Prisoner of the Queen (Tales From the Tudor Court) (48 page)

My heart soared at the thought
of a reunion with my husband and eldest son, but I tamped down the excitement burning within me. I had oft been disappointed, and the crushing blow of denial had come harder with each one passed.

And yet, hope still sizzled within me, and I vowed to hold onto this life for a little while longer.

July 27, 1567

“Master Cecil,” I said with surprise as he entered my chamb
ers while I sewed Thomas a new coat of russet damask for the coming winter. Thomas played with a carved wooden horse and knight at my feet, making neighing and clashing sounds.

“My lady.” He bowed low.

Master Cecil had aged much since the last time I’d seen him. Wrinkles were deeply cut at the corners of his eyes and around his mouth.

“My lady, are you well?” he asked, his eyes roving over my thin form.

“I am,” I replied, refusing to believe what he saw. I knew I was much too thin. I knew deep purple bruises and bags marred the flesh beneath my eyes, and that my cheeks were hollow, gaunt.

What did one expect of woman imprisoned for love, marriage and bearing children? What did one expect of a woma
n deprived of those very things?

Arabel and Beau
, as if sensing my distress, hobbled to stand beside me. They still doted on me in their old age.

“I have come on behalf of your husband.”

I looked to my sewing and made sure to keep my breathing even.

“My lady, he has been moved once more and
is no longer able to write to you. Seems the queen has caught wind of more plots and schemes.”

I pressed my lips together, refusi
ng to cry, and sank the needle into the fabric, pulling the thread through tightly.

“She will never set me free, Master Cecil. You had best find a new cause.”

“I shan’t give up on you, Lady Katherine. I shan’t give up on your children.” He glanced at Thomas meaningfully.

There was silence except for the soft pull of the thread through fabric as I sewed
. Even little Thomas quieted his playing, as if sensing the intensity of Cecil’s words. Finally, I said, “Then you will be the only one, for all else, God and sovereign have. Leave me.”

Cecil opened his mouth to speak, but I waved him away and looked out the window, pretending he had already gone. I could not
have heard another word from him. So long had he promised me freedom. So long had he tried to provide relief. All for naught. There was no use.

All was lost.
I was without hope.

And I
feared I shan’t gain it back again.

September, 1567

Whatsoever may seem to be too good to be true shall soon turn to bad.

That was
the story of my life.

With thoughts of
a reunion with Ned shattered and now my sweet jailer, Sir John, dead, I was sick with megrims all the more.

Political and religious strife
were at an all-time calamity, but I cared not to hear about it! And it appeared, my supporters were once more banging on the palace gates.

Why not ask me what I
wanted?

Let Elizabeth rule! Give me back my family! I
was no queen. I was no monarch. I was a simple woman with simple desires.

My sister Mary
remained imprisoned, but even she had been moved to stay with our step-grandmother, Lady Katherine.

But it
was hopeless for me to even wish for such things or lament my desires to anyone. For the queen should keep me locked in these invisible chains, alone, forsaken, for my whole life, which shouldn’t be long, I feared.

I just
wanted to sleep now.

To
lay beneath the coverlet and let the darkness sweep in. ’Twould be better that way for everyone.

“My lady, Kat, child, you must eat something.”

Mrs. Helen placed a tray of food upon my table, but I shook my head. Food held no interest to me. What little I managed soon came up, besides. It’d been weeks since my last true meal.

“You must gain
vigor! You must!”

I smiled weakly at the woman who
’d been by my side so long. “There is no need.” I’d already decided.

“No need? My lady, there is plenty of need
. You shall live a long life, and soon you shall be free.”

“
No,” I said softly. “No, Mrs. Helen. I shan’t. Go and play with Thomas. Feed him. There is no life in this world left to me. Nothing here but misery. Her Majesty has seen to that. But I will pray for my soul, for in the life to come, I hope to live forever in peace. I
long
for life everlasting.”

The words of my sister Jane echoed in my ears…

Trust not that the tenderness of your age shall lengthen your life, for as soon as God will, goeth the young as the old. My good sister, let me entreat you once again, to learn to die. Deny the world, defy the devil and despise the flesh. Delight only in the Lord. Be penitent for your sins, but despair not.

Mayhap with death imminent, Jane had been able to see the future.

Chapter Twenty-Three

Yet great regard to promise paste,

she had as world well wist:

And therefore often wrong her hands,

when that her knight she missed.

But now began the boisterous blasts,

to blow in bloody breast…

~Thomas Churchyard

Elizabethan Solider and
poet

January 12, 1568

Cockfield Hall, Suffolk

Outside these prison walls, darkness
fell—both in mind and in the realm.

What had started out as a desperate act in a time when I felt I could go on no further had taken root and now I know I must die in earnest. To be rid of this despair.
To release my family from this imprisonment. If I had to die so that the three of them could be together, then so be it. The queen would never let us be free.

It’d been weeks since I’d eaten, my body slowly slipping away. My wishes to see my family before I let go had been sent and ignored.
And now I feared the time was near, and yet I’ve not seen Ned’s nor Eddie’s faces in years.

The
queen’s anger came down swiftly and mightily. And yet still she did not come to see me herself. Only sent her guards to Gosfield Hall to have me dragged, half-dead, to this new cold place.

My
mind lazily rolled around a phrase my father had often uttered.
Fear is often the greatest tool in the armory.
At the time, I had thought he meant for fear to be used as an offensive measure, but it would appear that my sovereign ruler, Her Majesty, Elizabeth I, did use fear as her defensive weaponry.

Her fear
ruled her. And had she but asked me I would have told her she had no need to worry of me. Though, I supposed, I did express such to her quite often.

The throne
had never been what I coveted. I would have borne my duty well had she passed it along to me willfully, but never would I have taken by might what was not mine by right. And now I never would.

Angry
gray clouds closed in around Cockfield Hall as if they meant to converge overtop of us, meshing together like fingers enfolded. Then their mighty storm crashed down on our heads with colossal force. From where I lay upon the bed, lips numb, body shivering, I flinched when a flash of lightning streaked across the sky, momentarily lighting my room. I waited for it… Counting
one, two, three, four…
And there it was, a boom so loud it shook the rafters, the floor, and sent my sweet pets, Arabel and Beau, rushing toward my bed, tails tucked between their old legs. My monkeys screeched and hopped around.

Somewhere in the background I
heard Thomas mock sword-fighting with a guard. They’d all taken to him, like he was the little charming prince that he was. I was sad for him. ’Twas wretched that he should see me this way, but it was for the best.

I
dropped a limp arm over the side of the bed, and the dogs nuzzled my fingers with their cold, wet noses. I tried to murmur sweet words to my loyal babes, but only my lips moved, no sound issuing.

My eyes
began to adjust to the sudden darkness brought on by the storm. There were no candles lit in this dank, musty-smelling room. Mrs. Helen wanted to light them, knowing the storm was coming, but I did not let her and bade her leave my room. Better she save the precious tapers for herself. Hide them away deep in her own trunk, for they were at least the costly sort, lavender and beeswax—something she might pamper herself with when I was gone.

I
squeezed my eyes shut. They burned. Partly from too many tears left unshed, partly from the smoke in the room from a hastily put together fire and a chimney partway clogged.

I
rolled onto my back and stared up at the cracked plaster ceiling. In some places, large missing chunks showed the rotting wood beneath. How much coin was Sir Owen Hopton being given for keeping me prisoner here? He would most likely need it to repair his roof. Rain would soon fall on me in torturous drips, no doubt.

Why had he agreed?

I almost laughed at that thought. No one
agreed
to do what Her Majesty demanded. A body only obeyed in this realm.

Except for me.

How I wished I could take back every sniveling, pleading letter I’d sent her. I wanted to relive that moment in the Tower when I’d stared her down, spoken my mind, but this time I would have kept going. Just to tell her the truth, that I would do it all again. That her unhappiness in love did not mean I must suffer. Love was rare, a thing of beauty, and she would only see it marred.

I knew why. Everyone did. She had loved—she did love. And she had not been able to grasp it, to hold it in her hand but for fleeting moments that disappeared like steam through
her fingers.

Robert Dudley. My own sister
’s brother-by-marriage. Oh, how Elizabeth must have been tormented to know that Jane slept each night with her own Dudley, while she, the princess of the realm, had had to do without.

I could never fathom the cause
of her attraction for the man. For certes, he was beautiful of face and body, but he was a rogue, a philanderer. He flirted without qualm with any woman—especially Her Majesty—all while his wife had languished remotely, and not even in her own home. And he most likely made a bedfellow of our cousin Lettice Knowles, for I’d seen love in their eyes.

Why would our virginal Bess
have chosen this man to love? What good could he have done for her? What joy had he brought her other than showing her the man she loved could never be hers?

Throughout the years of her reign thus far,
she’d preferred her ladies to remain unattached, and more than one—I was not the only lady to be chastised—had succumbed to the heart and married in secret. None had been so harshly punished as I had been.

I had
had hopes once. Hope that she would set us free. Hope that she would see we had not married and produced our beautiful children to offend her. Hope that she would forgive me.

But my hopes
had long since burned to ash. If there was anything I’d learned, it was that Elizabeth would not give up this fight. She was not willing to risk what doing so would have said about her, what doing so would have implied to those within and without her realm.

She
thought to punish me by not naming me heir, by removing me from the succession, by excluding my children from their rightful places in the realm. But what she did not understand was what I
truly
wanted. I simply wanted peace. I was happy for her to rule this realm. I would have been happy to take my children to my husband’s home and live there the rest of my days never setting my foot in court again.