B009RYSCAU EBOK (8 page)

He stumped closer to her, and tweaked a curl that peeped from beneath Bess’s cap. She fought the urge to recoil at his touch. She could smell the foul odor coming from the abscess in his leg, and tried not to breathe as she smiled up at him.

“Just like my daughter Bess,” he said. “Another pert redhead.”

“And a most learned young lady, I’ve heard,” Bess managed to say. She had heard that, but also that the king did not spend much attention on the little girl, and she worried that she should not have spoken so boldly.

“Yes. Smart as a fox,” the king mused. “Wasted on a girl, of course,” he added curtly. His eyes moved to Cat. “Come, sweetheart, and sit with me to watch the dancing.”

Late that night as she lay in bed, Bess heard Sir George come in to the lodgings and speak in low tones to his wife.

“He’s with Catherine Howard every minute he can be. There are rumors she’s with child already.”

“Any report of when the marriage is to be?”

“No. But he’s summoned Bishop Bonner. I’d not be surprised if he weds her quietly.”

“Hm. Likely.”

“Ah, Anne, come and let me kiss you.”

Bess heard murmurs and sighs. Her master and mistress seemed deeply in love with each other, she thought. She wondered what it would be like to have a husband, to look forward to a man’s return and a kiss at the end of the day. The feel of Edmund’s mouth on hers during that heady Christmas evening came back to her vividly, stirring a longing within her.

Her mother had sent her to the Zouche household so that she might find a husband, but with so much happening, she had scarcely given a thought to when she might meet a possible match. Well, she was in no hurry. If God wanted her to marry, no doubt He would put the right man in her path.

The festive mood at Oatlands was shattered when news swept through the court that Thomas Cromwell had been executed at Tower Hill a day earlier, on the twenty-eighth of July.

“And the headsman botched the job,” Sir George told his wife. “He needed a second stroke to finish Cromwell.”

“Heaven and earth,” Lady Zouche murmured.

The flickering light of the candle on the table cast an eerie shadow on her face.

“But he had it easy compared to some.” Sir George lowered his voice and Bess, sitting some feet away near the fireplace, strained to hear, though she was afraid of what he might say.

“The Lady Mary’s former tutor, the first Queen Catherine’s chaplain, and another were dragged on hurdles to Smithfield to meet their deaths. And Robert Barnes, that Lutheran who helped arrange the Cleves marriage, was burned as a heretic.”

Bess felt her throat and chest tighten with fear. She didn’t know exactly what it meant to be a heretic. But it was clear that ending up on the wrong side of the king’s favor was terribly dangerous.
Keep your head down,
she thought.
Keep a weather eye out, and keep your head down.

* * *

I
N EARLY
A
UGUST,
K
ING
H
ENRY REMOVED TO
H
AMPTON
C
OURT,
and the Zouches with him. On the eighth of the month, the king dined publicly and in great state with Cat Howard at his side. Queen Catherine. For now the news was announced that he had wed her on the same day he had had Cromwell put to death.

Bess watched Cat as she sat next to the king, and thought the young queen looked like a sparrow next to an old buzzard. But if Cat had any distaste for her husband, she didn’t let it show. He basked in her sunny smile, and took up her little hand and kissed it. Bess tried to imagine herself kissing the corpulent old man and submitting to his embraces, and shuddered in revulsion.

The king’s daughter the Lady Elizabeth, almost seven years old now, sat near to Cat, watching her with rapt attention. Cat noticed Elizabeth’s gaze and reached over to take her hand. She smiled and spoke to her, and Elizabeth at first looked startled to be taken notice of and then smiled shyly at Cat with apparent adoration.

The poor child, Bess thought. She had lost her mother before she was old enough to remember her, and then gained a stepmother only to lose her. She had probably not even had time to get to know Anne of Cleves before the king had cast her off. Perhaps Cat would provide the little girl with motherly attention.

The next fortnight was given over to celebrations of the royal marriage, with daily hunting parties and nightly banquets, masques, and dancing to honor the king’s bride. Cat was not exactly beautiful, Bess decided, watching her dancing with one of the many handsome young men of the court who buzzed around her, but she certainly drew all eyes toward her. And was likeable as well, somehow seeming to convey to each person to whom she spoke that she had a real interest in them. Watching Cat glitter in some of the shower of jewels that King Henry had lavished upon her, surrounded by the covey of high-born noblewomen who were her ladies-in-waiting, it was jarring to Bess to realize that it had been less than seven months earlier that she had stood among the cheering throngs at Blackheath to welcome Anne of Cleves. It was almost as though that marriage had never taken place, she thought, except she knew that the king had ridden to visit Anne at Richmond, and had heard that he had even given permission for his daughter Elizabeth to spend time with her as well, at Anne’s request.

Prince Edward and the king’s daughter Mary arrived to meet their new stepmother. Little Edward was a golden-haired, pink-cheeked mite of just three years old, and solemnly bowed to his father and Cat Howard before retreating to the arms of his nurse. The Lady Mary, her skin pallid against the black of her gown, bowed to the new queen with rigid correctness that Bess thought did little to hide her disapproval.

* * *

“
M
Y FATHER HAS WRITTEN THAT HE IS COMING TO COURT,”
L
IZZIE
told Bess one evening as they prepared for bed. “He said he had a surprise for me. I wonder what it can be? I can hardly wait until he gets here!”

Lizzie’s father, George Brooke, Baron Cobham, arrived the next day. He was a tall, stern-faced man with high cheekbones, and Bess saw that it must be from him that Lizzie got her piercing dark eyes.

“What do you think?” Lizzie cried when she returned to Lady Zouche’s chamber from a visit with her father. “I am to become a maid of honor to the queen!”

Bess felt envious of Lizzie’s sudden elevation. Whatever her own position, Lizzie always seemed to float a little above her, unmatchable in every way.

“I’m so pleased for you,” she told Lizzie. “A well-deserved honor, and I wish you joy of it. And I’ll miss you.”

Lady Zouche’s baby was to be born in November, and soon she would return to Codnor along with the rest of the household, although Sir George must remain to attend on the king. Bess was not sorry that she would be out of the king’s presence for some months. Although the only time he had spoken to her he had seemed good-natured on the surface, she was afraid of him. She had a sudden image of the king as a brightly burning fire, drawing people to his heat and light like fluttering moths. But those who forgot the danger and drew too close singed their wings, fell into the flames, and were consumed.

Twenty-seventh of May, 1541—London

Spring had draped a haze of greenery over London of a sudden, and Bess’s spirits rose as she gazed out a window of the Zouches’ London home. She had enjoyed the months at Codnor, especially since she had been able to visit her mother and family at Hardwick. But it was exciting to be back in London, where something was always happening. Below, the river sparkled in the afternoon sun, and even from this distance, she could hear two boatmen calling to each other and laughing.

“I wish we could cast off all our duties today and go where our fancy takes us,” she said, turning back to look at Doll and Audrey, who were mending and brushing clothes.

“Perhaps tomorrow—” Audrey began, but she was interrupted by a terrible shriek from Lady Zouche’s chamber. They dashed into the room to find their mistress facedown on the bed, weeping and groaning, with Sir George kneeling by her side.

“Oh, Jesus, it cannot be!” she cried.

Bess had never seen anyone so distraught and was terrified. Had one of the children been killed? But Rachel arrived at a run with baby Edmund in her arms, and she looked as perplexed as Bess was.

“What has happened, sir?” Bess asked.

Sir George raised his eyes and stared at the girls.

“Lady Salisbury,” he said, and then clamped his hand over his mouth as though to stifle a sob.

Bess’s mind struggled to make sense of what Sir George was saying. She recalled that when they had first come to London, Lady Zouche had told her with outrage that the previous year, the king had imprisoned Margaret Pole, the old Countess of Salisbury, and the last of the Plantagenet dynasty, because her son had plotted against him.

“She has been attainted and sentenced to death at the king’s pleasure,” Lady Zouche had told her. “He’ll never have her executed. She’s an old lady of near seventy years and has no designs on the throne. But still it’s a cruel thing to lock her in the Tower.”

Now a terrible suspicion arose in Bess’s mind. She glanced at the other girls. They looked as horrified as she felt.

“Has something befallen the lady?” she asked.

“May God damn him!” Lady Zouche wailed.

“Anne, hush.” Sir George stooped to his wife. “You’ll do yourself harm crying so.” He raised haunted eyes to Bess. “Lady Salisbury was executed this morning.”

“Butchered!” Lady Zouche cried. “Like an animal. Dragged to the block and hacked to death, begging for mercy. A dozen strokes of the axe it took.”

Bess clapped a hand to her mouth, willing herself not to vomit.

“But why?” Doll asked, her blue eyes pools of horror.

“Because of an uprising,” Sir George said. “The king feared . . .” He stopped as if he could not go on.

“The rising had nothing to do with her!” Rachel snapped. “How could it? An aged lady like she was, locked away and powerless. She was lady-in-waiting to the first Queen Catherine and governess to the Princess Mary. How could he have served her so?”

Lady Zouche was sobbing so hard that Bess feared she would choke.

Sir George shook his head as if to clear it. “I don’t know. I don’t understand why she should have been put to death.” He looked around at the girls and Rachel. “But it is not a matter to be discussed.”

Bess felt as though she had been forced into a box and a lid closed over her. How could there be such horrors? And being forbidden to speak of it somehow made it worse.

CHAPTER SIX

Thirtieth of October, 1541—Hampton Court Palace

I
SEE THEM!”
D
OLL CRIED, TUGGING
B
ESS’S SLEEVE.
T
HEY HAD BEEN
peering out a second-story window at Hampton Court Palace since the advance rider had thundered up with the news that the king and queen would arrive shortly, returning from the progress that had taken them through Berkshire, Oxfordshire, Northamptonshire, Bedfordshire, and Hertfordshire.

“He doesn’t look best pleased, does he?” Bess murmured, as the royal party rode through the palace gates. The king was stouter than ever, and seemed to dwarf the gray gelding beneath him. Cat Howard rode beside him, sidesaddle on a dappled mare, shrouded for travel in a gray cloak and veil. “Of course, they’ve been traveling for three months. That would be bound to wear on anyone’s patience, I would think.”

“Lady Zouche had a letter from Sir George,” Doll said, “that His Majesty was put into a most foul temper when the King of Scotland failed to meet him as arranged.”

“His sister Margaret died but a few weeks ago,” Bess recalled, “and of course little Prince Edward has been ill, which must worry him.”

“I wonder if it worries Cat,” Doll whispered.

Bess looked at her in shock. “Why, what do you mean?”

“Well, if the prince dies, any son she bears would be king instead.”

Bess shivered, both at the thought of anyone wishing so calculatedly for the death of a child, and because it seemed ill luck to suppose Cat would have a son. Catherine of Aragon and Anne Boleyn between them had not managed to produce a living boy, though they had each been with child and brought to childbed many times, Lady Zouche had told her, proudly fussing over her own new baby boy.

“Too soon to be counting those chickens,” she murmured.

“True,” Doll agreed. “But Cat must be keeping him happy. He’s ordered a service of thanksgiving for the marriage, to be said in every church in England day after tomorrow.”

“Better her than me,” Bess whispered.

The king and queen kept to their apartments that evening, no doubt exhausted from their travels, but the next day they dined in state, in the seemingly endless ritual that Bess had first witnessed at Codnor Castle. Cat, beside the king, was wearing a gown Bess hadn’t seen before, of deep green silk, with outer sleeves turned back to reveal inner sleeves heavily embroidered and studded with pearls, and with starched frills of lace at her wrists. She seemed to sense Bess’s gaze and turned her head to scan the lower tables. She smiled when her eyes met Bess’s, and Bess bowed her head in acknowledgment.

Bess and Doll managed to catch a few minutes’ visit with Lizzie, who they had not seen since the king and queen set out on their travels at the end of July.

“How did you find it going on progress with the queen?” Doll importuned her.

Lizzie hesitated before answering, glancing over her shoulder as if to see who was nearby, and Bess thought she looked nervous.

“Exciting, of course,” she said. “But wearying. I’m glad we’re back.”

“Such beautiful earrings,” Doll said. “Did the queen give them to you?”

She reached a finger toward the pearls that hung from Lizzie’s ears but Lizzie stepped backward and all but swatted her hand away.

“I must go,” she said, and abruptly turned and left.

“Well,” Doll faltered, staring after her. “What’s got into her? Too grand to speak to us now, do you think?”

“Perhaps she’s just tired,” Bess said. But she thought there must be something more behind Lizzie’s manner.

The next day the court gathered in the palace chapel for the service of thanksgiving. Bess, seated with Lady Zouche, Audrey, and Doll, glanced up to the royal gallery where the king sat, with Cat at his side in a sober black gown. The chaplain stopped speaking, and the king stood and raised his arms to salute the crucified figure of Christ before him.

“I render thanks to Thee, O Lord, that after so many strange accidents that have befallen my marriages, Thou hast been pleased to give me a wife so entirely conformed to my inclinations as her I now have.”

Accidents?
Bess thought. She wondered if God viewed the fate of the king’s marriages as accidents, and then felt guilty, though whether for having critical thoughts about the king or for thinking of the Almighty in such glib terms she wasn’t sure.

“Amen,” intoned the assembled court.

The king turned to Cat, raising her small dimpled hand to his lips with a meaty paw, and she tilted her head to smile at him. Bess was uncomfortably warm and longed to scratch her leg, and found it hard to concentrate on the rest of the service. She noticed Archbishop Cranmer enter the gallery and genuflect before he made his way to the king’s side. King Henry glanced at him, and the archbishop held up what appeared to be a letter and laid it beside the king before departing as silently as he had come. It was odd, Bess mused, that whatever business he had could not wait.

When the service was finished, the congregation rose as the king struggled to his feet and departed the chapel with a flock of gentlemen in tow. The fullness of his robes, standing out from his shoulders, made his legs look even more spindly than they really were. The contrast with the grossness of his body made Bess think of a swollen tick.

As she passed through the hall with Lady Zouche, she saw that Cat had not followed the king, but stood listening to an old woman in shabby clothes who was speaking and gesticulating urgently, though Bess could not hear the words. Lizzie hovered by Cat’s side.

“Alas, what ill happenings!” Cat cried, and clasped the old woman’s hands in hers. “I will see that something is done, I promise you. Send to me tomorrow.”

She prevented the supplicant from falling to her knees on the stone floor, and gestured to two of her ladies to help the old woman to her feet.

“Make sure that she is fed,” Cat directed, “and given somewhere to sleep if she has nowhere to go.” Turning, she caught sight of Bess.

“Bess Hardwick!” she cried, smiling. “Lizzie told me much about you during our travels, and I long for your better acquaintance. Come to my chambers—there is just arrived a dancing master with the newest steps from France!”

“Gladly, Your Majesty,” Bess stammered, looking to Lady Zouche for consent and relieved to find that her mistress was nodding and shooing her toward Cat. Bess felt a pang of sorrow at Doll’s envious expression but could only throw her a look of apology as Cat took her arm.

“Come, walk with me and tell me all your news,” Cat said, and Bess, astonished, obeyed, trying to think of what to say as they walked.

“My mother writes that my sister Moll—Mary, that is—is to be wed to Robert Wingfield.” That had been good news, indeed, as the Wingfields were wealthy and well connected.

“Excellent! I will have to send her a suitable gift,” Cat said, drawing Bess along with her as they mounted a grand staircase.

“That would be exceeding kind of you, Your Majesty,” Bess murmured, wondering why the queen showed her such favor. She had thought she had met a kindred spirit in Cat when they had first spoken at Hampton Court, but it surprised her that Cat’s liking for her remained so strong. What had Lizzie said about her? Or perhaps the queen just wished to have more friends of near her own age, surrounded as she was by so many older women.

The queen’s apartments had been newly decorated, Bess recalled as she and Cat swept into a great chamber, followed by Cat’s chattering retinue. The walls were hung with glowing tapestries and the paneling of the walls gleamed in the firelight. The dancing lesson had apparently been planned, for half a dozen musicians arrived in moments, along with a sprightly young man in blue hose and an extravagantly feathered hat.

There were about forty ladies in the queen’s entourage, enough to form three long sets of dancers, and they twittered and giggled as the dancing master strode among them, correcting posture here, pinching a cheek there, rapping his staff on the floor to silence the noise when he wished to make himself heard.

There was a pause after the first dance had been learned, and the queen’s guests partook of spiced wine and little cakes. Bess was feeling giddy with the drink and the warmth of the room, and she hung back against the wall, wishing she could get some fresh air. She was in awe at the company surrounding her, recognizing some of the most noble ladies of the land, some of whom had been in the service of Anne of Cleves only a few months earlier. The dancing master pounded his staff on the floor and the dancers formed into two rings, one inside the other.

Clack, clack, smack, smack
went the tambourine and the dancers’ hands as they clapped high, then low, turning, jumping, circling. The noise in the room rose so that it seemed deafening. Bess caught sight of Cat across the circle, shrieking with laughter, tossing her curls, now freed from their headdress, and twirling and stamping.

And then suddenly everything was wrong. There were guards in the room, many of them, armed with halberds, their faces stern, surrounding the dancers. The musicians faltered to a stop, a flute giving a last flat little bleat.

“Why, what is this?” Cat demanded, turning a pouting face upon the captain at the head of the guards. “Why have you interrupted us?”

“Now is no more the time to dance, Your Grace,” he said. He didn’t bow, and Bess’s stomach went cold.

“You must all be gone,” the captain ordered, turning to the queen’s ladies, now silent and fearful. “And you, madam, must remain here, with but Lady Rochford to attend you.”

“What . . .” Cat stared up at him, her eyes dark pools.

“It is so ordered by His Majesty.”

There was an instant of stunned silence. Cat looked to her ladies as if for help. Her eyes met Bess’s, and Bess’s guts lurched to see her terror. She wanted desperately to help Cat, but what could she do? If the king had ordered whatever was happening, there was no one to turn to for help.

“Ladies, you must be gone,” the captain barked.

Lizzie grabbed Bess’s hand and pulled her toward the door, and Bess nearly tripped. When she glanced back Cat’s eyes were closed, as if to shut out what was happening.

Cat’s attendants fled in a flurry of skirts. It seemed to Bess that they moved in silence. She made not a sound until she and Lizzie burst into Lady Zouche’s room. Lady Zouche, Audrey, and Doll were sewing by the fire, but started to their feet in alarm.

“The queen . . .” Bess began. She didn’t know how to say what had happened, didn’t know, even, what had happened or was about to happen.

Lady Zouche hastened to her and shook her by the shoulders, fear in her eyes.

“What? What’s amiss?”

“Guards came,” Lizzie said. “The queen is confined to her room with only Lady Rochford.”

Bess suddenly recalled Lizzie’s strained awkwardness when she had spoken to Bess and Doll the day before, and wondered if Lizzie knew something that she had not wanted to speak of.

“For what reason?” Lady Zouche pressed as the other girls crowded around them. Lizzie remained silent, so Bess spoke.

“I don’t know.” Bess felt colder than she had ever felt in her life. She shook her head. “I don’t know.”

* * *

T
HE NEXT DAYS SEEMED LIKE SOMETHING OUT OF A NIGHTMARE TO
Bess. Lizzie, suddenly without a queen to serve and terrified about where to turn, begged Lady Zouche to let her stay in their lodgings, and she and Bess and Doll huddled together in one bed.

“I heard,” Lizzie whispered, “that Bishop Cranmer told the king that before Cat married him, she lay with Francis Dereham.”

“What, her secretary!” Bess gasped.

“Yes, and he says that’s why she took Dereham on, so she could play the strumpet with him more easily. The bishop is investigating, I hear, but I’m sure he’ll only find what he wants to learn.” She looked at Bess with haunted eyes. “What if he calls me to be questioned?”

Bess recalled again Lizzie’s odd evasiveness when she had returned from progress. “You don’t know anything,” she whispered. “Do you?”

Lizzie didn’t answer, but her fearful look shook Bess.

* * *

A
PALL OF DREAD SETTLED OVER
H
AMPTON
C
OURT.
B
ESS COULD NOT
keep from thinking about Cat, confined to her rooms, and how frightened she must be. Several times, Bess found Lizzie weeping and trembling, and her attempts to comfort Lizzie failed. She was sure now that Lizzie knew something that preyed on her mind, and gave up trying to get her to talk.

* * *

O
N A GRAY AFTERNOON,
B
ESS WAS SITTING WITH
L
IZZIE AND
D
OLL
in Lady Zouche’s room, sewing and trying not to think about what dreadful things might happen, when shrieks of sheer animal terror rose from somewhere outside.

Bess felt as though her heart had stopped beating. She looked to Lizzie and Doll. Both were sitting motionless, their needlework in their hands, their eyes wide with fear.

“That sounds like Cat,” Bess whispered.

“It didn’t even sound like a person,” Doll said, her eyes filling with tears.