Traitor's Kiss (9 page)

“Shout it then, if that's what you want.” His lantern rattled as the boat bobbed. Francis looked as wretched as those he pulled from the water.

I leaned towards him, straining to be heard above the noise of the bargemen. “So is it true?
Are
you my father's natural son?” I wanted him to deny it.

“Yes. Does it matter?”

“Of course it does. It smacks of conspiracy.”

He raised his eyebrows. “Is it a conspiracy when a woman sacrifices her own reputation for the woman she serves?” he asked. “Do you know that a man can't lie with his wife when she's with child? It's against the church's teaching.”

Could he see my blush in the near-darkness? “Of course I do,” I said, although I did not know it.

“That's when men often take mistresses, especially kings. When your mother was with child – with you – your mother chose mine to lie with your father until you were born. It's common practice. For your father, this was almost the same as being faithful to your mother. For her, it was a way of keeping her husband close by.”

“So we are almost the same age? I thought that…”

“I look older,” he replied. “It's the life I've been forced to lead.”

My rage quietened. I sank to the steps, deep in thought. Icy water seeped into my velvet shoes. How much wiser Francis seemed than me. How little I understood of the world and the way it worked.

“When my mother found herself with child, just before your birth, your mother sent her to friends in France,” he went on. “She left me there to come back to court. She didn't expect your mother to die so soon, not when your father…our father…loved her so much.”

“Was your mother with her when she died?”

“Oh, yes. But she could not bear to stay here afterwards. She was afraid of protesting your mother's innocence too much. She would have done it – but for me. So she returned to France and we lived on the kindness of friends until your father died.”

This talk of our mothers was so natural, so welcome that it soothed me. Longing for mine washed over me like the water at my feet. What would I give to talk to Alys for an hour, a minute, a second?

“Where does your mother live, Francis?” I asked. “Is it far?” I smiled at him for the first time.

He was lost for words. I tried to help him, sensing that he was ashamed of his poverty. “It does not matter if you live in a simple cottage or worse, a hovel in the mud… Kat could fill my pomander with fresh lavender and—”

Francis laughed, the lusty laugh of my father, and so loud that one of the guards moved forward. Then he began to mutter, as if to himself. “Nothing can prepare you for what you'll see and hear. The devil is King
there
…” His voice faltered. I thought that shame still stopped him from naming some wretched place.

“Where is she, Francis?”

He might have struck me with his oar, for he whispered a word so foul that it stopped my breath.

He whispered, “Bedlam.”

Had I misheard? My heart thudded. Who had not heard of Bedlam – St Bethlehem's Hospital for lunatics, by Bishops Gate in London Wall, where poor souls shrieked and cried the devil's nonsense day and night?

Pity drained from me. I was the one who shrieked. “So you've chosen to mock me, Francis, like the man in the woods, like Jane, like Mary. You're as steeped in spite as they are. You've preyed on my longing for my mother, just because you couldn't know your father. It's—”

“Listen to me—”

“
Listen
? I've listened all my life and what have I heard? Lies. And now – more lies.” I stamped my foot, cursing. “Cranmer won't tell me the truth. My stepfather won't, although he tempts me with titbits. I thought your mother would.”

“She
will…
”

“How can she, when she's lost her wits?”

“Listen. Bedlam's full of women who must be silenced because they're seen to be troublesome,” he said. “There are wives who accuse their husbands of being unfaithful, and daughters who accuse their fathers of…lewd acts. Yes, put such women in Bedlam and they're silenced. Let them shriek and shout all day and rattle their chains all night and nobody listens. Don't you understand? You can speak the truth in Bedlam and nobody believes it.”

“Are you saying that your mother isn't mad?”

“Yes…although it's a wonder she isn't, with the sights she's seen. We came back from France after your father died last year, to offer you the silver box, to offer you the truth. But my mother reckoned without
her
father. He feared that she'd bring shame to the family by seeking you out, by speaking out.
He
put her in Bedlam – her own father! He refused to recognize me as his grandson. So I fend for myself. This is why I work like this, to earn money to take us back to France.”

“Do you expect me to believe you?” I moaned. “It isn't fair. It isn't fair.”

“No, it isn't. She's in Bedlam because of
you
.”

I did not know what to believe. It is in this way that plots are skilfully woven. Each thread is so perfect that its subtleties cannot always be seen. If this
was
a plot to bring me down, then Bedlam was the supreme deception. Devious, designed to mislead. If I entered its dreadful doors, I might swiftly disappear.

“So, do you still want to speak to her?” he asked.

I have many weaknesses – my temper, my dropsy, my impatience – but it is my reluctance to make decisions that plagues me more than anything else. If I did not have maidservants to dress me, I would stay in my night robe all day. If I must make a decision, I put it off. Kat is driven insane by it.

My heart thudded with sudden panic. How could
I
go to Bedlam? Such things are impossible for princesses. How could I escape Kat's eyes? How could I escape other prying eyes? Bedlam was more than two miles from Chelsea Palace. I saw danger everywhere: in the dark river that could take me to hell or to my death, in my sister's hatred, in Seymour's fingers across my neck.

I wanted to be safe in the pink palace behind me with Kat and Lady Catherine and Robert Dudley. As I pondered it all, a long shadow fell across me. Oars creaked in the icy darkness and the wash of Francis's boat lapped against the steps as he pushed away.

Francis had seen my stepfather, who was snatching a fire torch from the guard to hold over the water. “Who is that boy?” he asked me. He wrinkled his nose. “I can smell his stench from here.”

“Nobody.”

“I'm not a fool, Bess. Princesses don't talk to stinking boys in stinking boats. Kate has told me about such a boy…the one you saw on your brother's birthday. Is he another pup mewling for its master?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, Kate says he has the look of your father. London is full of such pups, claiming to be his son. They should be drowned at birth.” Thomas Seymour took me by the arm and pulled me to my feet. My legs barely supported me as he led me towards the fire brazier to warm me. “Look at you, child. You're angry. You're distressed. What has he said? Tell me his name and I can warn him off. Princesses are easy prey, Bess.”

For just one moment, I was tempted. I wanted to trust my stepfather. I wished that I did not feel so alone. But I knew how Thomas Seymour would warn Francis – with the mud at the bottom of the Thames. If I gave up Francis now, I would never hear the truth about my mother.

He touched my cheek. “Who is he, Bess?”

“Nobody,” I insisted.

We returned to the warmth of the Great Hall. I was still shivering with shock. Jane lent me her gloves. Kat brought me dry shoes. Edward was waiting, drumming his thin fingers on the table. Mary was already seated at his right hand. My chair waited empty, at his left. I sank into it, shaking with cold, cursing that I had missed my chance a second time.

“All my children gathered together,” Lady Catherine said.

“An ill-assorted trinity,
no
?” Mary snapped, her voice cold.

My face must have been terrible to see, for Mary whispered her apologies and blamed the wine. But my distress brought no other comment. It was nothing unusual. Twelve days of cramped chambers, stale air and overindulgence had made us all red-eyed and irritable.

The Twelfth Night cake was brought in towards ten o'clock. It was a masterpiece. Baked in the shape of the palace, it gleamed with gilded marzipan. As tradition required, a pea and a bean had been hidden inside. Whoever found the bean would be King of Twelfth Night. Whoever found the pea, would be his Queen. As tradition also required, Edward spat the bean from his mouth to loud cheers. The pea dropped from Mary's mouth as she ate, but she did not even feel it. Forbidden to carry the rosary beads of the old faith, they had been sewn into the folds of her underskirt and as she touched them, her face took on the rapture that you feel when you scratch a flea bite.

The pea rolled along the table. Jane could have caught it, but she shrank back. So could I. I tried, but it slipped through my numbed fingers and into the gaping mouth of Edward's spaniel.

A fitting end to a vile Christmastide – a dog on the throne of England.

Kat undressed me. “Thank the Lord. I shall sleep in my own bed tomorrow night,” she said.

And I in mine, I thought. But how shall I sleep with Thomas Seymour prowling like a thief in the night?

Mary. Francis. Their so-called truths robbed me of sleep. Only fatigue stopped me hurling the perfume box from my window into the Thames. I used it instead, although there was little left.

The fragrance brought back the memory of my mother as it always did. I am here at Greenwich. I recognize the twin towers of the tilt yard. There is no frost. The air is scented with may blossom drifting down onto my mother's hair as she leans from the window to watch the joust. I can feel the wild beating of her heart when she holds me out to my father. It is the first time I have seen them together, the first time I have seen my father when he was young and strong – and there is little doubt that Francis is his son. He smiles at me. He shouts at her. Then they tug me, each taking an arm and a leg, almost splitting me from top to toe.

My father leaves suddenly and her tears splash onto my face like spring rain. They run along my little nose and into my mouth and I do not like the salty taste and soon I am crying with her and I bury my face in her fragrant hair that smells of her perfume. Her body reeks of fear, rank and sour.

“What a pity I shall not live to see you bloom,” she whispers.

The memory fades. And my tears flow so fast that the Thames should have burst its banks that night.

I slept late and when I came to breakfast, Mary had already left for Essex. We too made our way back by river to Chelsea Palace, on the silver water that could have taken me to Alys – and to the truth.

We were all out of spirits. It was a tiresome journey. A boat rowed in front of us to break the ice, but our progress was slow and chilling. A biting wind whistled through the canopy and chunks of ice struck the side of our barge. Of Francis, there was no sign. It was too cold for him to ply his deadly trade.

Once more, I regretted losing my temper with Francis. Anger is a brief madness, Lady Catherine said. It takes away our reason.

Chapter Nine

I entered my own Bedlam of writhing limbs and shrieking lips. My hands and feet swelled, then my whole body. Dropsy fills the body with water, although no one knows why. Kat did not call a physician, for I could not bear leeches to suck at my skin. I took to my bed.

Kat allowed no visitors, for Master Grindal had died of sweating sickness during Christmastide. A hush settled over the house. Everybody knew that the sweating sickness was swift of foot. You could dine at noon and die at dusk.

The strangest dream haunted me. My mother is there, young and laughing, holding the hand of a young man with eyes as dark as hers. She calls him her brother. But I am not a chubby child, as I am in my perfume memories; but the age I am now, with frightened face and hesitant step, trying to keep up with them as we walk in near darkness. My mother hands out apples and pears and bread to bony fingers poking through bars. It must be a prison, for there are many in London.

When I woke up, my eyes bulged like Jane's, and my belly heaved at the memory of a stench so strong that Kat came running with a bowl.

Illness left me weak in mind and body. I burst into tears if the maids stared at me. I was quarrelsome. I would not speak to Jane or to Lady Catherine.

Melancholia is a prison. It shuts you in, without a window to the world. It distorts your thoughts. I forget my mother's loving smile and soft words, remembering only her witch's marks and her hand with its wriggling finger.

Virgil says that the way to hell is easy. Its gates are open day and night. But to find the way back to fresh air is hard toil.

He is right. Sometimes, I hated Francis for dangling the truth in front of me, like a grown-up teases a child with a toy and moves away and away until the child cries and gives up. I plotted my revenge. I
would
denounce him to the King. I
would
have him taken to the Tower. Sometimes I pitied him. Sometimes I pitied Alys, sent to Bedlam because she had come back to England to keep her promise to my mother. More often than not, I pitied myself.