Prisoner of the Queen (Tales From the Tudor Court) (3 page)

“I could see you hung for that,” Elizabeth threatened. “Pawns should keep their mouths shut.”

Before either of us could reply, Elizabeth whirled and marched toward the garden gate.

Pawns? What could she mean? The only pawns I knew of were the little pieces at the front of the chess board—the ones that were usually sacrificed for the gains of the bishops, knights, rooks, queens and kings. All the sudden, the clarity of her words rang out, and I blanched. Would we truly be sacrificed for others’ gains?

The thought had never crossed my mind. I glanced at Jane, who stared after Elizabeth, a determined expression on her face.

When Jane turned back to me, she smiled, although it didn’t reach her eyes. She held out a hand and pulled me to my feet. I swallowed back my tears, resolute to be just as strong as my sister.

“What have we ever done to deserve such animosity from Elizabeth?” I asked Jane.

Jane swiped at a few grass stems upon my gown. “She is jealous, ’tis all. Her life is not her own. Her fortune is given, then ripped away. I am where she wants to be. I am who she wants to be.”

I furrowed my brow, not sure I understood. “But she is a princess.”

“And, supposedly, so are we.”

My mouth opened, forming a small O. Mother always lamented we were princesses of the blood, but Elizabeth was a true princess, daughter of a king and queen. Why should she be jealous of us? We were, as she said, just the Grey sisters
? What power did we have?

Jane frowned down at her drawing and marched toward the pond where ducks and swans floated in complete accord.

Why could we—Jane, Elizabeth and I—not be like the ducks and swans?

Jane unrolled the drawing, and when I realized her intent
, I ran toward her, shouting, “No, Jane! Don’t!”

But it was too late. She let the drawing fall from her hands into the murky water. As soon as I reached her side, breathless, I caught sight of what she
’d drawn. A beautiful rendition of us both, smiling, content. To see us now, one would not think it possible. We both stood, watching the drawing, our eyes riveted on its delicate journey upon the water.

Tears blurred my vision. I swiped them away and saw from the corner of my eye that Jane did the same.

I slipped my hand around her waist, and she sank against me. There we stood, two sisters, stoic in our vigilance. At least we had each other. We could take comfort in that much.

I
prayed it would always be this way. And yet, somehow, with the knowledge imparted on me by Elizabeth…I had my doubts.

I was
aware now that my position in the realm could be ill-used for a purpose not of my own choosing. A fact that resonated deep within—and I resented
and
appreciated Elizabeth for telling me so. I had a feeling such knowledge would have a profound effect on who I was.

And Jane was never the same again.

London, England

Several years later… May 5, 1553

Heads on spikes protruded from the top of London Bridge in macabre welcome to any who entered the formidable city.

London.

For years, the name of England’s hotbed had been a thing of wonder to me, a magical place were the elite lived and made merry with royals.

A sultry blast of air whipped at my gown and with it brought the scent of decay. I gagged as delicately as I could, and lifted my orange and clove pomander to my nose.
Despite the stench and the incessant buzzing of flies, my eyes remained riveted on the spiked heads.

I tried to count them, but by the time I reached twenty-three, we
’d passed the chilling sight.

Our king was only a boy and already a formidable ruler.
I shuddered at the thought. We were headed his way. If I forgot some form of etiquette, would he slice off my head?

No, that could not be the case—or at least I hoped. We were family
, after all. Family didn’t kill family. But wait… Realization dawned on me and I nearly choked on the air I breathed, for hadn’t the king’s own father—the great Henry VIII—done that very thing?

And hadn
’t this young boy-king cast his own sisters out of the line of succession? For that was the reason we were headed to London. This place of putrid heads, that I’d never dared see even while sleeping.

Neither Mother nor Father had warned of the monstrous display that greeted every person upon entering the city. Not even my sister Jane had mentioned it to me, and she
’d been visiting court for nearly six years.

But Jane sat
high-and-mighty on her horse, changed much in the last few years. She gloated of her intelligence and how she would rule her kingdom. At home she forced our younger sister, Mary, and I to play her ladies-in-waiting.

Her head would be too large to be placed on a spike.

I flashed a glance at Mary. Tears had gathered in eyes set too closely together. She blinked them away before they could spill and fiddled with her overlarge riding gloves. Mary was a tiny little girl, even for her young age of seven. Her eyes were warm and kind, she had a mind for numbers and languages, but her body didn’t grow. I’d heard Mother once threaten to stretch Mary on the rack to make her limbs longer, but the horrifying deed had never been done. Mary was safe for the time being from Mother’s temper. At the moment, it was dear Jane who bore the brunt of Mother’s ire. She had a great task laid at her feet—but I didn’t know what it was. I’d only heard the hushed whispers, her voice raised to Mother and Father.

A crow cawed overhead and swooped down upon me. I bit my lip instead of screeching and ducked, praying the bird would not defecate on my new gown of
sage-colored soft wool. I stroked my fingers over the seed-pearls lining my stomacher and then reached up to touch the square neckline, the creamy ruffled lace at my wrists falling back to reveal the new pearl bracelet Mother had gifted me with just this morning.

I turned in my saddle, trying to get another pee
k at the heads. I don’t know why I was so fascinated by them. They were truly revolting, but there was something about them that drew my attention and held it.

Lips parted in question, I turned to my mother
, who rode beside me, her stoic gaze cast over the streets of London as if she owned the city. I hoped to catch her gaze, as we children were only supposed to speak when spoken to. Seeming to sense my questions, she turned to me and in clipped tones said, “Traitors, Katherine. You see what they do to those who go against the crown? You’d best heed your king or
queen
before your conscience.” Her brows rose in challenge, and her gaze flicked to Jane. “Else your head gets skewered.”

Mother
’s words left a foreboding chill in my blood. Frances, Duchess of Suffolk, daughter of “The French Queen,” niece to the great Henry VIII—my mother—was a formidable, unforgiving woman.

How easily it seemed life in this realm could be forfeit to those in greater power. My mind wandered back to the heads. What had they done
to be called traitors? Who were they? Had they left families behind? Or was there no one to mourn their passing?

I recalled a time when I was much younger
. A servant had stolen some of Mother’s jewels—precious jewels the late queen Jane had bequeathed her. I’d never seen Mother so angry. But it was not she who’d scared the sin out of me on that day, but Father, Henry Grey, Duke of Suffolk—so named only because my dear uncles, the young half-brothers of my mother, had died of the sweat before they reached their majority, leaving my mother with the only claim to the inheritance.

In the face of someone daring to thieve in his home, Father raged, his face red, spittle flying from his thin lips. The servant, a young man who looked half-starved, was dragged down the steps of Bradgate Manor and to the center of the courtyard
, where he was tossed to the ground and stripped of his wool shirt.

Mother had ushered my sisters
and me to the courtyard to witness the servant’s punishment, all the while lamenting of treachery and sin.

The servant, on his knees, pleaded with my father, prayed to God, and prayed for mercy. But he must have seen something in my father
’s eyes, something that told him praying would do no good, for he quickly muttered, “To Jesu, I commend my soul,” which even I knew was what was muttered by those expecting death.

One of father
’s retainers rushed forth with a dreadful-looking weapon—a cat-o’-nine-tails. The whip had several lengths of corded leather, each tail fitted with sharp rocks. When the first stroke hit the young man’s back, he screeched in pain, the sound reverberating in my head, as the flesh was torn from his back and angry divots bled like rivers over his flesh.

I tried to hide my eyes against Jane
’s shoulder, just as Mary had buried her face in my skirts, but Jane pushed me off, her eyes narrowed, distant.

“Kat,
’tis the way of things. The vermin should not have stolen from us.” She spoke with a superior calmness—like a mother to a wayward child. “And now we must relish his punishment.”

But I did not relish it.
And judging from Jane’s face, she didn’t either. She accepted it. How could I take pleasure in the pain of another? For certes, he’d stolen my mother’s precious jewels, but were pretty stones worth a man’s life?

Seeing the crushed expression on my face, Jane scoffed, but I could see it was only a farce,
as though she meant to make herself feel better. “For shame, Kat. We are princesses of the blood! In line for the throne! You cannot pity a mere commoner who would dare to steal from you. ’Tis akin to treason.”

I didn
’t understand then, and even today, I still thought many punishments did not fit their crimes. Mayhap ’twas a good thing Jane was the eldest—her marriage would have to be an advantageous one. I should like to marry a handsome courtier who read me poems.

We turned down The Strand, and I admired the view of the houses that backed to the Thames. The streets were jammed with merchants, wagons, people, and horses. The stench was beyond anything I
’d ever experienced, even when walking near the muck pile at Bradgate. I wrinkled my nose. This was something altogether different—a mixture of offal, rotten food, bodily stench and dead things. I squinted my eyes and could almost see a poisonous vapor wafting up from the cobble-stone street.

Even the pomander I held to my nose could not make the stench disappear.

“Could ye spare a coin, pretty thing?”

I twisted toward the sound of the voice and the rough tug on my skirt, wobbling atop the horse. I gripped the reins so
tightly they bit through the leather of my gloves. A toothless woman with a craggy face and slimy hair, the skin of her face smudged black with dirt, offered up a horrid, gummy smile.

My horse whinnied and yanked on the reins, swinging his head with agitation and stomping his feet. I opened my mouth to speak, but the horse was so unnerved, his movements jerky and uncontrolled, I feared he
’d fell me. The woman started to tear a piece of fabric from my underskirt of cloth of gold, her dirty hands smudging my gown, leaving stains of brown in slashing patterns.

“Let her go, you old wretch!” one of my father
’s guards shouted, his mount surging forward. With his horsewhip, he slapped at the woman’s shoulders.

“I should
’ve known not to expect charity from the likes of you! Greedy…dog-hearted…” she mumbled as she wondered away, clutching the torn fabric against her sore shoulder.

My heart beat erratically
, and my throat was tight. Tears welled in my eyes. Not that the event itself was all that traumatic, but it was just so unexpected. The fear of being thrown, pulled off my horse, my clothes stripped of me. A body left naked and vulnerable in the streets.

“Come, Katherine, do not let one of God
’s ungracious creatures unnerve you.” Mother’s voice was harsh, but more so at the insolence of my assailant. “Remember, you are a princess of the blood. Chin up, shoulders back.”

With that, she clucked her tongue and nudged her mount forward, signaling for the remainder of our entourage to continue
the trek through London.

I followed behind but found myself searching the crowd for the old beggar woman. Was she so poor she had to steal a piece of my clothing? Was her plight so awful
that to make it better she would see me suffer? I felt suddenly naïve. At Bradgate, I was sheltered from the most base of lowly humans, and yet I had been taught to sew shirts for the poor, attend the sick and deliver food to the hungry. But, alas, those whom we served in Leicester had a certain respect for us as their noble overlords, and to assault us would never dare cross their minds. Were things so different in London? Was esteem for those of noble blood not admired in this great city as it was in the country?

For the remainder of the ride
, I was left unsettled, my nerves jumping at every sudden shout, and each time my leg brushed another rider, I lurched in the opposite direction, making my horse prance about wildly. I received several stern glances from our retainers and Mother. When we reached Dorset House, immense relief flooded me. I would be safe behind the gates.