The King's Sisters

by Sarah Kennedy

  “I have brought you down, Ann. You should be with Reginald, in your own house. You should be married again. Have a child.”

  “No more of that,” said Ann.

  “And Benjamin? Where can he be? Has he played me false?”

  Ann shook her head. “I pray not. He is perhaps our only hope.” She scuffed a stone loose with her toe, bent to retrieve it, and lobbed it out of a tiny hole in the corner of the window. They listened for its landing, the tiny click of its freedom upon the gravel below.

  “Do you think he is married to Margaret in truth?”

  “I believe nothing anymore without the proof of it before my eyes. I hope we may see the truth of him before we see our God.”

  26

  Food was brought in the grey light of dawn, cold bread and a jug of ale. The gaoler dragged in a wobbling table, where he left the platter, along with a short stick of candle and a flint. Before he had stuck the key back into the lock, however, a man’s voice told him to open up again.

  A small sandy-looking man pranced into the chamber. He was shorter than the women by several inches, and his tan leather shoes were scuffed at the toes. He bowed and said, “I am Jason LaBranche and I am here to serve you.”

  “Serve us in what way?” asked Ann, backing off a step. “We have already been served, as you can see.”

  “I will serve as your lawyer.” LaBranche smiled. “I will see to it that you are released. The charges leveled against you are not to be borne. Any woman might have a list of names upon her. A purse of coin. No court of law in England will convict a woman for having things about her.”

  “Our what?” asked Catherine. “Who sent you? What is this place?”

  “Ah. The County Gaol. Thank God you are not in the Clink.” He shuddered. “Or the Borough.”

  “I will be on my knees with gratitude this instant,” said Ann.

  The lawyer blinked at Ann. “You are in the liberty of the Bishop of Winchester. He oversees the laws here.”

  “A great blessing,” said Ann. “He seems to have set us at a peculiar liberty.”

  Catherine said, “They say a ring is missing, and I have been charged with stealing it.”

  “How old are you?” asked Ann.

  Jason LaBranche touched his cheek as though he hoped to discover a beard growing there. None seemed to be forthcoming. “I have twenty-seven years on me. My father was in the law and has taught me all that I know. My father’s reputation goes before me and it will bring you along, too. You have nothing to fear. I see they have given you a portal. A great privilege.”

  Catherine snorted. “Who has sent you to mock us?”

  Jason Labranche stepped back, pulling in his receding chin, so that it seemed to disappear into his skinny neck. “Your doubts may be well-founded, ladies. I hear that your movements have been under much scrutiny, that you have been unguarded in your words. But let me assure you, this charge will be found to be without merit.”

  “Who hired you?” asked Catherine again.

  “Master Benjamin Davies.” LaBranche bent from the waist again and flung his arm outward. “My father served his family and he retained me in case you should have need. Your man was at the Davies house and says that you seek him. And you see, I have sought you instead.”

  Catherine glanced at Ann, who was scowling at the beardless lawyer. “What man?” she asked.

  “One Oliver. I don’t have his other name. I was called upon by one Jack Huff.”

  So Oliver had gone on his own. And Benjamin had thought of their welfare, before he had disappeared. But there was no Benjamin.

  “What are we to do?” Catherine asked

  LaBranche brightened and skipped a step forward, skidding in the muck. “We will make your statements. We will write them together. I will speak with all of the witnesses against you and those for you. And I will see that your release is speedy and unrestrained. Put your minds to rest, ladies. Your situation is a common one. There are greater criminals than yourselves under the crown of England. Put this matter out of your minds and I will see to a dismissal.” He snapped his fingers above his head. Catherine thought she saw a blossom of dust spill from them. “My father has taught me all.”

  Ann broke off a chunk of bread. “Thank God for the greater criminals. Though I cannot give half a damn what trespasses go unnoticed under the crown nowadays.”

  LaBranche regarded her with a look of horror. “You must not say so. I will be required by my conscience to make report of it if you say such things.”

  Ann narrowed her gaze through the fog of the cold room. “Who did you say is paying your wage?”

  LaBranche fluttered a letter from his jacket pocket and flapped it in the air, but he did not let go of it. “Master Benjamin Davies.

  You may see his signature at the bottom. He agrees to pay all expenses associated with your defense if need should arise. But I am a man of law.”

  “Whose law?” Catherine reached for the order, but LaBranche popped it away. She asked, “How can I know that is a genuine request from Master Davies?”

  “Do you doubt, woman?” LaBranche huffed. “Why else would I be here?” He gave the chamber a cool scan. It was damp, and a rat had made her nest in the broken stone of one corner. “It is not a place to which one hurries for one’s pleasure.”

  “I would say not,” said Ann. She tore a bite from the loaf. “We are very pleased that you have gone to such trouble for our sakes. I have no doubt that our minds will take as much rest from your words as they warrant.”

  LaBranche bowed yet again. “The trouble will be nothing when I have freed you. You will go on about whatever business women’s lives are made of, and I will have my reputation. My reputation and my father’s. Now you put your minds to preserving your complexions, and I will see to preserving your removal.” He smirked at his own weak wit, replaced his cap upon his tawny hair, and knocked on the heavy door. The single eye of the guard appeared. Then he was let out. The key whined again in the lock.

  “I feel the blessed redemption falling upon me like the spring rain,” said Ann. She poured a cup of ale and gulped it all down. “Methinks it is rather cold.”

  Catherine stepped to the window, where she watched the young lawyer saunter past. He was whistling. Her breath clouded her sight, and her skin sparked again with fear. She started to speak, but something like a stone rose in her throat, and she could not get it up or down. “Ann,” she choked out.

  “What is it?” Ann came to her side.

  Catherine rubbed her neck until her voice cleared. “Will he save us indeed? Is it as simple as that?”

  Ann shrugged. “Benjamin has money. If anything can save us, wealth will be what does it. Money can do what intellects cannot.”

  “Wealth did not save my mother. Nor the Boleyn queen. Nor the Howard queen. Wealth is not saving the Lady of Cleves from her regrets and sorrow.”

  “It has saved Margaret thus far.”

  “Margaret has an evil star shining upon her. Its light looks much like a halo.”

  “And what do you think evil stars are made of? Gold, that’s what, reflecting the sun. They have no light of their own. They just look as though they do.”

  Catherine nodded. “And looks are everything these days. The king is short-sighted as ever. He prefers not to see at all when heads roll in the straw.”

  27

  LaBranche did not return the next day, or the next. Agnes came with baskets of bread and cold meat and jugs of wine, but the lawyer did not. Two chambermaids from Richmond Palace came with blankets and clean clothing, but the lawyer did not. Catherine worried about Veronica, and Agnes, one evening as she was leaving, begged for permission to bring the child, but the gaoler refused.

  “The lawyer could surely make him let your daughter visit,” said Ann Smith when they were alone. She had fashioned a bed from the covers that t
he maids had brought and was shaking out the blankets, searching for fallen fleas.

  Catherine sat beneath the window. “It’s better this way. What a sight for a child, to see her mother locked in a dungeon.”

  “It is no dungeon,” said Ann. “Call it our chambers. Our private closet. We seem to be the only ones with a solid door and a window.”

  She wiped the table that they had pulled from a dark corner and laid out their food. “Eat. You will do no good sitting there fretting.”

  “It warms me,” said Catherine, but when Ann poured the new wine, she joined her friend. “The clouds look angry. We will get rain tonight.”

  “Maybe a storm will wash LaBranche this way,” said Ann.

  Agnes had brought Catherine one of her receipt books, along with quills and ink, and she turned to a blank page and idly drew a setting for a broken finger. “I need more light,” she said, and Ann came to look over her shoulder.

  “You had better not show that to anyone,” Ann said.

  Catherine blew across the drawing. “I have repaired such an injury myself,” she said. “I have not lost a single bone.”

  “I know,” said Ann. “That is precisely why you must not show anyone.”

  The sky split and shuddered. “Here comes the rain,” said Catherine.

  It flew at their broken pane in silver sheets of water, but the window frame held. Catherine closed up her book, Ann brought fresh cups of wine, and the two women sat side by side at the table while the storm pelted the stones.

  “The glass will be cleaner,” said Ann finally.

  “Clean enough to show us our future?” asked Catherine.

  “Are you certain that you want to see it?”

  Catherine laughed without mirth through her nose. A couple of sticks flew by, and the lightning flaunted itself again. Someone was moving in the hall outside their door, but no one spoke. It was likely only the guard. The sky glowered, darker and darker, and soon they were looking at blackness, shot through now and then with the brilliant streaks of the tempest. The room gathered gloom upon gloom, and they huddled together watching the heavens tear themselves open and shower down. “This feels like the view from the grave,” Catherine whispered, and Ann said, “None of that.”

  The storm finally blew itself out, and a few stars poked through the shredding clouds. Catherine put her head on her arms.

  “Can you sleep?” asked Ann.

  “What else is there for us to do?” said Catherine.

  “We can finish this wine,” said Ann.

  The drink was good and by the time they’d emptied the jug, the billows had dissolved. Catherine and Ann lay in the soft star light and slept until the sun flung a weak beam across the floor the next morning. Catherine rolled from under the blanket and leaned over to shake Ann.

  “Let me be,” said Ann, scooting under the covers. “There is nothing calling me to rise.”

  “Very well,” said Catherine. She splashed her face in the small basin of used water and put her face to the window to dry. The rain had blown down large branches from somewhere and a few stones had tumbled from the wall into the lane. On the sill huddled a pair of young magpies, their wings hanging at their sides.

  “Someone has lost the way,” said Catherine.

  “Who?” mumbled Ann from the floor.

  “Two birds,” said Catherine. “Just like us, they’ve been driven from their home and have landed in gaol.”

  Ann sat up. “What are you talking about?”

  “There.” Catherine pointed. “Look there. They’re too small to be out of the nest.”

  Ann trudged over and peered out. “It’s a pity,” she said, scratching her scalp.

  “One for sorrow, Two for joy,” said Catherine. The mother flew in and was circling the babies, bobbing around them, winging in a circle then returning. The two nestlings watched without comprehending. She dived at them from across the lane, but they hung onto their makeshift perch and flapped their beaks open. She jabbed a bite into one of them, then soared off, leaving them to cry after her.

  “That’s three. Three for a girl,” said Catherine. “Someone might make pets of them.”

  They watched for over an hour, while the young birds cried and stretched their wings, but no one came and they did not lift into the air. “This breaks my heart in twain,” said Catherine. “Do you think the gaoler might give them a morsel until the mother returns?”

  “I will ask,” said Ann, but as she stepped to the door to call, Catherine saw one of them fall. A huge dark mastiff bounded down the lane and grabbed it up in its maw.

  “Ah God, no!” Catherine shouted, but the dog had the young magpie between its teeth and was shaking its head madly. The untried wings flopped uselessly and the dog eventually tossed the body aside and snapped for the other, which fell, as though bewitched.

  The mother bird swooped in just as the jaws closed. The dog was fighting off the claws buried in its ears, but it wouldn’t drop the second one. Catherine yelled from the window, but the flurry of feathers and fur was only broken up by a guard, who ran out brandishing a cudgel and pounded the trio until the older magpie flew off, the dog skulked away howling, and the second nestling landed unmoving beside the first.

  Ann still had her hand on the latch, and Catherine said, “Don’t bother. They’re dead. One alone again. One for sorrow.” She started to turn from the window when the guard returned, this time leading a trio of men carrying boards and saws.

  “What are they doing?”

  “I thought you said they were dead.”

  “Men.” Catherine’s heart clenched and went cold. “There are men. Carpenters. Tell me I’m wrong.”

  Ann leaned over Catherine’s shoulder. “Maybe there is damage to the buildings.”

  Catherine covered her eyes, but she had to look again. The men laid the stack of boards in the lane and one directed the other two back to wherever they had come from. They walked off, and the leader stooped to examine the wood. “They’re fixing to build something,” said Catherine. She could not say the word scaffold.

  “We have not even been at trial,” said Ann softly. She grabbed Catherine’s elbow and Catherine could feel her nails through the sleeve. “They have to give us a trial.”

  “I believe so,” said Catherine. She went to the inside door and called for the gaoler. When a grime-circled eye appeared at the opening, she asked, “What do they build this morning?”

  The eye withdrew and she could see the whole face. The mouth opened to show a row of blackened teeth. “They’s only one thing built by the men in these walls, Lady,” the gaoler said. His eyes widened for a moment, and red-shot whites appeared. “They’s a gallows on the roof here, don’t you know? Musta got tore up in the storm. You won’t see it, though, unless you’re close enough that there’s no mistakin’ what it is.” He chuckled and backed away.

  “Wait. Wait!” said Catherine. “Where is our lawyer?” But the man did not return. She clutched the bars and pressed her face against them, but she could see nothing but the grey hallway. “Come back!” she called, but her voice echoed back to her from the long narrow passage.

  “Don’t waste your breath,” said Ann, sitting by the window.

  “What are they doing?” asked Catherine, returning to her side.

  “Bringing more lumber,” said Ann. “This can’t be a hanging place. There’s no room. They won’t kill a woman right here on the gaol top.” She turned. “Will they?”

  28

  They spent the day in silence despite the new-kindled sunlight and feeble warmth through the open window. Hammering commenced, somewhere above, and they wandered over now and then to look out. But there was nothing to see except the high, dirty wall opposite their cell. A man trudged by, head down, and Catherine halloed, but he pulled his cap lower and picked up his pace. She pulled over a short stool and stood on
it, pushing her face against the panes, watching. “If they mean to hang us, at least we might have the gift of fresh air in the meantime.”

  Ann paced the perimeter of the room. She stopped at the window and set her hands on Catherine’s waist. “Come down. We are as innocent as anyone.”

  “Does innocence make a difference when a mask of guilt has been set upon one’s face?”

  “If our lawyer would spare a minute to visit us, I might ask him.”

  Catherine leapt down. “He must be working on our behalf. He must. My children. They must let me see my children.”

  Ann gave her a mournful look and took the stool that Catherine had vacated. She watched a while, then sat on it and put her face in her palms.

  There was nothing to do. Catherine counted pits in the stones of the floor until her head ached, and Ann brushed their clothes and wiped their dishes, over and over. The gaoler looked in on them twice and passed on without speaking. The invisible hammering went on, making an evil harmony with the endless clinking of the manacle-maker. “I will plead my belly,” she said.

  “And then you will be charged as a whore,” said Ann.

  The day passed, and then the next. The last wine bottle was opened and drunk, and the last chunk of bread grew stale. Catherine slumped over her book, unable to imagine anything to record. The wall opposite brightened and dimmed, flamed for a moment with a reflected sunset, and went dark.