February 1547
The sun in splendor, she thinks, looking at the boy king. He was all in white and silver, as radiant as an angel, as grave as a young Josiah as he goes through the ceremony with never a fault. Lovers' knots, in rubies and diamonds, are worked on his robes. Jane would have wept pious tears and slipped sweetly into the role of Regent, she thinks with a peculiar mixture of sorrow and spite. But Jane is dead now. She thinks of the boys she never had, the sons who would have been King. And I would have been the power behind the throne, and behind me Uncle Howard.
After the child is crowned and anointed, he receives the homage of his lords. First comes the Lord Protector, his Uncle Somerset. Poor Uncle Howard, Anne thinks, you lost your chance. In another world it might have been you, kneeling to receive your great-nephew's homage. Might, she thinks. There was no love lost between her and her uncle. I might have found a way to rid myself of you, had I grown any stronger.
She watches the ceremony with the other peeresses, sitting by Anne of Cleves. Elizabeth is between Mary and Frances Brandon, the Grey girls queued up beside their mother. Mary and Frances, fond as they are of gaudy stuffs, are resplendent in jewel-colored velvets, glittering with a constellation of gems. Frances has begin to let herself go, Anne thinks critically, she who was once as hard and lithe as a whip has begun to run to pudding-fat. A Tudor tradition? All that self-indulgence must have taken its toll. Mary herself is no longer the skinny stick she used to be, her sickliness has marred what little looks she had to start with and she will be as stout and dumpy as her mother before her, given time.
But she is Edward's heiress, Anne remembers and notes the easy familiarity between Mary and Elizabeth with relief.
Elizabeth looks strikingly lovely between her plain sister and her hideous cousin. Her gown of grey silk, furred with vair, fits like a glove on her slim, elegant figure. Her brilliant copper hair she wears loose, starred with ropes of pearls. Jane Grey is just as slim, but she has none of her cousin's grace and her reddish-brown hair and freckled complexion seem faded and drab beside Elizabeth's. Little Katherine Grey though... ah now there's a pretty maid. She has strawberry-blond ringlets, wide blue eyes and skin like a rose-petal, a proper heartbreaker she will be too, given time. She must take after Queen Mary, Anne decides. Lucky her.
Lady Anne sniffs into her handkerchief, quite touched by the ceremony. "Poor little prince," she says sadly.
"King," Anne reminds her absently.
Lady Anne throws her a shrewd look. "No," she says firmly and nods towards the Duke of Somerset. "That is the king behind him."
At the banquet, Anne sits with her daughter. "You are friendly with your sister?" she asks her daughter abruptly. "She likes you well?"
Elizabeth slants her a knowing look through her black eyes. "So she is sister now, not half-sister," she says mildly. "Yes, lady mother, I think she likes me... or tries to. She is a warm woman to her friends, a kind mistress and she tries to be a dutiful sister. She does not think it right that the sins of the mother should be visited on an innocent child - I overheard her saying it once when I was little, too little to understand she thought." She smiles faintly. "I was never too little to understand, as you know to your grief, mamma."
Anne nods with relief. "Keep her sweet then."
"She hates you," Elizabeth points out baldly. "Anyone would, if they were in her position." She does not mince her words. "She thinks you tried to do away with her, that you did away with her mother. You wore a yellow gown and danced on the day she was buried."
Anne raises her eyebrows and blushes as her daughter puts the truth so baldly into words . "Well I never did. I was joyful when Katherine of Aragon died, but I had nothing to do with her death and I did not need to. She was an old woman, sick and ailing."
"Not so old," Elizabeth points out shrewdly, "Only fifty. Not so sick and ailing as she would have been, had you not pushed her to the grave. You didn't have to poison her soup, Mary says that the marsh airs at Kimbolton, the grief eating away at her heart because she could not see her husband or her daughter destroyed her."
As Jane Seymour almost pushed me into mine. Anne is about to open her mouth to argue when Elizabeth shrugs impatiently. "Oh what does it matter now," she says, her voice hard and brittle and suddenly very world-weary. "It was ten years ago and all for nothing. Neither of your sons ever came to the throne, so all you ever fought for was for nothing." She plays with a curl of her hair and says quietly, "She showed me something last autumn, when Edward and I were visiting her at her manor, that I have often thought about. A cedarwood box with a rose of pure white silk. She said that Father had half-a-dozen made for her mother on the day she gave birth to their first son."
"The New Year's Prince," Anne says. Another Henry and he would have been thirty now, a man grown had he lived. He would have sons of his own and you, my little Elizabeth, would never have been dreamed of. Another lifetime, another destiny.
"There were no roses to be found in the heart of winter, though she loved them. So he had half-a-dozen made for her. It was so beautifully made, it must have taken seamstresses weeks to make them, weeks before he knew whether she was carrying a boy or a girl..." Elizabeth's voice trails off. "He loved her," she says, almost accusingly.
Anne bows her head. "He did," she says. "It was the work of my lifetime to untangle the knot of their love. You can think of me as you like, daughter, a witch, a whore. But I only succeeded at what a hundred other women failed at."
Elizabeth touches her mother's hand gently. "Peace, mamma. I would never blame you. I only thought... he loved her so dearly, Mary says he asked her blessing every time before he went out on a journey. And then, he didn't. He left her without saying goodbye." She says it as though it strikes her as marvelous strange. "And if a man can love a woman as deeply as he loved her, as madly as he loved you, then what surety is love?"
"No surety at all, darling. No surety but a mother's love."
"Or a father's, I thought." Elizabeth smiles sadly as her mother squeezes her hand. Suddenly she does not look like a fourteen-year-old girl anymore, she looks much older and sadder. "I love him dearly, but that cannot change his nature. He was not a... kind man. And you, lady mother, I love you deeply but you are not a kind woman either. And I find, less and less with everyday, that there is no surety to be found in anyone's love but my own."
Spring 1547
They retire to Chelsea with Catherine, keeping her company in the early days of her widowhood at her dowerhouse. Henry has left her a handsome jointure - extravagant, the spiteful Duchess of Somerset would say. Catherine's former lady-in-waiting takes the queen's jewels for herself, arguing that since the king is dead his widow is not entitled to the royal gems, which should by right go to the Lord Protector's wife.
"The sour bitch," Catherine, usually so calm and composed, snaps, crumpling one of Somerset's letters in her hand. "She will repent of her pride someday."
Elizabeth, strumming her lute half-heartedly, looks up from her pile of cushions. "But, Your Grace," she reasons, "you hardly need those jewels now, being in mourning."
"It is a matter of principle, Elizabeth," Anne tells her. She pats Catherine's shoulder and says briskly, "Nothing to be done - now. But you remember, every dog has its day."
Catherine giggles, as light-hearted as a girl. "Surely you do not dare compare me to a dog, Marquess." They are very light-hearted this spring, Anne reflects, two venerable dames as merry as milkmaids. It is as though a heavy weight has been lifted off their shoulders, with Henry's death. Only Elizabeth, who by rights should be gay and bonny at fourteen, is as quiet and grave as her mother and stepmother should be. She has taken her Father's death hard, she buries herself in her studies as though it will keep her grief away. She wears the deepest, most unrelieved mourning - as does her sister.
Once or twice Catherine gently suggests that it is not right that she grieve so much, that her father would not want it, but the haunted face that Elizabeth turns up to her is deterrent enough to make her stop. And anyway, as Anne points out, Henry would have adored his daughters' grief. He would have lapped it up and asked for more, the selfish, spoiled child that he was. "He must be gloating in Hell," she tells Catherine coolly, "to see Elizabeth's unhappiness."
"He always wanted to be the first in everyone's hearts," Catherine said resignedly. "I had to wear a mask over my heart for years and how I hated it. How I hated him - though I will never say so to Elizabeth. It would break her heart."
"I don't think so," Anne says thoughtfully. "She isn't as much a child as I like to think sometimes. She had the measure of him, she has the measure of me and you, better than we give her credit for." When she was a bright child, she was a delight to our hearts. But now that she is a bright young woman, she is almost a danger.
There is a romance blossoming under Catherine's roof as well. "Sir Thomas Seymour visits everyday," Elizabeth remarks one day, standing at the window. Catherine and Sir Thomas are walking in the orchards - suitably attended of course.
Anne smiles at her. "They enjoy each other's company."
"Too much," Elizabeth says shrewdly. "It does not look seemly. What would the King's council say? And my Lord of Somerset has little love for his brother, he will not like to see him marrying so high. And the Duchess hates Catherine viciously, and it's said that she rules her husband."
"Whatever can they say?" Anne demands incredulously. "She is only the King's stepmother, not royal kin at all and therefore not under their jurisdiction. And he is a free man as well."
"They can say she is a loose woman, a forward widow driven by lust." She rubs her hair and complains, "I do not see why she likes him so much. Of course he is very handsome, but I find him rather a dunce."
Anne shrugs, uncomfortably aware that her daughter speaks sense. "They can say anything they like. But they cannot do anything." Elizabeth shakes her head, pursing her lips in disapproval. Anne smiles and puts her hand on her daughter's shoulder. "Peace, daughter. They are happy with each other, will you not give them your blessing?"
"They hardly need my blessing," Elizabeth points out. "I am a nobody, you have seen to that yourself." But she smiles to soften her words and says, "I love her dearly and I wish her all the best. If she is happy with him, then I am happy but... he is such a rake."
"A handsome rake. A gallant, glamorous man, one whom any woman of sense would be happy to have warming her bed. Catherine has done her duty by three old men, she deserves a reward. And you must know that he was courting her before your Father, after she was widowed by Lord Latimer. They might have been married then. This is only a continuation."
They are married quietly at the end of May, in the manor chapel by Catherine's own chaplain. No invitations are sent out, no announcements are made - Catherine has scarce been widowed six months and to attract attention would be most unwise. Elizabeth puts off her sober mourning for the day, she wears a gown of white and blue, as pure as the Virgin Mary. She arranges a wreath of flowers on the bride's hair, helps her into a becoming gown of green silk. Anne herself wears yellow, the bright color that becomes her dark hair and eyes so well.
"I am truly happy for you," she says sincerely, relieving Catherine's doubts. "And so will Edward. He has always loved you and he has a fondness for his uncle."
"But not Lady Mary," Catherine says sadly.
Elizabeth hesitates. "She'll come around," she says kindly. "Eventually."
During the service, she asks Anne, "Didn't you ever think to marry again?"
Anne laughs shortly. "And give up my freedom for a man again? No, I think not. I would only have married again if I was in love - or in danger."
Elizabeth gives her a tiny smile. "So you will not try to marry me off again, against my will?"
"A girl must be married," Anne says automatically. But then she sighs, "No, I won't. It was wrong of me, Elizabeth, and I beg your pardon for it. I meddled - I thought it was out of my concern and love for you but now I wonder... was it only to gratify my pride?" She shakes her head. "But I doubt that I could do anything if your brother or his council wished you to marry again, to their advantage."
"You wouldn't have to, I'd handle them myself."
"Bold words for a young girl."
"But I am not a young girl anymore, mamma," Elizabeth says flippantly. "I am a young woman now, and that is a vastly different matter."
"And so you are," Anne says with a start. Her daughter stands taller than her now, she holds herself with a new dignity rather than the old girlish grace. She is still a little lanky, a little coltish, but growing fast out of it. "And a beautiful young woman too, I think."
"Hardly beautiful," Elizabeth says, making a face. She points out her flaws with the studied quickness of one who has spent many hours mourning them before a looking glass. She was always a vain girl. "My nose is too long and hooked, my mouth is too wide, I have the most beastly freckles-"
"Look at me," her mother points out. "Is this a beautiful face?"
Elizabeth blinks at her. "Of course," she insists like a child, "you were the greatest beauty of your day, and you still are."
"Of course not. I was always considered the plain one in the family, your Aunt Mary was the golden beauty. I was too sallow, too dark, too thin and angular." Anne grimaces. "Its not the face that counts, my love. It is everything else."
After the wedding, Elizabeth and the maids throw rice at the bride in the old half-heathenish ritual. Thomas kisses each of them, his hand linked with Catherine's. When he reaches Elizabeth he swings her around as though she is still a child and gives her a smacking kiss on the lips. She is quite pink after he is done and giggles.
She is such a sweet innocent in some ways, Anne thinks fondly. I doubt she has ever kissed a boy before. Not like me - I was Queen Claude's maid-in-waiting at the French court when I was her age. I had to guard my virtue, almost at knife-point.
They have a very loud and cheerful wedding dinner, in the manner of a country wedding, followed by a tipsy bedding ceremony. It is all great, silly, harmless fun, a world away from Catherine's last bedding, done formally in front of the whole court. They bundle Thomas Seymour in only his smock into the great bed, with his blushing bride spreading her arms to receive him.
Anne is pink and laughing by the end of it, her hood askew. "So you see how delightful marriage to a man like Thomas Seymour can be," she points out to Elizabeth.
The girl blushes and says primly, "Indeed I do not, Lady Mother." But her face gives the lie to her tongue and Anne knows, without having to ask, that her daughter is not a little charmed by the old rake.
January 1548
Catherine and Thomas repair to Sudeley Castle in Gloucestershire and Anne entrusts her daughter to their care. Catherine keeps a court of wards, young girls of noble birth, chief among them being Lady Jane Grey. Her household is respected as a place of learning for young women, noble families are anxious to send their daughters to be trained under the Queen Dowager. With her hands full with running her estates at Pembroke, Anne sends Elizabeth away to them.
She is fifteen now, a tall, grave girl, still in royal mourning. Ripe for marriage, Anne thinks wistfully, dreaming of grandchildren. But she never says anything. "I hardly like to leave you by yourself," she says to her mother.
"That never troubled you before," Anne points out.
"I find that I have become a miraculously dutiful daughter now. You should be enchanted but you are only suspicious. Alas, Lady Mother, it does not become you."
Anne laughs shortly. When Elizabeth kneels, she rests her head on her daughter's bright copper head and blesses her. "We shall spend the summer together," she promises. "I have a fancy to take you to Hever Castle this summer, to show you where I grew up."
"This summer then," Elizabeth says. "And then I am to visit Mary in the autumn, she has asked for me."
"Yes, do," Anne says dryly, "you must keep good ties with her."
Elizabeth makes a face. "And Christmas at court - I cannot wait for it!"
April 1548
"You wear color now," Anne observes. She has been invited to Sudeley, for Catherine is with child and longs for the company of her old friends. They are sitting in a handsome oak-paneled room, Elizabeth and Anne in the window-seat with Jane and the other wards studying in a circle.
Elizabeth blushes and attends very busily to the book in her hand. She is wearing a teal silk gown, embroidered with purple irises. She has lost weight, Anne notes with a critical eye. "Sir Thomas and Catherine brought me to understand that excessive mourning was very wrong. That my father would want me to be happy, and not bury myself in my grief for him."
"Hmm," Anne says shortly. "And are you happy here, Elizabeth? You write me so few letters these days and I wonder..."
Before she can answer, Thomas Seymour bounds into the room in his usual leaping way, his deerhounds at his heels and trailing an odor of sweat and horseflesh. "Oh very happy, I believe," he barks with laughter, putting his arm around Elizabeth's shoulder, "and very diligent at her studies, hmm? Perhaps too diligent..." Playfully he tweaks her ear. The girl blushes and Anne is about to point out that he need not hang over her so familiarly when Catherine sails into the room.
She smiles indulgently at her husband and stepdaughter, wrapped together so intimately, as though it is a matter of course. Perhaps I am reading too much into things, Anne concedes wearily, Thomas has always been overly enthusiastic, he cannot comprehend the bounds of what passes for seemly and would be shocked if I pointed them out. He is such a big-hearted bear of a man. And Elizabeth is an innocent. Catherine does not seem to mind, she is his wife and she has always had only Elizabeth's best interests at heart.
Catherine is fathoms deep in love with Thomas, anyone can see that, and he is a devoted husband. He kisses her when she enters the room and swings her into a chair, summoning the maid to put a cushioned footstool at her feet.
"I am only three months ahead into my time and you act as though it were nine!" But she laughs as she says it and her fingers linger on his face.
"I want to indulge my wife," he says sweetly and Anne is reminded irresistibly of her pregnancies, when Henry would kneel at her feet as though the world was contained in her belly.
Anne draws a chair next to her friend. "You deserve to be indulged, my bonny Kate. And now you must tell me about your new book, the Lamentations of a Sinner."
At once Catherine begins to talk animatedly and Anne is so wrapped up in her conversation that she does not notice when Elizabeth and Thomas leave. When she realizes that they are no longer there and asks, Catherine is unconcerned. "They must have gone walking in the knot gardens or the orchard. They usually do so at this time."
"Alone?" Unchaperoned?
"There must be people around," Catherine says vaguely. "There always is." She glances around the room, looking at the girls. "Margaret has gone with them, I think."
"Oh yes, of course," Anne agrees. "And now I shall go to the dairyhouse to fetch you a cup of buttermilk. You look as though you need it, in this heat." Truly it is most unseasonably warm for April.
"I should be glad of it," Catherine agrees.
Little Jane Grey, so devoted, looks up from her books and slips shyly towards them. "Shall I play for you, Your Grace?" she asks eagerly. "I have learned a new piece on my lute."
"Yes, do so, child," Catherine says warmly. She exchanges a glance with Anne, poor thing. Certainly Anne has no love for the milky-blooded chit but she cannot help feeling sorry for her - life under Frances Brandon cannot have been easy.
"I shall fetch some sugared milk for you, Jane," she says, in an effort to be pleasant. "Chilled milk is such a relief on a hot day, I have often found."
"Thank you, my lady," Jane whispers, not meeting Anne's eyes. Little brat, Anne thinks and as soon as she is out from the room, sends a maid running to the dairyhouse. She strides towards the knot gardens purposefully.
At the very heart of the gardens she finds her daughter, breathless from laughter, in Thomas Seymour's clutches as he tickles her mercilessly. Margaret Devereux, one of Catherine's wards, is with them as well, giggling. Thomas only lets go when he sees Anne and straightens up. Elizabeth collapses, shaking in silent laughter, in Margaret's arms.
"We were playing catch," Thomas says and fourteen-year-old Margaret adds her voice to his. "I couldn't catch Peggy here, but I caught Elizabeth."
"Indeed," Anne says thinly. "But catch is a game for children, for little girls. Lady Margaret and my daughter are both young women. It does not look seemly."
Thomas blinks at her. "But I'm her stepfather," he says, bewildered as a boy. "Surely you cannot imagine-"
"I was only saying that it did not look well." Anne can believe his innocence, but someone must point out how unsuitable these little games are.
"Of course, of course," Thomas says awkwardly. He bows stiffly to her and goes away.
Elizabeth, having caught her breath, looks at her mother resentfully. "You always want to spoil my fun!" she bursts out, like a petulant child. She is indifferent to Margaret's presence, her face is quite red with frustration. "Sir Thomas and I were only playing."
"Yes, I know," Anne says wearily. "But I only had a care for how it looked-"
Elizabeth steps closer to her and hisses in her ear, "You never had a care for how it looked when Catherine rushed headlong into marriage with Thomas. You never had a care when you closeted yourself up in your bedroom for hours with your brother. Why now? Why me?" Lady Margaret has the sense to melt away and Anne looks up into her daughter's face.
"I am sorry to interfere then," she says coldly. "You are almost a woman grown now and I shall not interfere any more. Does that please you, Elizabeth?"
"Yes. But it was a long time in coming, Lady Mother."
Even in the manor house she is not free from recriminations. Catherine draws her chair closer to Anne's and as they sip their buttermilk together says plaintively, "They were only playing, Anne, you know how it is. You should not have spoken so to them - you must have hurt both their feelings."
"I am sorry," Anne says guiltily, "I might have let my pride get the better of me. Forgive me. I shall ask Sir Thomas to forgive me, and my daughter as well. I have no wish to cause any trouble between you, you are all so happy together." She smiles wanly. "Perhaps a happy family bewilders me and I see more than I should, things that do not exist at all."
"They were only playing," Catherine repeats. Nervously she rubs her wedding ring, like a talisman that will protect her. "He loves her like a daughter."
May 1548
She is sitting drowsily in the window-seat, a book of French poems lying forgotten in her lap, watching the rain pelting down on Pembroke Castle.
"Mamma!" a voice says breathlessly and Elizabeth sweeps into the room in a scarlet riding habit, eyelashes starred with raindrops and damp hair uncoiling out of a high chignon. She is flushed with excitement and she kneels before her mother for a kiss and a blessing.
"Elizabeth!" Anne all but screams. "I did not expect you! I thought we had agreed that you would come in July and we would go to Hever!"
"I know, I know," Elizabeth says eagerly, "but I missed you too much and Catherine gave me leave to see you."
"Get out of those damp things first," Anne scolds her. "You never wrote to me, you naughty girl. Really, Elizabeth!"
"I wanted it to be a surprise," Elizabeth protests, trailing after her mother. The grooms are sent to drag a tub filled with hot water from the kitchens to the upper chambers, the maids to line it with linen sheets and strew it with herbs and flowers so that Elizabeth might wash the mud of the road off. She is as docile as a child throughout the preparations and later, after she is washed and clean, Anne and she sit before the fire together in loose morning gowns. Elizabeth warms her bare feet before the fire and sighs happily as she cracks chestnuts and eats them.
Anne rubs a piece of red silk with oil, to brush over the girl's hair so that it shines. "You really should have told me," she says plaintively. Her daughter, bright and still sparkling from excitement - really the mood-swings she goes through - only laughs impertinently. "And how are they all at Sudeley? Catherine, Thomas, little Jane and the other girls?"
"Well," Elizabeth says, turning her face away. "They are all in fine fettle."
"Did Catherine send any letters with you for me?"
"No," Elizabeth says shortly.
"How odd," Anne wonders aloud. "That's not like her."
"She must have been distracted," Elizabeth says quickly. "With the baby and everything. I scarcely had time to plan this, you know, I decided it all so quickly. I just had to see you, mamma."
"Oh yes, you hasty, disagreeable girl," Anne agrees and thinks no more of it when Elizabeth presses her to tell her about things at Pembroke.
June 1548
The Lady Elizabeth is most deathly ill, she has been retching into her chamberpot all the night long, the maid says.
"Why was I not sent for?" Anne demands furiously, still in her nightgown, with her feet bare and hair tumbling around her shoulders. She throws a bedrobe over her shoulders and glares at the stupid serving-girl. Her hands itch to slap her fat cow face, but she restrains herself.
"Oh My Lady, forgive me, but the Lady Elizabeth insisted that I must not send for you! She didn't want you to be troubled and I was loth to do so, but she is so very sick that I-"
"Stupid Welsh ninny," Anne hisses exasperatedly and fumbling for a pair of slippers, storms out from her apartments towards Elizabeth's. Serving-maids trail after her, she snaps a command over her shoulder to send for a physician, a healing woman, anyone they can catch hold of in the middle of the night.
"There's the midwife and wise woman, Anwen, her cottage is just down by the river but they say she's a witch-"
"Witch, bitch send for her then if you think she can do any good!"
Elizabeth is on her knees like a wounded animal on the carpet, one of her tirewomen attempting to help her up. The room smells foul, of vomit and blood, and there are slimy rust-brown streaks on the floors and the sheets. "Get this cleaned up," Anne snaps at her women. "God's blood, but are all of you fools?" They rush to do her bidding and Anne kneels beside her daughter. "What is it, my love? Where does it hurt? Can you sit up by yourself? Why did you not send for me earlier, you little fool?"
She is crying, white-faced in pain, and Anne sighs and says, "Well never mind, sweeting, it will be better, it is nothing. You be calm now, we've sent for a healer."
"Not a fever," one of the older women say, touching Elizabeth's forehead. "Thank God for it. Just a belly gripe, I should say. My Lady went to bed early, did she not?"
"Yes, she said she had a headache. Really Elizabeth, you might have told me you were ill!"
They change her soiled nightgown and bundle her up in her bed. She clamps her hands over her belly as though she is in agony. Sweat beads on her forehead, she moans almost soundlessly through torn lips. Anne is reminded inexplicably of a woman in labor, but no, that is not possible.
Presently they usher the wise-woman in, a crone in a patched cloak as most women of her ilk are. She is a scrap of a woman, old but not so old that she hobbles or cannot stand straight, face brown and lined with cunning little eyes that remind Anne of a rat's. She smells clean at any rate, more than you'd expect. She has a pouch of herbs with her, though of course she will be permitted the use of the castle stillroom if need be.
"Mistress Anwen," Anne says formally, "my daughter is ill, stomach pains I believe." She begins to list the symptoms, the duration and the woman nods respectfully, hands clasped behind her back.
"Chamomile tea," she says briskly, "laced with brandy and piping hot, I should say. And clear the room and open the windows, she'll be better for the fresh air."
Anne raises her eyebrows at this most unorthodox suggestion - fresh air can bring in foul miasmas, as everyone knows - but nods at the gaping maids to do the woman's bidding. Wisewomen are often queer, but it never hurts to listen to their odd bits of homespun knowledge. Oftimes they know a thing or two that even the most learned physicians do not, old knowledge passed down from mother to daughter for hundreds of years.
"And send the hens away," the wisewoman insists, looking around disdainfully. She does not seem to think much of the gaggle of serving-women and Anne cannot blame her - she has never had much time for silly women herself, either. "Its to be a long night, My Lady, and we two shall sit up with her."
They send up ale and a meat pie from the kitchens for Anwen and she sets to heartily. When Anne asks her when she intends to start healing her patient, the woman only says, "Lord love you, Lady, she doesn't need my help. She'll heal quick enough, in her own time, and it won't be longer'n than a night."
"How can you tell?"
"I've seen it happen before," the woman says darkly. "Often."
"What ails her then?"
The woman throws her a shifty look and drops her eyes down to her food. "As to that, Lady, I really can't say..."
"Can't or won't?" Anne asks coolly.
"Shouldn't," the woman says firmly.
Anne laughs shortly. She has dealt with this kind before. Carelessly she tosses a few coins into the woman's palm and Anwen's face brightens visibly. "I've seen your young lady before," she sighs. "Came down the riverbend with her handmaid behind her, down to my cottage, not a week ago. Then she left the twittering girl behind and came in through my door. Not the least bit afraid."
Anne raises her eyebrows but when the woman stays clam sighs and says, "You drive a hard bargain, Mistress Anwen. Here's a few more coins for your pains."
"I've seen a hundred girls like her," Anwen says, warming up to her theme, slipping the coins into her pouch. "Brewed a hundred potions for 'em too. A good business, a steady business, you could say. Sometimes they come with a friend or a lover, most often alone. Shamed they are, usually, afrighted. Your lady daughter was neither, she was sharp and bold and knew what she needed. Drove a hard bargain too," Anwen complains, "which I didn't think fitting in a rich young lady, highborn too, but she only laughed when I pointed it out to her and said parsimony was the best sauce for a fortune."
"What in God's name did she want?" Anne whispers, though she already knows the answer.
"What do young girls want, m'lady? Not a love philtre, your lady daughter's black eyes and dower are charm enough for most men."
"So it must have been pennyroyal tea," Anne says dully, sagging back in her chair.
"To bring down the flowers," Anwen says tactfully. A tasteful play of words for a sordid truth.
"To flush a babe from the womb," Anne says, undeceived. She draws her shawl closer to herself, shivering as she remembers the one time she took it herself. Mary delivered the dark glass bottle to her bedroom in Whitehall, straight from the stews of London where the women knew where to find such things. The babe was dead in my womb. I never killed it, I only rid myself of its corpse. So she has always told herself.
"Pennyroyal and tansy and a sprig of juniper, aye. To rid herself of a little curse." The woman shrugs. "A common ailment as I said, m'lady."
"You won't tell anyone." It is not a question.
The woman throws up her hands defensively. "Bless your heart, m'lady, no! I know which side my bread's buttered. I only told you seeing as you were her mother and she only a child still." She looks at Anne curiously. "Do you have any idea who brought the young lady to this sorry state?"
"Yes, I think so," Anne says grimly. "I think I know very well indeed." She puts her hand gently on Elizabeth's clammy forehead, the girl is dozing. "So it will come out, won't it?" It, she thinks, my first grandchild.
"Oh yes, should do," the woman says comfortably. "I know my trade, m'lady, been at it since I was younger than your own daughter. Apprenticed to me grandmam, she taught me all the Welsh lore and all the women's lore she knew. Would fill a fat book too if either of us knew how to write 'em letters." She smiles faintly. "Your lady daughter spoke Welsh to me, m'lady. Shocked I was, 'spect that's why I gave her such a bargain on the herb tea. She's a fine young lady and I would not blame her overly much. These things happen, m'lady, you must understand and she'll be fit as a fiddle afterwards and much chastened."
Anne sighs. "Do you know how far along in her time she was?"
"She thought two months or thereabouts, I'd say she conceived about April. Lucky for her she acted so quick, quicker its caught the safer it can be nipped."
Nipped. Like vermin. Towards dawn Elizabeth begins to bleed again and Anwen nods with satisfaction, saying that it should be over quickly now. It is too - before the sun rises, Anwen bundles up the bloodied sheets and the remains of the ill-conceived infant, saying that she will have them quietly disposed of. Anne stands at the window and watches the sun rising over the hills. "It should be buried," she says half-heartedly, remembering the tiny corpse they had buried behind the Whitehall stables. If he had lived he would have been a king. "In sanctified ground, and prayers should over it."
"Of course, m'lady," the wisewoman says soothingly. "I'll tend to it myself."
But Anne knows she will not, like as not she'll dump the bloody sheets and the thing inside in the swift-flowing river behind her cottage. A king's grandchild. She leans her hot forehead against the glass and feels the tears trickling down her lids. It seems a long time after Anwen leaves, before Elizabeth stirs in the bed.
"Mamma?"
"Yes, my love?" She forces a smile on her face and turns around. Her daughter needs her.
