The Last Tudor Read online

  “Not at all,” I say steadily.

  “The French ambassador?” she suggests. “For I hear on all sides that you are discontented at court, and I must say, I do not know how I might please you. Nor,” she says, savoring her spiteful joke, “why I should please you, given that it was your sister who took my throne.”

  It is her speaking of Jane that makes me forget myself. I feel a flare of rage, as hot and as passionate as my earlier rush of desire. I will not have this red-headed usurper insulting my sister. “You need not strive to please me,” I spit. “And I am only a little late.”

  She could leave it at that; she has bigger things to worry about than my pertness. But her plucked brows arch high in surprise at my reply. “You are quite right for once: I have no obligation to be good to you,” she says nastily. “For sure, you are no good lady to me. What do you bring to my service? You are late and rude, your mother is ill and always absent, and your sister half-size. I don’t have full measure of a lady-in-waiting from any of the three of you. Or should I say two and a half?”

  My anger flares out of control at her joking about my little sister. “You need do nothing for me. Nothing could compare with what you do for the Dudleys! For sure, you bend over backwards for him,” I say loudly and slowly, straight into her pale face, her rouged cheeks, her eyes widened with horror.

  There is a little scream from Bess St. Loe, and I see Robert Dudley scowl. Mary’s hands are clapped over her mouth, her eyes wide above them. Elizabeth herself says nothing, but the hand that grips her fan is shaking as she fights to get herself under control. She does not look at Robert Dudley, at this insult to the two of them; but she glances up at William Cecil, who inclines his head as if he would whisper in her ear. He need say nothing: she knows that if she responds to me with anger she might as well pin my words on the door of Saint Paul’s: everyone will hear what I have said. Cecil mutters urgently, telling her to ignore me, pass off my outburst as a joke.

  She opens her rouged lips and she laughs loudly, like a cawing crow. “You are merry, Lady Katherine,” she says, and rises up from her throne and walks the length of the presence chamber and speaks to someone else, someone of no importance, as if she would run away from me and my righteous disdain.

  I sense Ned at my side, even before I turn my face and see him. His eyes are bright with pride. “Vivat!” he says. “Vivat regina!”

  I am in terrible disgrace for insulting Elizabeth. No lady-in-waiting dares to be seen with me, and the Spanish ambassador bows to me in public but avoids me in private. I think that no one pays any attention to me at all but Ned, my beloved Ned. But if he loves me, I don’t care that I am neglected by everyone.

  Elizabeth is in the darkest of bad tempers, hagridden by thoughts of our cousin Mary Queen of Scots inheriting the great throne of France with her powerful kinsmen to back her claim on England. Nobody dares to speak to approach her, only Robert Dudley can distract her from her fears.

  “You take care,” my little sister, Mary, says, affecting the wisdom of a woman two feet taller than she is. “You can’t afford to offend the queen. There’s only one woman at court who can speak honestly to her. There’s only one woman at court who can reprimand her.”

  I laugh. “D’you mean Kat Ashley’s great remonstrance?”

  Mary’s ready smile beams at me. “Lord, I wish you had seen it,” she says. “It was as good as a masque. Mrs. Ashley on her knees begging the queen not to favor Robert Dudley so openly, swearing that she would lose her reputation, reminding her that he is married and that she should not be constantly in his company, and Elizabeth, saying that if she loved Sir Robert, she didn’t know who could stop her.”

  “But what did you all say?” I demand. “You ladies.” This scene took place in Elizabeth’s bedroom when she was dressing. Kat Ashley, her former governess, is the only woman brave enough to tell Elizabeth that the country thinks she is a complete whore and Robert Dudley an ambitious adulterer. My sister was lucky enough to be spectator to this scene. She was holding Elizabeth’s gold-tipped laces, waiting to lace her shoes, when Kat went down on her knees to beg the queen not to behave like a whore.

  “We all said nothing, because we’re not brave fools like Kat Ashley,” Mary says stoutly. “I’m not reckless with a temper like you. You think I’m going to tell the Queen of England not to chase after the man she loves? You think I’m going to stand up to her like you did?”

  “He’s not free to love,” I say primly. “And neither is she. There’s the difference between them and me and Ned. She is a queen who should marry for her country, and he is a man already married—and there is me and Ned, young and free and both noble.”

  “You’re never talking of marriage with Ned?” Mary demands.

  I go down on my knees to her, so that our faces are level. “Oh, Mary, I am,” I whisper. “I am! I promise you that I am.”

  HAMPTON COURT PALACE,

  OCTOBER 1559

  Ned is high above me, mounted on his handsome horse, dressed in dark blue velvet, his jacket embroidered with darker blue thread, his bonnet of velvet trimmed with navy ribbon. I stand at his horse’s head, Mr. Nozzle balancing on my shoulder, and look up at him.

  “How is the horse?” I say, and we both laugh at the thought of my awkwardness with him, only months ago, and now our confident joy.

  He is going to the Charterhouse at Sheen, to ask my mother for permission for us to marry. “Don’t forget to remind her that Elizabeth can have no objection,” I say to him. “Don’t forget to tell her that I am old enough to know my own mind.”

  “I’ll tell her,” he assures me. “There can be no reason for your mother to refuse. It is what she and your father wanted for your sister. If I was good enough for Jane, I must be good enough for you. Both our families have risen high and been brought low, and now you have no great dowry and are not favored by the queen. But anyway, it does not matter to me.”

  “I should not be brought low,” I say irritably. “I am not brought low in the eyes of others. The Spanish ambassador said that there is no heir to Elizabeth but me. And anyway, I am on the rise again. She is so furious with our cousin Margaret Douglas for sending her son Henry to the coronation in France that she is ready to forgive me for being rude to her.”

  Ned gives me a smile and my heart turns over. “It doesn’t matter who Elizabeth likes and dislikes. We are royal kin and so she should give her permission. You are her cousin and a Tudor, I am a Seymour. She cannot refuse our wedding.”

  It will take him an hour to get to Sheen. I fuss over his saddle, the girth, the stirrup leathers, like a wife. “Be careful on the way!” I say, though I know he has men in his livery riding with him. There is no danger for him. There are many threats against the life of Elizabeth, but the rest of us, the royal family, are beloved. Everyone remembers that Queen Jane, who died so tragically giving birth to King Edward, was a good English Seymour. And my family, the Greys, are loved for our Queen Jane. The ordinary people speak of her as a saint. It is only Elizabeth who likes to pretend that Jane was never crowned queen. It is only Elizabeth who wants to pretend that she is the last Tudor.

  “I’ll be back the day after tomorrow,” he says. “And I shall call you my wife within the month.”

  I wave good-bye and I don’t care who sees me standing, watching him go. I don’t doubt him, I don’t doubt that my mother will give permission in a moment. She has always liked him, and the Seymours are a great family. His mother has reluctantly allowed our marriage on the condition that my mother speaks to Elizabeth. There should be nothing to stand in our way.

  CHARTERHOUSE, SHEEN,

  OCTOBER 1559

  My mother is ill—she is much troubled by her spleen (I have to say, this is not surprising in a woman with such an evil temper). But as soon as she has heard Ned’s mission she orders me and Mary to join her and her husband, Mr. Stokes, and Ned at Sheen. She says I must tell her myself if I want Ned as my husband. She receives me in her presence chamb