Brandy Purdy (23 page)

Guildford simpered and preened and, stepping down from the dais to stand before Father, did a little turn to show off his buff-colored doublet and matching hat, both trimmed with layers of white and gold lace, gilt and silk braid, and lustrous gold and white pearls. “Isn’t it
delicious?
The color is called marzipan; my tailor says it is London’s latest fancy. He says I should
never
wear anything that doesn’t make people want to
devour
me!”

“More apt words have never been uttered since God created the earth!” Father agreed. “Mmmm . . .
marzipan!
A most delicious creation!” His eyes closed and his mouth fell open, and for a moment he seemed lost in a fantasy world before he recovered himself. “I
dream
of you in marzipan! A gilt marzipan sculpture come to life! How you tempt and tease and torment me!”

Guildford smiled. “I am constantly amazed by how well you understand me!”

There was a groan from the dais as Jane slowly sat up, rubbing the back of her head where it had struck the dais. “No, no,” she said groggily, massaging the small of her back as she maneuvered herself around to sit upon the top step, hugging her knees and rocking back and forth, “the Crown is not my right and pleaseth me not! The Lady Mary is the rightful heir!”

“Nay.” Northumberland shook his head as he reached down to jerk Jane to her feet, like a puppet master pulling the strings. “Your Grace does
great
wrong to yourself and your house!”

“Shut up, Jane, and do as the Duke says! You stupid girl, by the way you’re behaving, anyone would think you were being forced into the tooth-drawer’s chair instead of being honored with a throne!” our lady-mother exclaimed. “It is your duty to obey the last wish of your cousin, King Edward, entrusting you on his deathbed with safeguarding his kingdom so that the light of the Reformed Faith should not be snuffed out as it surely would if Papist Mary came to the throne! Do you want the Pope’s good shepherdess leading us all back to the Catholic fold, bringing the Spanish Inquisition to our shores, and burning those who resist? Is that what you
really
want? To end the enlightenment and go back to the dark ages, the Catholic creed, selling of indulgences, and Latin litanies? Enough of that, Hal! Here! Wipe that drool off your face!” she snapped angrily, impatiently thrusting her handkerchief at Father, as she moved swiftly past him to take Guildford’s arm, and, rather forcefully I noticed, urge him back up onto the dais “to stand beside your lady, until such time as we can have another throne made for you, Your Grace.”

“A gold one set with emeralds to accentuate my golden hair and green eyes,” Guildford regally dictated as he resumed his place on the dais, pausing to give Jane a shove that sent her flopping back onto the velvet-cushioned throne with her feet flying up in the air, then artfully draped his arm across its jeweled back and adopted an elegant pose.

Jane sat frowning and floundering on the plump purple cushions, then, wiggling to the edge and dropping to her knees, announced that she would pray to the Lord for guidance.

While all stood around glowering and glaring at her, rolling their eyes, and tapping their toes upon the stone floor in mute impatience, Jane raised her hands to heaven and implored the Lord above to give her a sign and tell her what she should do.

“You stupid girl!”
our lady-mother, weary of waiting, lost her temper and shouted. “His silence
is
a sign! He is telling you that you should obey the will of your parents as the Scriptures say and accept the throne He has seen fit to vouchsafe you!”

For a moment Jane wavered, swaying on her knees, teetering on the verge of another faint, and then she gave in and nodded. Northumberland and Guildford each bent down and clamped a hand around an arm and lifted her back onto the throne, and Jane announced to the assembled company, “If what hath been given to me is lawfully mine, and it is my duty and right to succeed to the throne, may Thy Divine Majesty aid and grant me such spirit and grace that I may govern this realm to Thy glory and service.”

“Well said, well said, God save Queen Jane!” Father led the company in a round of applause. “Now let us have sweet wine and sugar wafers! My daughter, the Queen, commands it!” He clapped his hands to summon the servants who instantly, as though they had been lurking just outside waiting for this moment, filed in with well laden platters, trays of golden goblets, and flagons of wine to fill them.

After partaking of these refreshments, the assembly broke up, Northumberland hastily enjoining Jane to get a good night’s rest as she would make her formal entry into London on the morrow, via barge instead of the customary procession through the city streets, lest the populace, being partial to King Henry’s daughters, show themselves quarrelsome and unruly. “The royal apartments at the Tower are being made ready for you as we speak,” he added, “and from there, in a fortnight, you will go to Westminster Abbey for your coronation.” Then he called for Mrs. Tylney, whom he had chosen to assist Mrs. Ellen as Jane’s tirewoman, and Lady Throckmorton, whom he had appointed as Jane’s chief lady-in-waiting, and asked them to escort “Queen Jane” upstairs and put her to bed.

Before the words had even left Northumberland’s mouth, Kate grabbed my hand and determinedly barged ahead of Mary Sidney, who tried to hold us back, and elbowed Mrs. Tylney aside. “As the Queen’s sisters we have precedence over all except the King,” she sweetly explained, flashing a bright smile. Then, crooking a finger to summon Mrs. Ellen, who had arrived with Guildford’s servants and had been standing awestruck at the back of the room through it all, we graciously allowed Mrs. Tylney and Lady Throckmorton, each holding a branched candelabrum aloft to penetrate the gray gloom of the former nunnery, to lead the way upstairs.

 

Alone in Jane’s bedchamber, we undressed our sister, peeling off her gray gown and stripping her down to her sweat-stained shift. We guided her to sit upon the bed while I knelt and removed her shoes and stockings, and Kate divested her of her hood and unpinned her hair, dropping the pins into Mrs. Tylney’s waiting hand. Through it all, Jane sat wide-eyed and trembling, murmuring over and over, “I should not have accepted it, it is not my right, it is not my right, I should not have accepted it . . .”

After Mrs. Tylney had answered a knock upon the door and conveyed a message from Guildford that he would sleep apart from his wife tonight as he owed it to their subjects to look his best upon the morrow, we dismissed her, along with Lady Throckmorton and Mrs. Ellen, sending her to inform Berry and the Earl of Pembroke that Kate would bide a while with her sisters and they should return to Baynard’s Castle and not tarry for her sake.

We tucked our sister into bed and lay one each on either side of her, hugging her shivering body between ours. Though no words were uttered, I knew that in the face of the frightening enormity that Jane faced, like a knight alone against a great and fierce dragon, all had been forgiven. Jane squeezed Kate’s hand and willingly laid her head upon her shoulder, and Kate smiled as tears rolled down her face and pillowed her cheek against Jane’s hair, and I smiled too, thinking that it was like the sun showing its bright face through the rain and whatever happened we would weather this unexpected storm together—“the brilliant one,” “the beautiful one,” and “the beastly little one.”

T
he next morning found us all baking beneath the blazing July sun, squinting and shading our eyes against the brightness as spreading wet blossoms of sweat bloomed beneath the arms of our sumptuous new clothes. Slowly, in a grand yet sedate procession, we boarded the big gilded barge that would convey us to the Tower of London, where Jane and Guildford were to await their coronation. Behind us, other nobles swarmed onto their own barges, to form a flotilla that would accompany us. Not a breeze was blowing, and all the colorful gold and silver embroidered and fringed banners hung slack, limp and lifeless, as the trumpets blared seemingly with the sole purpose of deafening us. Oh what a sight we were! Sumptuous and sweaty, beautiful but bedraggled! When I remember us now, I don’t know whether to laugh or cry—we were both comical and magnificent.

Our lady-mother walked proudly behind Jane, like a golden galleon in full, majestic sail, hung with a fortune in diamonds and arrayed from head to toe in cloth-of-gold that the sun struck with blinding brilliance. Beside her, Father, in gold-embellished wine-colored velvet, reverently followed Guildford, holding up the hem of his long, ground-sweeping green-satin-lined white velvet cloak embroidered with golden crowns, yellow gillyflowers, and gold and silver lilies and roses.

Our lady-mother had insisted upon being the one to carry Jane’s heavy green and white velvet train, profusely embroidered with red and white Tudor roses and golden crowns, while my poor sister tottered along, reeling like a drunkard, balanced precariously upon the four-inch cork platform soles of the chopines we had strapped to her green velvet slippers at Northumberland’s insistence, to raise her diminutive form so that the people could see her better. She staggered and stretched out her hands before her like a blind woman trying to feel her way along as she boarded the barge and made her way to the purple velvet-carpeted dais where she was to stand, with Guildford, and their closest attendants, on display for the teeming multitudes thronging the muddy banks of the Thames. She took her place beside her husband, frowning deeply and tugging at “Cousin Mary’s bloody necklace.” Our lady-mother had herself fastened it around Jane’s neck, ignoring her complaints that it was too tight and bit painfully into her neck, just as she ignored Jane’s insistence that the green velvet headdress laden with jewels was too heavy and the pins stabbed her scalp like a multitude of tiny daggers. “One must suffer to be beautiful, Jane,” our lady-mother answered, slapping down the little white hands that tried to pluck out the pins she had only just put in.

Beside Jane, Guildford stood smiling and waving with restrained elegance at the crowd. Each golden curl was arranged to gleaming perfection, and his beautiful body was clad in gooseberry green hose that looked as though they had been painted on and a white velvet doublet embroidered with golden gillyflowers. While behind him, beside Father, stood a radiant, smiling Kate, the heir apparent until Jane bore her first child, arm in arm with her husband and father-in-law, beautiful in spring green velvet and cloth-of-silver, the emeralds they had given her blazing green fire on her throat, breast, fingers, and ears, and in her hair, its color a bold, flaming reminder of her Tudor heritage.

I peeked out from behind our lady-mother and smiled and waved at Kate, who nodded back at me and called, “You look
beautiful,
Mary!”

At first it had seemed very likely that I would be left behind, our lady-mother insisting that I would be mistaken for a fool, a jester, that my very presence would make a mockery of this momentous occasion, but Jane, exerting her will as Queen, announced that I would walk behind our lady-mother, and have the honor of carrying Jane’s black velvet bound prayer book—the one she was never without and most often wore hanging from a chain or cord about her waist—upon a white satin pillow. “You shall be the torchbearer of the
true
religion, the Reformed Faith, Mary!” Jane announced. And when our lady-mother continued her protests, Jane adamantly declared, “I shall not go without
both
my sisters!” Father set aside his comfit box, brushed away the sugar clinging to his chest, and said there was really no cause for concern since I would be dressed with such opulence no one could possibly mistake me for a fool unless they were one themselves.

So I walked proudly behind my sister, the scarlet-infused sable of my hair plaited with pearls beneath a deep green velvet hood edged with emeralds resting in nests of silver braid. I wore a gown of white satin embroidered with ornate flourishes of silver vines and leaves blooming with dainty flowers made of emeralds and pearls, and over it a loose, silver-braided green velvet surcoat flowing gracefully over my hunched and twisted spine. In my hands, like a sacred relic, I carried my sister’s prayer book lying stark black against a white pillow. Originally four long silk tassels dangled from each corner, but Jane, despite the appalled gasps of those surrounding us, ripped them off one by one, saying, “God’s truth needs no adornment!”

Behind me and Kate followed Northumberland, his wife, and their elegantly arrayed brood of sons and daughters, and the spouses of those already married. Only Amy, to my great dismay, was absent. When I dared pluck Robert Dudley’s cloak and timidly asked her whereabouts, he glared down at me from his haughty height and said she was in the country where she belonged and could not embarrass him or anyone who mattered. Then he turned away from me, barely managing to conceal the disgust in his dark eyes, directed both at me and the absent Amy, whose very existence by then was enough to kindle her husband’s anger. The Dudleys were trailed by the gentlemen of the Council in their long black velvet robes, white neck ruffs, and gold chains of office, the highborn lords and ladies who had been appointed to serve the royal family, and dozens of servants in the royal Tudor green and white livery and the Dudleys’ blue velvet emblazoned with their proud emblem of a bear clutching a ragged staff.

As we set sail, I noticed that the people who thronged the riverbanks were very glum and silent. None of them waved or cheered. There were a couple of lackluster cries of “God save her!” as though they were praying for Jane’s deliverance from a cruel fate, not celebrating her ascension to England’s throne. The truth was they didn’t know Jane; she was a stranger to them, unlike Princesses Mary and Elizabeth, whom they had watched grow up and come to love. They distrusted Jane; they saw her, and, given the circumstances, with good reason, as Northumberland’s puppet, a tool to set his own son upon the throne.

“They don’t seem very happy,” Jane worriedly observed.

“Nonsense!” Guildford scoffed. “They are simply awestruck by my beauty—I mean our beauty”—he laid a hand on Jane’s arm which she contemptuously jerked away—“and my majestic presence, which, with a little effort I am sure you will, my queen, acquire in time. King Edward was a poor, scrawny lad, a pale, puny weakling,” he continued. “And, though accounted a most handsome man in his youth, his sire, Henry VIII, was a hideous, monstrous mountain of bloated, rotting flesh, and bald as an egg beneath his cap too. I’ve heard it said that three goodly sized men could fit inside one of his doublets. But
we
”—Guildford smiled—“are young and beautiful! Look!” He waved a hand out to encompass the mute and scowling masses. “Some of them are weeping from the sheer joy of beholding me—I mean us. Thank you, my good people, thank you, your tears are more eloquent testament of your adoration than your words could ever be!” he called out to them and blew them a single kiss.

“You idiot, you addle-pated ninny, they
hate
us!” Jane snapped. “You can’t even see it; you’re so besotted with your own beauty! You empty-headed nincompoop! I
hate
you!”

“My dear wife,” Guildford said, favoring her with an indulgent smile. “I am not so empty-headed that it has escaped my notice that you have just admitted that you find me beautiful, even though you tried to hide it amidst a volley of insults. There is too much passion in your hate for me to be deceived and not see through it to what it really is—you love me and you know it. Everyone does; I’m very lovable! You shouldn’t be ashamed, you know, I am your husband, so it is quite all right, even expected, for you to love and adore me like the sun that lights up your dreary little life. Besides, many find me beautiful, and how could so many people possibly be wrong? Now smile and wave at our people, Jane, smile and wave!” he coaxed, lifting her limp hand by the wrist and waggling it in the air. “That’s it! You’re doing splendidly!
Smile!
I said
smile,
not pout and puff out your cheeks like you have a toothache. And no glowering at me as though your eyes were daggers you want to bury deep in my heart, when we all know it’s my fleshly dagger you want buried deep inside you instead. But you won’t admit it, not even to yourself. You’re frightened by your desires and fighting to deny them, but ’tis a losing battle, and your love, and lust, for me shall in time be the victor. It’s inevitable—I’m irresistible! Now
smile
and wave! Watch me and try to be as wonderful as I am. Smile and wave! Smile and wave!”

“You’re wonderfully
dreadful!
Pompous, conceited, vain, and I hate you!” Jane retorted, stamping her foot and nearly falling, grimacing as she twisted her ankle in her unaccustomed chopines.

“Wonderfully
desirable,
you mean, Jane,” Guildford calmly corrected as he caught her arm to help steady her. “Look out there, my wife”—he swept a hand over the silent crowds thronging the riverbanks—“there stand our subjects, and every one of them wishes they could make love to me; I can tell by their smoldering eyes and silent, reverential awe. Not everyone who wants me makes so bold as to tell me so; some of them are shy, but I can
always
tell. When you’re as beautiful as I am, you become accustomed to being the unattainable object of desire to so many people; why, I couldn’t even begin to count them even if I wanted to try! How they envy you to have me in your bed! That is what each and every one of them is thinking, you’ve incited the envy of all London, you lucky girl!”

Jane just glowered at Guildford and tried to pull her hand away. But, despite his seemingly delicate beauty, he maintained a masterful grip upon her wrist, forcing her limp hand to flutter up and down, until the barge reached the Tower just as a deafening hundred-gun salute was fired to welcome them.

“I hate you!”
Jane hissed when he finally released her wrist. “I’ll hate you until I die!”

“Methinks the lady doth protest too much!” Guildford simpered to his brothers, who snickered and nodded.

“I’ll hate, detest, deplore, and despise you until you die!” Jane stamped her cumbersome cork-soled feet and screeched like one of the cantankerous, old women who sold fish in the marketplace, heedless of our lady-mother’s swiftly delivered pinch and hissed reminder that such undignified behavior did not become a queen.

“Then you’ll cry when you realize how much you love and miss me,” Guildford serenely surmised to the tune of his brothers’ encouraging laughter.

“Hmp!” Jane snorted and, gathering up her full skirts and thrusting her nose disdainfully high in the air, started past him. Her indignant exit however was ruined when her chopines threw her off balance and she began to fall. But Guildford acted quickly; he caught and swept her up into his arms, and, as all those aboard the barge gave a hearty cheer, he carried her ashore and through the Tower gates.

After Northumberland stepped forward and most presumptuously accepted the keys to the Tower, which were always given to the new monarch upon their arrival, Sir John Bridges, the Lieutenant of the Tower, smiling back over his shoulder at Jane and Guildford from time to time, thinking them no doubt a pretty and playful pair of young lovers, began leading the way to the White Tower, where the royal apartments were. Kate giggled and snatched a basket of rose petals that had been intended to carpet the ground the new king and queen would walk upon from a startled page boy and rushed after them, flinging handfuls of red and white petals in the air so that they wafted down in a perfumed rain over Guildford and Jane.

“Do stop it, Kate!” Jane snapped over Guildford’s shoulder. “You’re wasting perfectly good rose petals that could be made into cough syrup!”

“To give to the poor no doubt, pardon me, my bride, the
Protestant
poor,” Guildford jibed. “
Not
the Papists for we
loathe
them and do not want to ease their coughs and sore throats, better that they should die and burn in Hell. Is that not an apt assessment of your way of thinking, my love?”

“It’s no laughing matter! It is our Christian duty to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, and give drink to the thirsty! But unless they mend their ways and turn their back upon the Roman Church, they deserve to be damned and burn for all eternity!” Jane retorted heatedly, shaking her head hard to dislodge the shower of petals that had just landed there courtesy of Kate.

“You put covering nakedness before quenching thirst,” Guildford observed. “How interesting! I’m rather surprised you didn’t put it before appeasing hunger as well. After all, we don’t want people falling on their food like naked savages, do we? No, far better that they should be clothed first before they even think of food and drink. Is that not so, my queen? You see, I am endeavoring to understand how you think. I do everything else so well, I should hate to think that I would fail to be a good husband.”

“It is not a jest!” Jane cried, looking as though she was about to burst into tears.

Guildford heaved an exaggeratedly languid sigh. “Life is a joke, Jane. Better to laugh through it than to cry! Don’t you think I know that everyone laughs at me? But what they don’t know is that
I
laugh
first!
”

Just for a moment, as I waddled along, struggling to keep up and not let Jane’s black velvet prayer book slide off the slick white satin cushion, I thought I saw the ghost of sadness in Guildford’s eyes, but it flitted past so tantalizingly swift, I was never
really
sure, though in my heart I always felt certain that I had in that moment caught a glimpse of Guildford Dudley’s soul. But whatever it was, he shrugged it off and laughed and Kate gave a joyous whoop and flung another handful of rose petals over their heads.