

  “I’m here,” came the familiar voice.

  Veronica ran out of the laundry, and she clung to Catherine’s leg, almost upsetting the water. “You monkey,” said Catherine. “What game is this?”

  “We have been in hiding, Mother, and no one has found us out but you.” The child danced a few steps and withdrew the doll from her dress. “I am Cleopatra’s rug. She conceals herself in my bodice.”

  Catherine laughed. “Who warrants such stealth, Daughter?” She stepped outside and emptied the basin under the nearest rosemary bushes.

  Ann Smith closed the door as she came back in. “We’re keeping out of the way of great ladies. They burn too brightly and we wish not to be charred in their wake.”

  “She speaks of wanting a husband, Ann.” Catherine bent to look into her daughter’s face. “Vere, the Lady Mary will wish to see you before she departs. She will ask after your brother and you must make ready a proper answer. You will not refuse to see the king’s daughter, do you hear?”

  “Not if she is the daughter of the king,” said Veronica. The little girl put the edge of her finger against her neck. “The king will have my head chopped off if I do not do my duty.”

  Catherine gasped and she pulled her daughter close. “Who has been telling you such things?”

  Veronica wriggled free. “The lady maids say that the king has the heads of little girls chopped off when they do not obey. Or if they laugh or if they smile at the little boys. I will obey, Mother, and I will do no smiling, not at any of the boys. Nor must you neither, Mother. That is what they say.”

  19

  Mary Tudor had decided by the next morning that she would progress to Hampton Court and ordered that a barge be brought. The Lady Anne stood at the bottom of the great stairs, flapping her hands in distress, when Catherine trotted up to oversee the laying of the morning meal. “But you are just arriven. We have not eaten the foods,” Lady Anne was insisting to a trio of Mary’s women. “We will have great party if you stay.” The young women nodded obediently, but when Mary Tudor appeared from her bedchamber and ordered them to see to her clothes chests, they curtsied and fled up the steps, leaving Lady Anne to fly after their mistress to the dining gallery.

  “Catherine, you tell her,” said Lady Anne. “Make her stay. Her horses are here.”

  Catherine shook her head and slid into a seat low on the table. “With your leave, Lady Anne,” she said, “I will trust the king’s elder daughter to decide her own mind. The stable men can surely feed a few more horses.”

  “The Lady Mary knows what is best for her,” said Jane Dudley, taking a seat at Lady Anne’s left hand. “Her father has sent her a welcome, and she should tend to it in good time.”

  “And how do you this morning, Jane?” asked Catherine. Jane had been in her chamber since Mary’s arrival, pleading the headache. “You have conquered the beast?”

  Jane Dudley touched her temple, then pushed back her hood. “It besets me still.”

  Mary Tudor said, “Catherine will cure you, if you put your head in her hands. I feel myself to be a new woman.” She trained a narrow look on the blanched face of Jane Dudley. “You could perhaps benefit from some renewal yourself. I hear that the weight of your husband’s attentions wears you down.”

  “I will study upon it,” said Jane. She snatched up a drink, but it was fuller than she realized, and yellow ale sloshed onto the table and ran onto her lap. She leapt to her feet and knocked over a salt dish with her hand.

  “God protect me,” she gasped. The salt was instantly soaked by the ale and left no pinch to take up for tossing. Jane stared in horror at the evil mess before her, and no one spoke.

  “Mother? May I break my fast with you?” It was Veronica, who came skipping into the room, swinging the poppet by one hand.

  “What is that?” Jane Dudley screamed. “Is that an image? Who is that? Is that the king’s sister?”

  Veronica wailed. Jane Dudley threw a fingerful of the sodden grains over her shoulder and ran from the room. Anne of Cleves took the doll from Veronica’s hand and said, “This do look not like me.”

  Ann Smith hurried in from the side door. “What has happened?” she asked, gathering Veronica into her arms. The child hid her head against Ann’s shoulder. “What is the matter?”

  Mary Tudor had laid her cheek on her hand, and Catheri
ne retrieved the poppet. “It’s a gift from Benjamin Davies. A Scottish woman in my town makes the dolls. It is a plaything for a child, nothing more.”

  “She thought it was my aunt. The Scottish queen,” sighed Mary Tudor. She began to laugh, low in her throat. Then she stood. “That woman has a fire of ambition inside her, burning her alive. It’s the way of our world now, is it not? For women to be afraid even of girls and their toys.” She pushed the wet pile of salt with one finger. “They say that, when I was born, the people cheered in the streets. My mother told me that she wept, first for happiness, then for fear. But my father smiled upon me and the world seemed bright. Newly made. What think you of that? A handsome king, a beautiful queen. And their princess. And you had been born within that year.” She put her hand over Lady Anne’s. “And you,” she said to Catherine. “It seemed a fairy tale, and I was to be the Queen of England. And then the sun turned its face and we were all in darkness. It is no wonder that we are ridden by fear of demons. We are all worn down.”

  Mary’s maids came to the door and, flopping onto their faces, indicated that her chests were ready and being loaded to go. Veronica squirmed to be free, and when Ann Smith set her down, she squatted next to the row of maids.

  Mary Tudor studied the girl, then she walked over and lifted Catherine’s daughter by both hands to her feet. “You have raised her well,” she said. “She is bold but she knows her position. And have you learnt your needlework, Veronica?” She smiled. “Better than your mother has?”

  Veronica’s face twitched with alarm and she glanced at Catherine, then back at the king’s daughter. “My Aunt Ann Smith shows me how to do it. I have made this hem.” She raised the corner of her dress and showed the plain shift beneath. It was stitched neatly across the bottom.

  “I know her of old. Your aunt has always been clever with her needle.” Mary examined the work and smoothed the girl’s clothing back into place. “Very good.” She petted the girl’s head. “This hair.”

  “There is ginger in the Overton line,” Catherine put in quickly.

  “In the Tudor, as well,” Mary said.

  Mary’s groomsman, the changeable Peter, came through. “The barge is ready, Lady.”

  “Then I will say farewell.”

  Anne of Cleves rose. “Wait. You will wait this one minute.” She bustled to her game room and reappeared, a box in her hands. “Mary. You will have this from me.”

  Mary took the gift and nodded. She handed it to her man, and the two women embraced. “Remember,” said Mary.

  “I remember,” said Lady Anne. “Travel with God by your side, Lady Mary.”

  “And you.” Mary took Catherine by the forearms and squeezed. Catherine tightened her stomach for the embrace, but it didn’t come. “And you, Sister Catherine. Until I see you again.”

  Then she was gone. The tall groomsman led them out, like any servant. Veronica stood by the long dock, waving. The sun glared down and set her hair afire.

  “Is she gone?” It was Jane Dudley, sweeping down the main stairs with one fist against her breastbone. “Quite gone?”

  “Gone,” said Lady Anne. Catherine called her daughter back inside and closed the door. The girl stood in the middle of the trio of women, looking up at one, then another. Lady Anne said, “Little Veronica, go fetch me some sweet.”

  “Yes, Madam,” said Veronica. She curtsied and ran off, sliding around the corner to the back stairs on the soles of her slippers.

  “She gives me worms in the belly,” said Jane, “with those black eyes of hers. They put me in mind of her dead mother, staring out of the grave.”

  “Her eyes are blue,” said Catherine. But she had seen it herself, the dark light that always burned behind Mary’s gaze.

  Lady Anne said, “We women carry our mothers in us.”

  “Like ghosts,” said Catherine. “You might expect her to show the complexion of melancholy. Sadness has been her meat and bread for too many years.”

  “We all suffer,” sniffed Jane Dudley. “She has been treated right well since—. The king has taken her back into his grace as though she had never defied him. It shows great mercy in him.”

  “His mercy cannot be put into words,” said Catherine. “I must see to my daughter.” She started to go, but Jane caught her arm.

  “I have the pain in my stomach again. Can you fix me a draught to it?”

  The face of Anne of Cleves was a wall.

  “I will bring it up shortly. Do not lie down if your heart burns. Walking is better. At the least sit upright. A straight-backed board chair. That will do for you perfectly.”

  “Ah. Very well,” said Jane. “I will find me a hard chair.”

  The Lady Anne of Cleves smiled.

  Downstairs, Veronica was helping Agnes slice a dried plum tart. “Like this, lamb,” the maid said, tidying up the edges of the flaky coffin. “Now fetch me that cream.” The girl brought it, and Agnes showed her how to make a flourish over the top of the fruit. “See? Guide it with your wrist.”

  Veronica laid a double-leaf of mint on top.

  “Where are the younger girls?” asked Catherine.

  “I haven’t seen them,” Agnes said. Her eyes flickered to the embers in the smaller hearth.

  “I will see to that,” said Catherine. She took up some sticks and tossed them onto the dying fire. “Will you walk with her up to the Lady Anne? You’ll likely find her in her game room by this time. Take another for Master Harst.” She waited while they fixed a second plate, Veronica insisting upon pouring the cream. “Don’t forget a pitcher of ale.”

  Catherine watched until Agnes had led Veronica to the top of the stairs, then started the draught for Jane Dudley. Chamomile and honey. Saffron to color it deeply. Then the wort and henbane. The strongest ale she had that would not take her over the brink to death.

  Ann Smith came in from the back yard, lugging a shallow bucket of eggs. “What are you making now?”

  “A sleeping draught for Jane. She complains of her heartburn again.”

  “What’s burning in that woman is not in her heart.”

  “I know. But the heart can tell the rest of the body how to feel.” Catherine set the honey and chamomile, thinned with a splash of the ale, over the fire.

  “I meant she would have to have one for it to ail her. A heart.”

  Catherine laughed. “She has one, but it’s eaten all through with her worries. Wherever the ailment is, I aim to put it to sleep. Have you seen Temperance and Marjory?”

  “No, but I wasn’t looking for them. Is the Lady Mary departed?”

  “Yes. Gone with a present in hand. A small box.”

  “What of that?”

  “It was just the size to hold . . . I know not what. Ann, I have a great fear in staying in this place a minute longer. Let me take this up and put Jane down for a while. My God, how I wish Benjamin would return.” Catherine stirred the drink and sniffed it. “Stay here.” She tiptoed up to the front hall and leaned her ear against the door of the game room. Harst was speaking. It sounded as though his mouth was full. Good. She ran on up and found Jane Dudley in her chamber, crammed onto a stiff chair by the window. “I have brought your physic, Jane.”

  “Thank God. At last.” Jane jerked to her feet. She snatched the cup and stuck her face to it.

  “Take your time, Madam,” said Catherine. “You will choke yourself.”

  Jane dropped the cup. It pivoted on itself and came to rest against her slipper. Jane leapt away from it. “It’s getting me wet. Take it away.”

  The chambermaid, huddled in one corner, retrieved the cup. The edge was bent, and the girl tried to cover the damage with her finger. Jane turned away and braced her arms on the windowsill. She said, “This ache will not leave me. It eats my innards.”

  Catherine removed the cup from the girl’s fist and shooed her out. “Jane,” she s
aid, shutting the door. “Is it your monthlies? Do you feel it swell with the moon?”

  “No! Mayhap. I don’t know.” Jane fisted her hands and pushed them against her eyes. “It comes up in me like a fierce little animal and chews at my throat. It makes me mad. I am afraid.” She began to beat at her face softly, then harder, and Catherine set the cup aside and dragged her from the window to the bed.

  “Jane. Stop it. You must breathe.” Catherine held the other woman’s arms and helped her lie down. “Put your feet up now. Steady yourself. Come. Say a prayer.” Jane shook as though a stormy wind tumbled through her, and Catherine leaned with her whole weight upon her. “Pray, Jane. You will set the whole house alight.” Catherine held her air. The woman smelt of old urine and she wondered how often she changed her undergarments.

  Jane’s eyes closed and her lips moved. Catherine tried to imagine her with a husband and children, in charge of a household, but the picture was an image of chaos. Then the praying ceased and her eyes opened, bright, as though someone had lit candles behind them. “I cannot breathe!” Jane hissed. “Those damned Catholics. Let me up!”

  “Lie still,” said Catherine. “Tell me of your children. Name them. Begin with the eldest. It is a boy, isn’t it?”

  The fiery eyes closed again. “Yes, first is Henry. My first Henry. He is a true reformed boy. An example to his brothers. The king will love him. Will love him.”

  “That’s fine. Who are the rest?”

  “Thomas. He died, you know. Then John and Ambrose. Then is . . . who is next? It is Robert. He is a lively boy. And great in pursuits. He will go far if I steer him right. Then comes Guildford. My dear Guildford. A boy beautiful as a cherub descended from heaven. Have you seen him? His name comes from my father, you know. He is my dearest. What God has in store for him—”

  “Jane, have you had troubles since your last birth? With your water?”