Gilt (15 page)

I recalled her saying this before.

“Who is it?” I had hoped she would give up her matchmaking. “It’s not some lame, old, fat man, I hope.”

As one, the Coven sucked in a breath, drawing all the air from the room.

Cat stared at me, dumbstruck. She hesitated for a fraction of a moment and recovered herself, a blush barely touching her cheeks. Mine flamed in response. The old joke struck too close to home.

“No, Kitty,” she said. “Nothing like that.”

“I’m sorry—” I began.

“No need for apologies.”

But I saw there was a need. Cat went back to her tiny stitches. Her forehead puckered and she bent closer to the fine fabric. The bitterness of anger radiated from her.

“The king told me how much he misses her attention to detail,” she said. “The first Queen Catherine. She made all his shirts. Even after he tried to divorce her.”

I didn’t have time to respond, because Alice and Joan dashed into the room together, setting the Coven to clucking.

“Cat, you’ll never guess what,” Joan said, flouncing to the floor at Cat’s feet.

“A ghost from your past.” Alice spoke over her, rushing to get the news out first, and tripped over her own skirts, almost landing in my lap.

Joan giggled. But Cat threw her sewing to the floor and stood, eyes sparking dangerously.

“Do you not make obeisance to your queen?” she asked.

“Of course.” Alice curtseyed and Joan leapt to do the same. Cat let them stay down longer than absolutely necessary before she sat again and motioned for them to rise.

“And don’t call me Cat. The king thinks it sounds too harsh and feral. He prefers
Catherine
. Or better yet, Your Majesty.”

“Yes, Your Majesty,” they said in unison, curtseying again.

“Much better. Now what is your news? You mention a ghost, but there is nothing in my past that could possibly haunt me.”

Her voice remained calm, but the pointedness of the words drove them home.

Joan bit her lip and glanced at Alice.

“It’s nothing, really,” Alice said, the wind of her gossip removed from her sails.

“It’s obviously not nothing, Alice,” Cat retorted.

“It’s Mary Lascelles.”

Cat’s hands stilled in her lap. “Mary Lascelles?”

“Yes, she was once chamberer to the duchess,” Alice said.

“And now she has petitioned to be a member of your household here,” Joan added, still slightly aglow with the news. “She was sent by her brother.”

“A horrible man,” Alice said. “Apparently she gets her holier-
than-thou attitude from him. He considers it his duty to infect all society with saintliness.”

“Well, we shall have none of that.” Cat managed a weak air of mischief. “Make sure she is sent away promptly.”

I released a breath I hadn’t known I held. Cat’s temper had lit like straw but extinguished quickly. And it would be easy enough to rid herself of the tattling Mary Lascelles.

“And empty handed,” I added.

“No,” Cat said, stopping Alice before she carried the message. “Send her home to her brother with a chamber pot. For old times’ sake.”

Fools find their own misery.

I
N
D
ECEMBER, THE COURT MOVED EN MASSE TO
H
AMPTON
C
OURT
Palace. Built by Cardinal Wolsey, sacrificed to the king, it sprawled along the banks of the Thames, blocked out in lines and angles, squared against the semicircular curve of the river. The turrets and gates, the buildings and towers glowed in the winter sun, embellished with red and white and gold. I had lived half my life across the river from a royal palace, and spent two months in another, but had never seen anything so majestic.

It seemed the entire country came with us, preparing for the Christmas season. Parties and banquets were never-ending and the rooms and halls and galleries perpetually rang with music and laughter, the pounding of feet, the whispers of expensive fabric and the rattle of gold and pearls.

Cat’s true raison d’être as queen was to fill the court with as much pleasure as possible, planning a seemingly endless succession of feasting and dancing. Former queens had helped the poor, changed the king’s views on religion, or begged for mercy for rebellious commoners. Cat enabled him, in his decrepit old age, to enjoy life again.

She dressed in a new gown every day, discarding them just
as she had said she would. She pushed her ladies to do the same, bringing some to the brink of bankruptcy. Queen Jane had insisted every lady dress modestly, her control reaching all the way to the number of pearls on a bodice. Queen Catherine Howard insisted that they dress for a party every day. That every lady at court wear a French hood, eradicating the ugly gable. And that everyone make merry. Or at least give the impression of it.

Christmas hit us like a snowstorm, and Cat was deluged by a blizzard of gifts, including a brilliant brooch, glittering with diamonds and rubies, edged with pearls. Cat counted them all.

“Thirty-three diamonds,” she declared. “And sixty rubies.”

And a sable muffler edged with rubies and pearls. And a square gold brooch containing twenty-seven table diamonds. And hoods of velvet and cuffs of fur and goblets and plates of gold. Enough to make the faint-hearted edgy and unnerved, but Cat accepted it all and asked for more.

On Twelfth Night, she received a collar fashioned from links of gold and enameled Tudor roses, flashing at the throat with diamonds arranged to form the letter
C
.

“You finally got your name in jewels,” I said, lifting it to help her put it on. Remembering her threat to steal the duchess’s
A
long before.

Cat pulled the collar from my hands and studied it.

“Do you know what the ancients believed?” she asked. “That diamonds are supposed to shine brightly before the innocent
and darken in the face of guilt. I wonder if the king is testing me.”

“That’s a myth, Cat,” I said, reaching again to fix the jewels around her neck. “Diamonds symbolize constancy. Fidelity. Commitment. It’s a beautiful gift. And one you deserve.”

“It’s not enough. He doesn’t give me what I really want.”

“What do you want?” What more could she possibly ask for?

“I want him to have me crowned!”

“He will.”

“He never crowned her,” she said. “Anne of Cleves.”

“You told me he knew from the beginning he would get rid of her.”

“That’s what I mean!” She turned on me, speaking urgently. “If only he had me crowned, I would feel secure. I would never need or want another thing.”

“He loves you, Cat,” I said. More than that. He thought the sun shone out of her. “Why are you so concerned about this?”

“Because my entire family is breathing down my neck about it!” she cried. “Every twenty seconds the duchess mentions it or my stepmother makes a pointed comment or the duke is whispering in my ear about it.”

“The duke is here?” I asked. I hadn’t seen him, so rushed was I with Cat’s preparations. But if the duke was in attendance, William might be, too. I hadn’t seen him for three months.

“Of course he is,” Cat snapped. “The whole world is here.”

I hurried to finish getting her ready, suddenly desperate to get away. My fingers faltered and I held my breath, hoping
she wouldn’t mock my desire to see William. Or, God forbid, remember her pledge to find me someone else.

“All they ever want is more, more, more,” she said, oblivious. “As if I haven’t given them enough already. Every wretched member of the family has a position at court. Everyone I know wants a piece of me. A piece of what I have. What a bunch of leeches.”

“I suppose it’s because court is the place to be,” I said quietly.

“Oh, Kitty!” Cat threw her new jeweled brooch with its thirty-three diamonds and sixty rubies onto the bed and grabbed both of my hands. “I didn’t mean you! You and I will always be Cat and Kitty.”

She threw her arms around me in a hug like someone drowning. “No matter what, don’t ever leave me. Promise me that.”

My thoughts ran briefly to William. To a place in the country. To quiet and forest and open spaces.

“I need you, Kitty,” Cat whispered.

“I know, Cat,” I said. “I promise.”

A
S A CHAMBERER
, I
WAS NOT INVITED TO THE FESTIVITIES, MUCH TO
the delight of the Coven. They swept past me in the gallery that separated Cat’s apartments from the king’s, clucking and warbling, with barely a glance in my direction.

The gallery, empty of people, filled with shadows cast by the swiftly setting sun and the lowering fire that barely warmed the queen’s audience chamber. Instead of following the gallery to the king’s processional route, past the chapel and down to the great hall, I took the back galleries, through the rapidly emptying rooms, down to the clock court.

I craned my neck to look up at the carvings inside the gateway, brilliant yellow, white and red even in the dim light. Tudor roses proclaimed their dominance. More subtly, the paint beginning to age, the letters H and A entwined. HA HA. Painted for Anne Boleyn. Ha, ha, indeed. I slipped out from under those ill-omened designs to view the windows of the great hall.

I felt rather than heard the rumble of six hundred voices. Imagined the riot of color of everyone’s finery. The aching beauty of the tapestries on the walls and the gilded ceiling. The
smell of sweat and smoke and roasted flesh, the cacophony of overindulgence and exaggerated laughter.

“Wishing you were inside?”

I turned to see William striding across the courtyard. The sight of him stilled me and set my heart to racing all at once. He broke into a run and caught me before I could move to meet him. His arms around me felt like a blanket made of daylight—bright and solid and safe.

“Hmmm,” I said, my cheek pressed against his shoulder. “A crowded hall where everyone ignores me or some time alone with you? Difficult decision.”

“I’ll wait while you make it,” he said. He stepped away from me, hands behind his back as if at attention, waiting for orders.

“Perhaps I’ll just see what they’re serving.” I turned as if to go, laughing.

“You can’t get away that easily.” He pulled me back and kissed me lightly. I closed my eyes and felt his lips on mine, his breath a sigh within me, his touch dancing between imagination and reality. The entire length of him fit with me perfectly.

“I’d never try,” I murmured against his lips.

With unspoken agreement, we turned and walked beneath the king’s great clock that tolled the hour and described the minutes, seconds, and phases of the moon. It displayed the astrological constellations and even predicted the running of the tides. Gold and blue, larger than the windows, it gleamed like a beacon of the enlightened prince who ran the country.

William held my hand, his thumb tracing circles around my knuckles as we walked without the need for words through the base court, beneath the empty eyes of the royal apartments and the rooms of the courtiers housed there, through the final gate and out into the garden and down to the Thames, flowing cold beneath the first glittering star of the evening. And I finally felt, for the first time in my life, that I belonged.

William stopped above the riverbank and drew his cloak around us both. Motionless, we watched the darkness fall.

“The duke is to be sent to Scotland,” William said after a sudden breath. He wouldn’t meet my eye. The Scottish borders were the very edge of civilization. The Scots were constantly encroaching, pillaging in violent disputes over land and authority. The Borders were dangerous. And very far away.

“Do you have to go with him?” I tried to keep my voice light, almost a tease. But the pain leaked through.

“I depend on him,” William said quietly. “Not just for my livelihood but for my reputation. I may not agree with him. But I have to do as he asks.”

“And what I want doesn’t matter?” The words were out before I could stop them.

His body went rigid and he pulled away. He ran his fingers down my arms and clasped my hands in his, but when he looked at me, his face was cast in shadow.