Cor Rotto: A novel of Catherine Carey (10 page)

Instead of running away, I inched closer. A warm, sticky river of blood poured from her neck and ran over my feet, I blanched in disgust. Her lips were moving just as in my previous dreams.

“What are you saying?” I called out. The executioner threw his head back in a terrifying laugh. I strained to see the words on her lips. Casting aside my fear, I stepped, one foot at a time, delicately through the crimson life that poured out of her. Just before the executioner tossed her head to the ground, I made out the word she was mouthing and my own blood ran cold. She was whispering “Maude.”

“My lady.”

Someone was shaking me.

“Mistress Catherine,” the voice said more urgently.

I struggled out of the cobwebs of sleep. My eyes flew open to see Edward’s baby nurse Alice sitting in a chair next to my bed. Her hand was on my shoulder. Seeing the panic on her face, I scrambled to sit up.

I plied her with questions. “Alice, how long have I been asleep? How is Maude?”

Alice took a deep breath before she answered. “My Lady, you have been asleep for nearly a day. We knew how exhausted you were so we let you rest, but we need you now. Maude needs you now.”

With terror rising in me, I tried to swing my legs around to get out of bed but it took enormous effort to move them and I fell back, breathing heavily.

Alice stood up and put her hand on my knee, I could feel the weight of it through the thick counterpane. “You have had a very rough birth and we had to bleed you while you were asleep. Please just lie back and I will bring Maude to you.”

Breathless from my exertion, I settled back against the headboard. I winced in pain when the bleeding wounds on my back touched its hard surface. Alice scurried from the room. Moments later she re-emerged with a bundle of blankets in her arms. She sat down in the chair and said, with tears in her eyes, “Maude will not feed. Meg has tried to get her to latch on, but she refuses. She will not latch to me either. We have tried everything we know. You will have to feed her, my lady. It is the only way. She will not even cry for her milk. She just lies there whimpering.”

She bent over and nestled the bundle of blankets in my arms. Carefully, I pulled aside the blanket covering my baby’s face. It was so pale and translucent I could almost see the tiny thread of veins running through it. Her deep brown eyes were rimmed red and stared off into space. I brushed the soft down on her head and planted a light kiss on her forehead. She whimpered in response. Tears began to stream down my hot cheeks. None of my children had ever been so weak. They were all born with lusty screams and flailing fists. Maude was so delicate and fragile, I worried that one light touch would harm her.

Alice pushed me forward and opened the front of my shift. She instructed me on what to do. I took out my swollen breast and stroked Maude’s cheek with my hardened nipple. Maude gave no response. She only lay there in my arms staring out at nothing. After a few failed attempts, Alice moved to the other side of the bed. Hiking up her skirts, she climbed up and scooted on her knees towards us. She pulled the blanket aside revealing two miniature feet. She scraped her nail across the bottom of Maude’s left foot. Maude let out a wail and instinctively turned her face towards my breast for comfort. I quickly shoved my nipple in her mouth and she latched on, gulping hungrily.

Alice let out a sigh of relief and a grin broke out on her tired face. “Oh, praise the Lord!”

I lay back and let Maude feed until she was content. It was a strange feeling, breastfeeding. Painful yet pleasurable at the same time. Not an intimate pleasure of course, but a feeling of overwhelming love. I felt a rush of affection for the child in my arms. I held her closer, never wanting to let go.

I continued to feed Maude in the following weeks. Francis was at Court so there would be no coupling between us. I was the only person she would latch on to and her health was far more important to me than the frowns of disgust I would get if the women at Court found out I was eschewing the wet nurse. Unfortunately, even though she was feeding, she was not gaining any weight. All of the milestones my other children passed in their early weeks failed to happen for my little Maude. I felt my time with her was limited so I spent most of my days in the nursery, rocking her in the chair and singing lullabies. Mary would grab her wool blanket and curl up at my feet, humming along with me.

The weather began to change and it seemed like the warmer it got outside, the further Maude slipped away. She stopped crying altogether and no longer even whimpered for her milk. She slept much of the day and even when the nursery was flooded in warm sunlight her tiny body felt chilled to the bone.

The day she left us was a bright, beautiful spring day. I stood at the window cradling her in my arms, basking us in the warmth of the sun, and I swayed back and forth humming. I saw the rose buds in the garden outside. The violets and lilies were in bloom. I wished I could open the window and let their musky sent in, but I did not dare for fear of Maude taking sick. I looked down into her placid face. Her eyes were closed, her long eyelashes brushing her cheeks.

I bent down and nuzzled the soft spot behind her ear. I whispered, “Go if you must, my sweet, but know how much we love you and will think of you always.”

I pulled my face back in time to see her eyes open. For the first time, she looked deep into mine. I felt a wave of sadness as I kissed her pale, cool cheeks. As I exhaled, she slipped away quietly. Her body was lifeless in my arms, but I held her close, taking in my last breath of her baby sweetness.

“Meg, will you please open the window?”

Meg gave me a puzzled look, but when I nodded, she complied. I stood in the sunlight and let the scents of the garden surround me as I hugged Maude close and prayed for her soul.

I carried on as best as I could after Maude’s death, but the loss of a child was almost too much for me to bear. Francis was tending to matters at Court and unable to come home, so I buried our child alone. I took my meals in my room, ate what little I could stomach, and then went to the chapel to pray. One morning, after a month of grieving, I stood naked before the mirror in my bedchamber and marvelled at the changes my body had gone through in the last eight years. I was no longer the young naïve girl that left Calais. My body now bore the marks of womanhood. My once flat stomach had been replaced by a soft round belly embroidered with the white puckered stretch-marks of all my pregnancies. My breasts were now larger than they had ever been thanks to Maude’s feeding and it was a struggle to lace my stomacher in the mornings. Matilda had to brace herself against the tester bed just to pull the strings tightly enough. I sighed and laid my hand on my belly, remembering how it felt when Maude was kicking inside of it. I had been blessed with five healthy children and it was time that I rejoined them.

A bead of sweat slid from behind my ear down my neck on to my bare shoulder where it trickled down into the crease in my bust. I groaned in disgust, but I continued through the garden plucking flowers with Mary and Lettice. The hot August sun burned our backs, but we were intent on harvesting a beautiful bouquet to brighten the hall. Harry played in the dirt while Alice and Meg looked on, their faces flushed from the heat. Matilda was fanning herself with her hand. A plume of dust rose in the distance and the sound of hooves thundered closer.

Harry caught my eye and grinned. “Father!”

He jumped up and took off running towards the gate. I gathered the girls next to me, my hands on the back of their dresses damp with sweat. After a few moments, the sound of hooves quieted and the horse came into view. Francis was on the ground leading the horse towards us. He held the reigns in one hand and Harry’s hand in the other. I smiled at the sight of father and son walking together, their steps in synch, a mirror of each other.

After the children had gone to bed, Francis and I sat before the fire in our room and indulged in some wine and cheese.

Francis took a swig of his wine. After he swallowed, he turned to me. “Well,” he sighed. “Your little sister has been shamed.”

“My little sister?” I asked in confusion.

“The Princess Elizabeth. She has been sent to live with Anthony Denny after her behaviour with the lord protector’s brother, Thomas. The dowager queen refuses to see her and the king is in a rage that she has forsaken her good sensibilities to play the harlot to his uncle.”

I shook my head and murmured, “That does not sound like Elizabeth. Are you certain?”

Francis nodded and stared into the flames. “They say that the baron would sneak into her room before she had even dressed for the day and chase her around, tearing at her nightgown and spanking her bottom.”

I gasped. “What about Queen Katheryn?”

Francis snorted in derision, “Oh yes, she was in on it as well, until she caught them in an embrace in the gallery. I don’t know what she was thinking. She had Elizabeth sent from Sudeley and the dowager queen now rests in her confinement awaiting the birth of their child. God willing the birthing will go well or I am certain the baron will set his sights on Elizabeth and the throne.”

I sat quietly thinking of the young princess I had left behind after Edward’s coronation. I could not imagine Elizabeth taking part in such misbehaviour, but I knew the baron and his reputation so was not surprised that he could act in such a way. It was a shame that for all the women King Henry had taken in marriage after Anne’s death, not a single one of them had taught Elizabeth to avoid the plots and intrigues at Court. I feared this was just the beginning. Edward was still young and he had no heirs to follow should something happen to him. As long as Elizabeth was in line for the throne, she would always be a magnet for men and their ambition.

Shortly after Francis went back to Court, we received news that the dowager queen had died of childbed fever after giving birth to a sickly baby girl. As the familiar symptoms of my own pregnancy began to appear one after another, I reflected on the bittersweet nature of motherhood. We surrender our bodies and hearts to the children we bear, risking our very lives to birth them and yet we do it with gladness and little hesitation. Fear over the possibility of our death is insignificant compared to the joy that we feel at the moment of their birth.

I was delivered of a healthy baby girl in the middle of June. When Francis came home to see us I told him that I named her for my grandmother, Elizabeth Boleyn, but truthfully I had named her Elizabeth for the princess. The moment I saw our baby’s coppery hair and raven eyes I knew that, like Lettice, she would be a mirror image of the young princess.

Bess, as we came to call her, thrived. Her birth was a joyous celebration after a winter and spring of discord. In February, the baron, Thomas Seymour, was arrested for attempting to kidnap the king. The death of the dowager queen had given him an opportunity to pursue his dynastic ambitions for a new wife and Princess Elizabeth seemed to suit his plan. Fortunately, no evidence was ever found linking Elizabeth to this plot, but her lady of the bedchamber and closest confidante, Kat Ashley, was removed along with her treasurer. These events placed the baron at odds with his brother and the council. When bribing the young king to intercede on the baron’s behalf did not work, he attempted to take him by force out of the palace, but was foiled before he could complete his outrageous mission. That council could suffer Thomas Seymour’s dangerous behaviour no more. On the king’s orders, Somerset threw his brother into the Tower and on 19
th
March, he was executed.

Summer fared no better as Francis was called back to Court in mid-July to deal with the rebellion at Norwich. Letters from Francis described the chaos:

“After Wymondham’s celebration of St Thomas Becket, which had been outlawed by King Henry at the height of his dispute with the pope, a group of rebels set out to tear down the enclosures that were preventing their animals from grazing on public land. They attacked the enclosures on the property of a wealthy landowner named Kett and, instead of fighting back, he joined the rebels. Gathering recruits as they went, the rebels set up camp outside of Norwich and attacked. The king sent the Marquess of Northampton with an army to put them down, but after being tricked by reports that the rebels wanted to discuss surrender, Northampton was beaten back and the Earl of Warwick, John Dudley, was sent to restore law and punish the rebels. The rebellion eventually was put down, but at great cost to the lord protector. He had underestimated how powerful and determined the rebels truly were and, because of his woeful miscalculation, the council lost their faith in him.”

In October, the lord protector was arrested by his own nephew and locked in the Tower.

“Warwick saw his chance and set about convincing an already worried council that the rebellions would not stop until Somerset was removed. Sadly, the king took little convincing as he was already upset that Somerset did not punish his sister, the Princess Mary, for saying Mass in her household and had been, in his opinion, far too lenient on the Catholics.” Francis told me sadly when he returned at Christmas.

Somerset had been one of his closest friends and I could see the worry and sorrow etched across his face.

“Wriothesley has taken Somerset’s rooms next to the king and at every chance he gets he is whispering in the king’s ear, trying to return him to the Catholic church. If he is successful, all of our hard work is undone.”

I chided Francis. “Do not even consider for one moment Wriothesley’s success. Edward would never return England to the pope. The very suggestion of it is preposterous. Have you ever seen a young man with such disdain for the pope? He cannot even stomach the idea of his own sister holding Mass, which she has done since well before he was born, and must plague her with reprimands though it does not affect him in the least. Wriothesley better take care that he does not find himself in the Tower instead of Somerset.”

I saw a smile creep its way onto Francis’s face. “You speak wise words, my lady. It is true that our young king could never relinquish his power over the church back to the pope. Warwick and Somerset fighting over it is bad enough. Princess Mary is lucky he is still in his minority or she would rue the day she ever thought to hold Mass in her home.”