Elizabeth goes towards the door to the privy chamber. We ladies are expected to follow without delaying to look at our own reflections, or straightening our own gowns. I go behind her, as my rank requires. In the absence of the disgraced Margaret Douglas I am first at court. I am going to slip away when everyone gets on the barge.
We walk through the privy garden to the pier, and there is the father of the bride in earnest argument with the new Spanish ambassador, Don Diego Guzmán de Silva. They start apart as they see Elizabeth, and then Sir Ambrose Cave explains that the French ambassador was dining with him before the wedding and is now refusing to leave. He will not give way to the Spanish ambassador. Clearly, the queen cannot walk into a diplomatic squabble—least of all when everyone knows that France and Spain are vying against each other to support the Queen of Scots against her loving cousin in England.
For a moment I think that Elizabeth will throw one of her tantrums and none of us will attend the wedding, and I will have to send to Thomas and tell him that our wedding, too, will have to be canceled. But then I see him towering head and shoulders over every other man at court, at the privy garden gate, waiting to make sure that the queen safely boards her royal barge. His warm dark gaze rests on me and then passes, expressionless, onwards. I am so relieved that he knows, that he understands, that he will not make a play out of anger and disappointment as these foolish ambassadors are doing.
William Cecil is deputed to solve the problem. He and Sir Nicholas Throckmorton, the queen’s ambassador to Scotland, go together to Durham House to clear the way for the queen. My Thomas is to walk with them. I see them go through the gate, Thomas holding the gate for the two great men, and following behind them with quiet respect.
The queen is unusually patient. From this I know that she is determined to attend Henry Knollys’ wedding. Elizabeth wishes it and will make great allowances to ensure that she is not crossed. She takes a seat, and someone fetches the musicians, who come tumbling out of the palace, thinking that they had finished work for the day, and they play for her, while the court stands around and chats to each other, alert for her attention, restless as waiting horses. In less than half an hour the garden gate opens again and my Thomas ushers in Sir William and Sir Nicholas, who are both smiling.
“Please,” William Cecil invites the queen. “Please embark in your barge. The French ambassador has left his dinner to oblige us all, and you can make your entry to the wedding.”
It could not be better for me. Everyone is so eager to go after the delay that nobody notices me at all.
I touch Mary Ratcliffe’s arm. “I cannot come. I have such an ache in my belly, I couldn’t trust myself in the chapel,” I say.
“Shall you ask permission?”
“She doesn’t care,” I say certainly. “I won’t chase after her and delay her again. If she asks for me, tell her I was sick and begged to be excused.”
The court heads down to the pier, we can hear the shout as the rowers present the oars. “Go on,” I say. “Don’t keep her waiting now!”
Mary scutters away and I am left in the empty garden. I turn and go back indoors to the palace, and on an impulse, I return through the privy chamber and into the queen’s bedroom.
I am strangely tempted to meddle with the things. There are so many beautiful things spread everywhere—the pots and paints on the table, the jewels in their boxes, the ribbons and the laces, like toys in an overstocked nursery of a spoiled child. The servants will come in soon, to clean and tidy and put everything to rights, but in the meantime I am undisturbed. I take the empty pot of ceruse and I paint a little under my eyes. I rub it off at once. It is such a bright white, it makes me look like a masquer. It does nothing for my looks; I do not have pockmarks and wrinkles to hide.
I take off my hood and let my hair down and brush it gently, smoothly, with the queen’s gold-backed hairbrush. The bristles glide through my fair hair and it tumbles to my shoulders. I put down the brush and plait it carefully, using my own hairpins to coil it closely against my head so my hood can go on top. I think, tonight Thomas Keyes will take off my hood and let down my hair, and I spray it with a little oil of roses that Elizabeth keeps on her table and I sniff at the warm sweet smell.
I make sure that I pull my fair hairs from her hairbrush, where they gleam among the thin wisps of gray, and then I put it back, exactly where her lady-in-waiting laid it down. I dab a little carmine on my lips and admire the effect; I powder a little rouge on my cheeks. I take up Elizabeth’s pencil and color my eyebrows, as she does. This is too strong, and I rub it off again with the heel of my hand. I feel wonderfully naughty, like a child playing at a wealthy mother’s dressing table.
I can tell from the silence of all the rooms that the whole court has gone to Durham House, and so I rise up from the table and smile at myself in the silvered mirror. There are jewels belonging to the queen in boxes all around the room but it does not occur to me to steal anything. I am Jane Grey’s sister, I am Katherine Grey’s sister: she is the rightful heir to all of this. All this is ours; I don’t doubt I will sit here by right one day.
I have invited three of my kinswomen to dine with me: Margaret Willoughby, my favorite cousin, and the two Stafford girls. I can trust them to keep my secret; but I will not risk their being blamed for my wedding by having them as witnesses. Instead, I send for my maidservant, who was taking the absence of the court as an excuse for her own holiday, and she comes to my rooms in an excited rush, wondering what I want from her. I tell her to wait and she will see. Then there is a tap on the door and she hurries to open it, and there, filling the doorway, his head bent under the lintel, is my love, my great love.
“It is nine o’clock,” he says, and we hear the clock strike to prove his punctuality. “Are you ready, my darling?”
I get to my feet and I put my hand out to him.
“I am ready.”
“And no second thoughts?” he asks gently. “Are you sure?”
I smile at him. I don’t need rouge to make me flush with desire. “I am sure,” I say. “I have loved you for so long, Thomas. I will be proud to become your wife.”
He bows his head and takes my hand and we lead the way, with my three friends and the little maid, Frances, following, through the deserted palace to Thomas’s rooms above the watergate.
His rooms are crowded: his brother is here and several of his friends. Thomas has hired a priest, who is waiting with his prayer book open. I turn and say to my bridesmaids: “You must all go, and wait outside. If anyone ever asks you, you can say that you were not witnesses, you were outside the door.”
We are all giddy with nerves. They laugh as they go out, and I giggle, too. Then I turn back to Thomas and know the seriousness of what we are about to do.
“And are you sure?” I ask him in reply. “For the queen has quarreled with all her other heirs. Of all her kin I am the only one left at court. She might embrace us as family, or hate us. She might be glad that I have lost my great name; or she might hate me for my happiness. I cannot predict her.”
“I am sure,” he says. “Whatever comes. I am sure that I want to marry you.”
“Then let us begin,” says the priest. He starts the words of the marriage service that I thought I would never hear read for me. He holds out his prayer book to Thomas, who places a golden wedding ring on it, small enough for my finger, and Thomas and I promise to love each other and be faithful husband and wife till death parts us.
Of course, I think of my sister. She did not ask me to witness her wedding; she was protecting me just as I am protecting my kinswomen by leaving them outside the door. But I have read all the evidence from the trial of her marriage, and from the inquiry into her husband, and I know of Ned’s room with the wines and the food laid out, and Janey Seymour as their only witness, and how when the priest left them they went to bed together and fell asleep and had to jump up and dress each other and she had to run back to court. I know how much she loved him, and that nothi
ng would have stopped her from marrying him. I know what it has cost her, and I know that I am choosing as she did—to marry a man for love, to live life to the full, and to take whatever comes from the malice of Elizabeth. Because I won’t learn to die, nor live my life as if it were half a life. I want to be a wife and perhaps a mother. I want Thomas as my husband more than I want to survive in this arid twilight court. I am twenty years old. I am ready for life. I want love, I want a real life, I want a husband.
We eat dinner together, Thomas’s family and mine. Thomas proudly presents his son from his first marriage, and I greet him as his new mother. Thomas introduces his brother and his best friend, who insisted on being a witness, and an old friend of his in service to the Bishop of Gloucester. They are a little in awe of me and my grand cousins, but crowded together in a small room, sharing a secret celebration, a feast with wine, any shyness melts away, and Thomas is so steady and warm and respectful that nobody can feel awkward. Very soon we are talking animatedly and laughing and saying, “Shh, shh,” though the court is far away, celebrating a grander wedding, though, I daresay, not one with more love.
His best friend says to me: “I have not seen him so happy ever. I never thought he would be happy again after the death of his first wife. I am so glad for him. Truly, you have blessed him.”
His son says to me: “I am so glad, we are all so glad that Father is happy again.”
Thomas says to me: “You are my own.”
Conscious of the time, and the possible return of the queen, they don’t stay after they have dined and drunk our health. Thomas sees them out of his gate, and his men are surprised that he is not keeping the gate until the queen returns. “Not tonight,” he says quietly, and no one questions him.
As he sees his guests through the front gate, and my kinswomen back to their rooms, I lock the door and undress. I don’t know whether to leave my smock on or off. I have brought a nightgown for this very night, which is rather fine, but I don’t know whether to sit in it before the fire or get into bed naked. I laugh at myself, worrying about such a thing, when I have married the man I love without the permission of a famously jealous queen, and I have far more to worry about than this; but still, I am a bride on my wedding night. It is natural for me to fret about these details. I want to please him, I want him to take a breath when he sees me, in embroidered silk at his fireside or half-naked in his bed. I want us to take joy in each other.
I am half in, half out of bed when he tries the door, and so I have to throw on my beautiful cherry-red silk nightgown, and hurry to open it, so when he comes in I am neither wanton in bed nor regal at the fireside, but blushing and flurried and unprepared.
He is carrying a tray of wine and some little cakes.
“Not more food!” I say.
“I am no small man,” he says with a smile. “I need to keep up my strength.”
“I like you just as you are,” I say. “God knows, I would think you would be enough for me as you are. I don’t mind you weak with hunger.”
“Try this,” he begs me, and it is the sweetest almond pastry from the queen’s own kitchen, whisked up for us as a favor by one of her own subtlety cooks.
“It’s delicious,” I say with my mouth full. “But does the cook know the occasion?”
“I said that I was dining with the most beautiful girl I have ever seen,” Thomas said. “He offered himself to make her a little pastry.”
I sip the wine. Thomas looks at me.
“Shall I get into bed and you come to me?” he asks gently. “It shall be just as you command.”
I realize that I have been anxious. I realize that I have been nerving myself to be brave. I realize that I have been frightening myself about nothing, that here is a man who loves me truly. That here am I, who love him. Whatever comes of this wedding and bedding, we will meet it together, with true love.
“I am coming,” I say, and I untie the sash at the waist of my nightgown and drop it, fearlessly, to the floor. I see his eyes take in my rounded breasts, my tiny waist, the slight turn of my spine that forces one shoulder before another. Apart from that little twist, I am flawless, a beauty in miniature. I shake my head and my hair falls forward, hiding my blushing face, smelling of roses.
“Come at once,” he replies, and he strips off his breeches, pulls off his shirt, and holds out his hands to me. He lifts me, naked as I am, into the high broad bed. He comes after me, rolls towards me like a felled tree, takes me in his arms and holds me against his great chest. “My darling,” he says tenderly. “My love.”
I don’t stay all night with my husband. I am back in my own rooms by the time the court comes home and my ladies undress me and put me to bed without realizing that I only joined the court as they returned. Frances the maid takes my shoes without a flicker of expression. I think I will lie awake, sleepless from joy, but as soon as my head is on the pillow I fall asleep and I don’t wake until the girl comes into the room with the logs to make up the fire.
It is my morning to wait upon Elizabeth, and so I get washed and dressed and hurry to the royal rooms, and only when I am halfway there do I catch myself up and think: He loves me. He held me last night like a man drowned in the deepest of loves. He has married me. He loves me. I am his wife.
It is like a song that goes on and on in my mind all day. As Elizabeth sees ambassadors, rides out with Robert Dudley, comes back hungry for her breakfast, flirts with the Spanish ambassador in the hopes of persuading him that she has serious thoughts of marriage, and then wins money at cards before leading the court in to dinner, all day, I think only: he loves me. He held me last night like a man in the deepest of loves. He has married me. He loves me. I am his wife.
When the court has finished dinner and they are clearing the hall for dancing and a troop of tumblers, I go down to the front gate and there is Thomas, tall as a tree, admitting the citizens of London who have come to see the dancing.
“Good day, Lady Mary,” he says to me aloud. “Good day, Mrs. Keyes,” he says to me quietly.
“Good day, husband,” I say, smiling up at him. “I have come to see if I should come to your room secretly, when the court is asleep.”
“I should think so,” he says, pretending to take offense. “Indeed, I expect you. I expect very obedient behavior from my wife.”
“You shall have it,” I promise him. I see one of William Cecil’s men approaching the gate, and I smile at Thomas and slip away. “I have given you my word.”
The first night we sleep undisturbed till dawn in each other’s arms. When his head lies beside mine on the pillow, we are as equals, his broad forehead against my little one, his gentle kiss on my smiling mouth. His long legs stretch down to the bottom of the bed, his feet extend over the edge, and I occupy only the top half of the bed, but side by side, with the curtains drawn around us, we are equals, we are one.
The second night I wake at midnight to hear the Westminster Abbey bell tolling over and over, the low haunting note that says that someone has died.
“Elizabeth,” I whisper in my moment of waking, the wish coming before the words, the wish coming before the thought. I wake to joy as I half dream, half believe that it is the announcement of Elizabeth’s death and my sister will be Queen of England.
Thomas hears the mourning bell too and springs out of bed and ducks to avoid the roof beams. “I must go,” he says, and scrambles into his livery. I get up, too, pulling on my shift.
“Shall I do your laces?” he turns, halfway to the door.
“I’ll manage. You go,” I say briefly. I know that he will be desperate to do his duty, to guard the gate against whatever bad news is coming.
He leaves his room at a run, and I throw a shawl over my head like a poor woman and go down the stairs and across the yard. I think I will get to my rooms unseen, but there, coming out of the ladies’ rooms, is Thomasina. In one glance she takes in my half-dressed state, my tumbling hair. But she has no time for comment.
“It’s for Ka
t Ashley,” she says over the insistent tolling of the bell. “God bless her. We’ve lost her.”
“Lost her?” I say stupidly.
“She has died. She was failing fast. The queen is heartbroken,” Thomasina says. “She left the dancing and ordered the bells to toll and the court into mourning. She says that Kat was like a mother to her.”
“She was,” I agree solemnly; but I think: and even daughterly devotion didn’t stop Elizabeth arresting Kat and holding her in the Tower.
I dash into my room and cram on my hood and then rush to the queen’s rooms to find her presence chamber shaded, with the shutters closed and everyone exchanging the news in hushed voices. Inside the private rooms the favored courtiers whisper low-voiced remarks. Many people will miss Kat Ashley; but everyone knows that this leaves a vacancy among Elizabeth’s ladies that an ambitious woman might fill, and a gap among her advisors that someone will seize.
I go to the bedchamber door. Aunt Bess, looking weary, comes out as I wait outside. “Will you take over from me for an hour?” she says. “She wants two of us in there all the time to sit with her and grieve.”
I nod and go in.
The room is shuttered and the fire is lit, it is dark and stuffy. Elizabeth is lying in bed, sheets drawn up to her chin, fully dressed, only her shoes slipped from her feet. Her ruff is crumpled around her neck, her eyes are smudged with paint, the ceruse is smeared on her pillow, on her askew red wig. But in her grief she looks almost like a child. Her suffering is as naked as any orphan in the streets. Elizabeth is always alone, though she fills her court with flatterers and time servers; and now, with the death of the woman who has been at her side since childhood, she realizes it all over again. Kat Ashley came to her when she had lost her identity. She had been a beloved princess, the daughter of an adored wife, then she was put away, forgotten, her title and her name taken from her. When Kat Ashley first came to the little girl, she found a child all but destroyed. She rebuilt her pride, she taught her a love of scholarship and of faith. She taught her to survive and be cunning, to trust no one. Kat was the only woman in the world who loved Elizabeth then, and now she has gone. Elizabeth turns her face into the pillow to muffle her shaking sobs, and I think—yes—now she is alone indeed, now perhaps she will understand what it is to love someone truly and be taken from them. Now perhaps she will have pity on Katherine, an orphan, parted from her husband and son.