Three Maids for a Crown: A Novel of the Grey Sisters (35 page)

Every scornful word our mother had ever spoken of Elizabeth echoed in my mind, every accusation Queen Mary had ever voiced stirred my discord. Most poisonous of all was the knowledge that Elizabeth had survived Wyatt’s rebellion and countless other plots, survived even though the queen bore her a malice she had never borne Jane.

Elizabeth did not deserve such triumph, not when Jane—good, pious Jane—lay buried beneath the stones at St. Peter ad Vincula.

Elizabeth is as sly and cunning as her mother
, Her Majesty had often claimed, her lip curled as if she tasted bile.
Never will Elizabeth be queen
.

I had believed her. So had many other courtiers, especially during the turbulent time Jane died. No one had expected Elizabeth Tudor to leave the Tower alive or Robert Dudley either. Yet now the two childhood friends preened like pigs draped in diamonds, making a sickening show of honoring Queen Mary’s memory. But all their finery, all the blazing candles, and all the masses said did not cover the stink of Elizabeth’s hypocrisy.

Did no one dare tell her how ridiculous it looked when she made a show of mourning her sister? Had she prayed in secret for the queen’s death? A terrible sin, that. Treason. Yet if Elizabeth even once asked God to deliver her from captivity or deadly peril, she had committed that transgression.

Somewhere beneath her mask, Elizabeth was gloating. Did that accusation show in my eyes? My sister Mary’s? In any of us who had loved the dead queen? Strangely, I think Elizabeth preferred our stark honesty to the cloying interest of those now close to her. At least our opinion of Elizabeth was honest. Sometimes it seemed she trusted us better than those who had contacted her in secret during her years as an imprisoned princess.

I was glad to see the wariness in Elizabeth’s eyes. It comforted me to know she carried within her the memory of a Tower cell, that she had silently counted how many steps it would take to walk from that prison, across Tower Green, to mount the steps to the scaffold, cross its straw-strewn expanse, and kneel before the block where Jane had lost her head.

My scheming cousin claimed to have been innocent of any knowledge of the plots mounted on her behalf through the years, but no one could look at her and believe her. She had a gift for intrigue. She invited it, as surely as Jane had shied away from deceit.

Little was simple in Elizabeth’s world, where most things were well plotted. But she could not have concealed her reaction to my younger sister even if she had cared to: horror at Mary’s crooked back, disgust at her ill-favored face. The queen all but shuddered whenever Mary drew near. But instead of dropping her gaze or attempting to make herself pleasant, Mary confronted the queen in her most irritating fashion, staring at her with that probing gaze that forced people to face the ugliness inside themselves.

Who had first called my sister “Crouchback Mary”? One of the queen’s intimates? Who began the sniggering and slights that soon colored all our days? I could not say.

I first felt the sting of Queen Elizabeth’s vengeance the day she stripped away our position as ladies of the queen’s bedchamber. She lowered our station before all the court, made us seem like ill-mannered pups, and banished us as far from her company as possible without causing a stir.

The queen’s staunchly Protestant friends would never forgive the Greys for “betraying” our religion in spite of Jane’s great sacrifice. When one of them closed the door pointedly in my face, I might have wished with all my heart to go to the country, be quiet someplace, at peace. I might have … were it not for the somber, dark-haired man who watched me across every room, his eyes so dark with feeling, it choked any words that I might want to speak.

Ned. As much as I suffered on my own account and Mary’s, it was more painful to watch him from a distance, dealing with the rise of the hated Dudley family once again. Robert Dudley was obviously the queen’s favorite—she promoted her childhood friend to master of the horse, where he spent every day with her. But the way she looked at him was anything but innocent. She simpered whenever he was near, touched his sleeve or his shoulder with the long white fingers she was so vain of. She hung upon his every word and danced with him with such abandon that no one doubted she loved him.

Many in the court who loathed the ambitious Dudleys whispered that it was lucky Lord Robert had taken a wife in the years before he ever could have imagined he might aspire to become royal consort.

Robert Dudley, who had failed to capture Cousin Mary during that brief, tumultuous time when Jane was queen. His failure had cost Jane her life.

I understood how painful it must be for Ned to see the enemies of his father soar to prominence ahead of his own attempt to regain his family’s position in society. But I could not tell him. Even if Ned had been willing to speak to me, I was under the scrutiny of the queen’s minions—and I had learned my lesson in humiliation that long-ago day at Queen Mary’s coronation when Henry Herbert had snubbed me.

Elizabeth had spies everywhere, watching for the slightest sign of impropriety in her ladies, ready to unleash her famous temper and send anyone of questionable morals back to their country homes.

The tiniest breath of scandal was enough excuse to rid herself of those she disliked. Prim, maidenly, vain, and sly, she disgusted me with her hypocrisy. When my sister Jane had returned from being chief mourner at her beloved dowager queen’s funeral, she had told me about Elizabeth.

“Kat, you would not have been able to bear it,” she had whispered by the nursery fire one night. “The queen was so fragile, her belly all swollen with child. She and I were walking near the great hall when we stumbled upon Thomas Seymour and Lady Elizabeth with her petticoats caught up and her legs showing.” Jane’s face had turned as red as a hot fire poker, her eyes filled with shame and horror. “My beloved mistress was poisoned from that moment. It ate inside her, slowly, until when her babe was born, she was almost glad to die.”

I could not get that image out of my mind. Kind Dowager Queen Catherine Parr seeing her husband betray her with the girl she had loved like a daughter. Thomas Seymour had brought down his own family with his greed for power as well. Had Ned hated the wastrel uncle who was responsible for the downfall of the father Ned loved?

As the months crawled past—January with the queen’s coronation, February with its anniversary of Jane’s execution, the spring with crops once again growing and new lambs in the meadows—I wondered if it would have been more merciful for Elizabeth to send Mary and me away: an honest act of enmity, instead of the secretive ones she used to undermine our footing.

By the time another summer came, the tension between my cousin and me grew suffocating, old wounds and slights layered with new ones dealt to her vanity.

One day as we chose partners for the dance at the palace of Nonesuch, the queen noted Robert Dudley staring at me. “Lord Robert, has Lady Katherine broken out in a pox? I vow, you stare at her most strangely.”

“Forgive me, Your Grace. I could not help it. I recently saw a portrait of her grandmother, the queen of France. Lady Katherine is very like her.”

“Ah, the Tudor Rose,” I heard someone behind me say with a wistful admiration. “She was the most beautiful princess in Christendom.”

“She was indeed,” my mother’s friend Bess of Hardwick said. “Lady Katherine is very like her. Even to her nose, with its elegant little dip in the center.”

Did I imagine it, or did every eye in the chamber shift from me to the queen’s hawkish beak? Was that the spark that ignited the queen’s temper? Or was it Robert Dudley’s next words?

“The Tudor Rose’s beauty was not half as remarkable as the history of her great love,” he said. “It is one all mortals might envy.”

Elizabeth’s features sharpened, her tone a verbal blade. “You would do well to recall that the queen of France shamed herself by wedding a man with no noble blood. My father befriended this commoner, then most generously raised him to a dukedom. How did Charles Brandon repay my father’s generosity? His king had trusted him to escort Mary Tudor back to England, but he stole her. Lady Katherine is descended from that thief.”

“Majesty, I did not mean to offend you—”

“Brandon was fortunate in my father’s mercy. He deserved to lose his head. Now I think on it, he ushered in a tradition with the house of Suffolk. Two of their number have paid fair price for their treachery.”

I saw Mary’s horror, knew she was reliving the scene at Tower Green all over again. I wanted to strike out at Elizabeth for being so cruel. “Your father’s mercy did not extend to everyone,” I said. “The Boleyns were not so fortunate.” The words slipped out.

Hatred flashed in Elizabeth’s eyes. “Enemies can spread lies about even the most upright figures. It is difficult to sort out what is truth. Fortunately, I have my father the king’s intellect, as well as his Tudor red hair.” She was pointing out those traits to deflect old rumors that she was not King Henry’s child. No one who saw their portraits together could doubt that the vengeful king was her father. “As for intellect, it would do me good to match wits with someone who is my equal in such pursuits. Are you a scholar, Lady Katherine?”

She was seeking to trap me in some brash claim that I was. Then she could humiliate me before all these people. Better to be honest. “I do well enough with my studies, but I am not like my sister Jane.”

The queen looked as if she smelled something distasteful. “I remember your sister as far too sour and sober during our time together as children. In fact, she was quite dull. Not the one people sought out when merriment was in the offing, eh, Robert?” she asked, nudging her favorite with one damask-clad elbow.

“Merriment has its dangers, Majesty,” I interjected before Dudley could reply. Mary kicked me, but it was too late to take the words back. I did not care. How dare Elizabeth say such things about my sister after the harlot’s tricks that the Boleyn bastard had played upon her betters! “Even your old tutor Roger Ascham judged Lady Jane the most learned young woman in England. No one could surpass her.”

“If she had lived—but you see, she is dead, while I not only breathe but am queen. Tell me, cousin, who is the more intelligent between us now?”

Dudley chuckled. “Most true, Your Majesty. The lady was not as intelligent as people thought.”

“My sister valued her honor and virtue even more than she did her mind. Traits I know the dowager queen Catherine Parr came to cherish when Your Majesty and Lady Jane were both under her guardianship.”

Even my blunt sister looked aghast. I could feel every eye in the chamber on me, but my own attention was fixed on the queen. Veins in her temple throbbed under white skin, her cheekbones bloodred. Every member of court knew I was hinting at the old scandal.

“I dislike your tone when speaking to your queen!” Robert Dudley blustered.

“The Greys were ever a vain, arrogant lot,” the queen snapped. “One would think the fact that two of your number are shorter by a head would take some of the arrogance out of you, but apparently not. I will take more immediate measures. You will leave court.”

“Majesty, I beg you—” my sister began.

“Be quiet, crouchback! You may mourn your sister’s leaving with others foolhardy enough to miss her. Think how disappointed the Spanish ambassador will be. He quite worships at your sister’s shrine.”

It was true. Chapuys had been kind to me, seeking me out to inquire about simple things: how I liked a new court musician, whether I found the latest masque entertaining, if I might enjoy oranges someone had brought from Valencia.

“Ambassador Chapuys knew us from when Cousin Mary was queen,” my sister insisted, sensing we were treading on dangerous ground.

“There
are
those who do not share Chapuys’s affection for you, Lady Katherine,” Her Majesty said. “In truth, some will rejoice to see you gone. Do you not agree, my lord of Pembroke?” The queen turned to the man I loathed. “You will no longer have to endure watching your son make calves’ eyes at the lady. What of you, Robert?” she confronted her favorite. “Will you grieve the loss of Lady Katherine’s company?”

Dudley swept his hand to his heart in a gesture as grand as a player in a masque. “How could any man notice another woman while you are about, Your Majesty?”

“Not even your own wife,” I muttered, but did not finish what I wanted to say:
The fact that a man is wed does not stop Elizabeth from sinking her claws into him
.

Robert Dudley’s wife, Amy Robsart, must have felt the grief the dowager queen had. The Dudley marriage had been a love match, one Lord Robert pressed his powerful father to allow. What must it be like for the woman to be banished to the country while rumors swirled about her husband? Even far away, she must know of the man’s affair with the queen.

The queen had heard me, and her black eyes burned with fury. “You will learn to curb your tongue! You have been sour since I did not name you lady of the bedchamber. We all must learn to keep our place in the natural order of things.”

The natural order of things? God’s chain of being: people strung like pearls in their proper place, from the most glittering to the most common. Elizabeth Tudor—a bastard, an adulteress, the daughter of a witch—belonged far down that strand, not at its crown!

“I do not wish to see you again until you have learned humility,” the queen said.

I forced myself to curtsy, then backed from the chamber. I had scarce taken three steps down the corridor when I heard awkward footsteps hastening after me and a familiar harsh breathing. My sister was trying to catch up to me.

For a moment I thought of walking faster to escape her, but Mary was stubborn and would not give up so easily. Better to get this conflict between us over.

“What is wrong with you?” Mary gasped as soon as she reached me. “You have been annoying Elizabeth like a child poking a beehive. You’ll get no honey that way. You’ll only get stung. Now you’ve kicked the hive over, and the whole swarm is circling around you. It is a good thing the queen is sending you away before you do something even more reckless!”