The Fallen Queen (13 page)

“With all those diamonds sewn upon the yellow, he makes me think of sugared lemons!” Father observed. “Mmmm …
sugared
lemons!
” He shut his eyes and sighed. “So tart and yet …
so
sweet!
It’s like … love in contradiction!”

“Precisely”—our lady-mother nodded—“if he were entirely sweet, it would be much too decadent, too soft, and perhaps even effete, but that tartness beneath the sugar denotes strength and thus masculinity, though if one is not careful it can elude the eye. You don’t know how fortunate you are, Jane; you are such a stubborn, ungrateful girl you can’t see it. You know, Jane, I actually
envy
you! Look at him. He is a sugarplum for the eye, like a gilded marzipan subtlety come to life!”

“Yes, indeed he is! Mmmm …
marzipan
…
gilded
marzipan!
” Father sighed rapturously, shutting his eyes again as his tongue savoured the words as if the syllables themselves were sweets. “Guildford is just like
gilded
marzipan! So rich, so decadently delicious, as divine as a gift of sweetmeats straight from Our Lord’s confectionary kitchen in Heaven served on golden plates by angels!”

Jane rolled her eyes and wondered sotto voce, “Where in the Bible does it say that the Lord has a confectionary kitchen in Heaven?”

“Ah well!” our lady-mother sighed. “One cannot have everything, and often carnality has to ride outside up beside the driver instead of inside the coach where the quality sits. Such are the cruel vagaries of life! But, no matter, I shall be this fine young man’s mother-in-law, and he shall reap the
full
benefit of my advice; that is the important thing! He will go far; I shall make it my business to see to it.”

“But I don’t want to marry a sugared lemon or a piece of gilded marzipan either,” Jane said softly.

I crept a little closer and reached up and squeezed her hand, and she gave me a grateful but oh so sad little smile.

“Mmmm …
sugared
lemons!
” Father sighed again as a ribbon of drool trickled down his chin.

Our lady-mother rolled her eyes and with her own handkerchief wiped it away. “Enough of that, Hal, we shall plan the menu for the wedding banquet
later!
Naturally it shall include
both
sugared lemons
and
gilded marzipan as a tribute to our beautiful new son-in-law.”

“Yes, dear.” Father nodded and agreed as he continued to stare, rapt and transfixed, at the portrait of Guildford Dudley. “My God, I never saw anything so beautiful in my life!” I heard him murmur after our lady-mother had gone and only my sisters and I remained, but they were too caught up in their own thoughts to take note of Father’s curious behaviour, and besides we were all so accustomed to hearing him sigh rapturously over sweets … I tried to tell myself it was nothing, and that it was lewd to link it with Guildford’s portrait, and yet … I couldn’t quite convince myself.

After that the bustle never seemed to cease. From the break of dawn until we laid our weary heads down upon our pillows at night we were all caught up in a feverish mad maelstrom of wedding plans that had grown from an elegant double to an ostentatious triple event with the Greys and the Dudleys, though they would ostensibly be united by marriage, each vying to outshine the other. The Earl of Northumberland, Father informed us, also had a daughter named Catherine, aged twelve like our own Kate, but “a shy, sallow lass, nowhere near as pretty,” he added, giving Kate’s cheek a pat and popping a candied violet in her mouth. He then went on to explain that since the wedding was to be held at Durham House, the Dudleys’ opulent London residence, Northumberland had decided to make it a triple affair and join their Catherine in wedlock with the young Lord Hastings.

Kate immediately began to fret, weeping and worrying that the Dudley girl’s gown would be grander than her own. But Father was quick to assure her that even if it cost him the last coin in his coffers it would not be so. And with a kiss and more sweets he sent her off to await the dressmaker’s arrival, her head full of all the dreams that money
can
make come true, spinning rich, extravagant fantasies of cloth-of-gold, swirling, fantastically patterned cream and gold brocade, pearls and lace, and emeralds green as envy. That was our Kate; the storms never lasted long.

While Jane did her best to ignore it all, immersing herself even deeper in her studies, Kate drove our poor tutor, Master Aylmer, to frustration, ignoring the assignments he set her and instead filling page after page of her copybook with graceful, flourishing renditions of the name that would soon be hers—
Katherine, Lady Herbert,
and someday, upon her father-in-law’s demise,
Katherine, Countess of
Pembroke;
she even wrote it in the French style,
Katherine, Comtesse de Pembroke,
though as far as I knew she had no plans to cross the Channel and neither did Lord Herbert.

When Master Aylmer complained to Father, Kate pouted and said that since she was soon to be a married woman she didn’t see why she still had need of a tutor; Master Aylmer really wasn’t teaching her anything useful at all that pertained to court etiquette, housewifery, or, she added just to make him blush, amorous disport and what her husband would expect of her behind the bedcurtains, nor had he offered any sage advice pertaining to midwifery and child-rearing either. “And not all the Latin verbs in the world will save me when I am in the agonizing throes of childbirth.”

At these words, Father smiled indulgently, patted Kate’s bright curls, and said at least it was good practice of her penmanship, and turned to pacify Master Aylmer. “Be a good fellow and leave things be,” he cajoled, offering him a sweet from his ever present comfit box, which he had taken the precaution of stocking with sugared and honeyed nuts beforehand knowing that they were Master Aylmer’s favourite. “And I doubt very much that the future Lady Herbert will have much need for Greek or Latin,” he added, “just a pretty bit of French and perhaps a dollop of Italian and a smattering of Spanish for songs and poetry and such.” Whereupon he settled down beside Kate with his comfit box open between them on the table to admire the signatures that filled her copybook while I stood apart, watching my two sisters, swallowing down my tears, and keeping my fears to myself.

I could do nothing for Jane; she did not want my help, and I could do nothing without her willingness and cooperation, but she would not even meet me halfway or reach out a hand toward common sense. She would treat Guildford Dudley like an enemy until the day either she or he died, whichever came first, and by that time that is exactly what he would be—her enemy, when he might have been a fond, or even loving, husband with a little kindness and encouragement from Jane.

And Kate … Kate was
so
happy! And, truly, I didn’t want to spoil it. But I was so afraid for her. She had already persuaded herself that she was in love with the bridegroom she had yet to meet, a man whose face she had beheld only in a miniature portrait—and who knew how accurate that likeness was? It has been commonplace since the art of portraiture began for the painters to flatter their patrons. Though she had never heard his voice, she could already hear him whispering sweet nothings in her ear and reciting poems about her beauty and comparing their love to an immortal flame. Every night, until she drifted off to sleep, Kate would lie abed whispering the names that filled her copybook over and over again like pearls on a rosary—
Katherine, Lady Herbert;
Lady Katherine Herbert;
Katherine, Countess of Pembroke;
Katherine, Comtesse de Pembroke
—savouring them on her tongue as she dreamed of her husband’s ardent kisses and bold caresses. She spoke with such confidence, such utter certainty, that it terrified me. What if Dame Fortune overheard and just to be cruel or contrary dealt my sister a different hand altogether? What if Lord Herbert, who was after all only fourteen, was
nothing
like Lancelot in his shining silver armour and white-feathered helm, riding hard and fast astride a white horse to sweep his ladylove up into his arms and carry her away to Joyous Garde to live in love forevermore? How could he be? Surely that was too much to expect of him. But it would break Kate’s heart if he was anything but her dream of love come true. He
had
to be a hero right out of a storybook! He just
had
to be, for Kate’s sake!

Yet every time I thought of the timidly smiling, slight-shouldered, pale-faced boy whose picture I had stolen a glance at by candlelight as Kate lay sleeping, my heart sank like a stone, and fear and worry gnawed unrelentingly at my stomach. Privately, I was convinced that my sister was in love with love, not with Lord Herbert, but I was only eight years old and didn’t have the heart or the nerve to say so. I knew my sister well enough to know that she would deny it and answer me with peppery verve and heated words and demand what did I know of love and did I think my knowledge superior to hers. No, it was better, for both our sakes, that I keep silent and not invite a quarrel to come between us in the ever dwindling days that were left for us three sisters to spend together.

How envious she was when Guildford Dudley came to call on Jane.
Why has Lord Herbert not done the same?
she wept and stormed. But there was no time for tears then; Jane must be made ready to receive her betrothed. Our lady-mother and Kate made quite a fuss, dressing Jane in a gold trimmed and tasselled carnelian velvet gown, ignoring her heated protests, as they tugged it over her head and laced her in tight and fought to free her struggling hands from the voluminous over-sleeves that almost dragged on the floor, and the long-suffering Mrs. Ellen knelt to roll a pair of gold-embroidered orange stockings up Jane’s limbs and thrust her unwilling feet into a pair of golden slippers with rosettes and rubies on the toes. They thrust rings onto her fingers, heedless of the stones’ colours, as long as they were large and valuable, and hung gold and jewelled chains about her neck, and slapped down the pale, slender hands with their smattering of freckles when they rose in vain to try to protect her tightly pinned and plaited hair from the intrusive fingers that would determinedly pluck out the pins and brush it out into a mass of shining ruddy chestnut ripples that fell down to her waist.

As soon as our lady-mother had fastened the gold-flowered and fringed orange hood onto her head and smoothed the gold-veined white gossamer veil bordered with golden tassels down her back and Kate had pinned an amethyst brooch the size of a clenched fist—the biggest in our lady-mother’s jewel coffer—onto her breast, Jane bunched up her skirts and bolted from the room to take shelter in the library. Mrs. Ellen was told to follow to provide discreet chaperonage to the couple and to make sure that Jane did not tear the tassels from her gown or the golden roses from her hood in protest of such adornment, and I tagged along, quietly following the trail of her crow-black skirt. When he arrived, Kate told me after, our parents explained to Guildford that Jane was “a modest and shy young woman, of a most retiring nature,” and sent him into the library to meet her “in quietude without a crowd to unnerve her.”

A little while later, Guildford strode in, dressed in gooseberry green velvet the exact same shade as his eyes, with puffs of silver-white tinsel cloth showing through his fashionably slashed sleeves. In his arms he carried a big, silky white cat, with a green silk ribbon tied round its neck in a most becoming bow with a gold-framed green stone pinned at its centre.
Surely not an emerald on the cat,
I thought, shaking my head incredulously. He paused halfway across the room from Jane and doffed his peacock feathered cap and bowed low and grandly, pausing expectantly and looking around after as though he expected a round of applause from an invisible audience, but there was not a sound except the cat purring in his arms.

Then he came and stood before Jane, staring down at her, studying her as though she were a specimen in a glass cabinet, tapping his chin, and tilting his head from left to right. Through it all, Jane never looked up from her book or in any way acknowledged him, and I trembled for her knowing full well that our lady-mother would be certain to punish such rudeness. Nervously, I plucked at Mrs. Ellen’s sleeve, and when she leaned down I whispered, “Please don’t tell Mother; she will beat Jane.” At last, Guildford took a step forward and plucked the musty, old, grey black bound copy of Virgil’s
Aeneid
from Jane’s hands and, with a fastidious grimace, flung it with a resounding thud into the room’s darkest corner. Then he strode over to one of the bookcases that lined the walls, remarking as he did so that “books are so decorative,” and selected a gilt-embellished volume bound in beautifully textured orange-red leather. “If you really
must
read then read this one instead; it matches your dress better,” he said as he presented it to Jane.

He sat down beside her and introduced her to his cat, whose name he said was Fluff, and offered to let Jane pet him if her hands were clean as Fluff had just had a chamomile and lemon bath. “His eyes are the
exact
colour of the finest jade,” Guildford said proudly, pointing to the gem dangling from Fluff’s ribbon.

Guildford made a valiant effort to engage my sister in conversation, starting with music, “my one
true
passion,” and then moving on to food; like our father, Guildford loved sweets “like the Devil does stealing souls,” but took great care not to overindulge and spoil his figure. He asked her if she had any pets, and when Jane didn’t deign to answer, told her about his own. Besides Fluff, he had a white parrot with a great yellow crest atop its head that could catch the grapes and berries he tossed to it in its beak or claws.

After that he tried fashion, describing in detail the magnificent new wardrobe his tailor was making for him to start married life in. Next he tried beauty treatments, after snatching off the rather ostentatious, overdecorated hood and exclaiming, “Why do you attempt to hide such beauty?” as he rippled his fingers through the long fire-kissed brown waves. He went on to suggest several remedies to vanquish Jane’s freckles and various washes for her hair—lemons and chamomile to lighten it, walnut juice to darken it, or henna to redden it and emphasize her Tudor heritage, any of which, he said, would be “a novel change,” “striking,” and “dramatic.” He even brought up books and poetry, though he clearly fancied the more frivolous and flowery sort that Jane abhorred and turned her scholarly little nose up at. He even offered to let her kiss him. “We’re to be married, so we might as well make the best of it and be friendly,” he said, nearly knocking me off my chair as I had not expected such a wise and astute observation to come out of Guildford Dudley’s pretty pink mouth.