A Court Affair (6 page)

After I received the book of poisons with his name, Dr Kristofer Biancospino, on the title page, and a tale of terror, a litany of suffering, dispassionately detailed on every page thereafter, I would have no more of him or the medicines he gave me, some of which I knew to contain the deadly plants he wrote about—monkshood, mandrake, hemlock, thornapple, henbane, and belladonna, the deadly nightshade that has nothing to do with beauty despite its name, though I have heard it said that the Italian ladies dare to use it in their cosmetics and even put drops of it in their eyes to make their pupils larger, but I shudder at the thought of doing either. I think sometimes women go
too
far in their pursuit of beauty.

Again and again he came to my door, begging to come in, to just sit and talk with me, but I hardened my heart and barred my door against him and refused to answer the letters he sent. Right or wrong, I let myself become afraid of the one person who could help me.

Even now, on the table beside my bed—in the pretty little heart-shaped trinket box lined in rose pink velvet that Robert won for me in a game of skill, throwing coloured wooden balls through a hoop, at a country fair when we were courting—his last letter lay folded into a tight square, containing—if I were brave enough to take it—one last chance to save my life. A gamble, a risk, a life-and-death wager I might win or lose, he told me frankly, showing his respect for me by telling me the truth unvarnished, just as he had done when he first described this daring and dangerous procedure to me, but a
chance
that no English doctor, whether quack or from the College of Physicians, or even the Queen’s own doctor himself, could offer me, an operation nigh as excruciating and brutal as the hanging, drawing, and quartering condemned traitors were subjected to, but one, though it skirted death by a hairsbreadth, that
might,
if God were willing, save my life and let me live to be an old woman with silver hair and grandchildren. But the time to think had almost passed; today I
must
decide. It was now or never.

That was why I wanted to be alone today while the others were having a fine, merry time at the fair, to think, to ponder, with no distractions of any kind, to look back and decide whether I wanted to go forward, whether my life was worth saving now that I had lost everything that mattered. I had lost my husband’s love, as well as his presence, and the cancer had already destroyed my beauty, and the operation that might cure it would complete the destruction and leave me disfigured in such a way that no man, least of all my fastidious Robert, would ever want me again. What man would ever look with desire upon a woman with an ugly, scarred, and gutted crater where her breast, full, creamy, pink-tipped, and tempting, used to be?

After she returns from the fair, I will send Pirto to the inn with my answer, and Dr Biancospino will either stay or go on his way depending upon my answer, whether it comes in the form of stony, distrustful silence or words writ upon paper; I know that he will wait, and hope, for me for one more day. And I will use that day well, to weigh life against death.

I close my eyes and swallow back my tears as Pirto gently dabs away the milky discharge leaking from my nipple and coats it, and the ugly, oozing lump alongside it, with the honeylike ointment with the sharp, acrid scent and the caustic, biting tingle the old woman—wise, witch, or charlatan? I do not pretend to know which one she is—made for me. Only when the whole unsightly, sticky mess is covered over with a fresh linen dressing do I open my eyes again. The sky is starting to lighten, and outside my window, high above the trees in the park, I can see the spire of St Michael’s, the morning sun glinting on it as lightly as a lover’s kiss as he steals away with the coming of dawn after a passionate night.

A small smile plays across my lips as Pirto anoints me with the perfume I used to distil myself, my own special blend made from the pink roses of Norfolk and sweet honeysuckles. Which will last longer, this last vial of scent captured and bottled from my father’s garden or my life? I have become such a maudlin, melancholy woman! I am too young to be so bitter! Such lemon-and-crabapple tartness is better suited to a woman much further along in years,
decades
older than I, a woman stoop-backed, wrinkled, and grey-haired who has lost her teeth and everyone she ever loved, or never had anyone at all. I press a hand to my forehead and sigh. I
hate
what I have become!

Carefully, slowly I raise my arms, and Pirto gently slips a shift of fine white lawn over my head, and it billows down easily about me, unimpeded by curves, concealing the now frail and wasted figure Robert used to describe as “luscious”, playfully sinking his teeth into my breast, buttock, or hip as if it were a ripe and juicy peach. Gone is the round and rosy Amy he used to love.

Though I have no need of them now—this disease has melted away so much of my flesh, the full, buxom, rounded curves, hips, and bum, and flattened the little round hint of a belly that
longed
to swell with the promise of a baby nesting inside—I insist that Pirto fetch my stays from the chest at the foot of my bed, so prettily embroidered with bright yellow buttercups, and lace me up tightly, even though it ignites a lightning storm of pain rippling across my ribs and up and down my spine. Pain plays my spine like the ivory keys of a virginal, but I don’t care; I want to be perfectly dressed today. I want to look like Lady Dudley, Robert’s wife,
should
look.

Then come the petticoats, starched and crisp. I want my skirts to billow and rustle; I want to have full, feminine hips again, even if it is just an illusion. And then the gown, a glossy satin the colour of high-polished oak, festooned with frills of golden lace, and embroidered all over with green and gold oak leaves and amber acorns—my husband’s personal emblem.

Though everyone knows it is a play on the Latin word for his name,
robur,
which means
oak,
only I know this device once had another, more intimate and loving, meaning. Perhaps even Robert himself has forgotten, but
I
remember the day we stood in the drizzling rain huddled together in our cloaks beneath a mighty oak overlooking the crumbling ruins of Syderstone, fallen into decay and disrepair, too sprawling and expensive to keep up, the lands gone to seed and weed, overtaken by thistles and grazing sheep with burrs studding their woolly coats. Robert promised me that he, as my husband, would be like a mighty oak unto me, to shelter and protect me all the days of my life, and these acorns represented the many children we would have. Syderstone would rise again, he swore, and be a
greater,
grander
estate than it had ever been before. He would double—nay,
quadruple!
—the size of our flock, and he would breed and train horses that would be famed throughout the land and even abroad. And, best of all, the halls of Syderstone would ring with the joyous laughter of our children playing. My husband was one of thirteen children, though five of them had died before they reached the age of ten, and, as we held our hands together, cupping a shared handful of acorns, we both dreamed that each tiny acorn represented a child that would someday grace our nursery. We both wanted a large family, “the more the merrier,” we smiled and agreed. And with a broad sweep of his arm at Syderstone, he vowed that we would have an avenue of oaks leading to the house, a new sapling planted each time my womb quickened with a new life, and we would bring our children out and show them their own special tree, planted the day they first stirred inside of me. Oh, it was a
beautiful,
grand, wonderful
dream!

But not all dreams come true, and there were so many promises that he didn’t keep. There were never any children, not even one, to fill our nursery; we never even had a nursery. And there was no avenue of oaks. Syderstone still lies in ruins, the sheep still munch thistles, and the burrs still snag their coats, but someone else owns it all now. Robert sold it—to pay off his gambling debts and buy lavish gifts for the Queen, the one who holds his future in the palm of her hand, the one who can make him a pauper or a prince upon a moment’s whim. And though he might be a mighty oak, he does
not
shelter and protect me.
It isn’t fair!
If Robert can afford to hang the Queen’s hair with diamonds, he can afford to put a roof of my own over my head to shelter me; it’s as simple as that. I needn’t spend my days as a constant guest in the homes of others but never the proud chatelaine of my own domain. And he certainly does not protect me; even in the rustic wilds of England the rumours still find me. Divorce, poison, murder, madness, adultery! I’ve heard them all. My father would weep and spin like a chicken roasting on a spit in his grave if he knew that his daughter had become the centre of such a lurid, raging scandal, her name being bandied about like a bawdy woman’s in every alehouse in England.

I cross the shadowy room and go to sit upon my bed, made fresh by dear Pirto while I rested in my bath, enveloped by soothing clouds of steam. A sad smile flits across my face, like a pebble skimming a pond, as my hand caresses the apple green and gold brocade coverlet woven with a pattern of apples and apple blossoms and trimmed with frills of golden lace. Apples remind me of the happy years of my childhood spent at Syderstone before it became unfit to inhabit and we moved, a good, long but brisk, invigorating walk away, to my mother’s more elegant abode, Stanfield Hall. I love apples, everything about them—their colours, their smell, their taste, especially that first juicy, crisp bite, whether it be tart or sweet.

Pirto comes and kneels before me to put on my shoes and stockings, tying the satin garters into pretty bows just below my knees and easing my feet into the dainty brown velvet slippers sewn with tiny amber and gold beads. I always loved to go barefoot whenever I could. I loved the freedom and the feel of the grass, or wood or stone, rough or smooth, chilled or sun-baked, beneath my bare feet. Robert used to send me velvet and satin slippers, a dozen or more pairs at a time, as a silent signal of his disapproval, but I never let that stop me; I gave up too many other things for Robert.

When Pirto starts to gather my hair up, I stop her. “No, the pins make my head ache. Leave it free.” This is my one and only concession to comfort—a proper married lady wears her hair pinned up, while a maiden leaves hers unbound—but no one will see. Pirto, however, still thinks I mean to go out today, to church and afterwards the fair.

At times it seems too great an effort and a silly charade. I love Pirto, but I am the lady, and she is my servant, and it is not for me to placate her. I could have done without all these tedious preparations and put on my night shift and taken to my bed, unencumbered by corset and the stiff and rustling confines of petticoats and gown, garters, stockings, and shoes, all the accoutrements of a lady, but for some reason I don’t quite understand, it is important to me to be dressed today, to not lounge about languid and loose as a concubine in a sultan’s harem.

“As you wish, love,” Pirto agrees and gently sets the gold-braided satin hood that matches my gown upon my head, fastening the strap and adding just a couple of pins, placing them carefully, anxious not to cause me any more pain. “There now.” She smoothes the cascade of golden curls streaming down my back. “All ready now, you are, pet, except for your purse, though you’ll not be needing it just yet, but I have it ready—it’s there upon the desk.”

“Not quite ready yet, Pirto.” I smile. “I want my necklace. The special one My Lord gave me when he still loved me.”

“Aye, I know the one.” She nods and brings forth from my jewel coffer a rich and heavy necklace of golden oak leaves and amber acorns that matches the betrothal ring I have worn on my left hand since the day Robert put it on my finger when I was a green girl of seventeen brimming over with hopes and dreams. I could not imagine then a world in which Robert would cease to love me. Even now, I like being clothed and jewelled in Robert’s oak leaves and acorns; like cattle wearing its master’s brand, I am
still
his wife, even if he wishes otherwise;
I
still remember, even when all he wants to do is forget. I
am
Lady Amy Dudley, Lord Robert’s wife, and I will
never
surrender that until Death takes it from me.
With this ring I thee wed. Until death do us part.
My affections are not frivolous and fickle despite the changeable nature often ascribed to my sex; when I stood beside Robert on our wedding day to make our vows, I spoke from my heart and meant
every
word.

“Will you lie down for a bit, love?” Pirto hovers anxiously beside me.

“No.” I shake my head. “It will muss my gown. Help me to my chair please, Pirto.”

It is the most comfortable, beautiful, cheerful chair imaginable, so inviting that it often tempts me from my bed, which is good and exactly as it should be, Dr Biancospino said when I told him. It was the last present my husband sent to me. Such thoughtfulness surely proves that, somewhere, deep in his heart, despite his outward show of indifference, he
must
still
care for me. It is upholstered in the most vibrant, rich emerald green all embroidered with bright, beautiful flowers, their petals, leaves, and stems accented with threads of gold and silver. When I sit in it, it is like sinking down into a bed of wildflowers. It always makes me smile. It is so wonderfully, heavenly soft. Sometimes, when I am so sick that I think I will never leave my bed again, I gaze across the room at it, and I am drawn to it. I want to reach out and touch the pinks and daffodils; their leaves seem to beckon to me, to coax a smile from me, and I cannot resist the urge to rise and sit in it—it is
too
powerful to ignore.

As Pirto bustles about the room, putting things right after my bath, I sit and watch the dawn break over the park, where the pond catches the sun’s reflection. Mrs Forster’s children will be out looking for frogs in their Sunday best if their mother and nurse don’t keep a sharp eye on them. I smile at the thought, I can so well imagine it; it’s a scene I have seen before and laughed at until it hurt so much, I cried.