The Last Tudor Page 28

  “My orders were to escort you. I don’t know any more,” the captain says.

  The crew cast off and raise their oars and then when the barge is pushed from the pier they dip them, all at the same time, in the water. The hortator beats one strike of the drum and they all pull together and the barge leaps forward, making me rock in my seat. Again and again the drum pounds softly and the barge rocks me to its beat. The sun on the water is dazzling, the baby is heavy in my belly. I am terribly afraid, and I don’t know what I should fear. I wish that Ned were here. I wish with all my heart that Ned were here.

  For once in my life, I have nothing to say, not a scream of protest, not even a flood of tears, not one word. I am so shocked I am struck dumb. Where Elizabeth sank down onto the steps at the watergate and wept in self-pity and made sure her words were recorded, I am silent. I disembark from the barge, I take the outstretched hand to help me up the steps. I go quietly, like a frightened child, to wherever they lead me, up the stone steps and through the garden gate into the front door of the lieutenant’s house, the mansion house of the busy little walled village that includes both mint and armory, treasure house and palace, prison, and place of execution.

  They help me up the narrow staircase to a good-sized bedchamber at the front of the house, and when I sink into a chair, they go out and close the door quietly. Then I hear the key turning in the lock. It is not a long terrible grating sound—it is an oiled lock that has been used often. I am only another prisoner.

  THE LIEUTENANT’S HOUSE,

  THE TOWER, LONDON, SUMMER 1561

  When I get up in the morning and look through the leaded panes of the small window, I can see the green where they built the scaffold and beheaded my sister. If I squint to the left, I can see the chapel where they buried her severed head beside her slight truncated body. I sleep in the bed that was hers when she was queen, I cry into her pillows. I sit in her old chair. The tapestries that hang on the walls are those that hung in her bedroom.

  On the other side of the Tower grounds, past the White Tower and out of sight, are the stables where she put her hand on our father’s rein and begged him not to leave her. I can hear the clang of the gate that opened for him on that day. This is the place of my sister’s crowning, betrayal, and death. My father is buried here, too. This is where Elizabeth, with extraordinary cruelty, has chosen to imprison me.

  She took her time like the heartless automaton that she is. She smiled at me on progress, she waved to the crowds along the route. She favored me before the Spanish and the French ambassadors. She said nothing, not even to Robert Dudley when he told her the news that triggered her jealous hatred. She gave everyone—even me—to understand that I was still an heir, just as I was before he confessed to her, that I am her cousin, her lady-in-waiting, a favorite, a girl she regards as her daughter. Actually, she behaved as if he had said nothing, that she had heard nothing. It was as if no confession had ever been made, and Bess St. Loe and Robert Dudley said nothing either.

  She allowed me to return early to London and—when she could act easily and fast, secretly and unchallenged—she had me arrested and locked up in these three rooms, overlooking Tower Green, where the beheading of my sister plays over and over again in my mind’s eye whenever I look out of the window.

  Of course, she’s not going to behead me. I am not so timorous that I imagine things are worse than they are. She is furious with me, but I have committed no crime. I will be held here, in moderate comfort, with my pets and my women, until the baby is born, until Ned comes home, and then we will both beg her pardon and be released, and we will have to live quietly at Hanworth until she forgets or forgives me. At the worst she will treat me as she does our cousin Margaret Douglas—with suspicion and dislike. Like her, I will raise my Tudor son, and laugh up my sleeve.

  Like it or not, any boy of mine will be the next King of England; my rights will pass to him. This could make Elizabeth more kindly to me, as she can raise him as her heir, and then nobody can insist that she marry. But, since it is Elizabeth—a barren Tudor from a tyrannical line—it may make her angrier with me, as the prettier younger cousin who has done what she cannot. There is no way of knowing with Elizabeth. I cannot guess at her mind. I would never have imagined that she would imprison a woman about to give birth for doing nothing worse than marrying the young man she loves.

  As she establishes her rule, the whole country and I learn that she is powerful and unscrupulous. I truly believe her to be a tyrant as wicked as her father, but I don’t fear that she will do worse to me than hold me in this shameful imprisonment until the birth of my son. She means me to be humiliated, and she has triumphed. Indeed, she has brought me very low.

  “Oh, no, she plans far worse than this,” Mary my sister says, climbing up into one of my high dining chairs, and sitting back, her little feet stuck out in front of her.

  “What could be worse?” I ask.

  Mary is my only visitor, though the court has returned to London, and she is escorted by a woman who is certain to be spying on us and reporting everything we say. No one else comes to see me. My ladies are allowed to serve me, my gowns have been sent to me, my plates with my family crest and my silver forks; my linnets from Janey are in their cage. I have half a dozen of Jo’s puppies in their basket and Jo watches over them all as Ribbon the little cat watches her. Mr. Nozzle the monkey is exploring the walls and fireplaces of the three rooms over and over, round and round, going from tapestry to mantelpiece, table to floor, and back up high again. I feel worse for him than I do for myself, as Mr. Nozzle loves a garden in sunshine and these rooms are always dark and stuffy during the day and cold at night.

  “The queen has decided that there was a plot,” Mary says quietly. “She thinks that the Spanish arranged your marriage with Ned and that they will turn her from the throne and make you queen and him consort, and your son will be raised as heir, as rival heir to the French candidate—the Queen of Scots.”

  I stare at Mary. “This is madness. Ned is as staunch a Protestant as any in England, and I am sister to Jane Grey! Nobody can think that we would turn papist for the throne of England. Nobody can think that we would join with the Spanish!”

  There is a tap at the door and the woman spy is distracted. “But she does,” Mary whispers quickly. “Because it’s exactly what she would have done herself. She would have done anything to become queen. She doesn’t realize that everyone is not the same. She would never marry for love, so she doesn’t believe that you did.”

  “Someone must tell her that I meant no such thing!” I say. “Robert Dudley must tell her. William Cecil will tell her that I always reported the Spanish ambassador to him!”

  Mary shakes her wise little head. “Oh Lord, it’s worse than that at court! Now she suspects both of them, too. Robert Dudley because he knew of your marriage—”

  “Because I told him myself! And he told her the very next day!”

  “And Ned is in France and on his way to Rome. She thinks he’s going to report to the Pope.”

  “He’s with Thomas Cecil! Does William Cecil think that his own son has gone papist?”

  “Exactly, I told you, it’s terrible at court. She says, over and over, why would the two of them go to Rome, if not to meet with the Pope? Did Cecil know? Is this his plot? It looks very bad.”

  “Only if you think that everything is treason.”

  The woman spy returns to her seat and looks from one of us to the other, fearful that she has missed something. We turn our bland, pretty smiles on her.

  Mary folds her little hands in her lap and looks at me steadily. “That’s exactly what she does think, all the time. Especially of us cousins.”

  I stand up and I pull my flowing gown tight over my belly so she can see how big I am. Since the shame of my arrest I have gone into loose gowns and anyone can see that I am nearing my time. “Do I look like a woman about to flee to Spain? Do I look like a woman capable of leading a treasonous army against the Queen of Eng
land?”

  “Not to me you don’t,” Mary says steadily. “And I will go and talk to Cecil.”

  “No, don’t do that.” I am so afraid of Mary being arrested as a fellow plotter. If they are mad enough to arrest me, they are mad enough to accuse Mary, too. “Don’t do anything. Just stay quietly at court and serve the queen as best you can. Try to behave normally. And don’t come again too soon.”

  “You don’t want to see me?”

  I can tell that she is hurt. “I don’t want you endangered. I don’t want another Grey girl in the Tower. Two is enough. We are both as innocent as Jane. I don’t want you locked in here, where they killed Jane and torment me.”

  She pushes herself to the edge of the chair and drops lightly on her feet. She goes to the window and stands on tiptoe to look out to the green where her sister died. “I don’t doubt that she is in heaven,” she says staunchly. “I don’t doubt that you married for love and not for strategy. I don’t doubt that our destiny is to do what seems right to us, whatever people think.”

  I close my eyes to block out the sight of the green. “I am sure she is in heaven,” I agree. “And I did marry for love, and I love him still. And of course we have to live according to our own conscience; but I do want you to be very, very careful with your appearance, your friends, and your faith.”

  “I am,” Mary says, fearful of nothing. “I had permission to visit you from William Cecil, and I have to report back to him how I found you. I am his spy as well as your sister. I think everyone is a spy for someone or other.”

  “You can tell him everything,” I say. “I have nothing to hide.” I catch the curious gaze of the woman spy who came in with my sister. “I have nothing to hide,” I repeat.

  “I know,” Mary says. “I’ll tell William Cecil that you should be released to Hanworth. You should have your Seymour baby there, in Ned’s family home, and he should be christened in his own chapel.”

  THE TOWER, LONDON,

  AUTUMN 1561

  It is hot and airless in the lieutenant’s small house, and I am not allowed out of my rooms, not to walk in the garden nor on the flat roof of the Tower where I could, at least, get a breath of air in the evening and see the sun set.

  Every day the lieutenant of the Tower, Sir Edward Warner, comes to my room and asks me who knew that Ned and I were in love, and who knew that we were married, who witnessed the betrothal and the marriage, and who encouraged us to do it and keep it secret.

  He asks the same questions over and over again while Mr. Nozzle paws at the stone walls and tears miserably at the frayed edge of the tapestry, swinging dolefully on the dangling hem as if it were a bell rope and he were tolling a mourning bell.

  Over and over again I tell Sir Edward that we were two young people in love, the witness was Janey, that no one else knew except perhaps the servants and, of course, the minister, and he writes it all down very carefully and says that the minister will be sought out and that I must hope that his story confirms mine. I say that my box of papers, which proves everything I say, is in the royal jewel house, and they will find it if they will but look for it. I say that I already told all this to Robert Dudley, and the lieutenant says that this has been noted. He asks what I told Bess St. Loe, and I stammer, remembering the dark that followed the sudden blowing out of the candle.

  “Bess St. Loe?” I repeat, feebly.

  “She has been arrested for questioning,” he says heavily. “Indeed, I have interrogated her myself for her part in this conspiracy.”

  “Good God, is she in here too?”

  He nods. “Under suspicion of treasonous conspiracy with you.”

  “Sir Edward! That is so wrong! All I did was tell her that I was with child and beg her to help me for she had been a friend of my mother! God knows, there was no conspiracy. She cried out that I should never have come to her and ordered me from her room. She would not even speak to me in my trouble.”

  He writes this down, very slowly, word for word. I have to bite my lip on my impatience. “Sir Edward, I do promise you, this is just a story about love and perhaps folly, but when I see Ned—”

  “The Earl of Hertford is on his way from France,” he tells me.

  My knees suddenly weaken and I feel behind me for the chair, and I sink down. “I must sit,” I whisper. I am breathless at the thought of seeing him again. I forget that we are in such trouble. I can only think that he is coming home to me. “He’s coming home?”

  “He’s ordered home for questioning.”

  “Ask him anything!” I say triumphantly. “He will say the same as me.”

  “I will be asking him,” he says, dour as ever. “For he is coming here. He is under arrest, too.”

  They bring Ned in at dusk, under cover of darkness, and I can hear the heavy boots on the pavement below my window. There are many prisoners walking with him surrounded by guards, a woman with her head bowed and crying, clinging to the arm of another man, someone dawdling and protesting at the back, a man with his arm laid across someone’s shoulder. There must be about a dozen of them, arrested all together.

  At first I don’t understand who these people are. Then I realize with growing horror that Elizabeth has ordered the arrest of Ned and his servants; his brother; his sister-in-law; my stepfather, Adrian Stokes; my servants; ladies from the queen’s bedchamber; Bess St. Loe’s servants: everyone who ever knew me has been arrested for questioning. The queen is pursuing us as her father pursued the Pole family—down to the last little boy. The treasure house has been searched for my box of papers, my rooms have been stripped out and searched. Ned’s boxes from France have been confiscated and his house in London searched from cellar to attic. With all the power of her huge spy system, Elizabeth has launched a massive operation to root out a widespread conspiracy. Cecil’s spies are looking for a connection between supporters of my sister Jane, allies of Spain, enemies of Elizabeth, and anyone who would prefer a legitimate heir on the throne to a declared bastard. The queen has convinced herself that there is a plot, organized by the Protestants in England and the Spanish abroad, designed to put me on the throne of England and prevent Mary Queen of Scots from ever becoming queen and handing the country to her French family.

  The guards around Ned pause at the gate of the lieutenant’s house and then enter, disappearing from my view. I think they are bringing him into my rooms, to live with me, and I rush to the door as if I could throw it open, and then I remember I am locked in and step back from it. I pull at my flowing gown; I am so afraid he will find my broad belly a shock. He loved the narrow curve of my waist—will he find me ugly in these last days of my pregnancy? I pat my hair, I straighten my hood. I go to sit in my chair and then I stand up again, by the fireplace. I could almost beat down the door in my impatience to see him.

  Then I hear the terrible sound of them climbing the stone stairs that go past my rooms. They go past my door, they don’t stop to come in, they go on up to the rooms on the floor above. I cry out in disappointment and I run to the door and press my face against it, trying to distinguish Ned’s footstep, trying to recognize his breathing. I hear the door above mine open, I hear them go in, and the clatter as men drop bags, scrape the heavy wooden chairs on the stone-flagged floor, and then the slam of the door and the grate of the key in the lock and the noise of their feet on the stairs as they descend.

  He is above me. If he stamped with his heel on the floor, I would hear him. If I screamed at the top of my voice, he would hear me. I stand for long minutes, my face tilted up to the ceiling, the puppies whimpering as if they are longing for him too, hoping to hear a word from my husband, home at last.

  Every day now I have strange cramps and my belly stands out so firmly that I think the baby must be coming. “I cannot go on like this,” I say desperately to Sir Edward. “Do you want me to die in childbirth like Jane Seymour?”

  He looks anxious. “If you would only confess,” he says. “If you would confess, then I could get you sent to your uncle, or
to Hanworth, and the midwives could come.”

  “I can’t confess to what I have not done,” I say. I am crying for pain and self-pity. I am in a truly impossible situation, for who can ever prove to a Tudor queen that she is not in danger? All the Tudor monarchs think that they are in mortal danger, often without cause. King Henry saw imaginary enemies everywhere, and killed good friends and advisors from his fear.

  “I married a nobleman for true love. I insist that I see my husband. You must at least tell him that I am here, on the floor below him, and that I am near my time.”

  There is a tap on the door. Of course, my heart leaps as if it could be Ned: suddenly freed and coming to save me. Sir Edward looks at me suspiciously.

  “You are expecting a message?” he asks.

  “I am expecting nothing. I am hoping for mercy.”

  He nods to the guard who stands by the door and he unbolts it and swings it open. It is one of the lieutenant’s servants. “What d’you want, Jeffrey?” he asks abruptly.

  The man bows. He is holding a posy of late roses, red roses. “These for the young lady,” he says. “From the Earl of Hertford.”

  They are a deep red, Lancaster red. Nobody at the Tudor court would ever offer a white rose. I put out my hand and Sir Edward fussily shakes them in case a note drops out. Then he takes the posy apart looking for a message, and asks me what red roses mean to me; if they are a signal. I say that they mean that Ned is thinking of me, imprisoned just one floor below him. We are under the same roof again, as we have not been for months. He knows now that I was with child when he left me, and how I have suffered in his absence. He is telling me that he loves me. “That’s all,” I say. “He is a poet. Flowers are like words to him. Red roses tell me that he loves me still. Red roses are for true love.”