Rivals in the Tudor Court (17 page)
Read Rivals in the Tudor Court Online
Authors: D. L. Bogdan
“Promenade with us a while, Lady Elizabeth,” she tells me, looping her arm through mine.
Though the queen is only twelve years my senior, she emanates an air of motherliness, making those in her presence feel loved and nurtured. No one is more deserving of children than she; the fact that she is consistently denied them confounds me to no end.
“We were much aggrieved upon hearing of the loss of your son,” says Her Grace.
“Many thanks,” I tell her, painful tears clutching my throat. I cannot allow her to offer her condolences without returning them. “May I offer my sympathy regarding your loss as well?”
The queen bows her head, drawing in a breath. “All we can do is pray for comfort and better times to come. All will transpire as God wills it.”
I bite my lip to stifle a sob.
“I try very hard to believe that,” she goes on, dropping the royal “we.” Allowing me this glimpse of herself as a woman and not a queen is a privilege to match few others. “It is exceedingly difficult. And now I hear Bessie Blount is with child. She is to give my husband, my king, a baby. She, not I, his lawful wife.” Her body convulses as she attempts to repress a sob.
I had not heard this latest development. “It is most unfair” is all I can think of to say. Were I in lesser company, I would take to cursing that harlot Bessie Blount with all due fervency, but I refrain, though I am certain it is no less than what Her Grace is thinking already.
The queen's laugh is bitter. “Most.” She squares her shoulders, sighing. “But what can I do? Blame an innocent child? It does not ask to enter this world. I must accept the situation with the grace my station requires.”
“You are a lady without rival,” I tell Queen Catherine with profound sincerity.
Her smiling lips quiver. “And there are other things to look forward to, aren't there? The birth of your baby, for instance?”
“Your Grace!” I cry, covering my belly and bowing my head in shame. “How . . . ?”
“A mother knows,” she tells me. “And I would never ask you to hide your condition for fear of offending me. A baby is a blessing to be shared, not hidden as if in shame. I am overjoyed for you and Lord Thomas. After what has been lost, this is nothing less than what you deserve.”
On impulse I throw my arms about Her Grace and she hugs me back, offering modest laughter.
“God bless Your Grace always!” I cry, knowing I could not serve a more gracious and honorable queen.
Upon returning home to Hunsdon, I am taken with illness that remains with me for the duration of the pregnancy. I am fraught with misery. Night and day I take to the basin, vomiting wretchedly. I am weak and exhausted and my belly cramps so often that I fear an early labor. I cannot visit Cathy and Henry; it is all I can do to rise from my bed and take nourishment. I spot blood, which causes my heart to lurch in panic. I cannot bear the thought of losing another child.
Thomas does little to comfort me during this time. He maintains a conspicuous distance. No longer does he visit me when my confinement begins. No longer do we engage in the banter that stimulated me during my other pregnancies. Though I make certain the servants communicate my distress, I hear little. He sends gifts; he has always been good about that. But the jewels and bolts of fine fabrics are of little consolation.
I want him. For everything that has passed between us, good and bad, I want him. His mind, his challenging, obstinate spirit, stimulate me. His touch, his kisses, for some unfathomable reason, inflame a passion in me I never dreamed possible. It is not the love I dreamed of as a girl, but I cannot say what I feel is not love just the same, and though our foundation is shaky at best, I yearn for its fortification. But for that, he must be at my side.
He is sent for in June, when my labor begins in earnest. I do not understand why I am in such terrible pain; it is as though this is my first baby. For two days I am assaulted by the tight and terrible cramping of a womb that seems unwilling to part with its tiny inhabitant.
The midwife, a wizened old countrywoman, shakes her head again and again. “I do not understand. Nothing is happening at all.” She sits beside me, swabbing my forehead with a cool cloth. “Oh, dear child . . . I fear for you. You've bled overmuch.”
I begin to shiver and sweat at once. It is so hard to stay awake. . . .
Thomas Howard
“Lord Surrey, I do not know how long she can go on,” the midwife tells me, her crackling tone gentle. “She is so weak . . . you best prepare for the worst. Her strength is gone.”
Panic surges through me. Till now I have done my best to avoid Elizabeth. It was not with the intention to neglect; it is just that her sickness repelled me. After all, sickness leads only to one thing and in my vast experience, it is best to be absent for that occurrence. But now I have no choice. And in the face of her prospective loss, my thoughts become muddled. Nothing makes sense, not even in my own head. My heart is racing and skipping, my face is burning.
“And the child?” I demand.
“There is a procedure I could try where one cuts through the belly into the womb, but it is very risky. Few survive it,” she says. “It is likely they will both die, Lord Surrey. I'm deeply sorry.”
Her dire prediction causes me to shake in anger. No, rage. Searing, burning, and uncontrollable it courses through my veins, a force I cannot deny. “No . . .” I breathe. “No. Not again. Do you hear me? This is not happening again!” My thoughts are racing. I cannot catch up to them. I see my other children; their faces pass before my mind's eye as they appeared during their last moments on earth, in suffering. And for what? God's delight? My limbs are tingling and quivering. I cannot see right. My vision blurs. I proceed into Elizabeth's chambers, pushing past the midwife and servants, making my way to the bed where lies my wife. She is pasty; her eyes are closed.
“Wake up!” I order, sitting on the bed, shaking her shoulders. “Wake up, do you hear me?”
Elizabeth's eyes flutter open. “Thomas . . .” She begins to reach for me.
“It is your wish to leave as well?” I cry. Her arms fall to her sides. She begins to cry, mewing like a sick kitten. “Then go, if it is so easy!” I cannot rein it in any longer. I seize her chin between my fingers, staring her down without being able to focus on her features. She is saying something; I cannot hear her. My other hand reaches out, grasping onto something soft and silky, her hair, I think. I tug at it, pulling her out of bed, dragging her out of her chambers and through the hall to a destination unknown even to myself.
“Come now, let us be off! You must be impatient for the next world!” I cry in a tone that rings with giddiness. “We'll spare you further suffering! I shall do it myself, girl, right quickâha! I shall beat God at His own game! Beat Him before He can claim Himself the victor!” With this statement comes unexpected laughter. It bubbles up in my throat, releasing itself in a strange cackle that sounds like a dog's painful yelp. I yield to it. It has been a good long time since I laughed.
“Thomas!” Elizabeth's voice permeates the strange fog that has enveloped my mind. “Stop! The baby is coming! You're going to hurt the baby!”
“What baby?” I cry. “There is no baby! What was will never be! You are leaving! You are all leaving!”
“Oh, God, my Thomas! Please stop this!”
“Lord Surrey!” someone cries. Hands seize my shoulders, but I am quicker. My dagger, my reliable dagger, is in my own hand and I wave it at the assemblage. My movements seem slow and exaggerated, like an actor in a staged play.
“Do not interfere with the duties the master of the house must carry out!” I cry. The servants back down, staring at me with blank faces and wide eyes.
I turn to my wife, raising the dagger, bringing it down in one blind and wild gesture, slashing her head from the lock of hair in my hand to the joint in her jaw. A sliver of blood bright as Cardinal Wolsey's hat oozes down her face. Wolsey . . . oh, I hate him.
Somewhere someone is screaming.
At once white light obstructs my vision. I turn. All is silent, save for the pounding of my heart. She stands, shrouded in soft radiance. She is extending her long arm, reaching out her hand. But what is the worst, oh, the very worst, is her face, her ethereal face twisted in agony, her eyes wide in horror as they bear witness to my shame.
The dagger falls to the floor with a clatter and along with it my wife. I reach for the vision. “Princess!”
There is nothing. Nothing but a tapestry and a floor and a screaming pregnant girl bleeding from the head.
I cover my temples with my hands. Bile rises in my throat. I double over.
And run away.
I am in my chambers. At some point, sleep must have found me, for I awaken in my bed. My physician sits beside me, eying me with caution.
“You are well, Lord Surrey?”
I offer a tentative nod that does little to convince either of us. “The girl?” I ask in husky tones, recalling now every horrid detail of the strange encounter. I begin to tremble uncontrollably. The anger, rearing its head in the form of madness . . . oh, the disgust . . .
He nods. “Has been tended to.”
“She is all right?” I ask, turning to stare up at my canopy, avoiding the doctor's eyes.
“Yes,” he answers. “And you have a healthy daughter.”
Tears fill my eyes. I close them.
“The servants are well paid, Lord Surrey?” he asks.
“Yes,” I answer.
“Then they won't talk,” he goes on in the matter-of-fact tones expected of one of his trade. “And, for modest compensation, I am willing to say the wound was a result of a cut I had to make for the drawing of two teeth. I noted they were missing upon an examination, so it is a solid argument.”
I draw in a shuddering breath. “Yes.”
“You best take care, Lord Surrey,” he advises, his mouth set in a grim line. “These things have a way of getting out.”
I say nothing.
He departs, leaving behind a warm sleeping posset of which I drink heartily.
I cannot bear to think on it anymore.
When at last I bring myself to visit my wife, she shrinks away from the sight of me. It is a wonder she will let me touch her again.
I have no idea what to say. There are no words to compensate for this.
“Elizabeth . . .” I begin in soft tones. “I-I . . .” I bow my head. “What did you name the girl?” I ask at last.
“Mary,” she whispers, turning her head away.
Tears clutch my throat. “Mary,” I repeat, my voice wavering. “For the little princess?”
“Yes,” she says in flat tones. “For the little . . . princess.” She lowers her eyes.
“I should very much like to see her,” I say, forcing my tone to be conversational. I turn to one of the maids. “Fetch the baby, will you?”
The maid drops the linens she was folding and backs out of the room to do my bidding with wide eyes.
I inch toward the bed, then sit beside Elizabeth, reaching into the pocket of my doublet to produce a collar of ruby roses with emerald stems. “For your troubles,” I tell her as I hand them to her.
She examines them with disinterest, then holds them out for me to take. “I cannot bear accepting these gifts anymore, Thomas,” she tells me in low tones. “They cost too much.”
I bite my lip and bow my head. “We'll just lay them aside for now,” I say, putting them back in my pocket. “I'm certain a state occasion will soon require their use.”
Elizabeth says nothing. We are rescued by the nurse, who brings in the baby. The woman is all smiles.
“Here is your bonny little princess,” she tells me as she places the child in my arms.
I gaze down into her face. She is unlike the other children, with her mass of downy golden hair and fair skin. There is something so familiar about her, her etherealness, her delicacy, as though she is not of this . . . no, not this world.
Her
world.
Her
world.
I clutch the baby to my breast. “She's beautiful,” I tell her.
“She's your truest Howard if anyone is. If she can survive the ordeal of her birth, I daresay she can survive anything.” Elizabeth sighs, rolling onto her side, curling up into a little ball, bringing her hand up to her cheek. Her shoulders begin to convulse. I rise. I cannot speak past the painful lump in my throat. I cannot look at her.
I shift my gaze to my baby, my little Mary, and dare to think of all the things I will do to make her great.
Elizabeth Howard
Is this real? Is the man who attacked me with his own dagger while I labored truly my husband? Now he sits and holds our baby, staring down at her, his face lit with adoration. He converses with me as though nothing happened at all. He dares offer me a gift, whether it is to buy my silence or is some form of an apology he cannot bring himself to utter, I do not know. I am not sure I care at this point.
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