The King's Sisters

by Sarah Kennedy

  While they waited, Catherine tried to untie the laces at the back of her own dress, but she couldn’t reach them. Ann did the task nimbly, and Catherine was down to her own shift by the time the girl brought the heated ewer, set it on the table, and scooted out. Catherine said, “Give me your hand,” and she gently wiped Ann’s scarred palm. “Are you injured? Inside, I mean?”

  “No.”

  Catherine scrubbed her own neck, then under her arms. She lifted her feet one at a time, and after running a clout around her toes, rinsed the clout, washed between her legs, and hung it over the edge of the basin. She stood, hands raised, before the dying fire until she was dry, then covered the embers and sat. “Tell me the truth.”

  “I don’t bleed much, but at my age I wouldn’t expect to. It hurts me some to ride.” She nudged Catherine. “He wasn’t big enough to tear anything.” Her shoulders fell. “But my soul.”

  “Oh, Ann,” said Catherine. She held her friend in her arms, but Ann did not cry. “Men do not know what it is to be a woman. They break us open and then blame us for being broken.”

  Ann said, “They sing praises to women’s beauty, and then chastise us for looking into mirrors. They demand freedom of conscience for themselves in order to leave us, and in the same breath demand perfection of us. They think they can use and discard us and that we will miraculously restore ourselves to maidenhood and find another.”

  “Perhaps all will be well when we know the truth about Margaret.”

  “Perhaps the king will decide that England is too tight a fit for him and he will sail off to the New World and never be seen again,” said Ann, pulling away.

  Catherine tried to smile, but she couldn’t hold it. “He will squat here until he dies.” She shuddered.

  “Do you see signs of mortality on him?”

  “He’s not at Ashridge, but Lady Bryan says that the leg will not heal. An open skin lets infections in. A world of corruption swirls around us, beating to get inside. He is melancholy as a bear and roars at his men. I say he will never live to see his son married.” She let her hair fall down and untangled it with her fingers.

  Ann said, “And so we will have a boy king. God help the kingdom that is steered by a child.”

  “I think God has cut us loose from the port of heaven already. Jane Dudley’s son is among the prince’s train. The inner circle. They are like a herd of hot colts, nipping for position.”

  “Colts step into holes sometimes. They break their legs,” said Ann.

  They crawled under the linens, and Ann reached over and pinched the last taper to death. Soon, she was breathing in her steady nighttime rhythm. The night held no moon and the darkness wheeled over them all. Catherine lay in the blackness, listening to her friend. She wondered what window what Margaret lay looking from, conjuring her own demons against Catherine’s return.

  41

  The next morning, the room stank from the ewers of dirty water and Catherine’s muddy clothes, strewn over the planks of the floor. Catherine sat up, holding her nose. Ann was beside her, flat on her stomach with her arm hanging over the edge of the bed. Agnes was talking in the next room, and when Catherine stepped from the bed, as quietly as she could, Ann said, “Are we going already?”

  She hadn’t moved, but her eyes were open.

  “The light is up,” said Catherine. She peeked into the hall. “No one else is stirring yet, though.”

  The hall was as familiar to her eyes, it seemed, as the ones in Overton House.

  Ann rolled out and stretched. “You are as punctual as a rooster, Catherine. And every bit as welcome at dawn.”

  Catherine opened the window. The cold had moved back in. Fast-moving clouds usurped the early sun, and she threw some kindling onto the hearth and took the wash water down to the kitchen herself. The cook was rolling out pastry, and heaps of cold meat and onions waited in a bowl next to it. The ovens gave off a hellish heat, and Catherine went on out, tossing the water into a shallow ditch.

  She was barely dressed. She shivered. She should go back inside. Wake the others and be ready to ride. But she hesitated. The cold invaded her breast, and her teeth chattered. She wanted to know the truth. Of course she did. And then what? To know Benjamin for a lecher and reject him? And then what to do with the child? To know him for a true man? And then what to do with a secret marriage?

  A maid came rushing across from the little dairy shed, hauling a bucket of milk, and she almost walked flat into Catherine. “Madam!” she startled out. “You are nearly blue with the cold. Have they locked you out?”

  “No, girl,” said Catherine, taking the other side of the bale. “I was just going inside.”

  The girl smiled, happy to have her load lightened, and Catherine said, “Have you any yarrow in your stores?”

  “I will see,” said the girl. They set the bucket beside the cook.

  “Do you know how to make a tea of it?”

  “I do.”

  “Make me a strong batch, if you have it, and bring it up to my chamber.”

  Catherine made her way up the stairs and met Benjamin standing at the big central hearth. He said, “Can you bear to ride again so soon?”

  “I have ordered a tea sent up for Ann.” Benjamin tried to draw her to him, but she said. “I must wait for the tea.”

  “You ordered it sent up.”

  “Ah. Yes. So I did.” Catherine backed a step. “Ann must be well enough to ride,” she said. Her shivering began again, deep in her belly and reaching to her shoulders.

  Benjamin said, “Do you shudder at the thought of my touch now?”

  “No,” she assured him. “At the cold.” But the fire was blazing.

  “Go drink that tea.”

  She let Benjamin kiss her on the fingers, then she said, “I will fetch Ann,” and ran off before he could see her face.

  Catherine gulped deep breaths all the way back up the creaking steps, and she found Ann glaring at the cup and pot on the table before her. Agnes and Veronica were walking her poppet across the bed.

  “We must heal,” she said, but Ann pushed away the brew.

  “I need real ale,” said Ann.

  “It’s good for you,” said Catherine.

  “It smells.” She picked it up, tasted it with her tongue, and set it down again. “By the crucified Christ, that stuff will be the death of me. What is it? Hay?”

  “It knits a woman’s insides together,” insisted Catherine, thumbing the cup back. “I will put honey in it if you want.” She poured for herself and drank it down.

  “You can put liquid diamond in it.” Ann pushed the cup away again. “Give me some good strong ale. That will cure me.”

  Agnes pulled Veronica onto her lap and fixed her coif.

  Catherine said, “You must drink this. It’s better than ale.”

  “That brew tastes like horse piss.”

  Veronica sniffed the tea and asked, “What tastes like horse piss?”

  “Nothing,” said Catherine, taking up the cup. “Your Auntie Ann is feeling much better.”

  Veronica put her hand on Ann’s knee. “How do you know what horse piss tastes like?”

  Ann laughed her whole laugh at the child. “I am going in search of ale. A woman’s drink, not an animal’s.” She got up from the chest she’d been sitting on and flipped Veronica’s bag onto her shoulder.

  “This one weighs nothing. Vere, have you got all of your skirts in here?”

  The child put out her lip. “I haven’t got but a few. You and Mother have piles of them.”

  Agnes placed her hand on the girl’s head. “I brought changes for you and your mother, tadpole, in my chest. And when you are my height, pretty gowns will fall from the trees for you.”

  “What? From the trees?”

  “She is teasing,” said Catherine. “We will have new ones made for you. H
ere, put this in with your things so that it doesn’t get any dirtier than it is.” She unwound the green band from her waist that she had worn for the prince and folded it so that the flowers, picked out in golden thread, were turned inward. “We will take enough to keep us. In case we do not return here tonight.”

  Benjamin knocked, and when they called for him to enter, stepped inside and saw the women’s things piled together. He hefted one side of Ann’s chest. “You can’t take all of this. Come, let’s get on the road. Catherine itches to play our lady knight, who will ride up to the castle and lay siege.”

  Catherine’s cheeks scorched. “Don’t mock me.”

  “Do you see me laughing? I will stay by your side like your best gallant. And then you will be forced to take pity on my plight and offer me your hand.”

  “Benjamin.” Catherine reached for his fingers, then dropped them. Ann pushed Veronica out the door and Agnes followed, pulling the door shut.

  “And you will let me languish in my misery until then?”

  “You are not miserable,” said Catherine. He took her hand and she let him pull her toward him.

  “I am. I know you better than any man has. You have pushed and pulled me for years now and I am stretched to your will.”

  “So you say and so I am sure you believe. But a woman wooed and a woman wed are two different creatures in a man’s eyes. I would rather shake hands and be friends than distrust you.”

  “Friends?” He put his arms around her and she let her head fall back. “Would you say we are friends?” He brushed her lips with his, and his beard tickled. She pinched her mouth tight to keep from sneezing.

  “What, do I taste so bad as all that?”

  She stroked the bristles on his upper lip. “It’s that.” Then she did sneeze. He let her go and she fished in her pocket for her handkerchief. She blew her nose and said, “You do not need me.”

  “What I need is this,” he said. This time he took her face in his hands and kissed her full on the mouth.

  Catherine let herself lean on him, let her hands cling to his jacket. He was warm. Or the heat came from her, her ribs searing her heart. She gasped, pushing him back. “I am burning up.”

  “You see?” he said. “You were frozen, and now you are on fire. For me. Do you want me upon my knees?” He started to go down, and she tugged the shoulder seams of his jacket.

  “Someone will come in and see you.”

  “Let them see,” he said. “Ouch.” He rubbed his left shin. “You see what you bring a man to? I grow too old for courtesy and will have to resort to simple begging.”

  Now that I would like to see,” said Catherine.

  She reached for his hair, but the door opened and Ann came back in. Catherine jerked her hand back.

  “The men are mounted. The men outdoors, I mean.” She bit back a smirk.

  Benjamin bowed formally and scooted from the room.

  Ann plucked up the other bag. “You have made a great deal of progress in the loading.”

  “We have been discussing business. The fleeces.”

  “Fleecing. What else would you talk to a man about?” A couple of manservants had followed her in. “She has decided to leave them after all.” They bowed and went out again. “Are you going to tell me or let me wonder?”

  “There is nothing to tell. He’s a man. There is an accusation. I must know the truth of him. And after that I don’t know where I will go.”

  “Accusations. We know of them, too. You could find yourself yoked to something worse, for all that.”

  “Or not yoked at all. Not to anything but my own sins.”

  “Oxen wear yokes,” said Veronica, dawdling in the doorway. “They stink.”

  “You see? Out of the mouths of babes—” said Catherine.

  “I’m not a baby,” pouted Veronica.

  “No, Vere, you’re not.” Catherine pinched her nose. “But you’re wiser than your years, and your mother doesn’t like bad smells.”

  42

  The sun had retreated to a high place in the pale sky as they mounted and rode toward London. The grasses flattened in the wind, and sheep turned their shorn backs to its whipping. Catherine slouched into the fur lining of her travelling cloak and watched for early cyclamen and violet. Twice they passed by small woodlands with flowers, but the men were slumped onto their saddles, and Catherine let them go by.

  Agnes, riding one of the pack animals, had a Davies maid and two of their manservants as companions, and they chattered along, as though they were all out for a pleasure ride. Veronica was nestled in front of Ann, who had her eyes on Reg’s back, and Catherine let her palfrey slow to a walk. Ann sidled back to ride beside her. “I expected to see you in the lead.”

  “I’m afraid,” said Catherine. “I want to go home.” The child was already dozing and Catherine said, “How can she sleep so soundly?”

  Ann touched Veronica’s head. “She’s not seen enough of the world yet.” They rode on a while. “I bleed,” she said.

  “What, again? So soon?” Catherine pulled on her reins. “We should not have started.”

  “No, no. May be a tiny bit of a tear. I should have drunk your tea.” She made a fist and squeezed. “We can turn north. We can take Agnes and a couple of the men. We can do it now.”

  Catherine chewed her lip. “And I will be a coward if I do. And then I will never know.”

  “That’s true.”

  “How is your hand?”

  “Healing. Stiff. I will be able to forecast storms.”

  “I have begun this. I must not stop until I have landed upon a shore. I hope it is a friendly one.”

  They passed through a field, bright with new corn, and Catherine’s eyes wandered over the hedgerows and wild verges, searching for medicines. She spied out a stand of columbines in bloom and pulled her palfrey to a stop. Reg turned when Ann called out, and they all waited while Catherine waded through the weeds and plucked a bunch of the purple blossoms. She handed a few to Ann, then to Reg, and finally to Benjamin. She kept the last and held them up to the sun. “Do you see? If you look from the base, you will see the five doves.”

  Ann leaned from her saddle and squinted. “I see flower petals.”

  “They are the doves of peace. The messengers of God.”

  Catherine rubbed the blossoms vigorously between her hands.

  “You do the same. It is the lion’s flower and this will give you courage. Now the lion lies down with the dove and we will win our battles with evil.”

  Ann said, “This is not your customary sort of physic, Catherine. This sounds like the superstition of old.”

  “Maybe it is,” she said. “But I will have all the strength I can muster.” Ann crushed the blossoms between her palms. The men did the same, exchanging an amused glance, and Veronica demanded one.

  Agnes huddled into herself and said, “I’m too cold for rituals, Madam.”

  Catherine pulled her cloak off and tossed it to the maid, who wrapped it around her shoulders, pulled up the hood, and closed her eyes. “Keep it,” Catherine said. She watched her daughter mash her bit of plant between her pale hands, then regained her saddle. They rode on.

  The sun had lost its throne at the top of the sky when Catherine spied the high roofs of London. They stopped outside the city gates. The men went off to the trees and the women to copses by the streams to relieve themselves. Catherine kept watch while Ann washed her clouts and shook them out. No one looked her way when she hung them from her saddle.

  The Davies courtyard was crowded with Davies servants, but Catherine’s thought, as they rode in, was all on William, how proud he had been to bring her here the first time. She’d been carrying Veronica in her arms, and William had shown them off to Benjamin. And now, here was Benjamin, looking to her for some sign that she would walk in at his side.

  The servan
ts came running, and Benjamin turned to them instead. “Where is she?”

  “In her chamber, sir,” said one of the men.

  “Her chamber? She has no chamber here.” Benjamin marched them back through the front door.

  “Get some drink for these women,” he said, and Catherine led the others into the dining gallery. The room was dark and unscrubbed, the table greasy.

  “This place looks like a shambles,” Benjamin shouted. “Where are my chambermaids?” A couple of girls brought in cold meat and ale, and he took one by the arm. “Have you spent your days sitting and watching the dust grow?”

  “The woman—” the girl said, dipping her head. “We stay out of her way.”

  “Go on,” he said. “Hide yourself. You can do the cleaning later.” He traced a letter in the grease on the table. “It’s not fit for you to sit here. Go upstairs and take the chamber on the left. Freshen yourselves before the whole house gets into a frenzy.”

  Catherine went, with the others in tow. The clouts at the basin all felt rough and smelt of mildew, and the bedclothes were stiff as winding-sheets. “Open the shutters,” she said to Agnes as she poked at the dead kindling. “If we cannot have water, at least we might drink some air.”

  A maid came in with a torch to set the fire, and the beams creaked like old bones as they moved around the room. Someone slammed a door. Ann shook out her cloak, and the floorboards clicked beneath them. The new flames nipped at the logs in the hearth. A voice sounded somewhere, raised in anguish. Or anger. Then nothing. The low clouds slowly sealed the sky. Someone knocked, and Ann withdrew to the next room. Catherine called and the door opened.

  Benjamin walked in and took Catherine by the elbows. “She has been found.”

  Catherine’s ankles and feet shocked with cold. She could almost feel his breath on her throat and the fine hairs on her neck prickled. She could not move. “Agnes. Take Veronica.”

  “Will you not go down?” asked Benjamin.

  She could not stir. Benjamin sat on the hearth, and the fire was behind him, a halo of flame. His long, curly hair stood out and Catherine was put in mind of a burning bush. She laughed, and he said, “You find me amusing?”