Thomas Keyes has to stay on duty at the gate of the castle and may not help me from the saddle, but there is always one of the young men of court quick to my side to lift me down. They know that my sister and her two boys are the next heirs to the throne; they know that my rank is acknowledged by the queen. None of them knows how great is my influence, and what I might do for them if they please me. I hardly notice them. My only smile is for Thomas Keyes, the queen’s sergeant porter; he is the only man that I would trust in this rivalrous pit of two-faced serpents. Thomas gives me a private nod as I go by, and I know that I will see him later in the day when Elizabeth is entertained by someone else and forgets to look for me.
“Where is Lady Mary?” she asks as soon as she is off her horse, as if she loves me dearly and has missed me all day, and I step forward to take her beautifully embroidered leather riding gloves. Someone else takes her whip and she holds out her white hand to Robert Dudley, who leads her out of the sunlight into the cool dimness of Windsor Castle, where breakfast is served in the great hall and the Spanish ambassador is waiting to greet her.
I take the gloves to the royal wardrobe rooms, dust them with a little perfumed powder, and wrap them in silk, and then I return to the hall to take my seat at the table for the ladies-in-waiting. Elizabeth sits at the top table with the Spanish ambassador on one side and Robert Dudley on the other. I sit at the head of the table for the ladies; I am her cousin, I am the daughter of a princess of the blood. We all bow our heads for grace, which Elizabeth defiantly hears in Latin to show her scholarship more than her piety, and then the servants bring in the ewers and bowls for us to wash our hands. Then they bring in one great dish after another. Everyone is hungry from the morning in the saddle, and the great joints of meat and fresh-baked loaves are served to each table.
“Have you heard from your sister?” Bess St. Loe asks me quietly.
“I write, but she does not reply,” I say. “She is allowed to receive my letters, though my uncle has to read them first, but she does not reply.”
“What’s wrong with her—oh! not the plague?”
“No, thanks be to God, it has not reached Pirgo. My uncle tells me that she will not eat, and that she cannot stop crying.”
Aunt Bess’s expression is tender. “Oh, my dear.”
“Yes,” I say tightly. “When the queen took her child, I think that she broke Katherine’s heart.”
“But she will forgive her, and she will reunite them. She is gracious. And Katherine is the only heir of our faith. Elizabeth must turn to her.”
“I know,” I say. “I know that she will in time. But these are hard days for my sister while we wait. And it is cruel to her two little boys, who have never known anything but confinement. Would you speak to the queen?”
“Perhaps they, at least, could be released . . .” Bess starts, and then breaks off as the queen rises from the breakfast table and says that she will walk with the Spanish ambassador and Robert Dudley in the walled garden. Three ladies are to walk behind her, the rest of us are free for an hour or two. We rise and follow her out of the hall and curtsey as she goes through the garden door, Robert Dudley offering his hand on one side, Álvaro de la Quadra on the other. Elizabeth is where she loves to be—at the center of attention with a man on either side. I think that if she were not a queen she would certainly be a whore. As they pass through, and the door is closed behind them by the guard, I slip away in the opposite direction, to the main gate. It is bolted shut against the plague, but there is a handsome guardsman on duty inside at the wicket gate. As I approach he bows and offers his hand to help me clamber through the narrow doorway.
Thomas stands on guard outside the bolted gate, arms folded over his broad chest, a huge man in the Tudor livery, the queen’s sergeant porter. I feel myself smile for the first time today at the mere sight of him.
“Lady Mary!” he says as I bob up at his elbow. He drops to one knee on the cobbles so that his face is on a level with mine, his brown eyes loving. “Are you free for long? Will you sit in the gatehouse?”
“I have an hour,” I say. “She’s walking in the garden.”
Thomas orders one of the guards to take his place and leads me to the gatehouse, where he watches me climb into his big chair beside his table. He pours me a glass of small ale from the pitcher in the little pantry, and takes a seat on a low stool close by, so that we are head-to-head.
“Any news of your sister?” he asks.
“Nothing new. I asked Robert Dudley if he would speak again to the queen and he says that it is no use, and it only angers her more.”
“You have to wait?”
“We have to wait,” I confirm.
“Then I suppose our business must wait, too,” he says gently.
I put my hand on his broad shoulder and finger the Tudor rose on his collar. “You know that I would marry you tomorrow if I could. But I cannot ask Elizabeth for anything now, not until she has pardoned Katherine. My sister’s freedom must come first.”
“Why would she mind?” he asks wonderingly. “Why does a great queen like her mind so much about your sister? Is it not a private matter of the heart? The Earl of Hertford carries an honorable name, why may your sister not live as his wife?”
I hesitate. Thomas has the simple views of an honest man. He stands at the gate every day and is responsible for the safety of a most contradictory queen. There are those who love Elizabeth and would die for her, who beg entry to her castles so that they can see her, as if she were a saint, so that they can go home and tell their children that they have seen the greatest woman in Christendom, laden with jewels in glorious majesty at her dinner. Then there are those who hate her so much for taking the country further and further away from the Church of Rome, they call her a heretic and would poison her, or knife her, or set a trap for her. Some visitors despise her for her promiscuity, some suspect her of adultery, and some even accuse her of using black arts, of being malformed, of hiding a bastard child, of being a man. Every man and woman of every shade of opinion passes under Thomas’s thoughtful gaze and yet he persists in thinking the best of them, trusts them as far as is safe, guides them homeward if he thinks they might be a danger, and believes that people are on the whole as good and kindly as himself.
“I don’t know why Elizabeth cannot tolerate Katherine’s marriage,” I say, measuring my words. “I know that she fears that if Katherine is named as her successor, then everyone will desert her and Katherine will plot against her, just as Margaret Douglas, another of our cousins, does. But more than that, it’s not just Katherine—Elizabeth doesn’t like anyone marrying; she doesn’t like attention on anyone but herself. None of us ladies-in-waiting expect permission to marry. She won’t even allow us to talk about it. Everyone at court has to be in love with her.”
Thomas chuckles tolerantly. “Well, she’s the queen,” he concedes. “I suppose she can have her court as she likes it. Shall I come in this evening when I have locked the gate?”
“I’ll meet you in the garden,” I promise him.
He takes my little hand in his huge paw and kisses it gently. “I am so honored,” he says quietly. “I think of you all day, you know, and I look for you coming in and out of my gate. I love to see you riding by, so high on your horse and so pretty in your gowns.”
I lay my cheek against his head as he bows over my hand. His hair is thick and curly and it smells of the open air. I think that in all of this dangerous uncertain world I have found the only man whom I can trust. I think that he does not know how precious this is to me.
“When did you first look for me?” I whisper.
He raises his head and smiles at my childishness, in wanting the story repeated. “I noticed you when you first came to court when you were not even ten years old, a tiny little girl. I remember seeing you on your big horse and fearing for you. And then I saw how you handled him and I knew that you were a little lady to be reckoned with.”
“You were the grandest man I had eve
r seen,” I tell him. “The queen’s sergeant porter, so handsome in your livery, and as tall as a tree, as broad as a trunk, like a great oak tree.”
“Then when you were appointed as a lady-in-waiting, I would see you come and go with the court, and I thought that of all of them, you were the merriest and sweetest lady,” he says. “When your sister went creeping out through my gate, with her hood over her fair hair and I knew she was seeing a lover, I nearly thought to warn you; but you were so young and so pretty I could not be the one to bring worry into your life. I didn’t dare to speak to you at all until you started to say good morning to me. I used to look forward to that—‘Good morning, Captain Keyes,’ you said. And I would stammer like a fool and I couldn’t say a word in reply.”
“That’s how I knew that you liked me,” I tell him. “You spoke clearly enough to everyone else, but with me you were as tongue-tied as a boy. And you blushed! Lord! What a big man to blush like a schoolboy!”
“Who was I to speak to such a lady?” he asks.
“The best man at court,” I tell him. “I was so glad when you offered to walk with me, when I went to visit Katherine in the Tower. When you said you would escort me, and that the streets were not safe. I was so glad to have you at my side. It was like walking beside a great calm shire horse: you are so big that everyone just gets out of the way. And when I saw her, and she was in such distress that I would break down and cry with her, and then I would come out and you would be waiting for me, and I felt comforted just by your being there, like a mountain. I felt that I had an ally. An ally as big as a castle. A strong friend.”
“Certainly a tall one,” he says. “I would do anything for you, my little lady.”
“Love me always, as you do now,” I whisper.
“I swear that I will.”
He is quiet for a moment. “You don’t mind my being married before?” he asks quietly. “You don’t object to my children? They live with their aunt at Sandgate, but I would be glad to give them a loving stepmother.”
“Would they not look down on me?” I ask awkwardly.
He shakes his head. “They would know you for a great lady even when they bent low to kiss your hand.”
“I should like us to have children,” I say shyly. “First I will care for yours, and then perhaps some of our own.”
He takes my hand and holds it to his warm cheek. “Eh, Mary, we are going to be happy.”
We are silent together for a moment, then I say, “You know, I have to go now.”
He rises up from the stool to his full height and his head brushes the ceiling. He is nearly seven feet tall, from enormous boots to curly brown hair. When I stand beside him, my head is level with his polished leather belt. He opens the door for me and I go to the great barred gate of Windsor Castle and he opens the wicket gate inside it.
“Till tonight,” he whispers, and closes it gently behind me.
WINDSOR CASTLE,
CHRISTMAS 1563
My love gives me a gold ring set with a tiny ruby the color of true love, a deep red. I give him a thick leather belt to go around his broad waist. I work it myself with a shoemaker’s awl and I carve my name and my family crest into the thick leather. He can wear it turned to the inside, so that nobody knows but the two of us. When I give it to him and he takes it from the little silk bag that I have made, he blushes to his ears, like a boy.
I am so pleased with the ring he has given me. It fits my finger like a wedding band and he says I must wear it on my wedding finger when I am alone, for it is a pledge of his love to me and we are promised to each other.
“I wish we could marry and live together at once,” I whisper to him. I am sitting on his lap, his great arms around me. He holds me as tenderly as if I were a child, and yet I feel the pulse of his desire for me as a woman when I put my fingers on his strong wrist.
“I wish it, too,” he says. “The moment that you say the word I will fetch a priest and witnesses and we will marry. Or we can go to a church. I don’t ever want you to face the questioning that your sister has suffered. We will have witnesses and we will have our betrothal in writing.”
“They don’t care about me,” I say resentfully. “I am so small in Elizabeth’s eyes that she does not even fear me. It’s not as if I am like my sister, with half the courts of Europe making advances and weaving plots. My marriage is a private matter: it should make no difference to her whether I am married or single, whether I have a houseful of children or only you to love.”
“Then shall we marry in secret?” he asks hopefully. “Do you dare?”
“Maybe next year,” I say cautiously. “I don’t want to remind the queen of her anger against Katherine. I am hoping that the council will persuade her to set my sister free this month. Some scholars are making inquiries that will prove her to be the heir, and prove her wedding was valid and so her sons are legitimate heirs. I can’t think about anything else until that is written and published.”
Thomas nods. He has a great respect for the learning of my family, the more so since Jane is now recognized as a theologian and her published writings are read everywhere. “Are you writing any of the book?” he asks.
“Oh, no,” I say. “It is all being done by a senior clerk in the chancery, John Hales. He has seen the original king’s will and says that it clearly names my mother and her line as heirs after Prince Edward and the princesses. Hales has proved that our grandmother’s marriage was a good one, so our line is legitimate and English-born and Protestant. Now Katherine’s husband, Ned Seymour, is paying for the opinions of clergy overseas to show that he and Katherine’s marriage was valid too, with private vows, and their sons legitimate. When all the evidence is brought together, then John Hales will publish it and the country will see that Katherine is proven heir to the queen: legitimately born, and legitimately married.”
Thomas hesitates. He is a man with little education but he has much knowledge of the world, and he has been in charge of the safety of the palace and the queen since Elizabeth came to the throne. “Now, pretty one, I am neither a lord nor a clerk but I’m not sure that this is so wise. The queen is not a woman that ever feels obliged to follow what everyone else thinks. Even if the whole country thinks one thing, she’ll still go her own way. Remember the time that she was the only Protestant princess to stand for her faith, when her sister was Queen of England? She didn’t change her mind then, even though the whole country seemed to be against her, from the queen and all the Spanish downwards. It’ll take more than a book to persuade her, I reckon.”
“She did conform,” I say stubbornly. “I can remember her myself, going into Mass and moaning about it.”
“Coming out of Mass early,” he reminds me. “Complaining of sickness. And showing everyone that she would not stomach it.”
“Yes, but William Cecil is sponsoring this book,” I insist. “And Robert Dudley. What William Cecil thinks today, the queen announces tomorrow. In the end, she’ll take his advice. And he and his brother-in-law and all his advisors have commissioned this book, and will see it published. The queen will have to name Katherine as her heir when the whole of Christendom says she was truly married and all the Privy Council say she is heir.”
We hear the clock strike the hour. “I have to go,” I say, barely stirring from his warm embrace.
He lifts me down from his lap and, leaning forward, straightens my gown and pulls the creases from my sleeves. He is as gentle as a lady’s maid. He touches my hood and tweaks my ruff. “There,” he says. “The prettiest lady in the court.”
I wait for him to open the door to the guardroom and glance out. “All clear,” he says, and he steps back to let me out.
As I cross the courtyard from the main gate to the garden stairs, my cape wrapped around me against a sprinkling of snow, I have the ill luck to meet the queen herself, coming in from playing bowls on the frozen green. She has her red velvet hood trimmed with ermine pulled up over her ears. Her hand is on Robert Dudley’s arm, her chee
ks rosy with the cold and her eyes sparkling. I step back and curtsey, sliding my ruby ring from my finger into the pocket of my cape before her quick dark gaze spots it. “Your Majesty.”
Thomasina, the queen’s dwarf, follows them and makes a comical little face at me, as if to ask me where I have been. I completely ignore her. She has no right to express any curiosity about me. I don’t have to answer to her, and if she prompts an inquiry from the queen, then I will find her afterwards and tell her to mind her own tiny business.
“Lady Mary,” Elizabeth says with an unpleasant tone. I cannot think what I have done to offend her, but she is clearly displeased. “Are you honoring me with your attendance at my dressing for dinner tonight?”
I can feel Robert Dudley’s reassuring smile rather than see it. I dare not look directly anywhere but into Elizabeth’s sparkling dark eyes. “Of course, Your Majesty,” I say meekly. “And the honor is mine.”
“Remember it then,” she says nastily, and sweeps past me. I curtsey, and when I raise my head, I catch a quick sympathetic smile from Robert Dudley and a cheeky wink from Thomasina. He follows in the queen’s wake. She lingers.
“Someone’s writing a book about your sister,” she informs me. “That’s why she’s so furious with you. She’s just heard about it. Apparently, it’s going to say that your sister will be the next Queen of England. You will be sister to the queen and aunt to the next king. Fancy a dwarf just like me so close to the throne.”