The Fallen Queen (23 page)

We stripped our sister bare and plunged her into a tub of hot, rose-scented water and scrubbed her pink. Then, over her protests, after we had dried her, we tugged a loose, flowing gown of cream-coloured lace and fine, pleated, unbleached linen over her head, ignoring her cries that without undergarments underneath it was most indecent.

“I won’t wear this! I simply won’t!” she wept and raged. “It is indecent, I tell you,
indecent,
no godly Christian woman would ever …”

But Kate only smiled and sang over her protests as she adjusted the silken ribbons and falls of lace on the bodice and sleeves, and I raised my voice to join hers as I circled Jane, carefully smoothing the long, trailing skirt, making sure the lace and pleats lay just right.

“You’re so beautiful, Jane,” I breathed. “This gown makes you look so womanly and soft, like a goddess of femininity.”

When Jane broke free of us and ran for the door, I raced ahead of her, turned the key in the lock, and shoved it under the door to where Henny, our coconspirator, waited outside. I smiled sweetly at Jane’s defeated face and took her hand and led her back to Kate, who sang of love and lads and lasses wooing and stealing kisses in pretty gardens as she combed her fingers through the wet, red brown waves of Jane’s hair.

Jane broke away again, and while she pounded on the door, demanding to be let out, wincing and hopping around on one foot, cradling her toes, after she lost her temper and kicked it, Kate and I sat by the sunlit window while we waited for her hair to dry and busied ourselves with weaving daisy chains to adorn her neck, wrists, and waist, and an elaborate floral crown of scarlet poppies and golden wheat, with two grandiose upper tiers of pinks, marigolds, daisies, buttercups, bluebells, lavender, rosemary, dandelions, corn cockles, daffodils, peonies, periwinkles, forget-me-nots, pink sweet peas, lily of the valley, Canterbury bells, meadowsweet, yellow buttons of tansy, the feathery spikes of bright pinkish purple loosestrife, the blushing and freckled pink and white bugle blossoms of foxglove—“Like Jane will be when Guildford sees her thus!” Kate teased—the perky, purple pink pompoms of chives, and heart’s ease pansies, the bold and vibrant popinjays of Mother Nature’s bouquet.

“Now for Guildford!” Kate cried, proudly holding up the ornate wreath of golden wheat and yellow gillyflowers, scarlet poppies, snowdrops, sunny yellow St. John’s wort, foamy white meadowsweet, marigolds, forget-me-nots, and heart’s ease pansies her nimble fingers had just fashioned for our gilt-haired brother-in-law. “As every queen must have a king, and every king must have a crown!” How this game and these words would haunt us in later years! But we were young and innocent then of Northumberland’s and our parents’ schemes.

“Let me out, Henny,
I order you!
” Jane screamed, forgetting herself and kicking the door again.

“You heard what Lady Jane said, Henny!” Kate called in the prearranged signal. “You’d best let her out before she breaks the door or her toes!”

“Very well, Miss Jane,” Henny said, and soon we heard the key turning in the lock.

As soon as the door swung open, Jane rushed out, right into the trap of Henny’s and Hetty’s open arms.

“Let go of me! Let me go!”
she howled, thrashing, twisting, and squirming as Hetty’s arms closed like a vise beneath her bosom and Henny caught her around the ankles and lifted her feet off the floor.

“To the meadow!” Kate trilled, carefully holding the beautiful floral crowns out before her as she skipped ahead of us and led the way downstairs, and I brought up the rear with the daisy chains draped over my outstretched arms.

As soon as we stepped outside, the musicians Kate had hired struck up a lively tune and began prancing alongside us, to escort the Lady Jane to where her bridegroom awaited her in the meadow. We had invited the servants to join our little party, and they had already carried out the casks of our gillyflower wine, and even as we approached, the girls from the kitchen were busily laying out a trestle table laden with a rich bounty of golden cakes, strawberries and cream, and meat and cheese pasties.

Every day it was Guildford’s custom to go out into the meadow to dance and sing, letting his high notes soar free as birds as the sheep fled baaing before him. Most people shuddered and cringed when they heard him, but not Kate. Always kindhearted, she would shrug and say that the Bible did say, “Make a joyful noise unto the Lord, all the earth: make a loud noise, and rejoice, and sing praise.” Guildford’s efforts certainly seemed joyful and were undeniably loud. Nor could I bear to mock him, for in my heart I understood all too well his impossible, impractical dream; Guildford longed to be a great singer, just as I longed to be a woman normally and beautifully formed just like my sisters.

When Guildford heard our little party approaching, he paused midsong and stood there staring at us, a
very
pretty picture of golden-haired puzzlement.

“Don’t let her go, not yet!” Kate cautioned Henny and Hetty as they set Jane on her feet. Instantly, they tightened their grip on her as the servants milled curiously around, watching us and whispering, wondering what was going on.

“Let go of me! Let go!” Jane squirmed and twisted in the vise of their strong arms. “You’ve dressed me like a dancing girl, a lewd, indecent dancing girl, at a pagan bacchanal, and I shall not be part of it, I tell you, I won’t, I won’t, I won’t! I am a good Protestant maid! I am impervious to this lewdness. It shall not infect or touch me. The Lord shall protect me!”

“Calm down, Jane,” Kate said as she carefully laid the floral crowns on the ground far enough away that Jane and her captors would not trample them. “You’re carrying on as though this were a witches’ sabbat, and we meant to roast babies on spits over a fire and make you sign your name in the Devil’s black book. Look around you, feel the sunshine, smell the flowers, listen to the music, and see all the smiling faces that wish you well. All the evil and indecency you’re imagining is all in
your
mind, not ours. There are no pagans, Papists, or witches hiding in the trees waiting to swoop down on you and force you into sin. Can’t you see that God is in his heaven and smiling down on us on this
beautiful
day?” Kate paused to give Jane’s cheek a pat as she walked past, nimbly evading a kick from our outraged sister, then seized my hand and rushed me over to the trestle table. “Quickly, Mary, before Jane breaks free!” She snatched up a cup and thrust it into my hand and then, with her back turned to Jane, stealthily withdrew the red glass vial from her bodice and spilled half its contents into the cup, then bade me take it
carefully
to the cask and fill it. “And
please,
Mary, do not spill even one precious drop!”

I did as she asked, then watched as Kate approached Jane and, with the strong-armed assistance of Henny and Hetty, forced her to drink and drain it to the dregs.

“Only a little longer, love, before it begins to work its magic,” she said, stroking Jane’s hair and kissing her cheek before she scooped up the crown she had made for Guildford and ran back to prepare a similar cup, with the last of the mysterious potion, then ran giggling across the meadow to where Guildford stood gaping quizzically at us.

“I am Love’s humble handmaiden come to crown Your Majesty and present you with this loving cup from your queen, your loving bride,” she announced playfully as she set the crown on his head, then offered him the cup, though to my eyes, Jane seemed none too loving as she snarled and twisted suddenly and kicked Hetty’s shins quite viciously, causing my poor old nurse to cry out in pain.

Guildford’s skeptically arched eyebrow conveyed that our thoughts were travelling along the same path, but he nonetheless graciously accepted, calling out, “Thank you, my queen!” as he raised the cup in a toast to her then downed its contents. “Very sweet,” he pronounced as he passed the empty cup back to Kate.

“We used six pounds of sugar and almost as much honey,” Kate proudly volunteered, and Guildford smiled and said indeed he did not doubt it.

Smiling, Kate skipped back to Jane, and together we decked her with daisy chains. It was easier now that she was standing still. Her eyes seemed larger and curiously vacant though she was staring straight at Guildford and a strange pink flush was slowly stealing over her, and I noted as I arranged a daisy chain around her neck that her bosom had begun to heave. When I glanced up and asked if she were all right, there was a strange, crooked little smile tugging at her lips, as though one side wanted to smile and the other was undecided whether to give in or continue to frown.

“Your crown, my queen!” Kate said as she set the ornate, towering floral coronet on Jane’s head and I thrust a large bouquet into her hand. “Come, your king awaits!” Kate urged as she took Jane’s hand and began tugging her toward Guildford. To my surprise, Jane didn’t balk but nodded and began to follow, meek and docile as one of the sheep watching these curious goings-on from a distance. I, cheerfully playing the part of trainbearer, ran behind and caught up Jane’s train and, with a wave of my arm, motioned for the musicians to join us. Surrounded by sprightly music, walking on a soft carpet of green grass studded with daisies, clover, and dandelions, with plump black and yellow honeybees buzzing around our ankles, we escorted our sister to her bridegroom.

There, on that glorious June day, in the lax formality of the meadow at Chelsea, far removed from the luxurious environs of Durham House where she had been married in a golden gown, Jane, with a guttural cry and a passionate lurch, flung her bouquet high in the air and lunged fiercely into the arms of Guildford Dudley and crushed her lips against his with bruising passion. He gripped her tightly and returned her kisses with equal fervour as we all cheered and the men tossed their caps and the women flung flowers in the air.

“Our work is done,” Kate said as we exchanged a satisfied nod. We joined hands and skipped back to the wine cask to click our cups and drink a toast to the bride and groom and offer our heartiest thanks to Madame Astarte and her “passion potion.”

While we sat on the grass, sipping our wine, Kate told me of her clandestine visit to the old gypsy witch in one of London’s grimy back alleys. She described the ancient crone, dirty and stinking of garlic, stale, unwashed flesh, and sweat, who painted her old, wrinkled face with bold paint like a whore, ringing her mouthful of blackened stumps with the most vivid scarlet, and wore her dirty, matted grey hair in rainbow plaits of silk and satin ribbon tied with jingling bells, trailing down her back nigh to the floor; and clothed herself in glittery, mismatched rags of discarded and pilfered finery wherein teal damask with tarnished gilt threads mingled with rainbow scraps and tatters of dingy silks and satins, brocades, damasks, and velvets, to create a haphazard patchwork gown with a long, trailing train that followed Madame Astarte as though she were a great cat and it was her tail. Rows of clanking gold and silver bangles covered her wrists and ankles, and she let the nails on her bare feet grow into curving yellow talons that scraped the floor when she walked just like a cat with overlong claws. Madame Astarte had so many cats Kate claimed she couldn’t take a step in any direction without tripping over or treading on them.

Suppressing her fear, Kate had boldly ventured into her lair, explained Jane’s situation, and asked for whatever potion the old gypsy woman deemed most beneficial to remedy the situation. She crossed the witch’s palm with silver and within minutes the red glass vial was in her hand, but ere she could depart the old crone was prying Kate’s fingers wide and staring intently at her palm. With a sudden blankness in her eyes and a deadness in her voice, she monotonously chanted a dire prediction: “Your love is both a blessing and a curse to you and those you love. The greater your love, the greater your loss; the greater your passion, the greater your pain. You will die young and fair, starved for love, but his heart shall go on.” Her words filled Kate with such fear that she turned and fled, gripping the precious potion tight over her heart and praying God forgive her for going against His teachings and trafficking with witches.

Once back in the safety of her bedchamber at Baynard’s Castle, Kate flipped open her Bible and found the passage in Deuteronomy that was haunting her and read it with a thudding heart and a sudden sweat akin to that which comes with a raging fever.

There shall not be found among you any one that maketh his son or his daughter to pass through the fire, or that useth divination, or an observer of times, or an enchanter, or a witch, or a charmer, or a consulter with familiar spirits, or a wizard, or a necromancer. For all that do these things are an abomination unto the Lord: and because of these abominations the Lord thy God doth drive them out from before thee.

Shivering and burning all at the same time, salty tears and sweat running down her face, Kate fell on her knees and raised her clasped hands heavenward and begged God again and again to forgive her until she collapsed on the open Bible in a dead faint. When Henny found her and put her to bed and bathed her hot flesh with a cool, wet cloth Kate was still babbling deliriously. “
Please,
God, don’t let it be true! Please, forgive me!
Please,
God, don’t let it be true! I
had
to do it! I
had
to do it, for Jane!”

I never knew until she told me; Kate had kept her secret well. Henny had told me that my sister was ailing with the onset of her courses and to let her, and the household, rest in peace, so I had done as she suggested and enjoyed the quiet respite without insisting on seeing my sister. After all, it was only a trifling ail that afflicted most women every month, so I did not worry. Perhaps she only meant to be kind and didn’t want to alarm me. Indeed the fever soon broke. But I wish I had known the truth, and that I had known beforehand what Kate intended to do. I would have gone with her and gladly shared her guilty burden of trafficking with that dirty, flea-bitten Circe. I would not have let that old hag hurt my beautiful Kate. I would have kicked her in the shin before she could mutter her evil prophecy, words that once heard could never be forgotten. Now I knew why I had a sense, though I could never put my finger on it and thought perhaps I was imagining it, that since her fever, Kate’s gaiety seemed somewhat forced. But now, when I ventured this, Kate assured me that it was not true.