In return I received from my father a cup of beaten gold set with rubies, from my mother a silver pomander filled with herbs to ward off the plague, a jeweled napkin ring from Wolsey, a crystal saltcellar from Salisbury. Reginald's gift was a gilded spice box, the lid enameled with scenes from the Book of Job. I thanked him sincerely, although I did wonder at the pictures on the lid that showed Job's suffering. I had longed for a gift that might speak of the feeling I hoped to be growing between us. But perhaps I was imagining it all, for still nothing had been said.
Twelfth Night, the last great feast of Yuletide, marked the arrival of the Magi at the manger of the Christ child. Despite its religious beginnings, Twelfth Night was a time of raucous merriment, which I always had enjoyed. An enormous spiced fruitcake was set ablaze and carried in on a golden platter. When the cake was cut, the gentleman who found the single bean in his slice would be crowned Lord of Misrule for a night of revelry; the lady who discovered the dried pea in her cake would be his queen for a night of dancing and singing. On this occasion the honor went to Thomas Wyatt, a handsome and talented poet in the king's court. This seemed to please my father, until he learned that the lady who'd found the dried pea was Anne Boleyn. Then the storm clouds began to gather. But Wyatt was oblivious to the king's ill humor. He begged to be allowed to pay tribute to his "queen" by singing a song he had composed.
"Get on with it then," growled the king, and signaled for quiet.
As Wyatt strummed his lute strings and began to sing, I saw that the poet's gaze was fixed upon Anne. King Henry noticed, too. I sensed that the storm was about to break, and it did. Rudely the king interrupted, exclaiming, "Enough of this melancholy caterwauling!" and declared the banquet at an end. For once I was glad to have the festivities over.
On the eve of our departure from Greenwich, I roamed through the palace in one last attempt to hear whatever I could. At last I happened upon a group of ladies playing cards and gossiping. I was not acquainted with them, although I knew by their dress and their jewels that they were high-ranking nobility. I was dressed in my plainest kirde without a single ornament, and they mistook me for a servant and paid me no attention.
"It is common knowledge that Lady Anne came from France intending to marry young Percy, attached to Wolsey's household," said a stout woman in yellow silk, a color not at all flattering to her sallow face.
"And in the bargain she refused to marry another man that her father had chosen for her, think of that!" said a woman in green velvet. She rearranged the cards in her hand and drew a pair upon the table.
I crouched by the fire and made as if to tend the logs as I listened to their talk.
"In any case," continued Yellow Silk, "the cardinal broke up the love affair and married off poor Percy to a woman ugly enough to frighten a goat."
"Making Lady Anne furious, no doubt," said a third woman in midnight blue.
"Oh, she said terrible things about Wolsey!" said Yellow Silk, erupting in a fit of coughing. "And him the most powerful man in all England, next to King Henry! She says Wolsey humiliated her. She swears she will have her revenge." A pause while cards shuffled and snapped. "I can tell you this much," she continued, "Percy was not her first lover, nor was he her last."
"Ah! Who else then?" asked Midnight Blue.
"That handsome poet, Thomas Wyatt." Yellow Silk seemed to know everything. "Lady Aime hints that many of the poems he has written are about her. She cannot ever marry him, though. They say he has a wife as mean as a starving dog!"
"Did you not see how the king behaved last night at the banquet?" This was a new voice, belonging to a woman in maroon and gray stripes. "Whenever he catches Wyatt hovering about Lady Anne, King Henry crashes in and sends the poet off to scribble his lines elsewhere."
"Anne Boleyn is lowborn," sniffed Green Velvet. "Only her father's ambitions are high."
"Certainly not her morals," said Yellow Silk.
"Nor her breasts," put in Midnight Blue. "Her chest is as flat as a trencher."
"And the king drinks in everything she says, doesn't he?"
"Every word. I've heard he wants to marry Anne."
"Marry her? But how can he? To marry her, he must first divorce Catherine. Not easily done."
I thought I would choke. No wonder my mother looked so horrible. I stopped prodding at the fire and listened with every nerve of my body drawn tight. The dreadful woman in yellow silk replied, "But that is just what he intends to do. In order to divorce Catherine, he must have his marriage to her declared invalid. And declaring the marriage invalid means, of course, that his daughter is illegitimate." The log crackled, sending up a shower of sparks.
"The Princess Mary a bastard? If a bastard, then she is no longer a princess."
No longer a princess. A bastard.
That was all I heard, for I fainted dead away, crumpling upon the hearth. The ladies, interrupted in their game, called for servants to carry me off. But if the ladies did not recognize me, the servants did. When I came to my senses, I was in my chamber with Salisbury bending over me, holding a wet cloth to my brow.
"Mary, what's wrong? What happened?" But I could not bring myself to utter a single word of what I had heard.
The next morning I gloomily prepared to depart. My father did not send for me; I had not seen him since the last banquet. My mother bade me a sorrowful farewell. There was so much I wanted to ask her—about the king and Anne, whether it was true about the divorce, what that might mean for her and for me—but I could tell from the look on her face that I must not question her. I must wait until she spoke. And I did not know when this might be. All she told me was that she had been ordered by the king to depart for a manor house to the north of London, far from Greenwich and far from Richmond. It was all I could do not to begin weeping.
Before we left the palace, Reginald Pole once again kissed my hand and told Salisbury that time would not allow him to call upon us before he left for the Continent on official business. This was yet another disappointment, but I felt too upset about other matters to care very much.
Salisbury and I dragged ourselves back to Richmond through wet snow. Although there was much to say, each of us was wrapped in her own heavy cloak and her own heavy thoughts, and we spoke little.
CHAPTER 7: Sickness and Dread
The church bells were silent. Crucifixes hanging above altars in the royal chapels were veiled in black. The forty days of Lent were nearly over, and the previous week I had made the journey from Richmond back to the court in Greenwich for Passion-tide and Easter. I had always loved Easter, the most dramatic of the church celebrations. But this year was different.
On Good Friday, the most dark and somber day of the season, the entire company abstained from food and drink. We looked on as King Henry crept on his knees down the long aisle to the altar of Westminster Abbey. Dressed in a robe of brown sackcloth, he sprinkled ashes on his bare head and paused often to pray. Always in the past as I watched, I had been deeply moved by my father's humble piety. This year I knew it to be false, and it sickened me.
The next day, Holy Saturday, was a time of waiting. It seemed that my whole life had become a time of waiting—waiting to find out what was happening to my family. One thing was clear: My parents were at war and I was powerless to change anything. Nearly every night in the three months since I had last seen them, memories of my father's obsession with Anne Boleyn and my mother's melancholy eyes had kept me awake for long hours.
At nightfall, my maids came to dress me for the Great Vigil of Easter. Last season's gown of amber velvet and damask had grown tight across my chest. Salisbury had written to the king, requesting an allowance for a new gown, but she had received no reply. It was as if he had completely forgotten that he had a daughter!
I understood that the reason for his neglect was Anne Boleyn. At Christmastide people had only whispered about his new love. Now people spoke openly about his attentions to her. There was nothing left for me.
When I was squeez
ed into my poor old gown, Salisbury appeared and whispered, "It is time, madam," and we made our way in silence to the abbey. In the chilly darkness where nothing could be seen and only occasional coughing and shuffling of feet could be heard, we waited.
Then at the great door of the church a spark was kindled, and from it the tall paschal candle lit, signaling the return of light to the world. Cardinal Wolsey led the procession. As he approached the altar, trumpets and sackbuts announced the joyous news of Christ's resurrection. The great organ, mute for forty days, swelled in massive chords, and the choir of monks sang hallelujahs that echoed from the vaulted ceiling. But I could not share in the joy.
That night, at the Easter feast following the Great Vigil, Queen Catherine appeared at the king's side, a tight smile on her lips. Her brown eyes were sad. The king looked furious. Not even Anne's presence distracted his angry glare. When the banquet ended, my parents retired to my mother's chambers. I knew they were arguing. Everyone in the palace knew.
I pleaded with Salisbury to tell me what they argued about, and at last she relented. "King Henry demands a divorce. He makes the outrageous claim that his marriage to Catherine is invalid because it is incestuous: He married his brother's wife, which is forbidden by Scripture. Queen Catherine refuses. She quotes a different passage from the Bible in which a husband's brother is commanded to marry his brother's widow. Each of them stands fast. Henry flies into towering rages, demanding that Catherine shut herself up in a nunnery." Salisbury sighed and stared at her hands, folded in her lap. "I can scarcely believe it has come to this."
The arguments continued, day after day. From the passageway I could hear the raised voices, the shouts, the slammed door, the pounding footsteps. It was enough to wrench my stomach.
After one of these arguments, I found my mother hunched in her chair, exhausted from the effort. For the first time she spoke to me openly. "Your father has lost his senses; he's mad over the goggle-eyed whore," the queen said bitterly. "He'll do anything to have her. But I will not relent. It's not for myself. It is for you that I remain strong! I will do nothing, nothing, that will jeopardize your claim to the throne. If I agree to your father's demands, you will be declared a bastard, and that makes you unfit to inherit the throne. I will die before I agree! You must be queen, Mary, no matter what the cost to me. One day you shall wear the crown of England, and you shall rule your people. I am prepared to give my life for that."
I sank to the floor by my mother's side and took her hand in my own. "Dearest Mother, I don't want to be queen!" I cried, and at that moment I meant it.
"Let my father, the king, do as he wishes, but let us live in peace, you and I."
Queen Catherine was on her feet in an instant. "Mary, stop this at once, I command you! There will be no weakness, no sniveling! You shall be queen! But we shall have to fight. We're surrounded by enemies; what's worse, we can't be sure who is friend and who is foe. Trust no one, save for Salisbury. I swear by my life on her trustworthiness. Now go! Leave at once, lest I lose my resolve! The king has ordered me to move again, this time to the More. We must not be weakened by our separation. With God's help we shall prevail."
She sounded so strong, so brave! I knew how much she disliked the More, a gloomy hunting lodge far to the north in Hertfordshire. I kissed my mother's hand. "I will do as you command," I said, wishing I knew how to command her pain to stop. At that moment I hated my father. I could not forgive him for the hurt he caused my mother. And her words had terrified me. Would he really carry through his threats? Would he actually divorce my mother? The idea was almost unthinkable.
When I returned to my chambers, Salisbury was waiting with even more frightening news: The first cases of the dread sweating sickness had been reported in London. A page had brought a message from the king that I was to leave quickly. It was the only message I had had from him during the entire Easter visit. The boy who delivered the message looked pale himself. Salisbury had begun to pack.
Three times in the past, London and, indeed, the entire kingdom had been scourged by the sweat, each epidemic worse than the last. Thousands had died. Unlike other diseases that struck down the old and weak, the sweating sickness took strong adults in their prime. After the onset of the first symptoms, death usually followed within hours. The priests said it was a punishment for sin.
By sunrise my retinue was ready to depart. I rushed to the queen's apartments hoping for one last farewell, but my mother had already gone. There was no time for regret. The palace was in an uproar. The king had ordered coals to be kept burning in braziers in every room; the air was pungent with the smell of vinegar used to clean the floors. We were to travel upriver by royal barge and must hurry to go with the tide.
As fear swept through the great city of seventy thousand souls, roads leading out of London became glutted with people fleeing the pestilence. Salisbury and I, safe on the barge, shut our ears to the clamor of church bells tolling the mounting number of dead. In all likelihood the young page would soon be among them.
If this dreadful scourge is the punishment for sin, as the priests claim, perhaps it will take Lady Anne, surely the greatest sinner of us all, I thought as the oarsmen bent their backs and carried us away from the crowded city for the open countryside and relative safety of Richmond. I did not feel guilt for this wicked thought.
SCARCELY TWO DAYS had passed when I began to complain of a pain in my head. This was nothing unusual, for I frequently suffered from headaches. But the pain worsened and I developed a fever and a squeezing in my chest. Within hours I tossed in my bed, clutching my head and moaning with pain. Perspiration poured from my armpits and groin, and my hair, soaked with the poisonous sweat, lay matted on my pillow. Drifting in and out of wakefulness, I was unaware of what was happening; Salisbury told me afterward.
While I lay there ill and perhaps dying, my bedchamber bustled with the coming and going of servants. Salisbury sat by my side, refusing to leave me for more than a few moments. My physician. Dr. Butts, paced at the foot of my bed, wringing his hands and looking grave.
He ordered me to be bled. I was so weak that I was unaware of the blood-sucking leeches attached to my arms and back.
He ordered me to be wrapped in blankets, brass warmers filled with hot coals placed between the layers, believing that the heat would drive out the fever.
He ordered me to be given nothing to eat, hoping to starve the sickness.
And he ordered me to be kept awake, fearing that if I fell deeply asleep, I would not wake again.
Wretched night came on the heels of each miserable day. Despite the best efforts of Dr. Butts and his assistants, I floated in a kind of dream world in which I called out for my mother. I opened my eyes to see Salisbury hovering anxiously above me, bathing my dry, cracked lips with a cloth wrung out in herbed water. I closed my eyes again and imagined that I saw my mother by my side, but the image faded. For more than a week I hovered between life and death.
Abruptly the fever broke. I called out for food and ate ravenously when Salisbury allowed some minced meat and a bread porridge to be brought. I fell into a calm, dreamless sleep, woke and ate, then slept again.
"Did my mother come?" I asked.
Salisbury shook her head. "The king forbade it," she snapped.
"Perhaps he feared for her health."
"Perhaps."
"And Reginald?" I asked weakly.
"He returned to Rome at Ash Wednesday, madam. Have you forgotten?"
I had. I seemed to have forgotten everything.
My legs were still so weak that when I took a few steps away from my bed, I nearly collapsed from dizziness.
Salisbury sat by my side and read to me from Malory's Morte d'Arthur, stories of the mythical King Arthur and his legendary knights of the Round Table. I lay back upon my pillows and listened as Salisbury's lilting voice brought the fabled romances to life.
Master Vives would never permit such idle pleasure, I thought; he would scream and stomp and stride the
forbidden book from my hands with the silver fox head. I loved Salisbury for daring to defy him, but I worried, too, that the tutor would find us out and punish us both.
"Do read more, Salisbury," I begged. "But take care that Master Vives does not learn of this!"
The countess closed the book and folded her hands upon it. "Master Vives has been carried off by the sweating sickness," she said. "Many here were taken, Vives among them. His soul departed his mortal body a fortnight ago, while you yourself were so ill. We mourn his passing, but we thank God that you were spared, madam."
"He's dead?" I pushed myself upright. "Master Vives is dead?"
"Yes, madam."
I sank back against my pillows. Never again to be tormented by Vives! A small bubble of relief expanded in my chest, but I was careful to hide my feelings. I would confess them the next time I knelt behind the screen and whispered to the priest my faults against God and man.
"And will I have a new tutor?" I asked in what I hoped was a solemn voice.
"Wolsey is seeing to it," Salisbury said.
I sighed. In that event the relief I felt might not last long.
The days slipped by as I slowly recovered my strength. Lady Susan came to visit, bringing nosegays of spring blooms. I began to take short walks with Susan and Winifred. As my vigor returned, I was eager to be out riding again. I wanted to see my hawk. Noisette, who would soon be deep in her molt. Even more I wanted to see Peter. I had not hunted with him since late winter and had not seen him at all.
On a warm afternoon, I slipped out of the palace, accompanied by Susan and Winifred, and hurried to the mews. Instead of the usual activity around the weathering yard, I found only gloom. Peter's father, the falconer's assistant, swept off his cap and dropped to one knee when I approached. I greeted him and bade him rise, asking after his health. But tears sprang to the man's eyes and crawled down his weathered cheeks.
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