Rivals in the Tudor Court (16 page)

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Authors: D. L. Bogdan

BOOK: Rivals in the Tudor Court
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In the spring of 1517, the sweating sickness comes to London.
The court removes to Richmond while Elizabeth and I take to Hunsdon with the children. It is all I can do to preserve their lives. Our staff is limited; those showing signs of the illness are discharged and kept in isolation.
I cannot count how many perish. The cheery sounds of the farmers in their cottages are silenced. Mass graves are dug; the bodies pile up, tumbling upon one another until they are at last enfolded in the soil, a nameless, unmarked place of horror.
When our little Edward first takes ill, I know I am in Hell.
There is naught to be done for him. Elizabeth and the baby she carries are kept away. It is too great a risk allowing her near. I tend him myself, caring not for my life. It seems my fate to survive anything.
I try my best to keep him awake—they say if the victim is kept awake, he has a greater chance of recovery. The little one shivers with cold, then becomes slick with burning sweat, crying the urgent, desperate sobs of a baby in pain. He is too little to tell me what hurts. I wrap him up tight, rocking him, singing softly until the tune becomes nothing but strangled whimpers in the back of my own throat.
He loses consciousness; his little head lolls against my chest. “Don't go to sleep! Please wake up, Edward!” I demand. “Please!”
It is to no avail.
The child is dead within four hours of the illness's onset.
Elizabeth Howard
Thomas does not tell me of our son's death until after he is buried.
“I didn't want you put at risk,” he tells me from across the room.
I am sewing in my chambers, my fingers bleeding from countless pricks of the needle. There is a strange release to be found in the pain.
I do not even look up. “How could you?” I whisper. “I sent messengers. None would be admitted by you. You couldn't even send word by messenger?”
“They could have exposed you! And if not? Say I did send word through a messenger, what would you have done? Could I have you running to us in your condition? Cathy is still here. She needs a mother.” His voice is high pitched with fervor. “Good God, girl, think in reality!”
“Yes,” I acquiesce. “Reality. What choice is there?” At last I behold him. He stands by the door unshaven, his clothes soiled, his eyes wild. My heart stirs. There is no use continuing in this vein. Reality . . . God, how cruel is reality. “Oh, Thomas . . .” I push my sewing off my lap, turning tear-filled eyes to my husband. “I did not think it would happen to us. I know I may sound ignorant and naïve. Perhaps God is cursing me for my pride. Now little Edward is gone. . . .” I shake my head in anguished bewilderment. “Edward is gone and I cannot begin to understand why.”
I rise to move toward him. He holds up a hand, stopping me. “Don't. Please don't. There is nothing we can do. The boy received a proper burial. When the threat has passed, I will permit you to visit his grave.” He bites his lip, closing his eyes, drawing in a deep breath through his nose. “I am leaving for a while,” he announces. “I—have business to attend to.”
“Thomas!” I cry, sinking to my knees.
He stares at me, his face reflecting my own sense of God's betrayal.
“Please hold me!” I beg, reaching out my arms.
Thomas shakes his head, tears spilling onto his cheeks. “I must go . . .” he whispers. “I—I must go,” he says again.
Long after he departs I remain huddled on the floor in a heap of confusion and despair, my arms reaching out for a man who is not there.
Thomas Howard
There is no business to attend to, only that I must escape Hunsdon and Edward's fresh grave and my wife's pitiful grief. It is her first loss, I must remember. I must be patient. Surely God is predictable enough for me to realize that He will assure us more. Elizabeth will no doubt grow as accustomed to habitual grief as I am.
But am I? Oh, God, holding that little baby, knowing I could not save him, just as I could not save any of the others.
There is only one place to go.
I visit the tomb of Lady Anne Plantagenet. My princess.
There, alone beneath a mockingly sunny sky, I kneel, reaching my hand out to caress her cool stone effigy. My tears fall unchecked.
“Princess . . .” I whisper, feeling a proper fool. “I beg you hear me. I am lost. I—should be beside my wife, I know that. But I can't bear it. I feel as though she does not deserve to grieve as I do! And I know that is wrong! Please help me. I do not know how much more I can stand. . . . How much more can I lose before I lose myself?” I shake my head, then lean it against the stone, giving into the need to sob.
It is a fool's hobby, this talking to graves. I rise in anger, cursing my idiotic fancies. Wherever the princess is, it is too far away. She cannot hear me. She cannot help me.
No one can.
There is naught to do but return to Hunsdon and anticipate the birth of yet another child. I almost wish they'd succumb to the sweating sickness in my absence so that I might be prevented from losing them to something else in the future.
It seems my only certainty: transience. Loss.
“She will not eat,” Elizabeth's maid informs me upon my return. “The poor child is mad with grief. Her cries are heard the manor throughout.”
“Give me something to bring her,” I order and upon the delivery of a tray of cheese and warm bread, I draw in a shuddering breath, urging myself to be patient as I approach her chambers.
The girl is curled up in bed, her shoulders shaking in silent sobs. I set the tray on her breakfast table, then sit beside her, reaching out a hesitant hand to touch her shoulder.
“Come now,” I say in gentle tones laced with exhaustion. “This won't do.” I do not know what to say by way of comfort. “This won't do at all. What of this next baby? What will happen if you do not eat? It could be our next heir, you know. Its life must be preserved.”
“Yes.” Elizabeth's voice is bitter as she sits up, rubbing her swollen eyes. “If only for that. Not because it is our child that we are bound to love.”
“It is a dangerous thing, you know, getting so wrapped up in them,” I tell her, recalling my mother's words upon the birth of my ill-fated sister Alyss. “Their lives are too fragile. I should say the only thing more fragile is our own hearts.” I close my eyes, my chest seized with the pain of this most recent loss. My advice, as cold as it is, is practical and Elizabeth is a practical woman if nothing else. After sifting through the emotions females are more prone to, she will make sense of it, I am sure. I continue. “It is best to leave the daily maintenance to the nurses.”
Elizabeth stares at me in horror. “Yes, of course. Leave them with the nurses so that they can be the ones to grieve! Heirs and pawns, that's all they are to you, aren't they?”
“That is all they can be,” I tell her. “Or else I think we should die of heartbreak.”
Elizabeth dissolves into tears, clutching her belly. “Oh, Thomas, why? Why must it be this way?”
There is naught to say to this, so I take her in my arms. “Come now, my girl. Eat. Please eat. This next Howard deserves a fair go of it.”
Elizabeth offers a small nod and I fetch the tray. As I do so, I notice the door of her chambers standing ajar, just enough for a little face to be peering through.
Cathy stands, shifting from foot to foot, her large blue eyes filled with tears. How long she was there and how much she heard I have no idea.
“Is my lady mother going to get better?” she asks in her little-girl voice.
Tears clutch my throat. “Of course she is,” I tell her. “Come in, little one. Come in and share our meal, won't you?”
Cathy inches forward, reaching out a tentative hand for a piece of bread. She eyes me with caution, then profound sadness. It is then I realize she knows; she heard it all.
She says nothing but sits across from us, the proper lady, taking small bites of bread, shifting her gaze between her mother and me as though we are potential enemies requiring close scrutiny.
So young to be aware of the workings of this world.
Elizabeth Howard
I do not know why I'm so tired. The labor was an easy one; little Henry arrived within ten hours of the onset of the pains. I recover well enough. My figure is as fine as it ever was. But I have no energy. The baby, as beautiful as the others, resembles his father with the long Howard nose and narrow face, but I experience none of the urgent longing for him that I did for little Cathy and Edward.
I do not know if it is my husband's well-intended words of caution that have turned my heart so cold or if it is my own new perspective, altered by this very unwelcome experience. I think of the queen and all her losses. If one loss is as painful as to cause me to lie abed sobbing for hours or to pace the manor without aim, then how must it be for her? How must it be for Thomas? There is no doubt that is what makes him who he is. How much better is my understanding of it all now? No wonder he cautions me to rein in my love.
Yet how can I? How can I not?
Sometimes I think were it not for these children I should take my own life. In this I am different from Thomas and the queen. Thomas is a man; he has all of the occupations of his sex to distract him, a government to participate in, goals and challenges to be met, wars to fight. The queen has a kingdom to be obligated to; she must press on. But a lowly woman with no kingdom and no battle but the daily one of living has nothing. Nothing but her children.
So I must live. I must press on, as Thomas urges. If only for them.
The pain may lessen. Others who have lost say it does. But I cannot imagine how or when or sometimes if I even want it to. To smile at one of Cathy's or Henry's antics grips my heart with agonizing guilt. Should one in mourning feel happiness? Is it tantamount to dismissing the gravity of the event?
I distance myself. It is almost against my will, as though it is something my body and mind are forced to do in order to survive. I watch the children from afar. Cathy handles herself well; she is the perfect little lady. Everything that is expected of her is mastered and performed. She minds her nurses and tutors, is a competent dancer and embroiderer.
“She is just as smart as a girl should be,” Thomas always says of our eldest child.
Henry is precocious and bright. He is talking in small sentences at one year and shows himself to be a loving, if not high-minded boy.
“I wonder where he gets that,” Thomas teases when the trait is noted.
“Yes, we all know how sweet and docile you are,” I remind him with a slight laugh. I am able to laugh a little more now. Perhaps it is because I am with child again and, despite whatever pain seems to pursue me, I love being pregnant.
The queen is great with child as well. The little princess has been betrothed to the dauphin of France, which seems to solidify our at times unstable alliance with that overindulgent lot. With that union secured, it has become the kingdom's foremost obligation to pray for the birth of a healthy prince.
I believe few pray harder than I, save perhaps the queen's dearest friend, Maria de Salinas. What a triumph it would be for Her Grace to give the kingdom its longed-for prince at last!
But no amount of our humble prayers can bring it forth. In November the queen delivers her sixth child, a baby girl who dies before she could even be christened.
“Oh, my poor dear lady!” I lament to Thomas, clutching his hand as I learn the news at Hunsdon. Against my will, selfish thoughts permeate my awareness, fears for the life so new in my own womb. I curse myself for thinking of myself before the queen but cannot seem to stop. I cup the slight mound of my belly, tears streaming down my cheeks. “Six babes and only one to survive thus far! When does it end?”
My husband pauses. “She has asked us to come to court,” he says at last, disengaging his hand and moving toward the window. He stares out at the swans in the pond but does not seem to see them.
“How can I go to her and I with child?” I cry. “It would seem almost cruel, as though I am flaunting my good fortune.”
Thomas shrugs. “You are not showing yet; she will not know. You've no need to tell her for quite some time.”
I bow my head, rising from my chair to approach him and lean my head on his shoulder, praying for the safe delivery of our child, praying that I can offer some kind of comfort to my beloved queen.
We arrive at court for Christmas and the queen is almost over-demonstrative in greeting. She clasps my lord's hands, offering her sad smile. “How good it is to see you, Lord Surrey,” she tells him before turning to me and resting a hand upon my shoulder. “Lady Surrey, dear child, how much we have missed you. How are you?”
I force a smile in return. “Quite well, Your Grace,” I tell her as she ushers me away from her entourage. I am not fool enough to ask after her. I cannot begin to fathom the depth of this woman's grief.

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