Raven Queen

by Pauline Francis

  “It is not for you to tell me what to do,” I whispered. “It is for the King.”

  Dudley leaned over me. I could feel his breath on my neck. “Do not forget that I tell the King what to do.”

  I was right to dread Dudley.

  When the King had left, I stood in a corner with Catherine and Ellie. Dudley’s head stood out above the others. Each time his eyes rested on mine, I looked away. At last, he strode over to us with his five sons. Guildford, the youngest, was a tall boy with cheeks as flushed and as fleshy as a robin’s breast. Only his lips were bloodless. He bowed so low to Mary that his hat fell at her feet. She picked it up and handed it back. Catherine and I laughed out loud. We could not stop ourselves. Then he stepped back in line with his brothers and walked on.

  “I detest them all,” I whispered to Catherine. “If they come near me again, I shall go to my bed.”

  “They are not to blame for what their father does any more than we are to blame for what our father does,” she replied.

  Touché? My sister was becoming wise at last.

  She was exquisite that evening. Her dress was blue to match her eyes and edged with silver fur. Silk threads lit up her hair. Except for my pearls, I wore no jewellery with my sombre dress. I did not want to attract attention.

  John Dudley’s voice reached my ears. “I taught them a fine lesson,” he was boasting. “The men of Norfolk have not caused me any trouble since that day.” I paused to listen. “They say that their leader’s body is still hanging at Norwich Castle.” He laughed. “Yes, Ket’s skeleton is a sober reminder to the good people of Norfolk!”

  I pushed myself into the centre of his circle. “Have you read your Bible, sir?” I asked. “We are told in Proverbs that if you oppress the poor, you insult the God who made them. But kindness shown to the poor is an act of worship.”

  John Dudley looked down at me. Amusement lightened his voice. “The Bible also says that wicked people bring about their own downfall by their evil deeds. They were traitors, and in this country we kill them.” He turned back to his sons as if he did not expect a reply.

  “They were just poor people looking for an honest living,” I said. “The traitors were the rich landowners who took the common land from them. What did you expect them to do?”

  John Dudley sniffed the air as if scenting a fox and his sons laughed, Guildford the loudest of them all. Then he sighed. “God punishes his enemies. Have you not read Isaiah? ‘Their corpses will not be buried, but will lie there rotting and stinking.’”

  I stood straight, trying to make myself look taller. “They were not your enemies,” I replied. “And if you had read Isaiah properly, you will know what else was written: ‘Do not use your power to cheat the poor.’” I heard only the sound of my own voice. “And everywhere in the Bible we are told to love one another. Tell me, sir, does the King do everything you tell him?”

  John Dudley gasped, angry, but his face relaxed as my father reached me. Dudley nodded to the musicians in the gallery. “She preaches well, sir,” he said to my father. “We should put her in the pulpit tomorrow. Then we can all sleep off our wine!”

  He laughed and I hated him. But I had the last word. I prayed aloud to God, shouting above the music, shouting above the laughter. “Save me, Lord, from evildoers. They are always plotting evil, always stirring up quarrels. Their tongues are like deadly snakes; their words are like a cobra’s poison. Lord…”

  “AMEN!” Dudley said.

  My father dragged me into the garden and shook me until my head hurt. Then he left me under a sky bright with stars, so angry that I did not see her standing in the shadow of the house: the Lady Mary. I had not seen her for two years and then I had mocked her faith.

  “You are direct in your speech, pequenita, and I like that.” I turned round to face her and sank into a deep curtsy. Her likeness to my mother – her cousin – startled me, but although they were the same age, she looked older. There was no trace of Tudor colouring in Mary, thanks to her Spanish mother, Catherine of Aragon. Catherine lived on in her daughter’s dark eyes and hair, and in her Spanish accent. “So you see my little brother still allows me to visit him, as long as I hide my faith inside my robes.” She parted her jewelled black fur and fumbled inside her gold-edged collar, lifting up a rope of rubies which held a golden cross encrusted with more rubies, so red that blood seemed to seep from Christ’s body. Then a rosary. I stepped back. Everything about her repelled me.

  “I should prefer to stay in Hertfordshire where I am allowed to pray to my God as I wish. At least the King understands that.” Her hands fingered the ivory beads of her rosary as she spoke. “But, as you see, the King is not well and I must see him.” She came towards me. “So you are not yet betrothed to my little brother?”

  I shook my head. “I do not wish to be Queen of England, ma’am, although if the King wishes it, there is little I can do. I still fear that he will.”

  “You fear it! And that is all I wish, to be Queen of England and to bring this unhappy country back to the true faith. So fear is the cause of your unhappy face. I recognize it well, pequenita.”

  Her dark eyes looked me up and down. “Pearls are only as good as the skin that reflects them, Jane, and your skin is too pale.” She took off the ruby necklace, unhooked her crucifix, and placed the rubies around my neck. “It will bring a bloom to your cheeks. It is yours as a keepsake.”

  I thanked her and she smiled at last. Then she closed her eyes and moved her lips, in what I assumed was silent prayer.

  I longed to see Ned. I had missed him. Yes, I would go straight to the forest when we returned home. I had never been there at twilight. The trees would gleam red in the sunset, patterned by flocking birds.

  I would meet him on his way from work, his axe swinging over his shoulder. My lips parted in a smile as I imagined his pleasure when he saw me, when I told him that I loved him.

  She will be home tonight.

  I smile to myself as I walk with Thomas. He strides among the trees, peering and prodding, until he comes to an elm edging the pool, so tall that I cannot see its crown. “This’ll give us enough wood till winter,” he says.

  He scrambles up the trunk and onto the lowest branch. There he raises his axe and chops. The branch falls easily. Thomas swings round to the other side of the trunk and raises his axe again. I hear the familiar creak, the rustle. Then a crack as the branch gives way too soon, throwing Thomas to the ground.

  I drag the branch from him and wait for him to jump to his feet. He has often fallen further and lived to tell the tale, so he has always boasted. But he does not move. I kneel down beside him. No scratch. No graze. No blood.

  Then I take the flask of water from my bag and lift his head. I know then that his neck is broken, snapped in a second, snuffing him out like a candle.

  The birds continue to sing, the wind continues to stir the leaves. I glance around me and dig deep into my bag to find my rosary and crucifix. Then I place the rosary into Thomas’s hands, murmuring, “I resolve thee from thy sins.”

  Suddenly I feel a priest’s power surge through me and I hold up my crucifix in the slanting light and pray out loud: “Hail Mary full of Grace, the Lord is with Thee. Blessed art Thou amongst women and blessed is the fruit of thy womb Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death. Amen.”

  From the corner of my eye, I see a movement in the trees. “Who is there?” I call out, hearing the panic in my voice.

  There is no reply.

  A flash of silver in the dying light. I recognized Ned’s hair at once as he knelt over a body on the ground. I moved forward, anxious to help. My eyes followed him as he sank back on his heels, pulled something from his bag and raised himself again onto his knees.

  What was he doing?

  Birds sang their evening song above my head as shafts of moonlight glinted on the crucifix in his hand. His words pierced my skin like arrows, each one sinking deeper than the one before…Hol
y Mary… Mother…sinners…death… Words of the old faith.

  Anger replaced the pain and it raged through my body.

  Why had he not told me?

  Like a hunting hound mad with the scent of blood, I burst from the trees and ran towards him.

  Her eyes blaze as she looks down at me. “You should have told me!”

  “Told you what?” I ask. “That we worship the same God? Does it matter how we do it?”

  “We do not need all that clutter.”

  Her cruel words shock me. “Do not call it that! What has made you so intolerant? You have no doubt just seen your cousin Mary.”

  “And she repels me,” Jane says, “with her garish gowns and glittering jewels.” She sneers. “You would suit her very well. I do not need trinkets to speak to God.”

  I get up to touch the ruby necklace around her neck. “And what trinket is this?”

  “The Lady Mary said it would warm my cheeks.” She rips it from her neck and stuffs it in my pocket. “You should take it to her. She would make you very welcome.”

  She flinches as I raise my hand in front of her face. “Is this scar not proof enough of my faith? Is it not enough for the Lady Mary to see how much I have suffered in this ungodly land?” She steps back and I move closer so that she cannot refuse to look at my palm of puckered silver. “It was for one of those trinkets, as you call it, that I have already faced the fires of hell.” I shiver in spite of my anger.

  “You are not the only man to have felt the flames of hell,” she replies calmly, as if I were a child. “The Lady Mary lives in Hertfordshire. You will see the house easily from the road. It is the only one in Hunsdon with a tower. Yes, go to her!”

  Her cold confidence enrages me.

  “Is that all you have to say?”

  She half buries her head in her hands. “I came here to forgive you.”

  “Well, forgive me then! I accept your faith, Jane. So why can you not accept mine?” I reach out and touch her hair.

  She does not stop me, but looks at me with softer eyes. “I do not know any other way, Ned. No painted saints, no incense, no candles. We Protestants have said no to all that. And the bread and wine of Holy Communion is just that. It does not change into Christ’s body and blood.”

  “The Bible tells us what Jesus said the night before he was crucified: ‘Take this bread in remembrance of me.’”

  She sighs with impatience. “And where was Jesus when he spoke those words? He was alive, at a table, holding the bread in his hands. That is all, Ned. Bread – not body!”

  “What if you reformed thinkers are wrong? Have you ever thought of that?”

  I shall never forget the look on her face. She gazes straight back at me, her head held proud, her hair streaming over her shoulders, a light in her eyes I have never seen before.

  “A Protestant can never be wrong.”

  And she turns and walks away. I run after her, shouting. I do not care if anybody hears me. “Go on, tell them! Have me sent away. I do not care. Tell them!”

  She turns for a moment, her face serene. “I shall pray for you, Ned.”

  “I can pray for myself.” I glance back at Thomas, already pale in death. “He was a good man. So will he go to your heaven or mine?”

  She does not answer. I watch her walk from the last sunlight into the trees and she is suddenly lost in the shadows, taken from me in that moment, turning my world cold.

  “Perhaps it is for the best,” Doctor Aylmer said.

  I whirled round to face him. “For the best? How could it be for the best?”

  “Do not tell me that you did not suspect. You are clever, Jane. You must have known. That is why you did not ask him.”

  I picked up my Bible. “I swear that I did not.” I looked closely at him. “You knew! You have both deceived me,” I shouted. “He should have told me! You should have told me!”

  At that moment, I became my mother. My lips thinned and turned down at the corners. I slapped Doctor Aylmer’s cheek. He did not react, so I slapped him again, harder. Finger marks flushed his skin. Then I threw myself into his arms, sobbing. “I am sorry, I am sorry. That is what my parents have done to me. Violence breeds violence.”

  “You are upset, that is all.” He sat me down because I was trembling. “Be calm, Jane. It was not for me to tell you. It was between you and Ned.”

  “How can there be anything between us now? He is a Catholic and I am a Protestant.”

  “Does it matter?”

  I blushed and shook my head, ashamed.

  “I have told you many times, Jane. You must not judge people by the way they pray to God.”

  “I liked being with him.” I smiled to myself as I remembered. “And now I cannot be.”

  “Ask God to forgive you,” Doctor Aylmer said. I knew that he was disappointed with me and that hurt almost as much. As he turned to go, he stopped and said, “It is never too late.”

  It was cold in the chapel. They had taken Thomas’s body there and all evening a procession of people had come to pay their respects – everybody except Ned. Two small candles lit the coffin, now closed and covered with aconites, primroses and snowdrops.

  I knelt to pray. What if we reformed thinkers are wrong? What if the bread and wine are the flesh and blood of Christ?

  The door creaked and the candles flickered, but I did not turn round, even when footsteps approached the coffin, until the hairs on my neck prickled and I knew that Ned was there. He was placing ivy on the coffin, ivy for eternal life.

  “Forgive me, Jane!” he said.

  I turned to look at him. “The Bible says that the truth sets us free,” I said, “but it is wrong. The truth teases and betrays.” Revulsion filled me. “The lips that have touched mine are stained, tainted with Jesus’ blood. Go away, and never speak to me again.”

  But he came closer. “It is still not too late, Jane. Remember what I said that day in—”

  “You fool!” I shouted. “It is even more impossible than it was then.”

  “Why?” he said. “I will give up the priesthood for you. What will you give up to be with me?” He paused. “You could start by giving up your intolerance.”

  “I cannot help it, Ned. I have tried.”

  “Then try harder.” He took hold of my hand, turned over the palm and kissed it. “Do you love me?”

  I nodded. “But I do not love your faith.”

  “You do not need to. Come with me, Jane. Do not forget the life you want…the freedom…we can go…”

  My father pounced like a wild animal. How long had he been listening? He came so close that I could smell the ale on his breath, see the morsels of meat between his teeth. He squeezed the skin of my arm between his finger and thumb, faintly, then harder so that my skin stained red. “Go back to the house, Jane,” he said, his face mottled with anger. “Tell Mistress Ellen not to let you leave your bedchamber.”

  They came for him after dusk.

  “Come out, Papist plotter!”

  “No need to kill ’im!”

  “Blood drinker!”

  Flaming torches flickered as far as the bakehouse. There were about seven men waiting outside – one of them was Jack – all restraining the hounds.

  “Out! Out! Papist spy!”

  As Ned ran down the steps, the dogs hurled themselves at him, but he kept running.

  I saw it all from my window: the snaking trail of flame skirting the forest, gusting in the wind, disappearing and reappearing, and all this time I thought of the dogs sinking their claws and teeth into Ned’s fair flesh.

  “Come away from the window.” Ellie pulled me back, closed the curtains and rocked me in her arms.

  “Let him go!” I said. “That is the price he must pay for all his deceit.”

  No, my head did not want him.

  But my heart did.

  My anchor had gone. Without it, I was tossed on wintry seas. I was alone. And sick at heart and full of shame.

  I did not know who had s
een us in the chapel. It could have been Jack or Alice, Catherine or Mary – or just my father coming to pay his respects one more time to his trusted servant. He would not tell me. He only taunted me for bringing a Papist to Bradgate Hall.

  “Jack was strutting around the kitchen like a bird with a worm,” Ellie said. “He would have known that Ned had gone to the chapel. Or Alice could have told him.”

  Alice flickered into my mind. I had watched her only yesterday, stumbling across the kitchen yard on swollen feet, her face lumpy and rounded. She had curtsied clumsily.

  Has he trapped you, Alice, as he has trapped Ned?

  But knowing who it was made no difference.

  Ned had gone.

  I felt a wound in my side that I knew would slowly heal with time, but like all wounds it would leave a scar as a reminder.

  Although in my head I knew that Ned had gone, in my heart I did not believe it. I still went to the forest, thinking that I would glimpse him. They say that after someone has died, you seek their face for a long time in the crowd and that was how it was with Ned.

  That January was the coldest Ellie could ever remember. Its shadows chilled us to the bone. Dusk brought snowflakes swirling from the hill and they settled lightly.

  Where was Ned? Was he lying under a whitened hedgerow, face and fingers frosted?

  One evening, I crouched in front of the fire. I did not want to move for Ellie to prepare me for bed. “I feel like death, Ellie.”

  “You think too much and too deeply,” she replied, lifting up my hair to brush it. “Your head will be so full one day that it will fall off.”

  I put my hands to my neck, horrified. “Do not say that!” I cried. “Not even in jest.”

  It happened that night just as Ellie said it would. Not to my head but to that other part of my body that is hidden and mysterious. I woke up so early the next morning that I thought the huntsmen must be gathering below my window. I dragged myself to the window, my body heavy and scented with a sweet smell I did not recognize. There was nobody there, only the horizon streaked with red. When I went back to my bed, I saw that the bed linen was spotted with blood.