The Fallen Queen (10 page)

At the sight of us he smiled and opened his arms wide. “My little girls!” he said fondly in a voice that conveyed, even though we were all girls, and none of us the son he longed for, he was nonetheless proud of us.

We cast a quick and wary glance around to ascertain our lady-mother was not present. She wasn’t—that meant Father would be fun! And we ran into his arms and hugged him tight; even Jane forgot her solemn dignity and hurled herself into his arms. Kate settled herself on his lap, and he tousled and kissed her bright curls and took from the secret “sweet drawer” in his desk a special treat he had been saving to share with us. When he was last in London he had visited his favourite sweetshop and purchased a box of the most wonderful marzipan; the box was lined in blue silk, and each dainty, brightly coloured piece was an exquisite replica of a creature from the sea—there were seashells, all manner of fishes, blue and green crabs, and bright red lobsters, oysters that opened to reveal candy pearls, sharks, dolphins, and whales, billowy branches of coral, undulating sea serpents, and even bare-breasted mermaids combing their flowing tresses or playing harps, and lusty, leering, blue-bearded mermen clutching tridents.

“Don’t tell your lady-mother,” he said with a slightly sad smile, his words only half jesting. “She thinks I overindulge in sweets, though I tell her that one can
never
have
too
much
of a good thing. She says one day I’ll get as big as old King Henry was and then she’ll divorce me and find herself a lean, lusty lad to replace me.” He lowered his voice to a whisper and confided, “I think she has her eye on our Master of the Horse, young Master Stokes.”

“
No one
could
ever
replace
you,
Father!” Kate cried as she flung her arms around his neck and kissed his cheek. “And certainly not Master Stokes! He’s only twenty—just five years older than Jane! Our lady-mother would
never
be so foolish!”

“Never!”
Jane and I chorused, squeezing Kate so tight she squealed as we pressed to embrace Father and kiss the red-bristled sun-bronzed cheeks that bulged with marzipan.

He swallowed hard and smiled. “Now then, on to serious matters …”

And suddenly I felt the icy touch of fear upon my back, prickly as frozen needles. In that instant I just
knew
that he was about to speak the words that would set in motion actions that would shatter my world.

“My three little girls are about to leave me.” Father shook his head and sighed dolefully. “How time flies! You’re not little girls anymore; you’re young
women
—young women about to become
wives
.”

“Married?”
Jane gasped and tottered back, tripping over her hems and stumbling hard against the desk. She leaned there looking white as a ghost, tugging hard at the high collar of her funereal black velvet gown as though it were a noose strangling her. And I was sorely afraid that she might faint.

“
Married!
I’m to be
married!
” Kate jumped up with a jubilant squeal, spinning around, hugging her clasped hands tight against her excitedly beating heart. “When? Will it be soon? Oh, Father, can I have a golden gown and golden slippers and a cake, a great big cinnamon spice cake, as tall as I am? No!
Taller!
And covered with gilded marzipan and inside filled with chunks of apples, walnuts, and golden and black raisins, and lots of cinnamon, lots and lots of cinnamon! And minstrels to play at my wedding clad from head to toe in silver since I shall be all in gold!”

“Aye, my love, my beautiful Katey, aye!” Father sat back in his chair and roared with laughter even as tears filled his eyes. “And, yes, it will be soon, in a month’s time you’ll be married and have left maidenhood behind. But as important as the cake and your dress and slippers and the minstrels are, don’t you want to know
whom
you’re going to marry?”

“Oh yes!” Kate stopped her giddy prancing and turned expectantly to Father. “Of course I do! Is he young and handsome? Do I know him? What’s his name? Is his hair dark or fair? Does he have blue eyes or brown, grey or green? Shall we have a house in London and one in the country as well? Will he take me to court? Will we have our own barge? Shall I go to court to serve the Queen when Cousin Edward marries? Will he buy me jewels and gowns and puppies and kittens and pet monkeys and songbirds in gilded cages? Oh, Father, I do so
long
to have a pair of monkeys! I shall dress them in little suits and gowns just like babies! And parrots,
talking
parrots—I can teach them new words and feed them berries from my hand! And will my husband and I have lots of babies? I want a nursery
full
of babies! I want to be a little woman round and stout as a barrel with a baby always in my arms, filling out my belly, and a bunch of them tugging at my skirts calling me ‘mother’! I want our home to be
filled
with joy and laughter!”

Father laughed heartily. “So many questions! You’re curious as a cat, my Kate! Stop a moment and still your eager tongue, my lovely love, and let me answer! No, you’ve never met him. His name is Henry, Lord Herbert, he is the Earl of Pembroke’s son, and a handsome, fair-haired youth not quite two years older than yourself, and I believe his eyes are blue. You’ll like him. I’m as sure of it as I am that this marzipan is delicious!” He waved a hand at the nigh empty box on his desk. “As for the rest, all in good time, my pretty Kate, all in good time! Stop chomping at the bit, raring to be off, my fine filly; slow down and enjoy your life, without racing through it at breakneck speed. If you go too fast, it will all pass by you in a blur and you’ll miss it all.”

Nervously, I tugged at Father’s sleeve to get his attention. “Me too?” I asked timidly. “
I
am to be married? Someone wants to marry
me?
”

“Aye, my little love.” Father swooped me up to sit upon his lap. “Though being as you are only eight, you shall have to bide at home and content yourself with being betrothed a while, but, aye, my little Mary, you are to be a bride just like your sisters! And Time has a sneaky habit of flying by, and all too soon the dressmakers will be marching up the stairs to unfurl their banners of silk before you and make you a fine wedding gown of any cut and colour you choose!”

“Who?”
I asked in a dazed and breathless whisper. The man I was to marry was of far greater importance to me than any new gown, though honesty compels me to admit that a rich deep plum velvet and silver-flowered lavender damask trimmed with silver fox fur billowed briefly through my mind, and my inner eye caught a teasing, tantalizing glimpse of the fine wine sparkle of garnets and deep purple amethysts set in silver.
“Who
would want to marry
me?”

“I’ve chosen someone
very
special
for you, my little love.” Father chucked my chin and kissed the tip of my nose. “Now he is a
wee
bit older than you are, five-and-forty, and a kinsman of mine. Mayhap you’ve heard tell of him, for he’s a war hero, one of our greatest—my cousin William Grey, Lord Wilton.”

Kate gave such a frightful shriek that I nearly toppled off Father’s lap, and Jane momentarily forgot her own staggering surprise as horror, then pity, filled her eyes as she stared at me. Then both my sisters were there, crying and clinging tight to me, as though they could not bear to let me go. But all I could do was nod, my disappointment and hurt went too deep for tears, and there are times in a dwarf’s tormented life when one feels all cried dry of tears.

The whole of England knew the story of Lord Wilton, and little boys fought to play him in their war games, their vying for this prized part often leaving them with bloodied lips and blackened eyes. He had been
hideously
wounded, his face grotesquely mutilated at the Battle of Pinkie Cleugh. A Scottish pike had smashed through the front of his helm, shattering several teeth as it stove in his mouth, and pierced through his tongue, knocking out even more teeth in its violent progress, and penetrated the roof of his mouth. At some point, his nose had also been broken and smashed in in a grotesque and bloody parody of one of those darling little dogs with the pushed-in noses that Kate adored so. To make matters worse, his helm had been quite destroyed by enemy blows, and the metal intended to protect his face had instead turned against him, biting deep, like jagged steel teeth, lacerating his flesh, and leaving behind ugly, jagged scars zigzagging like a violent lightning storm all over his face. The enemy pike had also cost him an eye. Some said he was merely blinded and wore a black leather patch to cover the hideous grey-clouded eyeball, though others claimed the eye was white and sightless as an egg, while others said that it concealed an empty hollow, that the Scottish warrior who took it had boasted he had plucked it out of its socket like an olive, though some rather ghoulishly insisted that he popped it in his mouth and swallowed it whole, and yet others insisted he had chewed it with great vigour and glee.

Regardless of which of these tales was the true one, Lord Wilton left the battlefield that day with a face that frightened children and now went about veiled like a lady in public lest his ears be assaulted by cries of “Dear God, what is that hideous thing?” and “Monster!” and the terrified wails of children, the screams of women, and the thud of their bodies falling down in a faint. I felt sorry for him; I, “Crouchback Mary,” the “little gargoyle,” the “goblin child,” and “mashed-up little toad,” could well understand his pain and torment. It must have been especially hard for him since he had once been accounted amongst the handsomest of men, whilst I had been born ugly and misshapen and had known no other form or face.

But empathy was not enough to make me want to marry him. Oh what a pair we would make! I could picture myself leading my half-blind and veiled husband around by the hand, my crooked spine straining and aching at the awful effort. People would think we were a couple of freaks loose from the fair or some nobleman’s collection of Mother Nature’s mistakes. Those who enjoyed such spectacles might even come up to us and offer us pennies to peer beneath my husband’s veil or toss down their coins and cry,
“Dance, dwarf, dance!”

“Nay, pet, look not so downhearted! You’re frowning as if the world were about to end without you ever having tasted of all its pleasures!
Smile!
” Father cried, setting me down and with the tips of his fingers pushing the corners of my mouth up to form a smile that instantly disappeared the moment he removed them. “Lord Wilton is a
wonderful
man and a
great
hero! A husband you can be proud of! I myself have told him
all
about you, and he cannot wait to make you his bride. How impatient he is for his little Mary to grow up! He wants to be informed the moment you shed your first woman’s blood! He
longs
for an understanding and intelligent young wife, a quiet, sensible girl whose head and heart will not be turned by a handsome face, one who is content to bide at home and sit by the fire and read to and converse with him, someone he can tell his stories to and relive his former glories with, someone like you, my little love, not some flighty little minx he is likely to find one day rolling in the straw with the stable boy between her knees! And, mind you, just because his face is ruined, doesn’t mean that William is lacking in amorous skill, quite the contrary, but that is not a subject fit for your tender years. Suffice it to say that upon your wedding night you shall experience a heavenly rapture, and not of the spiritual kind, but a warm, quivering, panting, pulsing, throbbing ecstasy of the flesh! William has the tongue and fingers to rival the greatest musician in England; he plays a woman’s body like an instrument! But forget I said that until you are old enough to remember! It’s not a fit subject for a little maid like you to contemplate.”

“But, Father!” Kate wailed. “He is
so
ugly! And
old!
I have seen him riding through London in his litter, his face covered by a thick veil, with a shawl about his shoulders, just like a hunched and shrivelled-up old woman calling out to his bearers in a whining voice that they are going too fast, or too slow, or to watch out for that pig or that little girl or not to step in the street muck, and to turn here and turn there as though he laid the streets of London himself and knows them better than any!”

“Katherine!”
Father barked sharply. “I am appalled and ashamed of you! Don’t you realize, girl, that you are talking about a
great
war hero? The man who led the first charge against the enemy at the Battle of Pinkie Cleugh, mind you! I’ll thank you to show some respect for your future brother-in-law! Everyone with a drop of English blood in them should go down on their knees and thank William Grey for sacrificing his looks, and his vanity, for their sake. And before he was injured, he had
much
to be vain of. He was as bold and brazen as a strutting cockerel! If you girls were boys, the stories I could tell you,” he added with a wink. Then, hurtling over the obstacles that stood in the way of a good story, he went on as though our sex posed no barrier. “Why, when he was lying there with his face hanging from his skull in shreds and tatters all stitched up with crude thread and swathed in bloody rags, not knowing whether he was going to live or die, he called for a mirror though he was told it was best not to look, but look he did, he was that brave, then he defiantly flung the mirror away, and to prove himself still a man he called for women and more women and to keep them coming until he said, ‘No more!’ He wore out a dozen whores, by some counts as many as sixteen or thirty—everyone who tells the tale gives a different number—but I am sure, knowing my cousin William, that it was at
least
a dozen wenches. But upon one point everyone agrees—those doxies staggered out of his tent nigh swooning with their knees trembling, complaining that they ached in their privy parts like just deflowered virgins; some of them even clamped rags over their cunnies to staunch the bleeding, saying his battering ram was that big and gave them such a powerful banging, and these were all seasoned camp followers, mind you, whores who had left maidenhood long behind them!” He guiltily clapped a hand over his mouth as though his own words surprised him. “But I shouldn’t have told you that. You’re just little girls, so forget every word! Your lady-mother would take a horsewhip to my buttocks if she knew I had been filling your heads with bawdy stories; the Good Lord above knows that she loves any excuse to do that! Let that be a lesson to you girls.
Never
marry a woman who lives in riding boots, for like as not she will wear them in bed as well, and the whip will never be far from her hand. Frances even wore them ’neath her bridal gown; I heard her golden spurs jingling as she walked up the aisle to take her place beside me. For the life of me, I could not figure out what that noise was, and when I bent to lift the hem of her skirt to see, she slapped my new feathered hat clean off my head right there at the altar in plain sight of everyone, and as I put the ring on her finger, I had a red and throbbing ear, the wedding guests sat there in the pews tittering as they watched it swell. But forget I told you that too!” he added hastily. “Your lady-mother wouldn’t like it! Have some more sweets, girls!”