12
Elizabeth
In the weeks that followed I kept my own counsel, I refused to confide in Mrs. Ashley and unburden my heart of the fear that held it fast. I had not bled since that day in the deep green secrecy of the hedge maze when I was jarred so rudely and abruptly out of love with Tom Seymour. I knew that there were herbs that women in such predicaments sometimes made use of, but I did not know what they were or the recipes to brew such concoctions, and I dared not seek the counsel of others. Women are prone to gossip, and I, as a princess, heiress second in line to the throne, faced great peril if what I feared indeed came to pass and my belly quickened with Tom Seymour’s unlawfully, treasonously begotten bastard. Oh the scandal! I shuddered at the thought and prayed God to let this cup pass me by.
Some days I could not get out of bed. I would lie prostrate or else curled upon my side with my knees drawn up tight, viciously assailed by the four demons named Megrim, Stomachache, Nausea, and Fever. Kat would kneel worriedly beside me, applying cold compresses to my head, and saying over and over until I screamed and ordered her from my room: “Oh my darling girl, I don’t know how I shall ever forgive myself! But it was a match made in heaven; I think it was the Devil’s doing that he was married already when the two of you belonged together!” Alone, I would wail in agony and clasp my privy parts and belly; my courses had dried up, leaving my always slender body painfully sore and bloated with the retention of the vile monthly blood I needed so desperately to expel. I could feel it trapped inside me, bursting for release, but unable to flow.
Though Kat implored me to remain inside and keep to my bed, there were days when I was so restless that it drove me from my bed to walk in the garden, pacing back and forth like a sentry. Even though the autumn winds nipped at me and tugged tenaciously at my cloak and hair, I preferred my solitary walks to Kat’s inane prattle and attempts to cheer me or coax the rest of the story—the parts I had not shared with her—out of me.
And then one day, as I walked distractedly in the misting rain, cooling the fever that left a pearly sheen upon my brow, I felt a pain, like a hand clutching tight, as if to wring dry my womanly parts, and a warm trickle trailing down the inside of my thigh. And I knew I was safe.
I saw now full clear that the fear, and the sickness brought on by it, that I had suffered these hellish weeks was a warning, a stern rebuke issued by God, to remember and never again forget my mother’s warning—“Never surrender!” I had failed to heed it once, I had dared put myself in a man’s power and let myself fall under his charismatic spell, and it had almost destroyed me. Should I forget or fail again, I would not be so fortunate.
In gratitude, I fell to my knees, heedless of the sharp bite of the gravel through my skirts, and turned my face up to the leaden gray sky, and gave my wholehearted thanks and assurances to God, and my mother, that I had truly learned my lesson, and that from the bottom of my heart to the depths of my soul I was grateful for the second chance that had been given me. Though I had been a very foolish girl, I was wise enough to know that not everyone is given a second chance no matter how much they pray and long for it. Passion had come like an infectious fever and scorched and almost burned away my reason. Next time I might not be so fortunate; therefore, there must not be a next time.
And then a letter came, like a blessing, from Kate, and further strengthened my resolve.
My dearest daughter,
Time, contemplation, and prayer have shown me that I was overly harsh, and I pray that you will forgive me and allow me to speak to you as your own mother would have done had she lived.
Though few of us have the good fortune to marry as our heart dictates, there comes a time in each of our lives, sometimes, as with you, in the first flush of youth, and, to others, like myself, when we have already ripened into maturity, but sooner or later a time always comes when we feel the stirrings of passion, and we let our heart overrule our head, and romance take precedence over reason, and sensuality over sense. And, for a young woman without a mother to counsel and guide her, such a time can be most perplexing and even frightening. The uncharted waters of first love are perilous, and I, preoccupied with the precious gift of motherhood God had at last vouchsafed me, was unforgivably remiss, my vigilance fell by the wayside, and I failed to be there for you when you needed me most of all. And for that I most humbly beseech your pardon. Forgive me, Bess, for it is I and not you, who should kneel and humbly pronounce those two heartfelt words—Forgive me!
You see, Bess, I fell under his spell too, though I was already a woman grown, mature, and past my youth, and already two times a widow, so how could I fault or blame you, an innocent young girl, for succumbing to the same blandishments?
After I was, for the second time, a widow, he came calling. He braided wildflowers into my hair, took me riding and sailing, and made me feel young again, though I had never done such things in my youth. I never had a sweetheart when I was young, but went instead straight into wedlock with the husband my mother chose for me, and then, when he died, the process was repeated. But Tom was different. He was like no one I had ever known before. He made life exciting and fun. Everyone always thought I was so serious, so proper and prim. A scholar and physician in petticoats was how they all saw me. Everyone always expected me to do the right thing, but with Tom . . . I could laugh and be free, let down my guard and forget all the world expected of me! I could let down my hair, bunch up my skirts, and run over the grass in my bare feet! He showered upon me a hundred little attentions that I had never known before from either of my husbands and made me feel as if I were the most special and important person in the world. He made me feel alive, and—dare I confess it?—sensual. He awakened a part of me I never knew existed before. So, you see, Bess, I do understand!
Tom is a man who wields his charm like an expert swordsman does his weapon, and never have I encountered a woman strong enough to withstand or defeat it. I remember the day he first won me. He bound my eyes with a kerchief and led me out, guiding me with his voice, as he sang a bawdy song better suited to a tavern than courtship. “I gave her cakes, I gave her ale,” the chorus went, but I shall spare you the rest. And he led me out across the meadow to a great oak tree on my late husband’s estate, underneath which a blanket was spread and a picnic laid out of honey cakes and a flagon of ale, and strawberries, which we ate dipped in wine and cream. And that day, for the first time, I submitted to him as I would to a husband, which is what I believed he would soon be to me. Had your father not set his sights upon me, we would have been married shortly after. So you see, Bess, I know well the power and allure of my husband, and I forgive, and fault you not one whit, for succumbing. Never think for even a moment that I love you any less, or that I am any less proud of you. Bess, my darling girl, I hold you in my heart as I always have, and in the greatest esteem. Your intelligence and learning are an example to our sex that I hope many young girls will aspire to emulate. And I pray God that a day will come, when I am past my travail, when we can be as mother and daughter again. Until then, my dear, may God keep you in His care.
Your Ever-Loving Stepmother,
Kate
A million times I must have read her letter, even after I had committed every word to memory. What good it did my heart, and what comfort and ease it brought my mind, to know that she understood and had forgiven me. And I saw again, full plain, the duplicity and unworthiness of Thomas Seymour, and was glad to be rid of him. He had scorched me, but I had survived the flames, scorched yet wiser for it.
When Tom wrote me, I scanned his letters for news of how Kate fared in her pregnancy, then tore them into shreds and let the winds disperse them. The memory of his touch now left me cold. Reason had at last sucked all the venom of Cupid’s dart from my wounded heart and I was now entirely cured.
But tragic news soon followed fast on the heels of mercy. Kate was dead, after being delivered of a baby girl, burned up from the fever that often follows childbirth. She died on September 7, 1548, my fifteenth birthday, wild and raving, accusing Tom of putting poison in the guise of medicine into her cup to speed her to her grave and leave him free to marry me. “The one whom I loved best is my murderer!” she sobbed, tossing on the sweat-soaked sheets of the bed that had been her marriage bed, where the child she had so longed for had been conceived in connubial joy, and was also fated to be her deathbed. I wondered if it were indeed true. Such a one was Tom that even if he swore with his hand over his heart that it was all a fancy wrought by the fever, still I would never know for certain; a part of me would always wonder. And the fact that Tom had forced her to sign a will dictated by, and leaving all to him, further fueled my, and other’s, suspicions. As she lay burning up with fever, weeping in anguish, and feebly crying out her accusations, Tom had grasped her hand and guided it to sign her name for the final time. It all left me feeling as though a part of my soul were stained with the blood of my stepmother.
I mourned Kate in my own quiet way, but Kat began to build her cloud castles again, for Tom and me to dwell in marital bliss, before my stepmother was even laid in her grave.
“He’s free!” she jubilantly sang out as if it were a hallelujah the moment she heard the sad news. “You may have him now! It is the Lord’s doing! You see, Bess? It was meant to be! All in God’s own good time! Oh He does move in mysterious ways, He does! We should have had more faith! Now my—I mean your—dream can come true! God has willed it. He has taken the Dowager Queen up to Heaven, and that is clear proof that this marriage was meant to be! Oh, Bess, I am so happy for you!”
She was deaf to my entreaties to cease her foolish prattle. “I will not have him,” I told her, but she merely laughed and nodded knowingly and sometimes even winked, convinced that the moment he came calling I would melt.
There was also a maze, though a more modest one, at Cheshunt. The day I heard that Kate had died I walked alone to its center. There wasn’t a bench like at Chelsea, and no statue of Cupid or lover bearing cakes and ale awaited me there. Instead, I sat on the graveled ground, my back against the dense wall of living green, hugged my knees against my heart, feeling my stays bite into my skin like a penance, and howled out my grief until I had no tears left.
Now, even though she had forgiven me in her letter, I would never have the chance to kneel at Kate’s feet and beg her forgiveness as a part of me still needed to do, then sit beside her and talk it all out, listen to her kind, patient, and wise counsel, and make everything all right between us. Knowing that she had died in agony, coupling my name with her husband’s as our bodies had once coupled, and most likely had been murdered to make way for me to wear Tom’s ring, made it all so much harder to bear. In a way, Tom’s passion had burned her up too, for it was in the throes of passion that the seed was planted. Had Kate not conceived a child, childbed fever could not have killed her or provided a likely guise to conceal her murder. And if it truly was murder, though I had no part in planning it, I was still in part responsible for her death. Just as my own mother had died because I had not been the prince she had promised my father, my most beloved stepmother had died because her husband lusted after me! Lust kills, as does the loss of it! After his passion for my mother burned out, it was easy for my father to condemn her, a woman he had no further use for, to make way for another. Desire is the antechamber of Death.
I returned to my childhood home, Hatfield, hoping I would find peace there. My gowns were barely unpacked before he came calling. I knew he would. I was in my bath when he arrived. My hair caught up loosely atop my head lest the pins bring on a headache, and trailing down my neck in damp red tendrils, I sank low in the steaming water, just as hot as I could stand it, drowsily watching the drifting ever-changing patterns of dried rose petals, crushed lavender, and chamomile floating upon the surface, and yawning as clouds of steam caressed and flushed my cheeks bright pink.
He bribed his way into my private sanctum where none should have been allowed to disturb me. Though I had said many times that I would not see him, and had even refused to write him a letter of condolence on the death of his wife, his manly charm still held such sway over my Mrs. Ashley that she could deny him nothing. All it took was a smile from him, a peck on the cheek, and a pinch and a pat to her “great buttocks,” and he was sauntering in, smiling in triumph, like a conquering hero, singing the same old song.
I gave her Cakes and I gave her Ale,
I gave her Sack and Sherry;
I kist her once and I kist her twice,
And we were wondrous merry!
I gave her Beads and Bracelets fine,
I gave her Gold down derry.
I thought she was afear’d till she stroked my Beard
And we were wondrous merry!
Merry my Heart, merry my Cock,
Merry my Spright.
Merry my hey down derry.
I kist her once and I kist her twice,
And we were wondrous merry!
True to form, he was carrying a flagon of ale and a basket of honey cakes. When the scent of honey reached my nostrils the memory of what had happened the last time he served me cakes and ale felt like a slap across my face.
I bolted upright in my bath and snatched the linen sheet Kat had left for me to dry myself with, but Tom just laughed as he yanked it from my grasp and made some silly jest about chaste Diana being surprised by Actaeon in her bath.
“Come now, dear one, I’ve seen you before. I’ve seen all of you before. Remember your devoted gardener who used to come to you early each morning to tend your rosy buds? And how well they have blossomed!” he said ardently, his gaze and voice full of admiration as he bent to teasingly tweak one rosy nipple.
He knelt behind me and draped a string of pearls about my throat and whispered, his lips grazing my ear, “For the life of me, I cannot tell which is fairer—your skin or these pearls!”
My whole body tensed and I shut my eyes and willed my heart to stay shut, for the locks and bolts I had placed upon it to hold fast. “Do not go back, Bess,” the voice of reason whispered urgently inside my head, “do not go back!”
He took my hand, tugging my fingers from their tight, trembling grip on the tub’s rim, and kissed it before he slipped the garnet and ruby heart ring back onto my finger again.
“Here is your betrothal ring, my bonny Bess, my soon-to-be bride!” he declared, kissing my hand again. “But I would dive for an even more precious pearl—a pink one!” And, careless of his fine, gold-embellished black velvet sleeve, he plunged his arm into my bath, his determined fingers avidly seeking the pink pearl of flesh between my thighs even as I backed away and shoved at him, all the time ordering him to get out.
“I do not want you here or your ring on my finger!” I insisted.
Ignoring me, Tom began to dream aloud; he was a man ever in love with his own voice.
As his fingers deftly stroked that sensitive little nub, making my own body betray me, I squirmed and sighed, even as I gripped the sides of the copper tub so hard, my knuckles trembled and stood out white, and gritted my teeth, willing myself to resist. He talked about what our life together as husband and wife would be like—“passion and bedsport galore!” But then his touch changed, growing harder, as if there were anger behind it, and there was a strange faraway look in his eyes, as if he had forgotten where he was and what he was doing. Ambition, his guiding star—I saw it light a fire in his eyes.
He was so lost in his dreams that he did not hear my pleas that he was hurting me. As I squirmed, trying to free myself, my hair tumbled down into the water, and his other arm rose up to circle round my throat so that my chin rested in the crook of his elbow—it was almost as if he meant to strangle me!—as the pressure of his finger on that most private and vulnerable part of me increased.
His finger digging in, hurting me, pressing hard, as if it would rub that tender pink bud red and raw, he spoke of vengeance, of casting his brother “the high and mighty Lord Protector of the Realm” “down onto the dung-heap.” He would make him pay for denying him a place upon the Council, “hogging all the power for himself like a greedy hog at trough!” He would snatch the reins of power from the Regency Council and rule alone, Tom swore, as his finger continued to dig in cruelly, even as I squirmed and gasped and tried to push his hand away. “I will be king in all but name!” he declared, and revealed that he planned to marry Edward to Lady Jane Grey. And, being frail, Edward might not live to adulthood, which would leave Jane alone on the throne. Jane’s own parents dominated her with physical brutality, with harsh words, slaps, and pinches, and by lashing her bare buttocks with a riding crop to make her docile and malleable. “But I,” Tom boasted, “I can control her with kindness; she will be so grateful to me that she will do anything I ask. I can even make her fall in love with me if I have to.” Then he spoke of the dynasty we would found, my regal Tudor blood blending with his in a powerful mix of ambition and strength. Or things might work out so that I sat upon the throne as England’s Queen, with Tom at my side, of course. And, failing that, one of our sons was certain to be king someday, and he would be there, the power behind the throne, putting words in his mouth, and guiding his every move. “All England shall be my chessboard and I alone shall maneuver the pieces!”
As my mind absorbed his words like a sponge, my horror rising like vomit in my throat, the very last morsels of desire I felt for him shriveled up and died, like grapes left too long upon the vine. I knew then that Tom, in spite of his words, had never really loved me, only my rank as royal princess, my place in the succession; I was only a stepping stone along the path to power and England’s throne where Tom aimed to either sit or lurk behind, either openly or stealthily, wielding all the power. Oh no, I vowed, I will not be your, or any other man’s, stepping stone!
Somehow I found the strength to pull his arm away from my throat, and I stood up and tore the string of pearls from my neck, letting them fall into the bath and onto the floor as I leapt from the tub. I wrenched that accursed ring from my finger again and flung it too into the bathwater and ran, naked and dripping, into my bedchamber.
Tom ran after me and, just as I was about to cross the threshold, he caught hold of me.
“Bess, listen to me! I know you are upset, aye, Kate’s loss shook me too, but I must tell you . . . Listen to me!” He shook me hard and slapped my cheek to stun me into silence. “Listen! I never loved Katherine!” he insisted as I stood there clutching my smarting cheek and reeling. “I only married her because I couldn’t have you. I asked the Council for your hand, but they just laughed at me, damn and pox them all, so I did the next best thing, I married her to be near you, because I knew you would come to live with her after your father died.”
“Liar!” I screamed. “I know how you courted Kate before she married my father! You courted her with cakes and ale and braided wildflowers into her hair!”
“Elizabeth! You wound me!” he cried, slapping a hand over his heart. “I thought you a young woman of passion and intelligence far beyond your actual years, but now you behave as a child and reason like one still in the nursery and not out of leading strings! Don’t you know I have been in love with you ever since the day you kicked Ned’s shin at your brother’s christening? For years I have been as one standing still, patiently enduring the ebb and flow of Time, trying to make do as best I could, while I waited for you to grow up. Aye, I dallied with Kate—I am a man after all and that is what men do. When I met her she was a widow, twice married to toothless old dotards. She had never known a real man, lusty, young, and vigorous between her thighs, and I gave her that. I was doing her a favor! She was ripe for it, begging for it, hot as a bitch in heat! And what man could resist that? But she took it for more than it was; she fell in love with me. I suppose it was only natural that she should; what woman wouldn’t fall in love with me? If I were a woman I would fall in love with me! But I swear to you, Bess, I swear to you on Kate’s grave, I was only dallying, waiting for you to grow up!”
Over his shoulder, in the steam rising from my abandoned bath, I thought I saw Kate’s ghost take shape, mournfully mouthing these words of wisdom and warning: “Never give your heart lest it be betrayed!” It was the memory of the woman who had knelt at my feet and bared her heart and soul to me, telling me how after three times marrying for duty she was, at long last, free to follow her heart and marry for love, speaking to me from beyond the grave. She thought God had blessed her, and never realized until it was too late that the love she believed true was in fact false. Cupid had played my clever Kate for a fool and felled her with his dart fired by proxy from Tom Seymour’s cock to impregnate her and steal her life away even as she gave birth to the child she had always longed for. Kate had died. Whether it was childbed fever or poison that had ultimately taken her life, the result was the same: Kate died, but I was alive and determined to survive. I would not let Tom Seymour, by cock or concoction, be the instrument of my demise! He will not destroy me! I swore.
“She loved you; I saw it in her face every time she looked at you!” I reminded him as shame flooded my heart. I had seen Kate’s heart upon her face but I had chosen to be heartless and ignore it.
“As did you!” Tom reminded me. “I saw your love for me in your face, plain as the light of day!”
I nodded, for I could not deny it. “And that is a cross I shall carry for the rest of my life. She loved me like a daughter, and I, to my everlasting shame, betrayed her.”
Summoning forth all my strength, I shoved him away from me, and slammed and bolted the door in his face.
Tom began at once to pound and demand entry. And when I ignored him, he once again resorted to poetry, thinking with the romance of Tom Wyatt’s words that he could blind me to the truth and bring me back into his arms again.
And wilt thou leave me thus?
Say nay, say nay, for shame,
To save thee from the blame
Of all my grief and grame;
And wilt thou leave me thus?
Say nay, say nay!
And wilt thou leave me thus,
That hath loved thee so long
In wealth and woe among?
And is thy heart so strong
As for to leave me thus?
Say nay, say nay!
And wilt thou leave me thus,
That hath given thee my heart
Never for to depart,
Nother for pain nor smart;
And wilt thou leave me thus?
Say nay, say nay!
And wilt thou leave me thus
And have no more pity
Of him that loveth thee?
Hélas, thy cruelty!
And wilt thou leave me thus?
Say nay, say nay!
I ran to my bed, shivering, and feeling as if the water still running in rivulets over my naked skin, and plastering my hair down my back, were turning into ice. I tore the covers back and dove onto the feather mattress, tarrying only long enough to blow out the candles on the table by the bed that I had meant to read by, before I tugged the covers up over my head, curled my body into a ball, and burrowed down, to fall asleep to the tune of my teeth chattering and the feel of the hot tears turning to ice upon my cheeks, as I ignored the passion-infused poetry that Tom Seymour lingered to recite outside my bolted door.
The castle in the clouds which lust masquerading as love, like a wolf in sheep’s clothing, had built out of the bricks of a young girl’s dreams and illusions, had now, once and for all, been demolished, wrecked to ruins forevermore, never to rise again. I was free of Love’s chains; the truth and Tom Seymour’s shallowness, callousness, and lies had set me free.