The King's Sisters

by Sarah Kennedy

  “I leak. I drip like a broken basket.” She clutched Catherine’s hand. “They tear our bodies, then they tear our hearts.” Jane mumbled a few more words, then closed her eyes. Drool slipped over her lower lip. She was asleep. Catherine listened, then examined the battered cup and slid from the room. As she came down, she met Marjory and Temperance. Veronica skipped behind them. “Where have you been?” asked Catherine. She took her daughter’s hand to slow her down.

  Temperance offered a sulky shrug, and Marjory said, “That Master Harst forgets all when food enters the room. I heard him up there.” Veronica made snorting noises, and Catherine covered her mouth. Margery said, “Master Martins is coming again today, they say, with his troop of men. From the court.”

  “How very precise their timing is,” said Catherine. They entered the kitchen, where Ann was waiting at the table. “Ann, will you walk into the garden with me?”

  “I will walk with you,” said Veronica, flourishing the doll. “Cleopatra must take her exercise.”

  “You will exercise your wits on your letters for now, young Madam,” said Catherine. “Do you have a new word for each letter of your alphabet?”

  Veronica hung her head. The poppet drooped in her hand. “Almost.”

  “What is ‘almost’?” Catherine was headed to Veronica’s writing table. She put her hand on the paper and her daughter came dancing over and jumped onto her chair.

  “I have completed, um, almost four?”

  “Four! Of your entire alphabet? How is that ‘almost’?”

  “It is almost that I am almost ready to begin my letters again,” said Veronica, lifting her quill.

  “A rhetorician,” said Catherine, giving her daughter’s head a scrub with her knuckles. “Get yourself to your work. Aunt Ann and I will return shortly.”

  Outside, the sky was clear and the sun high-handed as a monarch, shoving the clouds here and there and letting the wind worry the women’s hair from under their hoods. Ann pulled her cloak tight and shivered. “Spring will never arrive this year.”

  “Better to freeze than to burn,” said Catherine. “At least a body can don more clothes.”

  A trio of horses clattered through the far gatehouse, and Catherine said, “Is it Benjamin?” But she saw no Caesar, and said, “Those are the king’s men. Come, run. I will not be seen.”

  They made it to the poultry houses and concealed themselves until the men had ridden to the stable and given over their reins to the Richmond men. Their voices came hearty and loud over the buildings, like men in triumph. Then they faded and Catherine peeped around the edge of the shed. “Quick now.”

  They passed the edge of the garden, and Catherine made a show of plucking a few new weeds among the carrot fronds, just poking through the broken soil. She folded the offending plants into a green package and walked it to a wheelbarrow against the back wall, where she laid it to rest, then wiped her hands. Ann followed, unspeaking.

  Catherine gazed over the cold green rows. New shoots showed bright, hopeful, in the sun. “She has given her a crucifix,” she said softly, “or some other token for the Mass. I hope the king’s men have not heard of it.”

  “Who? Mary?” Now Ann went to her knees, digging with a forefinger around an onion shoot that had got its head stuck under a clod. She sat back on her heels and patted the disturbed earth. “You mean Mary Tudor?”

  “Yes. The Lady Anne gave her something. She must not. It’s an error that will be called treason.”

  “Or sin. Yet another heresy.” Ann Smith heaved herself to her feet. A stick lay nearby, and she scraped the mud from her boot soles.

  “The king’s men could not have heard of any such gift this soon.”

  “No. I suppose not.”

  “And do I want to know how you came by this new information?”

  Catherine looked over her shoulder, though nothing stood there but the stone wall. “I saw it. The box, I mean. The room where the altar is lies behind the wall of her game room. If someone finds it, all my hopes are dashed. Someone must know the room is there.”

  Ann’s lower eyelids hitched but her stare did not waver. “And what will you say about it when the king’s men come with their swords to question you?”

  Now she turned and faced Catherine.

  “What have they to question me about? They have nothing to say to me,” said Catherine, but her words were cut short by a scream from the kitchen.

  20

  It was not the Lady Anne. Nor Jane Dudley. The maid Marjory stood in the middle of the kitchen, either arm caught by Martin Martins and Ciaran Barts. Their accomplice, the flat-faced Ellers Chandler, stood behind them, his eyes slanted at the girl and his dagger at the ready. One hand worked the air, as though he wanted someone to hold, too.

  “Madam,” Marjory cried out when she saw Catherine. “You must tell them. I’m needed here. I can’t be taken.”

  “What is this business?” asked Catherine. Temperance scuttled past the interior door, and Ann Smith went after her.

  “What has she done?” Catherine asked.

  Martin Martins opened his free hand. In his palm lay a gold crown. “She lifted this from the lady’s side table. In her writing room. I saw her with my own eyes. Followed her down the stairs. She slipped it into her pocket, slick as a weasel. She is your girl, is she not?”

  “She is a maid of this house. Marjory?” said Catherine. “What have you to say?”

  The girl shook her head and stared at her feet.

  “Let me speak with her,” said Catherine. “Alone. You have my word that she will not escape.”

  The men’s eyes communed over the girl’s bowed head, and they let go at the same time. “I will return,” said Martins. He waddled out with the inflamed Barts, Ellers skulking behind them.

  Catherine set Marjory onto a stool. “Now, what has happened? You told me you would mend your ways.”

  Marjory’s hands trembled and she laid them upon the smooth oak. “I never meant no harm, Madam. But they leave the stuffs just layin’ about, like they want it taken. The ladies, they go about in their silks and their jewels and the coins and the little things are flung down like they’re nothin’. They’re not nothin’ to me. I cannot seem to stop myself. It’s like the devil’s in me, sayin’ ‘go on with you, Marjory, nobody minds you.’ And I take. I would give it back, Madam. I wouldn’t even lift a finger if it wasn’t just there with nobody to care and everbody havin’ so much and me almost nothin’.”

  “Oh, Marjory,” said Catherine. “I pity you. By my soul, I mean that. I don’t know what I can do.”

  Ann Smith entered the room. “There is nothing you can do. Temperance says that she was in the room when it happened, and that will not go easy with either one of them. Marjory admitted the theft when they took hold of her.”

  Marjory slid to her knees and clutched Catherine’s calves through her skirts. “Madam, will you speak for me? I beg you, as a Christian, do not let them take me.”

  Catherine put her palm on the girl’s head. Her thoughts swam in black water and she could not see her way through. “I will do what is in my power. It may not be much. Anyone might have trespassed in such a way.” The spit squeaked, and they turned to look at Sebastian. He turned the iron handle and did not lift his eyes.

  Martins and his men were thumping back down, and Catherine yanked the girl to her feet. “She is repentant,” Catherine said, stepping in front of Marjory as the men entered. “She believed the coin to be discarded and she now sees the error of her decision. As Christians, we are bound to forgive. We are commanded to it. Everyone sins.”

  “I am sorry,” said Marjory. Her legs gave way and she fell to the floor again. “I repent me of my ways. I will do anything to make it up to my Lady.”

  “It is not your Lady who will decide your fate,” said Martins. He snapped his fingers and the two others marched
into the room, Barts pulling a length of rope from somewhere under his cape. He hauled Marjory up and Chandler bound her hands before her. “Get the other one, too,” said Martins. “She’s the shadow of this one, sure as the sun shines.” They nodded and scuttled out. Temperance screamed, and Barts dragged her in, also tied. “We’ll be taking these ones with us, Lady Catherine. And you may spend your Christian words in prayer for their souls. Their bodies are mine. You should keep better watch over your charges.”

  “You will take these children to prison for a sliver of metal?” asked Ann Smith.

  “What sort of wolves are you?”

  Martins smoothed his smear of mustache with a forefinger. “The sort that follows the law. We obey the king. You might want to do the same and keep your head out of a noose.”

  Catherine and Ann followed the men as they drove the girls upstairs, where Anne of Cleves waited. Jane Dudley stood beside her.

  “They are little girls,” said Lady Anne. “Leave them to be.”

  “I cannot report to the king that I have let thieves run loose in one of your palaces, Lady,” said Martins. “Would you have me give such a message to the court? That you keep felons within your walls?”

  “No. I want not that.”

  “Well, then.” Martins bobbed his little upper half at Lady Anne and Jane Dudley. The fat bottom anchored him in place. “You will thank me when you see how much cleaner your household is.”

  “Thank you?” said Lady Anne.

  “You are welcome,” Martins said. He snapped his fleshy fingers, and Ellers Chandler and Ciaran Barts came to attention. They tightened their grip on the girls and filed out.

  Catherine sat hard on a nearby chair. “We are none of us safe from that man’s eyes. The law is a badger. Sneaking this way and that and snapping at anything in its path.”

  “He got what he want,” said Anne of Cleves. “He goes now.”

  Catherine looked into the placid, wide face. “I wish that were so. I fear for us all. We have no one to protect us. You are the king’s Beloved Sister, but we are his ordinary ones.”

  “Ordinaries?”

  “His ordinary sisters. Ann and I.”

  “You share the father?”

  “No.” Catherine’s jaw tightened. “Our father in heaven, Lady. We have been honored by our time with you, but this—” She pointed at the door through which the girls had been taken. “This makes my heart tremble.”

  “What to do?” asked Ann of Cleves.

  The lie came off Catherine’s tongue like water. “Ann and I crave the open fields and the village. Ann even longs for her own old washtub.” In saying the words, Catherine felt Yorkshire pull at her memory, as though she had spoken her longing into being. She could almost smell sheep and the wine-scent of drying grasses. “We were never destined for palaces and royal service. We were raised to serve God.” Catherine looked into the eyes of Anne of Cleves. “I know you understand me. We must do what we can to protect ourselves. Other women have husbands to stand between them and the law. Jane has a husband.”

  “What of that?” asked Jane. “I am here as well as the rest of you.”

  “But at a word he would fetch you home.”

  Jane said, “So now you want men, is that it? After all that noise about keeping your chastities?”

  Catherine felt the sting of her own argument coming from Jane’s mouth. “If men will be tyrants to women for being women, we will need other men to keep them off us. If men were the Christians they claim, we would be safe enough without them or their laws. We used to enjoy some protection. But now?”

  Now Lady Anne’s long nose shone red at the tip. Catherine thought she might weep. “The man should protect his woman. I was queen.” She peered at Catherine as though she had become short-sighted. “Am I not the queen?”

  “Oh, Lady Anne,” said Catherine. “I aim not to summon the spirits of the past. But I am afraid for us and I must tell you something. You will hear it soon enough.”

  “You go home? Away from me?” She grabbed Catherine’s hands. “Tell me.” The Beloved Sister had a grip like a soldier.

  “I want to go,” Catherine said, “with your leave, Lady.”

  The fingers hung on. “You will not spread the rumor of anything you have witnessed.”

  “No, Lady. I will not.”

  “Then we are safe. All safe. You will stay.”

  Catherine’s palms ached from the piercing nails, but still the Lady Anne had her. “Those men will not stop at two serving girls. He aims higher. We are not safe. Please let me go.”

  Lady Anne unwrapped her fingers from Catherine’s. “I am alone.”

  Catherine retreated a step. “Lady—” she began, but the door opened behind them, and Master Harst came thumping in, bringing the smell of cold dog and straw. He was slapping his hands together.

  “What is the huddling here?” he asked. “Woman secrets? We can have none of them, not now, not here. Leave the door open when you confer in private. They say we’ve got felons among us.” He walked to the fire, put his back to it, and lifted his jacket to warm himself before he called, “News from Hampton Court, Madam, which I will whisper in your ear alone.” He leveled a look across the room.

  “I must prepare our evening meal,” Catherine said, backing out, “since I am short two maids.” As she pulled the door after her, she could hear Harst saying “What have you told them?”

  The kitchen was quiet, and Catherine worked herself into a sweat to keep herself from listening at the stairs. Benjamin would have to come. He would have to come now. By the time the venison was roasted and the cabbages mixed with the leeks and carrots and Veronica had finished her lessons, Jane Dudley was calling for all the women of the household to assemble. Ann took Veronica’s hand. “That doesn’t include me.”

  “Isn’t Auntie Ann one of the household women?” asked Veronica, pulling her back.

  “Your Aunt Ann is a woman of her own, not to be dragged into a fray,” said Catherine.

  “Ha!” said Ann. “I am my own because I hide. Would that a woman could be called her own by birth.”

  “Weren’t you born?” asked Veronica.

  “Born and born again,” said Ann, “and I am still overlooked when they call. I thank my God and my coarse hands that I can duck my head and be counted among the pack animals.”

  “If you are a pack animal, then you must carry me!” squealed Veronica.

  “Climb on, kitten,” said Ann, dipping one shoulder. The girl scrambled up and Ann bounced her away, up the back steps to their chamber.

  Catherine wished for a moment she could disappear with them, but Jane’s voice had spiraled up a few notes, and though her mind still swirled in a dark pool of care, she submitted to her duty and went.

  It was the old story. “The books still do not balance, and we will find out the culprit before the king’s man charges us all with theft,” Jane was saying. The ladies-in-waiting and their women slouched around in various attitudes of weariness and irritation. A couple of maids lounged on a bench under a window, and one was picking at a scab on her cheek. Jane thumped her narrow fist into her palm, and Catherine wondered if her bones would splinter. “You will all provide a list of your expenses, do you hear? You will leave nothing out. Two of the girls of this palace have been taken as thieves already, but this is more than a stray coin. Do you mark me?”

  One of the ladies yawned expansively and said, “Jane, do you hold us from our meal for this? We are not the king’s accountants, and if the council would like to inventory my hose, they are free to do so. We have heard this tale a dozen times and more.”

  The other women giggled, and Jane’s hair seemed to swell under the folds of her hood. “I tell you, the books do not balance. There are monies missing. A valuable ring is missing.”

  “Perhaps they need your foot upon them if they do not ba
lance. It feels heavy enough,” said another of the ladies. She lifted one bored hand, the finger barely rising to point. “There stands Catherine Overton. That means our meal is cooked, and I do not favor cold meat. When you are given authority over my allowance, Lady Dudley, I am sure my husband will inform me.” She gathered herself, beckoned to her maid, and swept into the dining gallery.

  The others followed, and as they rustled by, Jane cried, “You listen. Listen to me. All of you. Catherine, you will hear me, won’t you?”

  “I hear you, Jane, but all of my wealth stands on its hooves in Yorkshire. I cannot bear this any longer. I must change my circumstances.”

  “But who will treat my heart? Who will prepare my sleeping draught?” She laid her hand upon her breast.

  “Your husband may bring his physician to heal you.”

  “No. I cannot do without my treatments. You must stay.” She was clinging to Catherine’s sleeve.

  “Everyone seems to know what I should be better than I myself. Now, let us eat. I must bring the wine with my own hands.”

  She’d turned to go back downstairs when Anne of Cleves came running, her skirts in one hand. “Stop, Catherine. Stop!” she called. One of her manservants trotted along behind her, looking as though he was searching for a spot to get hold of the King’s Beloved Sister. They both skidded to a halt before Catherine and Jane Dudley, who had plunged into abject curtsies. Anne of Cleves was panting, and she put her hands on her knees.

  “My Lady,” said Catherine, glancing up. “Are you ill? Where do you hurt?”

  “No. No sick,” said Anne of Cleves.

  The manservant said, “Horses at the front. Lady asks for Catherine Havens. She’s got a few men with her. A little maid by her side. She asks for you and will not remove from her horse until she sees you.”

  Lady Anne stood straight and laid her hand upon her breast. She looked like a great, thick bird heaving in the heat of summer. “She sit like a lady of means. You come.”

  “A lady of means? For Catherine?” said Jane Dudley, forgetting the curtsey and leaping to her feet. “Is it one of Lady Mary’s women? Send her away.”