Raven Queen (12 page)

It has happened! And I am only able to bear it because her worst fear has not come true. She has not married the King.

The Lady Mary mistakes my sad face for fatigue. A servant shows me to a bedchamber flooded with sunlight and I lie there until summer thunder rolls across the horizon.

I rouse myself when I hear the bell for Mass and the ecstasy of it eases my agony. Although King Edward allows Mary to say the Catholic Mass, it is only on condition that she goes to chapel alone. But now she ignores this. I fall to my knees and pray as I have never prayed before. I breathe in the incense as deeply as I drink ale and it goes straight to my head. But at each moment of the Mass, when the bread is raised, when the wine is raised, I see Jane’s face – slender with flashing eyes – and her glorious hair.

Then I know that although I can live without an outward show of my faith, I cannot live without her.

Jane Dudley.

I tried out the name, trembling. I still could not believe it would happen to me. I glanced at myself in the looking glass before we left for Durham House. My bridal gown was clever. Its golden embroidery made me look tall and graceful. Pearls glinted in my hair, but my face was dazed and dull.

Our wedding barge was the most beautiful thing on the river that day. Early roses strewed its golden canopy and ivy curled around the poles that supported it. I trailed my fingers in the water and thought of Ned and his duckweed spattered chest, thought of the dangling catkin part of him and shivered. I hoped that Ellie was right. She said that Guildford and I would not live together as man and wife, not until my father-in-law decided.

I did not look at Guildford when the marriage ceremony began. Then thin shafts of light shone down on us like the bars of a cage and they grew thicker, suffocating and sinister. I felt their pressure against my spine and my head and I wanted to push them back. When the sun went in, they disappeared.

For the first time, I realized that Guildford was caught in a trap as much as I was. What dreams did
he
have? I turned to look at him. His profile was strong because his nose was high-bridged. I smiled. He turned and caught my smile, surprised and smiled back, a smile that softened his sulky lips. I could not love him, but I could pity him.

I hardly noticed the feasting and music and fireworks. I only relaxed when it was over, when my parents took me home. Ellie was right.

But fear wore me down. When would I have to lie with Guildford? When that happened, I would truly be his wife and there would be no going back. The hollows of my cheeks deepened and I saw the bones on my wrist sharpen and at night I bit constantly into my flesh. I became the thin and worried girl that Ned had first known. I liked it that way – no reminder of my recent happiness.

Ellie was instructed to keep me healthy, if not happy. She gave me strengthening herbs by day and passionflower to send me to sleep at night.

The June days were sultry and thunder threatened every evening. Then it began to rain. The Thames washed over our water steps, foaming like spittle, and at night, the wind shrieked around the house trying to force its way through closed windows. I put my hands over my ears to shut out its howling.

On the sixth day of July, the sky darkened early and the wind suddenly stopped. Lightning streaked the river horizon lighting up the red hailstones that clattered against my window.

It seemed like the end of the world – and it was the end of my life as a child. Towards ten o’clock, I heard voices downstairs and I peered into the hallway.

Guildford stood behind his mother.

“Pasty little thing,” she was saying. “She will never bear sons as I have, Guildford. That is what comes of marrying somebody who prefers God to people. All that learning has been bad for her. Fresh air, good hunting and red meat – that is what she needs.”

Her words did not upset me. Such words hurt only when they are spoken by those we respect and I did not respect my mother-in-law. But they disturbed me for a few seconds, in the way an insect does when it settles on your skin.

I returned to my bedchamber, my mouth dry with anxiety. Ellie tried to rock me, her forehead crinkled with worry, but I stopped her. “You need not treat me like a child, Ellie,” I said. “I know why they are here. I shall do my duty as Guildford will have to do his. I fear the blood rather than his body.”

Hair brushed and threaded with pearls. Robed in a silken gown. Skin scented with rose-water.

I was alone with Guildford.

His hands were trembling as he stood like a helpless child and I wondered if – at the age of almost seventeen – he had ever undressed himself.

“We have no choice, Guildford,” I said. “It is better to do our duty and then it is finished. There will be no need for you to come to my bed again.”

Yes, he is caught in this trap just like me, I thought.

But his reply crushed my compassion. “Where is your little Catholic boy now?” he asked.

Guildford and I became husband and wife in a few fumbling moments during which neither of us spoke. There was nothing to say. As he lay with me, I imagined that I lay with Ned and I bit deep into my arm, and that was the only blood I saw.

The sun shone the next morning, although the stench of damp river mud sickened me. There was talk of little else except the Great Storm. The flood had drowned people sleeping by the river. Lightning had struck the steeple of the first church in London to hold a Protestant service. And a baby had been born with two heads. One Protestant, one Catholic, people said. But in truth they were just two babies joined at the waist, for they also had four feet between them.

I curled up on the window seat overlooking the river. I had given little thought to the night before. For me it had been another tiresome duty like curtsying and kneeling.

Sun streaked the sky, lighting up a barge at the water steps. When it was steady, a woman climbed out.

It was Mary Dudley, Guildford’s sister.

She wore a short fur cape and jewels around her neck and wrists. Too splendid for so early, I thought.

What was
she
doing here?

I called out to Ellie, “Send her away.”

“She will have come to find out if your marriage has been consummated.”

“It is none of her business. Tell her that I am unwell.”

As I spoke, I heard footsteps on the stairs and Mary Dudley walked straight into my bedchamber. I shrank back against the wall. “What do you want?” I asked. I did not curtsy.

She smiled at me, a forced smile that did not suit the severity of her face. “You are to come with me to Syon House, Jane.”

Syon House was the Dudleys’ country home, a few miles along the Thames.

“I cannot go,” I replied. “I am unwell.”

She smiled again, just long enough for us both to remember what had happened the night before. I flushed, angry. She put her hand on my arm. “You must come now. My father has sent me to bring you.”

“Are you forcing me?” I pushed away her hand. “Have you brought guards with you? I shall tell
my
father.”

“Your father and your mother are already there.” She paused. “And so is Guildford, with my parents. There is nothing to fear, sister.”

“That is what people say when they are hiding something,” I replied. “I shall not come.”

Mary towered above us both. “You have not understood me, Jane.” She took hold of my face and turned it to her, hurting my skin. “My father has
ordered
you to come.” She nodded at Ellie. “Bring the robe she wore on the evening of her wedding. Quickly!”

I always know when I am beaten, when it is time to give in. Just like the hunt, I allowed myself to be dressed. Mary Dudley did not leave my bedchamber as I stood to be robed. She supervised everything, glancing at my thin chest, at the faint scars on my arms.

Syon House is two hours’ journey by barge. But the prettiness of the river journey could not console me that morning. There are some moments in your life you never forget as long as you live because they are so full of terror. This was one of them.

I sank back against the cushions and pretended to sleep. Mary Dudley let me, supposing, I imagine, that I was exhausted after my wifely duties. When Ellie touched my arm, I opened my eyes and saw the water steps of a large white house on the north bank. We climbed from the barge and made our way to the deserted entrance.

My father-in-law was waiting for us. He led me quickly to the Chamber of State, towards the throne on a dais where my parents were standing with Guildford. As we passed by, the men bowed and the women curtsied.

Dudley raised his hand for silence. “As President of the King’s Council, I now do declare the death of his most blessed and gracious majesty, King Edward the Sixth, on the sixth day of this month.”

My poor cousin! I was not surprised. I remembered his frail body, his gaunt face looking down from the gallery at Christmastide. Tears glazed my cheeks, but I held back my sobs. A thought came to me. The King had died on the day of the red hailstones. Why had we not been told then? And during the time that Guildford was in my bed, the King had lain cold in his.

Now I understood. I looked around the chamber for the Lady Mary. My body relaxed a little. That was why I had to put on my finest robe: to meet my new Queen.

But I could not see her.

Suddenly, my father-in-law was standing right in front of me. His voice, as sharp as a whiplash, forced me to stare up at his cruel mouth. “Before his death, the King prayed to God to defend his kingdom from the rule of his bastard sisters, Mary and Elizabeth.” He bowed so low that his head almost touched my hands. Then he stood straight, his face solemn. “The heir to the throne is by right your mother, the Duchess of Suffolk, the niece of Henry the Eighth. She has stood down in your favour. Before his death, King Edward named you, Lady Jane Dudley, heir to the crown of England.” He turned towards the room. “Long live Queen Jane!
Vivat Regina!
”

My legs weakened. John Dudley had trapped me. I was his path to power. How skilfully he had hunted me – so skilfully that I had not even known. He had brought me to the place I had always feared most – the throne of England. I touched my neck, felt the blood beating wildly there.
How many blows of the axe would it take to kill me?

“The crown should not belong to me!” I cried. “I do not want it. The Lady Mary is the rightful Queen.”

A murmur of disapproval rippled through the room. I did not know what to do. In truth I wanted to hide behind the throne and put my hands over my eyes as I did when I was a child, thinking that nobody could see me.

“Do your duty, daughter!” my father shouted. Guildford stroked my arm. “I am here,” he said. “Let me help you.”

“I pitied you,” I whispered, “but you have deceived me, too.”

I turned to none of them – only to God in my fear. I knelt and prayed out aloud, “Dear God, please tell me what to do.” There was no answer. “If you are there, God, help me.
Please
.” No answer.

So I sat on the throne of England.

Jana Regina.

A shrieking comes through the open windows of my bedchamber, so awful that it chills me to the bone. I am already awake. Horsemen have ridden in through the night and I lie wondering what news they have brought.

I run downstairs. The Lady Mary is sitting by the fire, her body racked by sobs. Suddenly she stops and laughs out loud. “All my life I have waited to bring this country back to the old faith!” she cries. Now her face is hard with hate. “
She
has taken it all from me. My own cousin.” She turns and sees me standing there, open-mouthed. “I could have
you
killed now. Why should I not kill you? That is what I am asking myself,
pequenito
.”

“What have I done, madam?”

“The most fervent Protestant in England sends you to me and
voilà
, now she is Queen, in my place. Do you understand, Ned?
In my place!
”

Sweat pours down my back. I want to be sick. “
Queen?
I do not understand! To be Queen, she would have had to marry your brother,” I mutter, more to myself than to her. But the Lady Mary is used to catching whispers in the shadows.