It was such a sad and pitiful sight. Everyone felt sorry for her. But no one dared move. And then history records that "one of the standers-by took pity," but I can tell you that it was my brave Kate, unrecognized in her serving woman's disguise, with the fire of her hair doused and hidden by a borrowed linen cap, who broke from the crowd and clattered up the wooden steps in her clunky, c.u.mbersome clogs. She laid a comforting hand on Jane's shoulder, letting it linger there one long and loving moment. Those watching never knew they were witnessing two sisters saying farewell. Then, moving swiftly, Kate gently guided Jane's hands and helped her lay her head down on the hard, scarred wooden block that had seen so many deaths.

"We love you, Jane," Kate afterward told me she had whispered.

Jane had whispered back, "Don't cry for me, Kate; by losing this mortal life, I gain an immortal one!"

Swallowing down her tears, Kate clattered back down again, and while her back was yet turned, Jane cried bravely, "Lord, into Thy hands I commend my spirit!" and the ax fell with a great thud, cutting through Jane's skin and bones to bury its blade in the wood.

I was watching Kate's face, not the scaffold, when the ax fell. She shut her eyes, but the tears seeped out. She breathed deeply, shakily exhaled, and whispered, "Fare thee well, my dear Jane!" Then she squared her shoulders, opened her eyes, took my hand, and began swiftly pulling me back through the crowd, away from the scaffold. "Don't look back, don't look back," she kept saying until the words lost all meaning.

I didn't. So neither of us saw, though we heard, when the executioner held our sister's head aloft by her hair and spoke the traditional words, "So perish all the Queen's enemies! Behold the head of a traitor!" Behind us we heard the crowd marveling that so vast a quant.i.ty of blood had come out of one little girl.

Jane was gone, but she would live on, and posterity would indeed favor her. Almost overnight it seemed poems, ballads, and pictures celebrating her courage and faith, her youth and beauty, were sprouting up like weeds, recited and sold on every street corner. She had captured the public's imagination and become a tragic heroine. Had she been a toothless, gray-haired hag of fifty, instead of sixteen and beautiful, it might all have been a different story, but there's something about that scene that fascinates and t.i.tillates, that excites and ignites, stirs the blood and kindles l.u.s.t-the blindfolded beauty kneeling there, neck and shoulders bare and white as snow, as a sacrifice to the spinster queen's l.u.s.t for a golden Spanish prince, and the fountain of blood gushing out of that frail, slender neck to stain the pure white snow, like the red blossoms of a maiden's blood on the sheets of her bridal bed. That is how the world, and posterity, will remember my sister.

Mrs. Ellen, who had faithfully remained to tend Jane's corpse, came to the palace that night and brought us each a long, wavy lock she had cut from Jane's head before she tenderly wrapped our sister's poor, broken body in a sheet and laid her, beside Guildford, in the musty, dusty crypt of St. Peter ad Vincula, the Tower's sad and b.l.o.o.d.y chapel, where Anne Boleyn and other condemned traitors lay entombed. Later I would have Kate sit, hang her head low, with her hair falling like red gold rain around her face, and snip from the nape of her neck a long strand. She would do the same for me. I would braid and weave them together, forming a pair of roses, one for each of us to keep and cherish, comprised of three shades of hair cut from the heads of three sisters-"the brilliant one," "the beautiful one," and "the beastly little one"-skeins of ruddy chestnut, fiery, blazing copper, and ebony harboring a secret scarlet, together forever, bound and united, divided not even by Death's cruel scythe.

Mrs. Ellen also brought us Jane's treasured Greek Testament. After she had gone, we found, written inside the cover, upon the blank pages, a letter addressed to Kate. I was a little hurt. Was there nothing for me? I flipped to the back, hoping to find a message for me on the last blank pages, but there was nothing.

"Maybe there's something here for both of us?" Kate suggested as I gave the book back to her and we sat, side by side, on the fireside settle and she read it aloud.

I have here sent you, good sister Katherine, a book the which, although it be not outwardly trimmed with gold, yet inwardly it is worth more than precious stones. It is the book, dear sister, of the law of the Lord. It is His Testament and Last Will, which he bequeathed unto us wretches, which shall lead you to the path of eternal joy. And if you, with a good mind, read it, and with an earnest desire follow it, it shall bring you to an immortal and everlasting life.

It shall teach you to live and learn you to die. It will win you more than you should have gained by the possession of your woeful father's lands. Within these covers are such riches as neither the covetous shall withdraw from you, neither the thief steal, nor the moth corrupt.

Trust not the tenderness of your age shall lengthen your days, for as soon, if G.o.d will, goes the young as the old. Wherefore labor always to learn to die. Defy the world, deny the Devil, and despise the flesh, and delight yourself only in the Lord. Be penitent for your sins and yet despair not. Be strong in faith and yet presume not and desire with Saint Paul to be dissolved and to be with Christ, with whom even in death there is life.

Rejoice in Christ as I trust I do and seeing that you have the name of a Christian, as near as you can follow in the steps of your master, Christ, and take up your cross. Lay your sins on His back and always embrace Him. And touching my death, rejoice as I do, good sister, that I shall be delivered of this corruption, and put on incorruption, for I am a.s.sured that I shall for losing of a mortal life win an immortal life.

Pray G.o.d grant you and send you of His grace to live in His fear and then to die in the true Christian faith from which in G.o.d's name I exhort you that you never swerve neither for hope of life nor for fear of death. If you will deny His truth to lengthen your life, G.o.d will deny you and yet shorten your days. And if you will cleave to Him, He will prolong your days to your comfort and His glory to which glory G.o.d bring me now and you hereafter when it shall please Him to call you.

Farewell good sister, put your only trust in G.o.d who alone can help you. Amen. Your loving sister, Jane Kate flung the book to the floor and threw herself into my arms.

We clung together and wept, both of us surprised to discover that we had any tears left.

"I would rather my brains rattled around in my head like seeds in a gourd than live a scholar and die a martyr!" Kate cried. "I want to live, Mary, to love and be loved! I must embrace the flesh; I cannot despise it, no more than I could ever follow in Jane's footsteps!"

As I retrieved the book, I noticed the ribbon tucked inside that Jane had used to mark her place. It was a broad glossy bloodred satin ribbon. I drew it out and beheld the words For my sister Mary embroidered across the top, and beneath it, also in neatly st.i.tched gilt letters that seemed to shimmer and dance in the firelight, these five verses:

Death will give pain to the body for its sins, but the soul will be justified before G.o.d.

There is a time to be born and a time to die; and the day of our death is better than the day of our birth.

Live to die, that by death you may gain eternal life.

If my faults deserve punishment, my youth at least and my imprudence were worthy of excuse. G.o.d and posterity will show me greater favor.

Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.

She had not forgotten me after all. Every time I read a book and needed to mark my place, Jane would be right there with me.

Then, long before we were done weeping, while our eyes and faces were yet red and tear-swollen, it was Father's turn to lay his head upon the block and die. We could not be there for him. Though our royal cousin, to our surprise, never said a word about our disobedience the day Jane died, the night before Father's execution we were summoned to sleep upon a pallet at the foot of her bed, as two of her ladies-in-waiting always did, and she kept us close all the morrow, reading aloud to her and embroidering until the deed was done. But afterward we were allowed to go into his cell and claim his personal possessions.

Upon his desk, amidst drawings of cakes, candies, pies, pyramids of fruit, and great, fantastical marzipan and spun sugar subtleties with copious notes below mouthwateringly describing them all, we found a crumpled, tear-stained letter. It was from Jane, written the last night of her life.

Father,

Although it hath pleased G.o.d to hasten my death by you, by whom my life should rather have been lengthened; yet I can so patiently take it, as I yield G.o.d more hearty thanks for shortening my woeful days, than if all the world had been given into my possession, with life lengthened at my own will. Albeit I am well a.s.sured of your impatient dolours, redoubled manifold ways, both in bewailing your own woe, and especially, as I am informed, my unfortunate state. Yet, my dear father, if I may without offense rejoice in my own mishaps, herein I may account myself blessed, that washing my hands with the innocency of my fact, my guiltless blood may cry out before the Lord, "Mercy, to the innocent!"

And yet, though I must needs acknowledge, that being constrained, and, as you know well enough, continually a.s.sayed; yet, in taking the Crown upon me, I seemed to consent, and therein grievously offended the Queen and her laws; yet do I a.s.suredly trust, that this my offense toward G.o.d is so much the less, in that being in so royal estate as I was, my enforced honor never blended with mine innocent heart.

Thus, good father, I have opened unto you the state in which I presently stand, my death at hand, although to you it may seem woeful, yet to me there is nothing more welcome than from this vale of misery to aspire to that heavenly throne of all joy and pleasure, with Christ our Savior, in whose steadfast faith (if it be lawful for the daughter so to write to the father) the Lord that hitherto hath strengthened you, so continue to keep you, that at last we may meet in Heaven with the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. Amen. I am, Your Obedient Daughter Until Death,

Jane

I thought it was rather harsh-even if it was true. And Father was such a sensitive man, a great overgrown boy really, no wonder it had made him weep. Yea, it was true that he should not have sought the Crown again on Jane's behalf, in a rebellion she knew nothing about, and would have wanted no part in if she had, and by doing so he had sealed her doom and his own. Yet seeing her letter, stained with Father's tears, made me cry. Oh, Jane, how could you? Father must have felt she was pouring salt into his wounds!

Yet, perhaps her thoughts had traveled the same lines. Perhaps Jane had regretted her harshness. After she sent him this letter, Father asked his gaoler to take her the pretty prayer book bound in gilt-embellished yellow leather Guildford had inscribed and given him, before the tragic power play that had turned our world upside down, and ask his daughter to please write some words of comfort inside it and send it back to him with all speed.

As Kate and I stood peering down at the book as it lay open in my hands, I could not help but wonder what Jane had thought when she opened it and read Guildford's own elegantly writ inscription.

Your loving and obedient son wisheth unto Your Grace long life in this world, with as much joy and comfort as I wish myself, and in the world to come, joy everlasting.

Your most humble son to his death, Guildford Dudley But did it really matter anymore what Guildford and Father had been to each other, and who was to blame, and for what? The time for cattiness, cruel reminders, blame, and malice had pa.s.sed. Like the obedient daughter she had been brought up to be, Jane dipped her quill and wrote beneath her husband's words:

The Lord comfort Your Grace and that in His word wherein all creatures only are to be comforted. And though it hath pleased G.o.d to take two of your children, yet think not, I most humbly beseech Your Grace, that you have lost them. But trust that we, by leaving this mortal life, have won an immortal life. And I, as for my part, as I have honored Your Grace in this life, will pray for you in another life.

Your Grace's humble daughter,

Jane Dudley

Was the Dudley, I wondered, her subtle way of reminding him that, despite what mad, foolish folly they might have shared, whether carnal or innocent infatuation, Guildford was really hers?

"Poor Father." I turned to see Kate standing beside the bed cradling his dear old blue and rose comfit box against her breast. Tenderly, she lifted the lid.

"Look, Mary!" She held it out for me to see. "He left it for us."

Kate sat down and patted the bed beside her. I joined her there, the two of us gazing down at the pretty auburn-haired marzipan mermaid that was all that remained inside it.

Gently, Kate lifted it out and let the bare-breasted sea siren lie upon her palm as reverently as though it were a consecrated wafer.

"Shall we?" she asked tentatively.

"For Father." I nodded.

Kate hesitated for a moment, and then she quickly lifted the mermaid and snapped her in half at the waist.

I took the green scaled tail from her and quickly popped it in my mouth, while Kate did the same with the remaining half.

Then I put my arm around her waist, and she did the same, and we leaned against each other. "Poor Father!" we sighed and savored his memory along with the last piece of candy he would ever give to us.

11.

Father's foolish head was stuck on London Bridge as a warning to other would-be traitors, but bits of his beard still billowed in the breeze, and the ravens had yet to pick it clean when we received a most curious summons from our lady-mother bidding us to put on something pastel and pretty, "to bring a burst of spring to these dreary winter days," and come at once to Suffolk House for a "celebration of sweet delight."

"Whatever can it mean?" Kate wondered as I stood at the foot of our bed in my gold applepatterned spring green brocade and laced her into a gown of pale rose damask figured with delicate silver roses. "How can it be a 'sweet celebration' so soon after Father and Jane are gone?"

"I cannot even imagine," I sighed. "Life will never be the same without them. I am so afraid nothing will ever be sweet again, Kate."

"Don't say that, Mary," Kate pleaded. "We have to be brave; life is for the living, so we must find things to look forward to, things worth going on for. Sweet times must come again! But, now . . . it is too soon."

When we arrived at Suffolk House, we were ushered into the downstairs parlor where, in a blaze of what must have been a hundred candles, our lady-mother, thinking perhaps that the candlelight would be kind and flatter her, stood before the great marble fireplace. Her hair, now an alarming cherry red-she had obviously been overzealous in applying the henna-was flowing down her back, girlishly unbound, though she was galloping hard and fast toward forty. Upon it sat a lavish crown of gilded rosemary, lavender, meadowsweet, red and white roses to remind all of her Tudor heritage, deep purple violets, marigolds, and the white star-shaped blossoms known as love-in-a-mist. She was holding a large golden goblet and wearing a loose, flowing gown of creamy white damask beneath which her uncorseted body jiggled like five frightened piglets squirming and writhing in a vain attempt to free themselves from the sack they had been sewn into. When she took a step toward us, I heard the jingle of spurs, and glanced down to glimpse the sharp-pointed toes of black leather riding boots peeking from beneath her gown.

"Come, my daughters"-she held out a hand to us-"and embrace your stepfather!" With a sweeping gesture, she indicated the bashful, blushing figure of our Master of the Horse, Adrian Stokes, who seemed to be trying to hide himself in the shadows as though he were afraid to face us. "Here, my love"-she pulled at his scarlet satin sleeve-"come and drink a loving cup with me!" She pressed the goblet into his hand.

"Pinch me, Mary!" Kate whispered, clutching hard at my hand. "Wake me now; I must be dreaming!"

"Methinks I am having the same nightmare," I whispered back as we stood and stared at the blushing, bashful black-haired boy standing sheepishly beside our lady-mother in his garishly bright, scarlet satin doublet adorned with golden bugles all down the front and along the sleeves.

To his credit, Master Stokes seemed overcome with a burning hot shame and found it exceedingly hard to meet our gaze. Instead, he stared at the floor, studying his gold-slashed, scarlet shoes as though he could not quite believe that these were truly his feet.

"Well?" our lady-mother demanded, hands on hips. "What are you waiting for? Come, now, don't be shy-embrace him!"

"I would sooner hurl myself into the Thames!" Kate cried. "Mother, how could you? He's only twenty!"

Without daring to meet Kate's eyes, Master Stokes mumbled that he would be twenty-one on Tuesday.

"Yes, my love, and we shall have a party, a very grand party!" Our lady-mother smiled indulgently as she patted his arm and smacked a kiss onto his cheek and her hand stole mischievously behind to give a greedy and unsuspected squeeze to his b.u.t.tocks that made Master Stokes nearly start out of his skin.

"Mother!" Kate cried, shaking her head incredulously. "Father has not even been dead two weeks! Could you not have waited?" She turned away, her hand rising to try to hide her tears. "You didn't even wear widow's weeds for him!"

"Come, Kate." I caught hold of my sister's hand. "You're wasting your words and your breath! She's not even sorry Father is dead; she can't be . . . to do this!" I waved a disgusted hand at Master Stokes. "He's young enough to be her son!"

"I-I-" Master Stokes began to stammer, looking first at our lady-mother as though, still accustomed to a role of servitude, he was awaiting her permission to speak. "Perhaps we did marry in haste. I-I-I always liked my lord of Suffolk and was greatly saddened by his death. When I first came to Bradgate, as a lad to work in the stables, he always had a smile and a treat from his comfit box for me. Truly, I mean no disrespect to his memory! If you like, we could drink a toast to him and light some candles 'neath his portrait."

"Sit down and shut up!" Our lady-mother shoved Master Stokes toward a chair and aimed a kick at the same b.u.t.tocks she had just been squeezing. "I didn't marry you for your conversation!" Then she swung around, her gown billowing out like a great white sail behind her, and grabbed Kate's wrist, twisting it roughly. "You stupid girl!" she hissed. "I thought you had more sense! I didn't have time to mourn, and your father is as dead as he'll ever be, so what's the difference when by my actions I could still save something? Or did you want to see it all lost because of your foolish father-Bradgate and Suffolk House and what lands and monies we have left, that he didn't gamble away? I had to save something, and by marrying beneath me, and forsaking my rank as d.u.c.h.ess of Suffolk, to show the Queen this family has no more royal pretensions, I have accomplished that! I did what I had to do, and you two ungrateful little girls should fall on your knees and thank me for it! Think you I liked giving up my t.i.tle to become plain Mistress Stokes, even if it did land me a l.u.s.ty young lad in my bed? Aye, I've saved the homes and money, but I've sacrificed my t.i.tle, and now wherever I go people will snicker behind my back, because I've married a boy young enough to be my son, as Mary so rightly says! But I have two daughters and their futures to think of!"

"And yourself!" Kate shouted.