Traitor's Kiss (11 page)

Nobody could doubt the beauty of her curving body. Robert's wine dribbled from his lips and he circled his arm around my waist.

It was a clever ploy, for women are not permitted to dance for public display. I swayed with her, remembering how my mother had danced with me in her arms. If she had been here, would
she
have dared to dance for us? Would I have found the courage to dance with her?

The dancer was breathtaking. In seconds, Salomé had plucked us from the icy cold, carried us on her gossamer wings and set us down under the desert's starry sky. I forgot the past and the future. I only wanted to be her.

The music died. Salomé faded into the shadows as the fire torches were extinguished. “King Herod, moved by her great beauty, granted Salomé anything she wanted,” the voice went on. “Salomé's mother whispered to her daughter, ‘Ask for the head of John the Baptist on a silver platter. That will put an end to his evil talk about me.' And Salomé, a dutiful daughter, did as her mother commanded.”

A trumpet blast brought an executioner onto the dais, sword in hand, eyes bulging through the holes in his black leather mask. Fear stabbed at me. “Whatever Lady Seymour has chosen to entertain us tonight, I want no part of it,” I whispered to Robert. But he was still in his far-off desert and did not reply.

I could not push my way out. I closed my eyes instead. Only the sound of laughter that greeted John the Baptist made me look again. The veil had been drawn back. The table had been brought forward. In front of it stood a boy aged about ten or eleven, plump and pretty with golden hair as curly as a piglet's tail. His dark beard did not match his hair and this had provoked the laughter. I laughed a little too. After all, what had I to fear? This was only a Shrovetide spectacle.

Thomas Seymour stamped his foot, shouting, “Give us a man, not a boy. His beard droops like…” He whispered the next words and the men around him laughed. “Where did you get it? From John the Baptist's head?”

The terrified boy tried to run away, but the executioner caught him by the collar and pushed him up onto the table, where he lay face down.

A stench of mingled sweat and perfume caught the back of my throat. I wanted to retch. To a steady roll of the drum, the executioner raised his sword. At once, the mood changed from starry-eyed enchantment to barbarism, as softened lips bayed for blood. “Off with his head! Off with his head!” they shrieked.

Repelled, I wanted to look away. But I
had
to watch. The sword fell. Its blade thudded against the boy's neck, clouding his head with spurting blood, which splattered onto Jane. As it dispersed, I saw the gaping neck wound, ragged and bleeding.

This gruesome sight, and the stench of real blood that I recognized from the hunt, left me reeling. I had been spared the sight of my mother's death, but some in this hall must have witnessed it. Alys would have seen it. Jane was clutching her neck, gaping like a dead fish.

The severed head had appeared on the table at the feet of the headless corpse, its eyes rolling, its lips moving – and John the Baptist's beard swinging from side to side.

“I didn't know that Boleyn sprouted a beard in the Tower,” a man shouted. “Perhaps she's not dead. Perhaps she paid a man to take her place.”

Robert reached for my hand. I looked at them all: Tom Seymour doubled with laughter; Jane aghast at the blood on her neck; Anne Seymour sparkling at the success of her chosen entertainment. Even her husband was smiling.

Many feelings touched my tormented heart: anger, despair, humiliation. Powerful men had sent my mother to her death. Now powerful men mocked her memory.

Was this going to happen for the rest of my life, her memory reviled? No, I had listened in silence too long. I would not live like this any longer, my mother a shameful secret.

The real world pulled me back from my girlish dreams. I made my way to the dais, avoiding standing too close to the bloodied neck behind me. But curiosity got the better of me. A glance told me that the blood came from a circle of thick paste set around a hole in the table where the boy had hung his head. This paste had been impregnated with animal's blood. I ripped away the cloth to reveal his head below, and, further along, a second boy – his twin – poking his head through another hole.

“Spoilsport! Spoilsport!” The shouts deafened me.

“Get out of my sight before I roast you on the spit outside,” I shouted. The boys dragged their bloodied heads from the holes and ran behind the curtain, giggling with fright.

Anne Seymour, upstaged, called me down, but I ignored her.

Only then did silence fall.

This is how it must have been for my mother on the scaffold, I thought. She gave a few well-chosen words in praise of my father before she went to her eternal silence. Did her heart almost stop beating, as mine seemed to now?

“As you can see, ladies and gentlemen, life is an illusion,” I began. My voice shook. “We all see what we want to see, whether it is real or not. How I wish that my mother's death
had
been a trick. How I wish that she could have come alive like this piglet boy. She lies not far from here in an old arrow chest, because they forgot to order a coffin for her.” I strengthened my voice. “I could not help her in her hour of need. I was only a baby. But I am a woman now…” A whistle cut the air and stopped abruptly. “…and one day
I
might be your Queen. So I command you not to speak of her in my presence, unless you have something good to say about her, because I shall
never
forget those who mock her tonight. If you do not know what to give up for Lent, then let it be mockery.” I stopped, my heartbeat booming in my ears. Anne Seymour's newly-hung emeralds gleamed at me and gave me the courage to carry on. “One day soon, I shall learn the truth about her and so shall you.”

I finished, proud that I had defended my mother in public, proud that I had made my promise for all to hear. There was no lightning, no thunderbolt as I left the dais, only a rush of blood to my head. Some hissed. Some cheered. But all stood aside to let me pass. Some of the women curtsied. Some of the men bowed and doffed their caps. Thomas Seymour did neither. He stood, mouth gaping. It was the first time I had seen him lost for words.

Only Anne Seymour whispered as I passed, “We know the truth about your mother and you would do well to accept it quietly.”

Promises made in public have even greater power than those made in private.

The truth, I thought. Now I
am
bound for Bedlam soon. There is no turning back.

Under the starlit sky, I removed the perfume box from my bodice, inhaling the faint fragrance that still lingered there, for I had used up all the cream. I knelt. It was the first time I had done so outside the safety of my bedchamber – except in church. I never kneel in public, for I remember how my mother died. I would never give any swordsman the chance to steal up behind me and take off my head. “No more mockery, mother,” I whispered. “Pray that Francis speaks the truth. Pray that Alys can tell me the truth.”

Jane was the only one who came to comfort me, but she startled me badly, creeping up behind me. “He didn't really lose his head,” she whispered. She rubbed her neck again and again. “Ellie says this is only bull's blood.”

“You little fool!” I snapped. “Of course I know it isn't real. Don't you understand? They rubbed
my
face in the dirt of
my
past, in public, like you rub a puppy's nose in its own filth so that it will never foul in the same place again.”

Her mouth trembled. “I would not dare make such a speech,” she said. “My mother would beat me for it.”

“Thank God that you have a mother,” I shouted. “Better a cruel mother than a dead one.”

Her thin shoulders heaved. She ran inside. I did not see her again that night. She left early with Mistress Ellen and Lady Catherine.

It was late when our barge returned for us. Guests still ate and drank, grasping the last moments before their fast. The sky was as black as ink, and extra lanterns had been lit on the barge. Thomas Seymour went to look for Kat, but he came back alone and told the oarsmen to start rowing. We left the water steps so quickly that I had no time to get out.

I shrank back into the shadows of the cushions and my furs. To be seen alone in a barge with a man – even my stepfather – would cause gossip.

In the bedchamber, I could run away or call for Kat. But in a barge, there was no escape, except into the murky Thames.

Seymour, silly with drink, shadowed me. When I moved away, he moved towards me. When I sat opposite him, he came to join me. “A performance as good as Salomé's,” he said. He kissed my hand, eyes brimming with open admiration, and placed his hand on my knee, beneath my furs. I pushed it away, repelled by him.

“I heard you scoff at my mother's death,” I cried. “Did you know that your brother had chosen to insult her memory tonight?”

“Of course I didn't, Be— Elizabeth. I'm not so cruel – and neither is Edward. This illusion is the latest fashion in London, and Anne Seymour always seeks to be fashionable.” His mouth was too close. “You're as beautiful as Salomé and you dance like her. So was your mother. I was a young man when she came to court. She bewitched with her black eyes…”

“Don't use that word.”

“Oh Bess, she entranced, enthralled, enchanted, just as you did tonight.”

I was not listening. I was thinking: on this royal barge of satin and silk was a man of great power, the Lord High Admiral of England, who protected everything except my reputation. Out there, in a boat that reeked of death was my half-brother, who had no power, whose mother was in Bedlam because of me.

Revulsion ran through me. “Remember your wife, sir, for she bears your child.”

“Her lips aren't so inviting.” He leaned over me, letting his beard brush my cheeks.

Would he never be finished with such talk? Would he always think I was like my mother? Full of pride that I had dared to defend her, I stood on tiptoe to reach him and, by the silly smile on his face, he thought I was trying to kiss him.

I tugged his beard and his eyes watered with pain. He cursed me. I cursed him. Then he lifted me off my feet, forcing me to let go. He dangled me in the air like a doll and I thought he would drop me into the Thames. Below, the icy water creaked against the sides of the barge and I thought of the girl in the death-boat, swollen with muddy water.

At last, my stepfather took pity on me, for my teeth clattered with cold. He threw me onto the cushions. Then he stood at the barge rail, cursing the oarsmen for their slowness, cursing all the way back to Chelsea.

Afraid, I cried into my gloves until the velvet was sodden. To calm myself, I watched the riverbanks flash by. Every candle had long been extinguished in the little cottages. Leafless trees showed solitary walkers scurrying for the safety of their homes.

Such winter weeks had been the last weeks of my mother's life, although she had not known it. From the stillbirth of the son that would have saved her, till May Day, when she was taken to the Tower, she saw my father's affections change towards her. She could do nothing. She was a prisoner of vile gossip long before she was taken to be questioned.

I pondered. My mother went to the Tower on May Day, in full daylight for all to see her. Yet May Eve is a night of mystery and mischief, a night when anything can happen if you believe it can. It is a night for madness.

It was the night I would go to Bedlam.

I snuggled deep into my sable furs and thanked God that I had made up my mind. At last, I dared hope. If Francis had told me the truth, I might speak to somebody who had loved my mother. I might unburden myself of the thoughts and doubts that had obsessed me for so long.

Servants were waiting at the water steps with flaming torches that would guide us back to Chelsea Palace.

“I'll wait for Kat,” I said.

Seymour scowled. “Don't wait too long. People will talk.”

I stood in the warmth of the fire braziers, watching their flickering glow on the water, warming my cheeks. On these steps, I had first seen Francis. On these steps my mother had come back to haunt me. Soon I would lay her ghost to rest.

Kat came in on the Dudley's barge. She was snoring as it moored. As soon as she saw me, she grumbled at me, her voice thick with sleep. “You shouldn't have been alone with
him
.”

“He tricked me, Kat,” I said. “But I won't let him trick me again – ever.”

We set off for the house, arm in arm. Above us, rose stalks entwined, their thorns sparkling in the frost like tiny swords.

Yes, it was decided. I would go on May Eve, when anything can happen. And pray to God that I would hear the truth.

Chapter Eleven

How can you sleep when you know you have to go to hell?

Night after night, I watched the river, whipped to waves by March gales and flattened by damp mists.