Queen's Gambit: A Novel of Katherine Parr (52 page)

A faint knock at the door stirs her.

‘Come,’ she calls.

Dot appears. Her coif is on inside out with
the selvedge showing. Katherine can see that something is amiss, for her face is flushed
and her eyes skip about, will not rest. Dot is rarely perturbed.

‘What is it, Dot?’ Katherine
says. ‘Something is wrong.’ Katherine pats the bed beside her.

But Dot doesn’t sit. She makes a dark
shape with the bright afternoon light from the west window behind her. She is moving her
mouth to speak but saying nothing.

‘Dot, what is it? Has something
happened to William?’

At last she finds her voice. ‘There is
no way to tell you this, madam. But I will show you.’

Katherine sits up, feeling a rush of blood
to her head. Dot’s face is so very grave she wonders what it could be. Her insides
tighten, a little grip of fear.

‘You must gird yourself for this,
madam.’

Katherine follows her down the long
corridor, through the gallery and up the single flight of stairs into the eastern wing
of the house. She wonders where everyone is, then remembers it is time for prayers and
that they must all be in the chapel. As if on cue she hears a faint sound, a psalm being
chanted, wending its way up through the floor … 
The Lord is my shepherd; I
shall not want. He maketh me to lie down
 …

There is the Astley woman bustling towards
them.

Why is she not at prayers? Something is
wrong. Someone is ill … The woman stands between Dot and the door. ‘I
don’t think –’ Astley hisses.

‘Let us pass, if you please, Mistress
Astley,’ whispers Dot.

But the woman has her hand on the latch, her
fingers curled tightly around it, though she seems unable to explain
herself. Her mouth opens and shuts trout-like but no words emerge … 
he
leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name’s sake
 …

‘Step aside,’ Katherine says, at
last, finding herself whispering too, without knowing why, confused by all this and
losing her patience.

But the Astley woman still holds the latch
in one hand and has now taken hold of Katherine’s sleeve with the other, is trying
to tug her away from the door … 
Yea, though I walk through the valley of
the shadow of death, I will fear no evil
 …

Katherine shakes her arm free and Astley
seems to realize what she has done, as she lets go and drops to her knees, saying,
‘Forgive me, madam, please forgive me.’

‘For goodness’ sake,’
snaps Katherine, ‘get up.’

The door slowly swings open, revealing the
big tester bed, partly curtained, its covers disarranged. A long pale leg protrudes from
the sheets and above it an arm, palm up, inner elbow exposed, a grey vein running down
its length.
For thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort
me
 … There is a clamminess about the skin and a hot damp smell in the
chamber that is horribly familiar.

‘Elizabeth, she is sick …’
gasps Katherine, her head filling with thoughts of the sweating sickness and the stories
that are told of how quickly it can kill, remembering those she’s known who were
taken by it.

Then she realizes that Elizabeth, who seems
to be stirring now, is not alone; that there is another leg darker, bigger, half
concealed beneath the coverlet.

Her mind takes a moment to adjust and all
she can think of is that it was she who embroidered the pattern of hollyhocks on that
coverlet. She remembers working on it one long-ago summer at Hampton Court. She focuses
on this – each stitch,
each flower, each knot of thread – so that she
does not think about the second leg, for it is a leg she knows intimately, each blemish,
each contour, the scar from a Turkish sword, the little hollow on his shin from where he
fell on a stone step.

Someone flings the bed hangings back. It
must be Dot.

But Katherine is struggling to stay upright,
clinging to the bedpost … 
goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days
of my life
… A flood of black seeps up her, spinning towards her head.

She feels herself drop, then nothing.

Katherine falls.

Her head cracks sickeningly against the
floor.

Everything slows down. Dot sinks down beside
her. She is out cold but breathing.

Seymour leaps from the bed, his thingy
swinging, grabbing a pillow, pushing Dot brusquely aside. He crouches, lifting
Katherine’s head and sliding the pillow under it, stroking her face. ‘My
love, my love.’

Katherine gives a little moan. Dot rinses a
cloth in the ewer and places it over her forehead.

‘Latch the door,’ Seymour barks
at the Astley woman, who is standing with one hand over her gob, staring, useless.

Squatted like that on the floor, naked and
hairy, he looks half man half beast. Dot grabs Elizabeth’s clothes, which are
scattered about the floor, and flings them to the girl. Elizabeth doesn’t move.
She looks horrified, clutching the blanket up to her chin. Without a word to her, Dot
swipes shut the bed curtains.

‘Cover yourself,’ she says to
Seymour, not caring about her curt tone nor whom she is addressing. ‘And
you’d better leave before anyone comes. I shall see to the Queen.’

Seymour, mute with shame, gathers his things,
pulling his hose up and slinging his doublet on, unable to look at Dot or Mistress
Astley, who are busy anyway with Katherine. Finally, he slinks from the room like a
punished dog.

Katherine doesn’t stir, seeming just
to sleep peacefully, but a dark swollen bruise has begun to appear on her forehead where
she hit the floor.

Dot is struck by the awful fact that she
brought Katherine to this. The whole household had been gossiping for months about the
goings-on between Seymour and Elizabeth. Dot had tried to tell her, more than once, but
Katherine had refused to accept it.

‘He is just being a tender stepfather
Dot,’ she had said. ‘It is nothing but harmless play.’

Dot knew there was no one else, with Sister
Anne away, who would tell Katherine the truth of it – only Huicke, perhaps. But she
wishes now she had been more measured, curses her impetuous nature. Though she had never
imagined, bringing Katherine to this room, that they would find anything worse than
Elizabeth on Seymour’s lap on the window seat, canoodling – she had never imagined
this
.

Elizabeth appears, dressed but dishevelled,
pulling back the bed curtains and straightening the plummet, replacing the pillows –
something she has likely never done in her entire life.

‘Help me,’ Dot says. ‘We
must get her up on to the bed.’ Dot takes her shoulders and Mistress Astley her
feet. She weighs little; even with child there is nothing of her and they lift her
easily on to the bed, covering her with a quilt. Dot opens a window to get some fresh
air to her and let the stink of their coupling out. There is a stench of urine, too, and
a dark, wet telltale patch in the hearth. Men, like dogs, will piss
anywhere they please. Dot can hear the clatter of everyone leaving chapel downstairs.

‘Fetch Huicke,’ she says to
Elizabeth.

The girl looks at Dot peevishly, waiting for
her to remember her rank, but then glances at the unconscious Queen and makes for the
door.

‘Wait, my lady,’ calls Mistress
Astley, grabbing Elizabeth’s shoulder. ‘Your hood.’ She places it on
the girl’s head, tying it beneath the chin, stuffing her hair underneath it,
saying, ‘That will have to do, Bess.’

Dot sits beside Katherine, stroking her
hand, whispering to her, ‘Madam, wake up. Please, wake up.’

Katherine’s eyelids begin to flicker
and roll, and she heaves in a deep breath that seems to bring her back to life.
‘What happened?’ she murmurs, bringing her fingers to the bruise.
‘That hurts.’ She looks puzzled for a moment, furrowing her brow and
wincing. Then, ‘Tell me it is not true, Dot. Tell me I was dreaming,’ she
croaks, as if the words hurt her.

‘It is not a dream, madam. I am very,
very sorry but it is not a dream.’

‘Oh Dot,’ seems to be all she
can manage to say. Her shoulders slump back and her eyes close again; she looks like a
flower that is over.

Huicke enters, and with him Seymour.

‘What happened?’ asks
Huicke.

‘I told you,’ says Seymour.
‘She fell and cracked her head on the floor.’

Huicke sees the bruise, making a tutting
noise with his teeth. He looks at Dot for confirmation.

She nods.

‘Right,’ he says, ‘give me
some space.’

Dot stands aside.

‘How long was she out?’

‘No more than ten minutes,’ she
replies. ‘She has just come round.’

‘Kit,’ he says quietly,
‘tell me how you feel.’

‘It is nothing,’ she says,
‘just a little bump. But the baby. Is my baby harmed?’

The doctor asks Seymour to leave for
modesty’s sake while he examines her.

But Seymour refuses, barking rudely,
‘She is
my
wife, there is
nothing
I have not seen.’

Huicke draws the bed hangings, and they hear
his hushed voice asking questions, ‘Any cramps, any strangeness of vision?’
and eventually saying, ‘No lasting harm has been done; it will take more than a
fall to unlodge this baby, it seems.’ He emerges, saying to Seymour,
‘Someone must stay up beside her for the night to be sure all is well.’

‘I shall –’ starts Seymour.

But Katherine interrupts him. ‘I
should like Dot to sit with me. Would you mind, Dot?’

‘Yes, yes,’ sputters Seymour.
‘Of course, it is women’s business.’

Eventually, after making a deal of feeling
his wife’s forehead and stroking her hair and fluffing up her pillows, Seymour
leaves, and with him Mistress Astley and Elizabeth too, who’s been standing in the
doorway like two yards of tripe, not knowing what to do. Just Huicke and Dot are left
with the Queen.

Dot tidies a heap of Elizabeth’s
hastily removed jewellery – a tangle of rings, a couple of bracelets, a necklace with a
few strands of hair caught in its clasp – and beside them, open, face down, is
Katherine’s new book. The sight of it makes Dot feel another great surge of anger
at the girl.

Katherine touches Huicke’s sleeve,
saying, ‘I have been
such a fool. I should have listened to you,
Huicke. You were right, my husband is not what he appears.’

‘We are all entitled to our
mistakes,’ Huicke says, lifting her hand to his lips.

He whispers something to her. They look like
sweethearts and Dot thinks what a shame it is that Huicke is one of those. (She knows
it, for she saw him once canoodling with that playwright behind the Whitehall
cockpit.)

‘What should I do?’ Katherine
sighs.

‘You know it, Kit. The girl must go –
to salvage her reputation, if nothing else. As for your husband …’ Huicke
leaves the words unsaid.

But the truth in his silence hangs in the
chamber – there is nothing she can do about her husband.

Elizabeth stands before her, looking more
than ever like a small child, deserted entirely by her confidence.

‘Sit.’ Katherine pats the seat
beside her.

Confronted with her, she cannot find it in
herself to hate the girl; it is Seymour who must carry the blame for this. But still she
finds her forgiveness does not easily rise to the surface.

Elizabeth sits, but can’t look
Katherine in the eye and fiddles with the pearl edging on her robe. ‘Mother, I
don’t know …’ she begins in barely more than a mumble.

But Katherine stops her; she can’t
face having to talk about the details yet. ‘I have arranged for you to go to Lord
Denny’s house at Cheshunt. Lady Denny is Mistress Astley’s sister, but I
suppose you must know that.’

Elizabeth nods. ‘I will do whatever
you ask of me.’ All of a sudden she drops to the floor and buries her head in
Katherine’s lap. ‘I cannot begin to describe how much I hate myself for what
I have done to you, Mother.’ Her voice is muffled.

‘Get up,’ Katherine says.
‘Stop hiding. What is done is done. You must accept that.’ She is surprised
at her anger, thought she could hide it better.

Elizabeth begins to lift herself up.
‘I will do anything to make amends.’

‘What you must do, Elizabeth, is take
my advice. I have been many years on this earth and there are things I have learned. It
would please me if I thought you could learn those things also before you ruin
yourself.’

‘I will, I promise.’

‘You must understand, Elizabeth, that
passion is transient. It means little in the scheme of things. You are too much governed
by your passions. You need to rein them in.’

Elizabeth is nodding; Katherine barely
recognizes this biddable girl.

‘You have a fickle nature and you must
find a way to curb it – find some constancy, it will stand you in good stead.’
Katherine feels a wave of sadness wash over her. Her family is fragmenting, but her
anger simmers and she has to hold tightly to it so it doesn’t escape. ‘This
thing that has happened … this …’ Katherine doesn’t know how
to form it into words, can’t bring herself to call it what it is – a betrayal.
‘There are events in life from which we learn our most profound lessons and
sometimes those events are the ones of which we are most ashamed. It could be the pivot
upon which you turn, Elizabeth. It could be the making of you … Think on
that.’

Elizabeth seems deflated, truly chastened,
and Katherine is glad she is not weeping crocodile tears and begging forgiveness or
trying to find ways to excuse her behaviour.

‘You do not want people to call you
your mother’s daughter. That would be the end of you.’

‘My … My mother
was …’ Elizabeth begins to say
something but then seems to
change her mind. ‘I never knew her.’

‘No, nor I.’ But Katherine has
heard enough about Anne Boleyn. ‘I only know what people have said of her,
Elizabeth, and, whatever she was truly like, that is how she is remembered. You do not
want to be remembered for this, for it will stick to you and never be got
off.’