"Yes, myself!" our lady-mother acquiesced. "I've done my duty all my life, and now I deserve a husband who will make me happy! I've more than earned it! Forget about your worthless father, that spineless lout with a brain as soft and doughy as his body! I am the daughter of a queen, and the niece of a king, and I deserved far better than Hal Grey!"

She paused to draw breath and fan her flushed face, then, with a defiant toss of her head, went to sit on the gilded arm of Master Stokes's chair, ignoring its ominous groan, and arranged herself as though she were posing for a portrait of a doting wife. She stroked his hair and bent to nibble on his ear, while he blushed and glanced away as her hand dipped down to rove inside his shirt and playfully tweak a nipple, hard enough to make him squirm, wince, and squeal.

"Jane and Guildford too," she continued as she s.n.a.t.c.hed the golden cup from Master Stokes's hand and drank greedily from it. "They're all dead and nothing can bring them back! Though I do regret poor Guildford; the dear boy wanted me to run away to Italy with him to manage his singing career. He paid me a great compliment when he said that even though I am a woman I was still the most formidable person he had ever known, and he felt confident that none of the theater managers would ever dare to cheat or shortchange him if I were there minding such matters. He was right, of course. Poor Guildford!" She sighed. "G.o.d rest him!"

She daintily selected a sugarplum from the golden tray beside Master Stokes's chair and popped it into her mouth, washing it down with a great gulp of wine. I watched disgustedly as a red rivulet dripped from the corner of her rouged mouth and trickled slowly down to stain the bodice of her white gown. It made me think of blood, and I had to close my eyes as my belly churned sickly inside.

"Come on, Mary!" Kate, swatting the tears from her eyes with her sleeve, seized my hand and dragged me toward the door. "We can't stay here!"

"I . . . I think it's going to rain!" Master Stokes called after us.

"Then don't go outside and stare up at the sky with your mouth open else you might drown!" Kate shouted back at him as she slammed the door and pulled me out into the London night, forgetting our fur cloaks in her haste.

"You should be happy for me!" Our lady-mother thrust her head out the parlor window and shouted after us as the rain began to lightly fall. "Your father is as dead now as he will be in a year, and instead of hiding it and living secretly in sin, I am legally wedded and well and rightfully enjoying the black-haired boy G.o.d has sent me as a reward to console me and share my bed! By heaven, I deserve him! At least I had the decency, the honesty, not to pretend!"

"Oh go boil your head, Mother!" Kate shouted back at her and kept on walking, pulling me along after her, as the first bolt of lightning stabbed the darkened sky, and the boom of thunder drowned out our lady-mother's angry reply.

"Kate!" I tugged at her hand. "Surely we should get a coach or a barge? It's dark, and it's not safe for us to be abroad, alone, defenseless, and dressed as we are. The city is full of danger, and we are walking straight into it!"

But Kate wasn't listening. Even as I tugged one sleeve and the wind fiercely grabbed the other, Kate kept walking, fast and furious, and didn't stop until we stood staring up at London Bridge. The rain-slickened gray stone shone silver in the lightning's bright white flash, and the traitors' heads, in various states of decay, leered ghoulishly from the metal pikes their pitch-dipped necks were impaled upon. An eyeball dangled from the socket of one of the freshest, while others looked leathery and weather-beaten, their flesh stripped away to reveal the bones beneath.

Kate drew me to stand in a nearby doorway, and huddling back in a corner, her arms wrapped around herself for warmth, she slumped down. "Now we wait."

"Wait for what?" I asked, yet in my heart I already knew the answer. Kate was waiting for a later hour, for the traffic on the streets and bridge to disperse, for all to be in their beds so none would be abroad to witness the bold act she intended.

Kate's eyes were fixed on the bridge, staring at the heads-or one particular head-and she didn't bother to answer me. I knew it would be futile to tell her she could not have it, not without the Queen's consent. The heads were left on London Bridge until all the flesh was gone, then the bare skulls were tossed into the Thames to make room for more. It was part of the punishment-that they could never lie in their graves whole. Only if the Queen granted consent could their families take them down for decent burial. Jane and Guildford had fortunately been spared this fate, but not Father. I knew our lady-mother would not be asking for his head; all she wanted to do was forget, and to make the Queen forget too, and she would beat us if she knew we had dared revive memories she wanted to sink, like Father's clean-picked, wind-buffed, and rain-polished skull, to the muddy bottom of the Thames.

But she had underestimated Kate. Kate wouldn't have it. She would save him, and d.a.m.n the Queen's permission and our lady-mother, she would do it, daring all for love, just like she always did. All for love-that was my sister Kate; that is the epitaph that should adorn her grave, for there are no truer words to describe her than that motto she lived by all her life.

I must have fallen into a doze. I started awake as a flash of palest pink and silver flew past me. Kate was up and running; before I could reach out a hand to try and stop her, she was gone, running toward London Bridge as the rain lashed her, and the wind tugged and howled at her as though it were outraged by her audacity and determined to do what I couldn't-stop her.

Every time my heart beat I felt as though it would burst out of my chest and that I would look down and see it protruding, pulsing and dripping blood onto the golden apples that figured my beautiful green gown. I was too afraid to even pray as I watched Kate climb tenaciously to the top, fighting the wind all the way, and make her way along the bridge until she reached the grotesque cl.u.s.ter of weather-ravaged, raven-picked, and rotting heads. I wondered if wherever he was Father could see his rash and daring daughter, leaning far out over the rail, being pelted by silver needles of rain as she reached for the spike his head was impaled upon. Poor Father! His dull, dead eyes stared out blindly into the storm, the scarce tufts that were all that was left of his luxuriant auburn beard billowing, as the wind buffeted him like a parody of our lady-mother boxing his ears.

But she could not reach it, strain and strive as she might.

"Kate!" I ran out into the rain. "You'll never reach him! Please, come down before you fall!"

Kate straightened, wind-whipped and breast wildly heaving, and stared down defiantly at me. "Never say never to me!"

She hitched up her skirts and swung her leg out, straddling the rain-slickened rail, and shimmied along, as agile as one of her pet monkeys, even as the wind ripped the hood from her head and s.n.a.t.c.hed away the silver net and pearl-tipped pins, unleashing a riot of waist-length copper ringlets to ride the wind like writhing red gold snakes, turning my sister into a beautiful Medusa lit by the blinding white flash of lightning. Was the boom of the thunder the great G.o.d Zeus laughing at this bold wench even as he desired her? Was the wind His way of trying to pull her into His embrace? Or would she slip and fall into the Thames, a beautiful sacrifice for His brother-G.o.d Neptune? Oh, Kate, Kate, come down, Kate! my heart cried as tears rolled down my face. Cease this folly! Forget the head! Father is dead, and you cannot save him now! No one can! The head is just a head, and not worth risking your life for!

Grasping the rail with one hand, Kate leaned far out and reached for Father's head. She started to slip, and I nearly died, sweating and burning despite the cold rain. She righted herself and sat for a long time, watching as her little pink shoe plummeted into the black water below. It sank without a sound, and any splash it made was swallowed up by the l.u.s.ty, gusty wind. In the blinding flash of lightning that followed, I saw the determination in her face, and I knew she would never stop until she had his head or fell to a watery grave.

She tried to push her hair back, but it came right back, slapping her in the face, plastering itself over her eyes, nose, and mouth like a tangle of orangey red seaweed. Undaunted, Kate reached down and fumbled beneath her skirts and tore off a pink silk garter, leaving her white stocking to fall and droop around her ankle. Squeezing her knees tight around the rail, she gathered her hair back, like a horse's tail, and tied it tightly with the garter. Then she was ready to try again. I wanted to turn away. I couldn't bear to look, and yet I had to. She really was fearless, my bold, brave Kate! I could not have done it!

She really should have been dressed all in black to appear less conspicuous, or even better as a boy for ease of movement, but Kate had not planned this, or if she had, she never told me. Yet, despite the danger and enc.u.mbrance her clothes presented, the artist in me would not have altered a single st.i.tch or shade. She was a glorious, terrifying sight to behold, there in the pouring rain, wind-whipped skirts of soft rose and silver and white petticoats flapping like the wings of terrified birds fighting to ride the wild, raging wind, to stay aloft and not be beaten down, illuminated by the silver-white, diamond-bright flash of lightning against the midnight sky. I wish I had been blessed with the talent to paint her, so the world could see her just like that instead of the insipid, pale, lifeless, black-and-white-gowned likenesses that are all that is left to show the world Lady Katherine Grey.

Then she had him, cradled safe against her breast. It was all over except for her descent, and surely G.o.d would not let her slip; if she was going to fail, if she was going to fall, surely it would not be now.

Carefully, most carefully, she shimmied back down. Wordlessly, she gave me Father's head to hold while she struggled to raise her heavy, waterlogged skirts and wiggle out of one of her petticoats.

Poor Father! I caressed his leathery, wind-burned cheeks. Most of his beard was gone, taken by the ravens or other birds to build their nests. I liked to think someday I might look up, at the nests in the trees in the parks and gardens of the Queen's palaces, and see auburn skeins from Father's beard woven into their nests.

Silently, Kate held her petticoat out to me, like a cradle, to lay Father's head in, but first I kissed his brow, and Kate did the same before she tenderly swaddled him in the sodden white linen.

I stood for a long moment and eyed my soaked and shivering sister with breathless wonder. I still couldn't believe that she had done it. The wind had yanked and stolen away the garter that bound her hair, like a lovesick swain playfully s.n.a.t.c.hing a ribbon from his sweetheart's hair to wear as a love token upon his hat or sleeve. She was minus one slipper, and I feared the frosty slush that covered the ground would be smitten by her fair toes or pretty little foot and take a token too. Her gown hung limp, hugging every curve, clinging to her limbs, so that she had to fight its waterlogged embrace for every step. The lightning flashed a vivid silvery white, and I saw frozen raindrops clinging to her hair like little diamonds. Her teeth were chattering, and there was a wild gleam in her eyes, a blue gray storm themselves, that spoke both of triumph and disbelief. She looked half drowned, a sorry, sodden sight, yet to my eyes she had never been more beautiful.

"Come on, Mary!" Clutching Father's head to her with one arm, she held out her hand to me and I took it.

Then off we went to the Church of St. Botolph's-Without-Aldgate, where I still visit Father every Sunday. Once there we gave Father into the care of the minister. He still keeps Father safe, locked inside the cupboard in his study, in a gla.s.s casket filled with sawdust that is regularly replenished-Father's leathery flesh soaks some vital nutrient from the wood shavings that keeps him tanned, as though he still rode to the hounds every day. Dr. Reynolds always receives me kindly, and together we share a cup of wine and drink a toast to Father, whom he remembers warmly as a f.e.c.kless man he occasionally counseled against his gambling, but always generous and kind.

As the church bells tolled midnight, Kate took my hand again and we disappeared into the dark and rainy night to sneak back into Greenwich Palace, now that Suffolk House, still celebrating a wedding that to my mind made a mockery of the sacrament of holy matrimony, seemed even less of a home to us than it ever had before. Our lady-mother I realized now was the bedrock, the firm and solid foundation our family was built upon, but Father-fun, silly, wild, reckless Father with all his schemes and dreams and his ever-present comfit box-had been the heart of it.

12.

Perhaps our royal cousin truly believed Kate's health had been broken by the series of cruel blows that had befallen our family-the loss of Jane and Guildford, followed fast by Father, and now our lady-mother's ludicrous and humiliating marriage to our former Master of the Horse-or maybe she just felt sorry for us. Not a word was ever spoken about the disappearance of Father's head from London Bridge. She kissed us each upon the cheek and gave us each an opal rosary and leave to retire from court. "Go home and grow strong; replenish your strength," she said as she bade us farewell.

Kate and I returned to Bradgate alone, with only a few servants to attend us. Our lady-mother remained in London, cavorting shamelessly, and most l.u.s.tily according to the servants' gossip, with her new husband. "In exchange for sacrificing my rank, G.o.d has given me a most diverting boy to amuse and console me!" she said in defiance of the ridicule and laughter, thumbing her nose at those who marveled that she had married so far beneath her.

We reined our horses in at the foot of the long, winding drive lined with chestnut trees. We sat slumped wearily in our saddles and stared up at the house as the March winds tugged at our dust-caked riding habits and the feathers on our hats. It seemed a whole lifetime had pa.s.sed since we had last been here. When we rode away to London, to see Jane and Kate married, I didn't realize I would be so long away from the only place I had ever thought of as home. The great rosy-bricked rectangle that had started life as a hunting lodge sixty years ago stood in the center of a sprawling, green deer park, flanked by silver streams and verdant forests so dense it was said one could wander twelve miles or more without ever glimpsing the sun, and beyond them, the slate hills towered in the distance. His pride swollen with the honor of having married a king's niece, Father had added two tall red-brick turrets with stained gla.s.s windows depicting hunting scenes to make the house look less like a big brick box. He had tried to fund their construction with his endeavors at the gambling tables but had garnered only greater debts. From the pointed red-tiled roof of each fluttered our family's proud banner of green, yellow, black, and white silk, and our parents were always vigilant for the least sign that the sun was beginning to fade them and had them replaced regularly; for this they kept a sewing woman in residence who did nothing but make new banners.

Without Jane and Father, Bradgate wouldn't be the same; it would be an empty sh.e.l.l of a house with its heart torn out. I would miss Jane's sullen seriousness, coming upon her curled in a window seat with a book in her lap and an apple in her hand, and Father, always with his comfit box, bringing us treats from London and coaxing the cook to "bake more goodies" so that the house always smelled of sugar, cinnamon, and marzipan, a plethora of spices and all the sweet fruits of summer.

There were some woodsmen working nearby, tr.i.m.m.i.n.g the trees, and they paused and respectfully knelt and doffed their caps to us, silently offering their condolences upon our two great losses. The man nearest us had left his ax-a new one by the look of it-leaning against the tree he was attending and the sun struck its blade. Rather than shield her eyes, Kate stared straight into the blinding yellow glare. Before I could stop her, she sprang from the saddle and ran and seized the ax and began chopping madly. Clumsily, she staggered backward, tottering under its unwieldy, unaccustomed weight. But she persevered and swung the ax, again and again, all the while weeping wildly, sobbing for Jane and Father, crying hysterically that Jane and Father had lost their heads so the trees at Bradgate must too in remembrance of them.

"Take up your axes and 'head them! 'Head them like they did Jane and Father!" she commanded the woodsmen. So frighteningly persuasive was the crazed wildness in her eyes, that they quickly took up their axes and obeyed.

I stood silently by and didn't dare interfere until Kate dropped the ax and fell to her knees, panting and weeping, with bloodied blisters marring the beautiful white hands she held out to me, as though I could somehow heal the hurt. I gestured quickly for the woodsman to reclaim his ax and coaxed my sister back into the saddle and onward to the house. As we rode on, the air was filled with the sound of vigorous chopping, the whack of blades driven hard into wood and the grunts of strong, sweaty men pulling them free and swinging again, and again, until by day's end, when they went home with aching shoulders and backs and blistered hands, every one of the chestnuts that lined the approach to Bradgate stood a bare, ugly trunk, their leafy green heads lying toppled on the gra.s.s beside them to be cut into firewood and carted away on the morrow.

But by then Kate was already abed, having cried herself to sleep before the last lush green head fell, while I stood at the window and watched the destruction with tears in my eyes. So wasteful! I thought as I silently wept for Father, Jane, and Guildford, their lost and wasted lives, Kate's lost dream of love, so cruelly s.n.a.t.c.hed away, and the destruction of the beautiful chestnut trees we three sisters had sat and played in the shade of, climbed, and gathered blossoms and nuts from. They had always been there all our lives, already grown tall and glorious by the time Jane was born. Bradgate didn't seem the same without them either, and I shuddered to think of our lady-mother's wrath when she beheld the stark, ugly, naked trunks, crudely chopped at various heights, when she at last returned to Bradgate. At least we shall be well warned and ready to face her, I thought, for we shall surely hear her screaming from the road. I shuddered again and hugged myself as I pictured her red, angry face and her arm wildly swinging her riding crop, hearing the smarting swish as it slashed the air until it found flesh to strike. In my mind I already felt its sting, splitting flesh and welling blood. I would take the blame; Kate had suffered enough, and I could and would spare her this.

Behind me, on the bed, Kate stirred, sobbing in her sleep, but did not waken.

"I wish there were something I could do to make our world right again, to turn back the clock and bring them all back, but I cannot. I have no magic. I am only a little girl!" I whispered feebly. But my sister, twisting in her sorrow-racked slumber, did not hear me.

At least she was still alive. I went and stood by the bed and clasped my hands and prayed, "Please, don't ever leave me, Kate!"

Kate burbled a few more little whimpers-they were growing mercifully fewer and fainter-and rolled over in bed, and I let myself imagine that they were an answer, rea.s.suring me that she would never leave me alone, that she would be right there with me, in body as well as in spirit, until the day I died.

Dwarves with twisted bodies like mine rarely made old bones. Our bodies grew more contorted with age, which could squeeze and crush and damage our inner organs, our lungs were notoriously weak, and we were plagued by pains in our joints, like the grinding agony in my lower back and hips that sometimes left me prostrate, lying completely flat for days. All these ails only grew worse with age.

It was only cruel mischance that Jane, the firstborn, had also been the first to die at only sixteen. So surely Kate-sunny, vibrant, healthy Kate-who longed for life, not a glorious death and martyrdom, would be the last of us to die.

I gazed at my sister, her beautiful copper ringlets strewn across the pillows like a blazing, red gold banner shimmering in the sun, and pictured her many years from now as a gray-haired old grandmother dying peacefully in her bed with all her children and grandchildren cl.u.s.tered lovingly around her to see her tenderly into G.o.d's embrace. "That is the way it should be. G.o.d, please let it be so!" I fell on my aching little knees and prayed with all my heart and all the fervor of a frightened little girl who had just lost her eldest sister and father. "Please! Please!" I prayed until the words became an incoherent murmur and I fell into an exhausted slumber myself and lay upon the floor curled like a puppy beside Kate's bed.

13.

After we returned to court, we made a pact to put the past behind us, to only look forward, and never again look back. We would welcome and embrace the future wholeheartedly since we could do nothing to change the past. We had to let it go lest it drag our hearts down to sink like stones in the river to be mired in the mud forever. We had to break free of the anchors that weighed our hearts down and swim for sh.o.r.e where life, and maybe even love, waited, and not drown. We couldn't wear mourning for Jane and Father, and in order to survive and thrive at court, we had to cast the black velvet from our hearts as well, and Kate had to learn to love and wear red again without thinking of blood. After one last lingering look and one late night of tears and bittersweet memories, we packed our treasured mementos of those we had loved and lost away in boxes and hid them beneath our bed.

After that, time seemed to speed up, like we were racing through life, and we seemed to dance, fast and furious, through the years; they flew by so swift, like falcons flying after sparrows, intent upon the kill, and we too had to kill every moment lest it leave us free to do what we had promised never to do-to pause and ponder and look back upon the past.

But for my Kate, though she smiled, danced, and made merry, life at court was in truth sheer torment, and she cried into her pillow every night. She just could not bear having to see Berry every day, to brush his hand by happenstance in the course of a dance, or in obedience to the carefully laid ch.o.r.eography in a masque, to find herself sitting near him at a joust or picnic and see the attentions he paid to the other ladies, or to have their eyes meet across the banquet table and then to see him turn away and engage another in conversation. She had me make a beautiful soft orange and strawberry pink gown for her, the shades carefully chosen so they blended beautifully, but not so pallid and meek that the eye would pa.s.s them by. When she put it on, she would sashay past or linger near Lord Herbert in this beautiful dress that had been designed to cry out Notice me! Notice me! bouncing on her toes, with an eager expression like a dog begging for a bone, copper curls shimmering in the light of the candles or the sun as she twirled them idly around her fingers or tossed them over her shoulders.

But it was all in vain. Berry simply turned away and asked another lady to dance or walk in the garden with him, and Kate would be plunged back into despair, crying into her pillow every night and pushing her plate away so that the flesh fell from her bones and our lady-mother would feel the need to grasp her chin tight, bruising the milk-pale skin with the brutal pressure of her meaty thumb and fingertips, and remind her, "Without your beauty, you are nothing!"

I used to pray every night that Kate's heart would heal and she would see that it was not really Berry the boy she was in love with, but Love, the idea of loving and being loved. Kate, unlike many men and women of our cla.s.s who married for convenience, practicality, and to obey parental dictates, took the pretty and sentimental words of the marriage service seriously, and when she spoke them, her heart was in every syllable. Let her find a new love, I implored the Lord, one who is truly worthy of her and will never forsake, hurt, or disappoint her, one who will be faithful and love her unto death like the great loves the minstrels sing of.

Cousin Mary, to her credit, always treated us well, as though she were, in some small way, trying to atone for taking Jane from us.

One day she drew me to sit beside her as she sat gazing with the most desperate yearning at t.i.tian's portrait of Prince Philip.

"I know you will understand, little cousin, being what you are," she said delicately. "Though I am not malformed like you, I too always thought the great loves the minstrels sang of would be denied me, that Love would always shun and pa.s.s me by. So you must understand, now that I have found him, I cannot . . . I dare not . . . let him go. I am not so much a fool as to think I could do better, and Love, who has deigned to look at me for once, may never do so again if I snub the great and precious gift he has given me."

In truth, I did understand, yet I could not forgive the taking of Jane's life. A part of me, in my child's anger and anguish, cursed Cousin Mary and hoped that she would find only misery with her Philip. But afterward, I fell on my knees and begged G.o.d to forgive me, for evil thoughts rashly uttered in anger, lest the misfortune I had wished upon another rebound upon me and the only sister I had left. Jane was gone, and whether Cousin Mary found joy or sorrow with her Spanish prince, it would not bring her back.

When Kate brushed the Queen's hair on her wedding day, Cousin Mary, with tears in her eyes, took Kate's hand. "You are young and beautiful. You've already had one chance, and you will have another. You will not be alone forever; women as beautiful as you never are. But this is my last chance. Philip is my last hope, and I must have him-for the True Faith, for England, so I may give birth to a son, a Catholic prince, to rule after I am gone, and for me," she admitted at last, lowering her eyes as though half-shamed by this admission. "I ask you to please understand." She drew Kate to stand beside her, before the big, silver looking gla.s.s. "Look"-she lifted the heavy ma.s.s of Kate's hair, like a nest of writhing copper snakes-"see how bright your hair is. See all the gold twining like true lovers embracing with the red. Now look at mine." She lifted a lifeless hank of her own dingy and lackl.u.s.ter yellowy orange gray hair. "They used to call me Princess Marigold, but all my gold has been spent in loneliness and sorrow."

That was the closest Cousin Mary ever came to apologizing for what had happened to Jane. The truth is l.u.s.t triumphed over cousinly love. Jane died to make an old maid's dreams of love come true, but she died in vain. Some would say I should find consolation, a sort of bitter victory, in that. But I don't. My sister died at only sixteen, the reasons don't really matter; none of them are good enough to justify it or heal the wound in my heart. In the end, all that really matters is that she died, not how it affected the grand scheme of things; I can't, and never could, think of the world as a giant chessboard and the people I love as p.a.w.ns upon it, won and lost in the game of life.

But our lady-mother was overjoyed by the favor our royal cousin showed us. She crowed and preened and strutted in private, vowing that Kate would be England's next queen. She went on, maddeningly repet.i.tious, her face glowing as she gloated about how she had known Queen Mary from girlhood and knew her womb to be "rotten fruit," "too moist for any seed to take root," and "unfertile ground unlikely to sustain a life" even if Prince Philip succeeded in planting one there. Gleefully she related how scores of physicians had been summoned to treat Mary for "strangulation of the womb," to bleed her from the sole of her foot to try and ease the painful retention of blood that caused her womb to swell and ache, and bring forth her monthly flow to relieve her. "Such women are poor breeders," our lady-mother said. "If they whelp at all, their babes are sickly and soon die, so we've nothing to fear from the rotten fruit of Mary's womb! A day will come when I will see my daughter crowned queen! This time, all shall be done right!"

Once, as a pointed snub to Princess Elizabeth, who balked at attending Ma.s.s and often made excuses, claiming to be unwell, even feigning to faint outside the royal chapel or loudly complaining of a bellyache, Queen Mary strode past her half sister to take Kate by the hand and bade her walk beside her, before Elizabeth, while loudly praising my sister as a "good Catholic maid." When our lady-mother heard she was delirious with joy. She celebrated by drinking and dancing all night with Master Stokes then dragging him off to bed at c.o.c.k's crow to service her until she fell into an exhausted sleep around noon.

Through it all, Kate kept silent, never daring to tell our lady-mother that she did not want to be queen and prayed every day that G.o.d would bless our royal cousin with a child of her own and thus spare her. Indeed, what good would it have done if she had spoken up? It would have only led to more angry words and blows. "I shall wait and hope this cup shall pa.s.s me by," Kate told me in the privacy of our room, "and that I shall not be made to drink from it, for I've no desire to; I find it a vile and bitter brew, more poisonous than pleasurable, and sometimes it even kills. I would rather be queen of my husband's heart, to rule our household, with our children, pets, and servants as my loyal and loving subjects, than be empress of all the world." But our lady-mother would only have laughed and called Kate a fool and boxed her ears while deploring her daughter's lack of ambition.

While Kate had all the praise and glory, I found that I was subjected to less mockery after the courtiers saw how greatly our royal cousin favored us. It was wonderful beyond words to be spared the jibes and insults, even though it meant I was more or less ignored. No one thought I would ever be queen like Kate, so there was no need to try to curry favor and make a fuss over me. So I kept silent and watched. Many young men flirted with Kate, and young women sought her friendship. We had gone, almost overnight, from being reviled as turncoats to being revered as royal princesses, at court, though not by the people in the streets. Some even detested us as Elizabeth's rivals, though we never saw ourselves as such.

But people see what they want to see and are often blind to the truth. They feared we would usurp the succession as our sister had. Elizabeth did not love or even like us and was more to be feared than Mary. Elizabeth would be swift to punish any who dared come between her and her one true love-England. She would never forgive or be merciful and pa.s.sive. No, Kate and I agreed; better to die outright than be regarded as Elizabeth's enemy.

So many people longed for Elizabeth, including the lascivious golden-bearded Philip who was now the Queen's husband-palace gossip said he had peepholes drilled in the wall so he could watch Elizabeth undress and bathe. And to most of the common people, Elizabeth was England and their last link with their beloved Henry VIII. Loving Philip had cost Cousin Mary most of her people's love, and many thought she cared more for Spain than she ever did for England. The people's love affair with the last true Tudor princess, the vibrant, flame-haired Elizabeth, only grew more pa.s.sionate as England erupted in a blaze of persecution that sought to burn out every trace of the Reformed Religion. People went to the stake praying with their dying breath for Elizabeth's ascension, for her to come to the throne and deliver England from this evil.

It was an exciting and frightening time to be alive. In gowns of silver tinsel and Our Lady's blue satin, with crowns of silvered rosemary and blue ribbons on our unbound hair, we were there when Mary finally married her prince, and Kate was amongst the maids chosen to dance with Prince Philip at the wedding feast. She laughed and told me afterward that when he lowered her after the high lift in the volta, his tongue had flickered out like a snake's to lick and delve inside her ear and his hand had cupped her breast and compared its size and sweetness to the oranges in the garden of his father's palace.

We were there, in close and daily attendance, the two tragic times our royal cousin's womb bore phantom fruit. We knelt and prayed with her in her private chapel and took it in turns with the other ladies to read her prayers, psalms, and saints' lives, and sat for hours sewing and embroidering baby clothes. How Cousin Mary praised the rows of pretty roses I embroidered around the hems of those little white gowns! She would trust no one but me with this delicate task, declaring, "Our little cousin Mary's roses are the prettiest!" Soon many ladies of the court were vying to have me embroider roses on the hems of their petticoats, to peek out whenever they lifted their skirts. For us girls who wore the Queen's russet and black livery by day, to emphasize the grandeur of the royal garb, for our wary cousin feared any who might outshine her, it was a fun and harmless way for us to add a little color and uniqueness to our bland attire. Eventually I was st.i.tching not just roses but all manner of flowers, in both becoming and unusual combinations-like pinks mated with marigolds; periwinkles coupled with yellow primroses; country daisies and the pet.i.te yellow b.u.t.tons of tansy; chamomile blossoms and scarlet poppies nestled amongst golden wheat; bluebells and b.u.t.tercups; festive red-berried and th.o.r.n.y-leaved holly alongside mistletoe with a profusion of white berries to tempt a lover's kiss; deadly poisonous but pretty purple monk's hood and jaunty yellow Turk's cap; purple-pink thistles amidst spires of lavender; purple-kissed blue forget-me-nots and pure white lily of the valley; or those great sweet-scented s...o...b..a.l.l.s of heavenly white blossoms known as guelder roses that bloomed in May but bore poisonous red berries in autumn, and in my embroidery I could show both incarnations side by side.

Some ladies even craved garden vegetables, healing herbs, bountiful branches laden with dangling fruit, or beds of ripe berries encircling their hems. Even in the evening, when they might wear their own splendid attire, they still wanted to wear the floral bordered petticoats I made for them, often in colors brightly contrasting their gowns. At any moment as the ladies danced past, one might catch a beguiling glimpse of vibrant yellow daffodils beneath a purple velvet gown, bright pink peonies peeping out from underneath a brazen scarlet skirt, blueberries bursting ripe with flavor beneath a luscious pear silk, or even globe artichokes spreading their leaves beneath sunset orange satin. One might even catch a quick glimpse of the vibrant pink of the apothecary's rose hiding beneath a matron's modest mouse gray velvet, or spy the pink-speckled white bugles of foxglove, or even a row of flamboyant heart's ease pansies blooming beneath a widow's black weeds.

For the more daring and coquettish ladies, the ones who liked to lift their skirts especially high during the dance, I embroidered flights of beautiful rainbow-winged b.u.t.terflies or fat black and yellow bees fluttering up their stockings from ankle to knee. Even Cousin Elizabeth, then still at court under the Queen's wary, watchful eye, had me do a sumptuous silver and gold border of roses dotted with pearls on a cream taffeta petticoat to wear with the new silver and gold brocade gown Prince Philip had given her, ostensibly to satisfy his wife's complaint that Elizabeth dressed too plainly, seeing it as a secret message encoded in her clothes to show the Protestants that she was with them and only paid lip service to the Catholic creed. But it was all great fun, and for the first and only time in my life, I knew what it was like to be popular and sought after. It felt good to be important, even if it was for such a frivolous, flighty thing.

As each of the Queen's phantom pregnancies progressed, we were there to cater to her cravings for great bowls br.i.m.m.i.n.g full of mixed peppers, orange slices, olives, and goat cheese, and afterward to pat her hands, hold her head when she bent retching over the basin, and nurse and comfort her through the agonizing attacks of heartburn that inevitably followed these repasts.

As her suspicion, jealousy, and hatred of Elizabeth increased, we obediently sat and listened to her zealously recounting the lurid tale about how Elizabeth's mother, "the great wh.o.r.e Anne Boleyn," used to have the lowborn lute player Mark Smeaton concealed inside a cupboard in her bedchamber, to come out and pleasure her whenever she lay down naked and opened her arms and legs and called for "something sweet." She would pace back and forth, tear at her thin hair with her clawlike hands, and rant and rage about Elizabeth, insisting that she did not deserve the people's love, and was a b.a.s.t.a.r.d with not a drop of Tudor blood in her, though one only had to look at Elizabeth to know this was a mad delusion; none of the children King Henry sired ever resembled him more. But it sorely rankled our royal cousin to know that Elizabeth held the people's heart in the palm of her hand and had youth and patience on her side. She was shrewd enough to know that her chance would come; she had only to wait for it and the crown would be handed to her on a purple velvet cushion. There was no need for her to embroil herself in the dangerous schemes her sister imagined; Elizabeth was no fool. But every time a new conspiracy was uncovered or whispered of, Queen Mary was convinced Elizabeth was at the heart of it, and no one could persuade her otherwise.

Then, all of a sudden, Time tired of this frantic pace, dug in its heels, and slowed to the gait of a lazy, old snail. I remember exactly when it happened-the morning I awoke to my first monthly blood. I was thirteen then and fearing that I would never bleed; both my sisters had shed their first woman's blood early in their twelfth year; for them it had been like a belated New Year's gift. I remember Kate's courses started for the first time on St. Valentine's Day, and she saw heart shapes in the red stains on her sheets and declared it a sign that she would be lucky in love, but Jane thought it was all a confounded nuisance and went on to preach a ponderous sermon about Eve in the Garden of Eden.

How excited I was when I awoke and found the rusty red roses of womanhood blooming on my sheets. I bolted from my bed and rushed to the looking gla.s.s, hoping to see some change, praying as I ran that G.o.d had worked a miracle, and I would find that overnight "the beastly little one" had been transformed, like a b.u.t.terfly emerging from its coc.o.o.n, into a beautiful, shapely, and slender young lady just like Kate. Yet one glance told me that during the night, when I had pa.s.sed obliviously in my slumber from child to woman, neither Father Time nor Mother Nature had left a gift for me to mark the occasion. I was still no taller than a child of five, a crouch-backed little gargoyle, and I knew that no corset, no matter how rigorously laced, would ever sculpt my stocky, tree-trunk torso into an exquisite hourgla.s.s like Kate's. And if I were to ever dare tread a public measure, the movements of my short, thick, vein-rippled, bowed little legs, fortunately hidden by my skirts, would occasion mockery, giggles, and glee instead of compliments on my nonexistent grace. When I raised my night shift with my still stubby fingers and walked back and forth before the icy cruel, silvered gla.s.s, I saw that I still had the same waddle-wobble walk. Nothing had changed, and I knew it never would; I would be stuck inside this ugly, ungainly, squat little goblin's body until the day I died and G.o.d set my soul free.

"Mayhap in Heaven I shall be a raving beauty," I sighed and said to the sad, ugly face staring back at me from the looking gla.s.s. Then the tears came. So suddenly they took me by surprise. I wept as though great stones of sorrow had been suddenly set down upon my shoulders and chest, threatening to crush me with this painful grief. I wanted my sister; I wanted Kate. But we no longer shared a room; that privilege had been taken from me and given to another, and I was left to sleep alone. No one wanted to share a bed with "Lady Mary Gargoyle." I wanted to run howling down the corridor and pound on her door in my bloodstained shift and throw myself into Kate's arms, but womanly dignity and pride won out over a child's rage against unfairness. I would keep my blood a secret, for in truth, what did it matter that I was now a woman? There would never be a husband, a man, to love me. My body might as well be dry and barren, yet my heart, I knew, would always weep tears of blood for the carnal comforts and fleshly pleasures that would ever be denied me because of what I was. Unfortunately there were no n.o.bly born dwarf lads at court who could be mated with me, only the lowborn tumblers and fools in jingle bells and motley who came to entertain, and to them I was of too high an estate to ever be trifled with. Instead of desire in their eyes, I saw scorn and envy; unlike them, I did not have to make silly faces and cut capers to put food on my table; I was a duke's daughter with royal blood in my veins, born to live and die in comfort and ease. If Fate ever decreed that I should hold a scepter it would not be tipped with jingle bells to be waggled at a laughing crowd while I rolled my eyes and stuck my tongue out.

The young Lady Jane Seymour, the late Lord Protector's daughter named in honor of his sister, "the third time's the charm queen" who had died giving Henry VIII the son he desired above all things, was now Kate's best friend and bedmate. This Lady Jane was a.s.suredly one of the most delicate, gentle-hearted creatures G.o.d ever created, so sweet that indeed it hurt my heart to hate her. She had made a point of befriending Kate in the dark days just after Jane's death, when most of the court hypocritically shunned her as the sister of a traitor and a turncoat who had renounced the Reformed Faith to save her life and family fortune when many of them had done exactly the same thing, and a divorcee at only fourteen whose much-envied beauty and the flirtatious wiles she had boldly exhibited in the company of her former husband and father-in-law made her virtue suspect. But pale, ethereal Lady Jane in her gowns of her favorite heavenly blue reminiscent of the Holy Virgin's robes had no patience for such things. Perhaps it was because she knew she was not long for this world? Her lungs were weak; fever often brightened her cheeks and pallid, blue-violet eyes, making them glow with a watery luminosity that only made her more beautiful, especially since she had not had the misfortune to inherit the Seymours' prominent and beaky nose that usually marred their women's otherwise fine features. Her hair was the fairest I had ever seen, a shimmering silvery blond that always made me think of angel wings, but she often bemoaned was too limp to hold even a vestige of a curl. No matter how long her maid labored twining it around the hot irons, it would fall flat, hanging straight to her waist, slick as silk, defying all pins, before the irons even had a chance to cool or for Lady Jane to make her way downstairs to whatever celebration she was preparing to attend in the Great Hall.

I didn't lose my sister all at once. The change happened gradually. Though I didn't begrudge her a friend, I could not help but resent anyone who came between us. My sister was in truth my only friend and I had great need of her. But the five years that separated us, though they had always seemed so inconsequential before, and I had always been old for my years, now seemed of a sudden so very great. I wanted to stop it, and the polite, bland smiles that Kate now favored me with as though I were a stranger, or a mere acquaintance at most, instead of the sister who knew and loved her best. But I couldn't. When I tried to talk to her about it, she dismissed it as nonsense, jealousy, or just my imagination.

In truth maybe there were elements of all three tossed into the brew of emotion bubbling inside of me. I only know that whenever she was with Jane Seymour I felt as though a pane of thick gla.s.s divided us and I was always on the outside looking in, futilely trying to get her attention, trying to gain back the time Kate no longer had for me. It only made things worse when Lady Jane, with kindness in her forget-me-not eyes, would smile shyly and hold out her hand and invite me to join them, for I knew that if I did that pane of gla.s.s her gesture had banished would soon come back again, and I would feel an outsider, an intruder, an eavesdropper spying on them. So I schooled myself to proudly decline, turn my back, and thrust my nose up high, and walk away from that outstretched hand.

Even if my cold rebuffs hurt that gentle lady, I had to protect myself since no one else would. I knew that being with them, seeing the happiness they shared, would hurt me because I could never be a part of it. Knowing that it had once been mine made the pain even worse.

At court all the maidens who served Her Majesty slept two to a bed; it was deemed a special privilege or a sign of great disfavor for any to have a room all to herself. But this Lady Jane was often troubled by coughs and fevers, so few relished sleeping in the same bed with her lest they catch some vile contagion or her coughing and feverish tossing deprive them of a restful sleep. At first, Kate would only occasionally creep down the corridor in her shift and bare feet to pa.s.s a night giggling and gossiping with her friend, but then a day came when, with the Queen's permission, she packed her things and moved them to Lady Jane's room. Every night thereafter I would lie awake, wishing and hoping that Kate would come creeping down the corridor to spend a night with me, but she never did. I would picture the two of them, braided and frilled night-capped heads together, gossiping and giggling long into the night, just like Kate and I used to do, and weep into my pillow and wonder if G.o.d would ever see fit to send me someone to ease my loneliness. Kate said G.o.d had given her Lady Jane as a replacement for our own Jane, the sister He had taken home to Him, but who, if any, I wondered, would He give me to take Kate's place?

But at least Kate was getting better. Her heart was healing, or so I thought. I remember seeing her one night, with a handsome dark-haired boy in gold-piped crimson velvet. I watched with a glad heart as he maneuvered her into a corner to steal a kiss after she had danced, the most beautiful damsel of all, in a masque, draped in a gold lace mantle over a green and purple gown embroidered with golden pearl-dotted vines and festooned with bunches of purple and green wax grapes, and beneath it, I noted with pleasure, the petticoat I had embroidered for her with bouquets of scarlet roses bound with golden bows and cl.u.s.ters of grapes. He caressed her bright hair, as he pressed forward, and so dazzled and smitten was he by her radiant beauty and charm as they bantered softly and smiled into each other's eyes that he absently plucked grapes from the cl.u.s.ters in her hair and had already eaten three before Kate laughingly inquired if he was aware that they were made of wax. Kate let him steal another kiss, and he caressed the side of her neck with hands that looked so soft and tender they made me long to be in her shoes.

When his hand traveled down to gently cup her breast, Kate let it linger there for a moment while she savored his kiss before she laughed and danced away from him and ran to grab the hand of one of the court graybeards and, his potbelly jiggling, pulled him out to join the other dancers in a lively gavotte. I watched with a sad and happy heart, knowing that it would be Lady Jane Seymour, not I, who would laugh about it in bed with her that night. How I missed her and those sweet, sisterly confidences whispered against our pillows while all around us the palace slept.

I stood in the shadows and waited for her. As she and Jane Seymour walked past, heads together, giggling, on the way to their room, I boldly reached out and caught her skirt. Kate paused and stared down at me, and I saw the flash of impatience, and annoyance, in her eyes. When I did not speak and glanced meaningfully past her at Lady Jane, unable to keep the reproachful glare from my eyes, she demurely lowered her head and murmured that she was rather tired and would await Kate upstairs.

"Well, what is it, Mary?" Kate turned back to me, arms folded across her b.r.e.a.s.t.s.

Still I persisted. I had to know. "Do you love him?" I asked hopefully.

"Who?" Kate asked irritably, as though she had no idea what I was talking about.

"The dark-haired boy in crimson. I saw you kiss him, and you let him touch your breast. He's very handsome, Kate, and he has kind eyes."

With a flippant, world-weary laugh and a toss of her flame-bright curls, Kate said, "It was only a kiss, Mary! It meant nothing! I was just having fun; isn't that what I'm here to do? Love is a snare." She said this suddenly, with a brittle vengeance filled with unshed tears that threatened to seep through the cracks. "I made the mistake of getting caught in it. But don't let it get you, Mary. Don't you make the same mistake! If you do, you'll never be free! It bites deep, holds tight, tears you when you try to pull free, and even if you do get away, it always leaves you marked with a scar so that you can never forget it, no matter how much you dance and laugh and let pretty boys kiss and fondle you."

She laughed again, as though she were trying to pretend it was all a jest, and twirled away from me, dancing down the corridor with an obviously feigned gaiety, on her way to join Jane Seymour.

"I don't believe you!" I called after her. "Your words are a shield; you're just trying to protect your heart because you don't want to be hurt again!"

Kate froze, then whirled around and stormed back to challenge me. "What do you think that you know about love?" she demanded.

"More than you think," I answered boldly. "Those who have never had it, who have had to learn to live without it, knowing it is something they can never realistically hope to have, but still nonetheless yearn and dream of it, know its worth far better than those who have had it given to them free and gratis all their lives, and will go on to love and love again, just as you will! Losing Berry isn't the end, Kate. You will find love again, or it will find you, I haven't a doubt of it!"

b.r.e.a.s.t.s heaving, Kate stood and stared at me as though I were her enemy, and, for a moment, I feared I had gone too far, that she hated me, there was such anger in her eyes. But then, abruptly, she gave a great sigh, briefly shut her eyes, then turned and walked away.

"I'm tired. Good night, Mary." She tossed the words back coolly over her shoulder along with the hot blaze of her curls, but I thought I detected a quiver of tears hovering just beneath the words. As her steps quickened as she neared the stairs, I knew that this would be another night when she cried herself to sleep. Only it would be Jane Seymour, and not I, who would be there to hold and comfort her.