Three Maids for a Crown: A Novel of the Grey Sisters (20 page)

Chapter Twelve

J
ANE
T
OWER OF
L
ONDON
J
ULY
14, 1553

ar away in the North pikes and swords were slashing, hails of arrows falling, rich Norfolk farmland slick with blood and strewn with the dead or dying. It was alarming to realize that the army belonged to me. Yet if I reigned as many years as my great-uncle Henry, I would never forget the feeling of pain and power as I watched my troops set out for Bury St. Edmunds—the place where Northumberland hoped to stem the flow of supporters now flocking to Mary in Suffolk.

I wondered how many of the men who had swarmed about in preparations for war would return, their bodies maimed, or more terrible still, would die, their children orphaned, their futures stolen away forever. How many of them had wives or sweethearts who wept? Even in victory, what would become of those who were left behind?

You are responsible for the losses they will incur, Jane. They go at your command. You could keep them here, safe
.

But that would only make the task of the men who defended my crown more difficult. It would give my cousin Mary more time to entrench herself more deeply, mount a more effective attack against me.

Mary’s quest was a hopeless one. For three long days I had clung to my father’s reassurance that it was so, and to Northumberland’s certainty that he would deliver me victory. Members of my Privy Council reminded me how Mary’s cousin the emperor bade her surrender her claim to the crown. Even if she had some small support among the common people, the rest of the world had abandoned her cause. No empire would launch a navy with supplies or troops to place her on the throne.

I remembered Northumberland as he rallied the army “For England and Queen Jane,” his face carved white and hard, as if the muscles might snap. Was he imagining what would happen if we should lose?

But we would not. Everyone was certain of that. So why were some members of my council avoiding my eyes? Why did I see them whispering in clumps of shadow?

It was only natural they should talk amongst themselves, I reassured myself. Their futures hung in the balance, as certainly as mine did. In their hearts they must be as on edge as me.

I paced across the privy chamber and peered out the mullioned window, trying to disguise my anguish at not knowing what might befall those brave soldiers. Befall my family. Befall me.

Our fates were being decided even as I went through the motions of my royal day: greeting ambassadors, reading dispatches, meeting with what members of my royal council remained behind: Pembroke with his calculating gaze, and Huntingdon, whom I caught appraising me as a wherry man might a carrack that he was not sure was seaworthy. Arundel was another who disturbed me, his thick white hair framing a face marked with wistfulness for the church of his youth, as did Cobham, who had returned from his meetings with ambassadors Scheyfve and Renard exhibiting a restlessness that fed my own unease.

What had unnerved him? I asked upon discovering Cobham in earnest discussion with Arundel. The earl had insisted it was nothing save a complaint of the stomach, an ailment I could sympathize with since my own insides resembled a bark on a pitching sea.

But my discomfort was nothing compared to that of my father, who seemed to grow more ill with colic as days bled with agonizing slowness into sleepless nights.

Three days had passed since the Duke of Northumberland led my army off to the North. I peered out the window overlooking the courtyard, remembering the rumble of heavy carts, the sounds of horses, and the shouts of soldiers as they disappeared through the Tower gates in a deadly ribbon that filled the roads. Lined with people, those roads were, my subjects watching my army set forth to meet the pretender.

What had I hoped for now that the first shock of my succession was past? Cries of Godspeed to send my forces on their way? But when I begged a description from those who had gone into the streets to watch the army ride away, my ladies had stammered excuses.

Today I was desperate enough to summon the one person who had as much to lose in this gamble as I did. Guilford had ridden a fair way with his father and brothers before returning to the Tower. He would be able to ease my sense of blindness.

I sent a gentleman usher in search, saying I wished to speak in private with my husband. I waited for the sensation I had experienced so often when seeing the man who had violated me. Surprisingly, I felt only its shadow as Guilford strode into the room.

He swept his white velvet hat from his dark blond hair and bowed, the fabric pulled through the ornamental slits in his doublet the color of blood. “Imagine my surprise when told that Your Majesty wished to see me. I am delighted to wait upon you.”

“Neither of us wishes to wait upon the other. Let us at least be honest in that.”

Guilford arched one brow. “I find myself baffled. You do not wish me to wait upon you, but you require some service?”

“Others are too determined to paint bright skies over the landscape no matter what the true temper of the weather might be. You rode beyond the Tower walls with your father and brothers. Followed them until they left the city walls.”

“I did.”

“What was the mood of our subjects when the army marched north?” I inquired of him. “I ask you not as a queen whose ears are to be filled with pretty inventions, but as a wife who seeks the truth.”

“You have not been a true wife save once at the abbey, Your Majesty.”

A sliver of old pain slipped past my guard. I cooled the sting by turning my voice icy. “You were no husband to me then. Not in the way God intends.”

“How lovely that God has revealed his motivations to you.” Guilford’s cheekbones darkened, but not before I saw a flicker of fear. It was harder to intimidate a queen than a helpless girl. I looked him in the eye, shedding the last remains of the girl who had lain crumpled and bruised upon the abbey floor.

“I did not bring you here to argue about old wounds. Rather, I would know what people beyond this fortress’s walls are feeling about the battle that your father of Northumberland has joined with the rebels.”

“London has declared for you. So has most of East Anglia.”

“That was before the Lady Mary declared herself queen at Framlingham. Since then people have been riding to her standard even from those places who immediately declared me their queen.”

“It is a damned nuisance that Robert let Mary Tudor slip away. If she were locked in a cell as Father planned, she could cause no trouble.”

“It does no good to rake over what might have been. What lies ahead is of more importance. I would hear whatever rumors are being bruited about.”

“The Spanish fear my father will make some secret pact with the French. The French do not trust him. The rest of the world believes he will strike whatever bargain he can to place one of his blood on the throne. Father says the day the house of Northumberland cares what such knaves think will be the day the world ends.”

“Do not tell me what your father says. What do the townsfolk of London say?”

“Their rumblings hardly matter.”

I compressed my lips. “I would know my people’s opinions. What did you hear from the crowd on the day the army set out for Buckinghamshire?”

“They had little more to say than when first we came to the Tower. Many came out of their houses to watch the army pass. Robert grumbled that they were silent as stones.”

I could not help but think of times the sky over Bradgate became clotted with blackened clouds. “Do you not think it strange? Such silence?”

“They would not dare speak dissent after what happened to that vile apprentice Gilbert Potter for his outcry against you. Father vowed he would pile severed ears as high as the cross at St. Paul’s if that is what it takes to silence Mary’s supporters.”

I surprised myself by sharing my thoughts aloud. “Will such harsh treatment make those misguided men more apt to be loyal to me?”

“Better they should be afraid of you. You must hold your realm in a glove of iron.”

I thought of the poisoned glove of marriage that the dowager queen had spoken of. The gauntlet of rule was already mine. It was too late to draw either garment from my hands.

“Do not fear your cousin,” Guilford said. “She is weak.”

“She may seem pitiful, used harshly by her father and other powerful men. But she is the daughter of Katherine of Aragon, who defeated the Scots on Flodden Field. She is the granddaughter of Isabella of Castile, who drove the moors from Spanish soil. It would be foolhardy to underestimate her.”

I plucked a torn place on my fingernail. It began to bleed.

“We must not risk more people fleeing the city for Buckinghamshire. Go to Arundel and Pembroke and tell them I would place the city under a curfew. Have the city gates locked from eight at night until five in the morning. You will see to it.”

“As you wish.” He looked a trifle puzzled at the new strength in me, and a little intrigued by it as well. I dismissed him, his boots thudding against the floor as he left the room.

Softer footsteps approached, far too soon to be my ministers. I looked in the direction of the sound and saw my small sister.

“Mary, you must not creep up and listen to the secrets of a queen.” But my heart was not in the reproach.

“I was not listening on purpose. Kat sent me in when she saw Guilford leave. She is still angry at you, but she did not want you alone if he upset you.”

It was painful and unexpected, the way Kat held tight to her anger. Sister Mary held grudges, while I remained determined to prove I was right. But Kat … “I am surprised you would come even when she bade you. You do not seem to wish to be around me of late.”

“You do not seem like my Jane anymore.” Mary fidgeted with the pomander dangling from a gold chain at her waist. It rattled strangely. Not long ago it would have been so natural to ask what Mary had placed inside the filigreed ball, since she had so obviously cast away whatever spices Hettie bought from an apothecary to ward off plague.

“Did the crown that the archbishop put on you suck your brains out of your head? Kat says that is why you were saying bad things about her new family. She likes the Herberts better than us.”

“Tell Kat next time she wishes to know what I am thinking, she should have the courage to come herself instead of sending you.”

“She will not like that.” Mary looked up through sparse lashes. “You are queen, and Kat belongs to the Herberts. I am the only one who wants to be a sister anymore.”

“It is not that simple. I wish—” The strength in me was so new I dared not test it by giving way to feelings that might leave me vulnerable once more. The moment passed, and I knew I had missed this chance to comfort my sister. Perhaps now that I was queen, we would always be on opposite sides of a great divide.

“Jane, what does a queen wish for?” Mary asked in a small voice. “You always say ‘I wish,’ and I used to know what you were wishing for. Now I cannot tell.”

My dreams of quiet rooms to study in and an endless supply of books seemed to belong to some other Jane a world ago. What did I wish for now?

“I wish that the people would rejoice at my succeeding to the crown. That I would be accepted by them.” My voice grew softer. “Loved by them.”

“It will not make people love you if you lock the city gates. Remember when I tried to grab the sparkles on the water at Bradgate?”

“I remember.”

“I heard Guilford say queens must rule with iron gauntlets. I do not think it matters if you wear gloves of iron or pretty, embroidered ones, like the wedding glove you gave me. You cannot make water or people stay in your hands if they want to slide away.”

Mary was right. Once I had wanted my lady mother’s love so desperately, I thought I might die of it. But the more I had tried to capture that regard, the more distant she grew.

“Mary, I cannot stand by and let people like that Gilbert Potter run about loose saying I am not the rightful heir. What would people think?”

“I do not know. But you cannot stop them from thinking it, no matter how many ears you cut off or gates you lock.”

Her words made me afraid as no reports of rival queens ever could. Another headache sank talons into my skull. Anger and frustration welled up.

“Can you not see I have weighty matters on my mind? I did not summon you here. You should not come unless I do.” It was a cruel thing to say, no matter how much my sister vexed me. I saw the hurt fill Mary’s eyes, but she said nothing.

Silence … I was sick to death of silence. Why did no messenger come from Northumberland? Why was I no longer sure if I could trust those closest to me?

Perhaps capturing people’s love or loyalty was as difficult as trying to grasp water in your hands. But I had no choice now but to try to hold on.

Chapter Thirteen

J
ANE
T
OWER OF
L
ONDON
J
ULY
15, 1553