Three Maids for a Crown: A Novel of the Grey Sisters (28 page)

“A queen cannot afford to appear weak. The spirit of unrest is making the Spanish nervous. They are not certain I can hold the loyalty of my own country, keep it under control, and force the people to accept my marriage. They are wrong.”

“I am certain they are.”

“I am glad to hear it. The Spanish fear your sister, even though she is safely captive in the Tower. Perhaps they are right to do so if—as you so aptly put it—the horse intends to fight the bridle.”

I cringed, seeing the danger of my warning too late. “Jane would never betray Your Majesty. Did she not swear it herself at the audience you allowed her? Your leniency touched her deeply. She had a belly full of the crown. You must know that you can trust her. She wants only to go home.”

Chapter Twenty

J
ANE
T
OWER OF
L
ONDON
F
EBRUARY
3, 1554

omething is terribly wrong. For weeks I have not received a letter from Mary or Kat or been allowed to walk in the garden. Locked inside my chamber, the walls press down upon me until I think I shall go mad. I spend long days carving words into the stone.

I hope for light after darkness …

Darkness is all around me now. I cannot eat, cannot sleep. I get only whispered news from a guard who befriended Mrs. Ellen: a mailbag intercepted, revolt against the queen. Men who will not suffer a Spaniard becoming England’s king. How to prevent Queen Mary from wedding the man of her choice? They are coming for me: my father, Carew, a knight named Sir Thomas Wyatt. Four armies to march on London, to set me free.

Now I can hear a spattering of gunfire from across the river. From my window I can see the confusion of the Tower troops, dragging out cannons, mounting them on the walls. Memory stirs. This is the same measured chaos as when I was preparing to hold off my cousin as the ranks of her army swelled. Was the same thing happening now?

I bit my fingernails, not even sure what I hoped for. I had promised my cousin I would be loyal to her. She had spared my life. Yet she had not pardoned me as she had vowed she would. She had broken her vow, just as I would in claiming the crown that would be offered me if Wyatt was victorious.

What was happening? The suspense drove me mad. Was it possible that God had intervened so I might win His cause at last? If that was so, I must embrace the opportunity He offered. But if the armies got close, Cousin Mary could sign my death warrant, have me dispatched with the flash of a headsman’s blade. Might that blade claim other lives as well? With me dead, Kat would become the figurehead for men such as Wyatt. Might the queen not decide then to obliterate Kat as a threat? No matter what happened in the conflict playing out in the city streets, I would not be able to protect my sister.

Torn with helplessness and confusion, I crossed to my carvings in the stone and tried to comfort myself by tracing my fingers over the curves and lines I had etched with painstaking care:

While God assists us, envy bites in vain
,

If God forsake us, fruitless all our pain—

I hope for light after the darkness
.

Pray God the dawn would break for me and He would swing my prison door open wide.

K
AT
W
HITEHALL
P
ALACE
F
EBRUARY
3, 1554

Wyatt’s army was coming to set Jane free. With each blast of gunfire outside Whitehall’s walls, the knowledge terrified me, thrilled me, left me so confused I could not think. Chaos reigned—not only among the queen’s ladies but in London as well. Citizens tore down London Bridge to cut off the rebels’ path to the city. But their desperate act would only slow Wyatt’s men, not stop them forever. There were other bridges across the Thames, and the Londoners could not destroy them all. Wyatt had only to turn and march back upriver to cross one.

How desperate the Londoners must be, to sever the main artery that supplied their trade. Did the English hate the prospect of the Spanish marriage so much that Wyatt might actually win?

Since December the queen had been bombarded with news that grew more alarming with every passing day. My sister Mary and I had gleaned it in snips and shards, piecing it together: one of Bishop Gardiner’s spies had intercepted a mailbag containing letters about rebellion fomenting in Suffolk. When Gardiner confronted Courtenay, the coward had confessed to his part of the scheme, betraying the rest of the conspirators. Sir Thomas Wyatt, Peter Carew, and—God save him—our father were to gather troops from the four corners of England, then march on London. Once there, they would sweep Catholic Mary from the throne, destroying her plan for a Spanish marriage and her intent to restore England to the pope.

Courtenay had cast their plans into disarray. Only Wyatt had remained steadfast, gathering four thousand men in Kent and laying siege to the city.

“The traitor’s daughters,” the queen’s most loyal ladies now called Mary and me. “Her Majesty should never have spared your father’s life, or your sister’s. But this time you haughty Greys will get what you deserve.”

What would happen to us now? If Wyatt lost, would we be imprisoned in the Tower like Jane? Or would the queen seek a more permanent solution? King Henry had executed every member of the de la Pole family within his reach, because they were a threat to his reign. He had even killed a little boy.

History was littered with the deaths of those whom monarchs regarded as a threat, no matter their age or innocence: perhaps the most famous among them were the princes in the Tower, whom evil Richard III had ordered to be murdered.

If Richard had killed his nephews just because they were too close to the throne, could not this queen easily execute her cousins, whose family had been involved in two rebellions against her? Even my little sister was afraid.

“The queen does not like us anymore,” Mary had said, watching the other ladies attend our cousin on the far side of the room. I might have hushed her, but I doubted they would hear us, preoccupied as they were with the happenings beyond the castle walls.

“Her Majesty is much occupied at present with rousing the people to join her fight against the rebels.”

“She gave a speech in the streets that I heard people talking about. She said she loves the people as her children. They are to think of her as if she is our mother.”

“It was very brave.” I had seen the queen ride out, a slender figure astride her horse, the embattled princess trying once more to capture the imagination of her subjects. “The people rallied around her once. She hoped to inspire them to do so again.”

Mary tugged fretfully at her bottom lip. “I do not want Cousin Mary to be like our mother. Hettie says the people are angry with the queen because she wants to marry the Spanish prince. She says they tore down London Bridge, Kat. I do not believe Hettie.”

“It is true. The Londoners did so to halt Wyatt’s army in Southwark.”

“All those cunning little houses that span the road across the river! How will the people cross the Thames with their sheep and carts full of goods?”

“It was a futile effort. A messenger says Wyatt’s army is marching to Knightsbridge to cross. Even the queen cannot tear down every bridge over the Thames.”

“Is Father with the rebels?”

“I do not believe so.” I answered even more softly. “I heard the queen’s councilors talking. Three of the four armies that were raised against the queen were broken up before the revolt could begin. I imagine Father is off hiding somewhere, awaiting the outcome.” Or had he ridden for London to join Wyatt? We had no way to know for certain. I looked toward the queen, relieved to see her busy with some dispatch. “Maybe Father will run away to France. That is what Peter Carew did.”

“Jane cannot run away from the Tower. It is a good thing the queen will not hurt Jane. Her Majesty promised.” I did not have the heart to tell her how little that promise would mean after this conflict was over.

“There is one happy thought, Kat,” Mary said. “If the rebels win and Jane is queen, you can have Henry again. She can order Pembroke to let him marry you.”

Strange to realize, I did not want Henry nearly as much as I wanted Jane. I had begged the queen to let me go to my sister, even though I knew I might never leave the Tower again, but Her Majesty had refused. When we retreated to Whitehall, the queen was the only one calm.

A rebel’s arrow had flown over the palace wall. Women had wailed, and soldiers cried out that all was lost. But Her Majesty had turned to us, her voice almost serene: “Do not waste your energies weeping. Pray, ladies.”

But what was I supposed to pray for? Even now I did not know.

“What do the rebels want?” Mary asked.

“Wyatt demands that the queen surrender herself and the Tower into his keeping.”

Mary’s eyes grew wide. “Are these the same people who threw the dog through the queen’s window?”

Six months ago someone had heaved the strangled animal into the queen’s very chamber, the dog’s head shaved in monk’s tonsure, a noose around its neck. The memory still gave me nightmares.

A blast of cannon made me nearly leap out of my skin. I hugged Mary tight. “They cannot cross London Bridge,” I said.

Mary shoved against me, hard, shouting, “I do not care about London Bridge! I want to go to Jane! The cannons are going to hurt her!”

From across the chamber, the queen heard her. Mary Tudor wheeled on us, her eyes blazing. “It would be well for England if the cannon shot obliterated the Tower your traitor sister lodges in!” Never had I heard the queen speak to Mary so harshly. “Do you know what that traitor father of yours is about? Men from Suffolk have told me right enough! He may not have been able to join with Wyatt, but Henry Grey wished to put your sister back on the throne! It is only by the grace of God that I was not foolish enough to let the Lady Jane go free!”

“You promised you would!” Mary protested. “You gave me the feather!”

But the queen would not be swayed by Mary’s strange protest. “The Spanish are right,” the queen said. “I will never be safe while she lives.” A battle was raging in Mary Tudor’s heart, a war even fiercer than the one being fought just outside these fortress walls. But she did not want Jane’s blood on her hands, of that I was certain.

“I will not do it,” she muttered to herself. “I am queen. Nothing can force my hand.”

B
y February 7 the rebellion was quelled, the cannons silenced. In the days that followed the rebels—including Wyatt and my father—marched, dejectedly into the Tower as prisoners. It was then that the Spanish devils brought to bear the one negotiation Queen Mary could not withstand.

I stood, attending her, as the ambassador from Charles V entered her presence chamber to relay his master’s message: “The Emperor Charles cannot in good conscience send his son into certain danger. Prince Philip will not sail from Spain until Lady Jane Grey is dead.”

Chapter Twenty-one

J
ANE
T
OWER OF
L
ONDON
F
EBRUARY
12, 1554

y father has killed me—or might as well have done. We will die in a macabre cluster of executions—my father, Guilford, and me—like nosegays strewn upon a grave. Wyatt’s guns are silenced, his army shattered.

I watched from my window as the Earl of Pembroke marched the rebel leader and his followers into the Tower walls, where they would be held until they were paraded out again to face traitors’ deaths. Soon crossroads all over England will be decked with their corpses, grim warnings to any who might consider such defiance in the future.