The King's Sisters

by Sarah Kennedy

  Catherine glared at Jane. The woman looked like a skinny white crow, clapping her beak and stinking of rotten meat. The voices of the other women, running in at the sound of loud words, were a rush of squawks, and Catherine’s chest felt stuffed with feathers. “I cannot bear any more,” she said. “No more.”

  “The lady outside requires you,” said the manservant.

  “Where is Ann?” said Catherine.

  “I am here,” said Anne of Cleves.

  “Ann Smith. Bring me Ann Smith,” said Catherine. Jane went to the stairs and shrieked for Ann. Someone had Catherine’s arm, and she leaned onto it. She looked up, into the white face of Sebastian. He stared impassively down at her. She said, “Bring me Ann.”

  Ann Smith came hurrying in, elbowing the man aside and taking hold of Catherine. “What is it? What has happened now?”

  “She’s here. I know it’s her,” said Catherine. “Out front. With that girl. Margaret’s here.”

  21

  Margaret Overton had worked her way down from the mare she rode, and beside her stood her maid Constance, now a tall young woman who looked like her Overton father. Their serving men, strangers to Catherine,stared blankly at a short distance, holding the horses’ reins.

  “Sister,” said Margaret, stepping up to the door. She extended her hand. “And how have you been this many a day? I come from the Overton properties. We are doing well with the wool.”

  The wind blew Margaret’s skirts toward Catherine, and Constance, gaping up at the palace front, bundled her fur collar up to her chin. Catherine recognized the cloak as one of her own.

  “Catherine?” Margaret was saying. “Will you not greet your loving sister?” The hand was still out.

  Catherine finally clasped it. “I greet you as a fellow creature of God,” she said.“How have you traveled all this way alone, at this muddy time of the year?”

  “I have hired me some men. I have business. They have brought us right along. Con, come in from the cold air,” said Margaret, and the young woman trudged in behind her. Connie’s figure still featured the extra wagon wheel at the middle, and her hood did not conceal the frizz of red hair. She scanned the broad room, one part sullen and one part envious. When she smiled, sharp foxy teeth appeared. Catherine could hardly imagine that Connie and Veronica were blood cousins.

  “You recall Constance, I’m sure?” Margaret said, guiding her maid forward. “She has become almost a daughter to me.”

  The wind fingered its way through Catherine’s dress, and she stepped backward, treading on the toes of Ann Smith. The other ladies had retreated, but Catherine seemed to hear their whispering as she went in, rippling along the tapestries upon the walls. Anne of Cleves had disappeared. Catherine asked, “And is that why she wears my clothes?”

  Connie removed the cloak, and, not finding anyone to take it, draped it over her own arm.

  “This rag?” asked Margaret, lifting one corner of the cloak. “It was moth holes top to bottom. Connie only chose it so that her good wrap would not be destroyed along the filthy ways. Will you offer us drink? We have been upon the road all day and are dead on our feet.”

  “Would that you were,” Ann Smith muttered.

  “What’s that you say? Ann Smith, you always did have a wicked tongue. Catherine, I wonder that you keep this woman. She doesn’t have the manners to serve a royal lady’s house.” Margaret brushed past and gazed right and left. “Will you introduce us to the presence of the Lady Anne of Cleves?”

  “She will ask for you,” said Catherine. “Before you come in another step, though, you must tell me what you do here.”

  Margaret’s head whipped back like a viper’s.

  “I am a grown woman and the eldest daughter of Overton House. I have been released from my position at court. I go where it pleases me.”

  Catherine sucked the inside of her cheek between her teeth and bit down before she spoke. “And it best pleases you to come where I am?”

  Margaret’s upper lip lifted and a sound came past her tight lips. It might have been a piece of a laugh. “You,” she said finally. “You think it is you I come to see? I have come to seek my husband and have been directed here. He is not at his home and I supposed you might tell me where he bides.”

  “Your husband?” asked Catherine. “What are you talking of? You cannot marry. You were a nun.” The whispers in her head blew into whistles, deriding her, and Catherine’s heart threatened to knock its way through her ribs.

  Connie laughed into her hand, and Margaret gave Catherine’s arm a teaser’s slap. “I know you have suspected. He will get permission from the king just as my brother was given permission to marry you.”

  “But I was yet a novice, barely a sister at all. And I was carrying a child. You had been under the veil for five years. You had taken your solemn vows. The king is in no mood for it.”

  Margaret blinked. “We are all sisters now, are we not? All the same under the king’s laws. Even the Lady Anne of Cleves. We are the king’s sisters and we obey him. We may also petition him to favor us. Or we may have our men do it for us. In the name of Christian marriage, of course. And what if I were to carry a child? What if someone had made a conquest of me, with the promise of marriage? I might find myself to be just like you, Sister.”

  “You are with child? Whose child?” Catherine struggled to compose her face, but she could not force her muscles to obey. “Who is it that you think you will marry?”

  Margaret finally sighed. “Sister. You goose. Don’t play the simpleton with me. Benjamin Davies, of course. He is already as much as my husband.”

  22

  A hand grazed Catherine’s shoulder, and she whirled around, ready to strike. But it was only Jane Dudley, come to greet the visitor. Catherine huffed her breath through her mouth to keep herself from crying out. It made her feel like an animal.

  “And this must be your sister, Margaret Overton,” Jane was saying. “The Lady Anne will be surprised at this. Most surprised.”

  “The weather turned fair enough and the road looked smooth and so I came ahead without announcement,” said Margaret. She dipped a little swoop of a curtsey. “I might settle myself into a chamber or take drink. We’ve not stopped for food today. Catherine, you see to the kitchens, do you not? Might you bring us some refreshment?”

  “I will have food fetched up,” said Ann Smith. She turned on her toe and ran away.

  “Have you spoken to the king of this marriage?” asked Catherine. “Have you spoken to anyone? Have you come to ask the Lady Anne to intercede for you?”

  “Do we need her permission?” asked Margaret. “She is not the queen. Nor is she the head of our church. We will seek the good word of the king himself. He will not refuse a woman in my situation. He did not refuse you.”

  “What marriage?” asked Jane Dudley, looking from one to the other. “Who is married?”

  “I am.” Margaret bowed her head, as though she expected a blessing. Catherine wanted to crack her skull. “Well, as good as. We must go through the ceremony. But we are promised to each other, in word and in blood. It is a betrothal in faith and in custom.”

  “And where is the fortunate gentleman?” asked Jane. She searched past Margaret’s shoulder, but Catherine heaved the door shut. The heavy wood groaned and eased itself into place with a sigh and a slight thud. Jane said, “The Lady Anne will expect to receive him as well.” She added, “Your husband,” as though the words might conjure him into existence.

  “Benjamin,” said Catherine. Her jaw ached, and she realized she’d been grinding her teeth. “She says she is married to Benjamin.”

  “Your Benjamin?” Jane said to Catherine, then trained her gaze on Margaret.

  Catherine said, “I’ve not heard of banns being read. Nor do I see a ring upon your finger.”

  “Benjamin will not deny me,” Margaret said. “He has
been without a wife for many years now, and I have made him one.” She held out her hands. “Look at the state of me. I have dirt beneath my very nails and I am made to stand here in the cloud of my own grime defending myself.”

  She beckoned Connie forward with one finger. “You were witness, were you not?”

  “I saw him in the house,” said Constance. Her face had gone scarlet. “I heard Madam say that they had concluded their marriage.” She covered her mouth like a shy girl. “It is not something to speak of among company.”

  “With no priest?” asked Jane. “When did you publish the banns? And why did Lady Catherine not hear of them? Who performed the rites?”

  “Questions, questions, and still nothing to drink,” said Margaret.

  She dusted one sleeve with her fingers. “We had no time for the old rituals. We will see to the church when the wools are sold and we have counted our monies. We have exchanged our vows and bedded. That is enough. The times are changed from what they once were, but every mother’s son knows that vows and a bedding make a marriage.”

  Jane snorted. “That is no marriage, Margaret Overton. I will ask you again. Have you published banns? In a church?”

  “I have ordered them to be put up in Havenston. I did so just before we left.”

  “And just after Benjamin himself left Yorkshire. Is that right?” asked Catherine. “Who would put them up?”

  “Do you doubt me? I have a witness!” Margaret shoved Connie forward, almost throwing her to the stone floor.

  “She may have seen a man in the house. She may have seen three or four of them,” said Catherine. “A man in your bed does not make a marriage. Who heard these vows of yours?”

  “They were private vows, spoken between a man and a maid. They are binding. This is widely understood.” She also covered her face briefly with her hand, the mirror of her maid. “He has conquered me. We are fast married.”

  Catherine said, “Bring the man here and have him witness it. Jane, have you a manservant who can ride?”

  “Of course. But where is Benjamin? I thought he was traveling to Dover to meet a merchant.”

  “So he was. But that was weeks now. He might be returned to his house by now. It is less than a day’s hard ride.”

  “Save your man and his horse. Benjamin is not at either of his houses,” said Margaret. “I left a letter telling him that I would be here. If he were that close, he would already be in the front lane to greet me.”

  Jane flattened her right eyebrow with two fingers. “This gives me the headache.” She sent her maid, who was hovering in a corner, out to the stables to find a groomsman.

  “We will get to the truth of this matter one way or the other.” She pointed at Margaret’s nose. “Not a word of this to the King’s Sister, do you hear me? I will snatch the hair right out of your head if you speak of marriage in her presence right now, especially a secret one. She is much distracted and you will not drive her to a frenzy.”

  Margaret leaned against Connie. “Lead the way.”

  “I thought you were well nigh dead for food and drink,” said Jane. “Look there, I see the girls carrying something into the gallery. Go through and eat while I inform the Lady Anne that you are here.”

  “Come, Con,” said Margaret. They walked off, Margaret using Constance’s thick arm for a support. Margaret’s hard high heels clicked as she went.

  “What did you know of this?” Jane whispered fiercely to Catherine.

  Ann Smith was approaching, and Catherine waited until her friend was in hearing. “I knew nothing of it. Not one word. The last I heard from Benjamin Davies was that he disliked Margaret’s company and hastened himself out of it. I believed him.”

  Jane turned on Ann. “Did he say the same to you?”

  Ann Smith held up two hands. “He said nothing to me on the subject. He spoke of wool and becoming rich. But I am not in his confessions.”

  Jane’s maid returned, coming up the back stairs, a greasy manservant with dark hair in tow. The girl curtsied and retreated, leaving the man with his head bowed and his cap in hand. Jane said, “Look here. Have you got a horse that will travel some thirty miles before dark?”

  The man scratched his hair. “Not afore dark, I think, Madam. He might get me there afore mornin’, if he knows where he’s headed.”

  “Very well. Get him saddled. Catherine, you see to it that this man knows the way. Find out where Benjamin Davies is. I will have to present that woman to the King’s Sister.” She breathed out an angry puff and looked hard at the man. “This has not made my day fly by any easier.”

  “Nor mine,” said Catherine softly as Jane huffed away. She turned to the man. “What’s your name?”

  “Oliver, Madam. Is it true they’ve taken the little maids away?”

  “I fear it is. Follow me to my work room,Oliver, and I will draw you a map. You must ride first into London, then north if no one is at the house there.”

  After the rider had gone, Catherine and Ann hid upstairs in their chamber, waiting to hear any noise from Margaret. Some feet pattered by their door, and twice someone went running, but no voices sounded. Veronica had gone out with the poultry maids to gather the eggs, and Catherine watched out the window as the three came back, Veronica swinging between the arms of the two older girls. One of them had a basket in her other hand, and it threatened to topple.

  “The Lady of Cleves will put Margaret straight,” said Catherine to the window. “The King’s Sister will put my sister down.”

  Ann Smith set aside the shift she was mending.

  “You will dig holes into your sleeves.”

  “What? What do you say?” Catherine looked at her crossed arms. She had scratched bald patches into the velvet. “Christ’s Mother, I have ruined these. Help me get them off.”

  Ann untied the garments, and Catherine pulled herself free.

  “I can make something of them,” said Ann.

  “Caps for Veronica. Or little gloves. You mustn’t destroy yourself simply because you cannot get at Margaret. She tells lies and she will be found out.”

  “That woman.” Catherine clenched her hands again. Her nails pierced her palms and she shivered, her arms goose-fleshed in the light cloth.

  “She means to be the death of me.”

  Ann sat again and began clipping the seam of a sleeve.

  “She means to claim a man. If that will be the death of you, then I agree.”

  “What do you mean to say?”

  “Do you doubt him so easily?”

  “No. Perhaps. No. Sometimes.” Catherine knocked her forehead against the pane. The window was unlatched and it sprang open. A dark cloud swelled above them, and the wind smelt of green spring storm. “Where is he?”

  “No man is worth pitching yourself to the earth for. But if you mean to leap, you will need to find a wider portal than that. I could barely squeeze a cat through it.” Ann pulled a long silk thread loose and laid it aside.

  Catherine turned and sat on the sill. “I accuse and scorn her for the same thing that I was planning to do. The same banns. With the same man. And I curse her for it.”

  She scanned the sky over her shoulder. “It is coming up a tempest.” A chuckle bubbled up her throat. “I am the worst of hypocrites. I look a fool, do I not?”

  “You look like a woman in torment,” said Ann. She shook out the fabric, smoothed it onto the table beside her, and took up the second sleeve. “You are more likely to get permission to have him than Margaret, if you still want him. She has only poisoned her own water by announcing this. I have said it before. There are women who want children and cannot get them.”

  Thunder sounded and the big-bellied clouds pelted the side of the palace with rain. Catherine pulled the window closed and locked it. “I cannot trust him. I must get rid of it. If it kills me.”

  Ann studied th
e stitches she was snipping. “It is dangerous. You know how dangerous it is. You promised you would never turn to that again.”Her eyebrows were scowling. She did not look away from her work.

  “But that was years ago, and—” Catherine began, but the door flew inward and Jane Dudley came rushing in.

  “She swore it,” said Jane. She plopped onto a stool, holding her stomach with one hand. One of her maids waited in the hall, looking one way, then the other. “In front of the Lady Anne, in the middle of her receiving room, that Margaret of your s put her palms together and swore to heaven that she and Benjamin Davies are fast married.”

  “She is not mine. What did the Lady Anne say to this?” asked Catherine.

  Jane Dudley began to giggle like a girl, then she hiccupped until Catherine told her to hold her breath. Ann Smith glanced up, then shifted her eyes again to her work. Jane checked the door and shut it in the face of her maid. She leaned against the latch, as though someone might break in upon them. Finally she said, “Lady Anne ordered her out of her presence. Just like that.” Jane snapped her fingers and began to laugh again.

  “Sent her out of the room and ordered her to leave Richmond Palace at once. She called her a wicked woman and a shame to her sex who would bring a shadow upon the entire household at a time when we seek most to please the king.”

  “The Daughter of Cleves said all of that?” asked Ann. She finished the second sleeve and laid it over the first one, flattening the nap with her fingers.

  “Not in just those phrases,” admitted Jane, “but her face was as red as a strawberry. I thought she would beat Margaret with her own fists.” She dropped again to the stool. “I have never seen the like. Your sister cannot say I didn’t warn her.” Catherine said, “So Margaret goes tonight? Have you seen the storm that’s blowing in?”

  “She asked to wait for Benjamin. She begged not be turned out on her ear. The Lady Anne covered her head with her hands and would not hear. And since Margaret seemed bound to remain in the room, she herself left. The Lady Anne left, with your sister standing like a wooden post. She left her there with that maid of hers.” Jane Dudley stood and rubbed her stomach again. “I have a pain here in my middle, Catherine. Are you too disordered to fix me a tisane?”