Queen's Gambit: A Novel of Katherine Parr (53 page)

‘I only wish it had not happened. I
have destroyed the love you gave me …’ Her eyes have lost their usual spark,
are dark with regret.

‘I am sending you away for your own
good, not mine. Now, come,’ and she holds out a hand to beckon the girl closer.
‘Kiss me, for I will not see you again before you leave.’

As Elizabeth plants a kiss on her cheek, she
can’t help but think of Judas.

When the girl makes to leave, Katherine says
as an afterthought, ‘Be careful whom you agree to marry, Elizabeth, for once the
ring is on your finger you lose everything. And you are a girl who likes to hold the
reins.’

When the door closes, tears well up in
Katherine’s eyes and she wonders if she had been wrong all along about her. She
had thought Elizabeth so very misunderstood. Sister Anne disliked her – Dot too. She
wonders if she had simply fallen for the Elizabeth charm, as Meg had. After all, she was
fallible to the Seymour charm – it withers her to think of it now – so why not also
Elizabeth’s?

Elizabeth leaves tomorrow, and good
riddance. Dot can’t wait to see the back of her. Katherine goes about as if
nothing has happened. But Dot can see the change in her, a brittleness beneath the
surface that she’s seen before. Katherine talks often about her baby; that softens
her edges. Dot had dreamed of being nurse to the infant but it will not happen, for Dot
is with child too. She hadn’t told anyone until she started to show – only
William, who was daft with joy. She had cradled her secret but it has been five months
now and there is no hiding it.

‘You must go and set up your own
household. You have a baby in your belly to think of, and your husband too,’
Katherine had said. She was making her plans for the move to Sudeley Castle where
her
baby is to be born.

Dot felt quite distraught at the idea of
leaving, had protested, but Katherine had been firm and Dot knows well enough that when
Katherine is decided on something there is no use in trying to change her mind. But the
idea of leaving her with that man makes her feel sick inside. Katherine had said once,
on the eve of her wedding to the King, that things often turn out the way you least
expect, and Dot has
thought about how true this is. Both Katherine and
Dot had married for love. A daft thing to do, really – and by rights they should both be
reaping the regrets of that. But Dot has never been happier than she is with her William
Savage. She reminds herself of how she used to repeat his name over and over, adding it
to hers: Dorothy Savage. It was never more than a story she made up about her future and
was not something that was actually going to happen. But it
has
happened; she
is
Dorothy Savage. Just the thought of her husband makes her belly turn
over with desire, even now, after more than a year and a half of marriage.

She has her happy ending. Who would have
thought, after all that time thinking William Savage was a bad penny, that he’s
turned out to be the kindest, sweetest creature who ever walked the earth? It is Seymour
who has turned out to be the bad lot.

So they are moving on. Katherine and her
household are going to Sudeley, Dot to her manor, Coombe Bottom, in Devon – to think of
it, she in her very own manor and a gentlewoman to boot. Elizabeth has already gone to
Cheshunt and Lady Denny, who is very strict by all accounts. Dot is helping Katherine
pack her valuables. After so much packing and unpacking, it will most likely be the last
time. It will be a wrench to give this up.

‘There is no way of telling,’
Katherine says, ‘with men, which one is a bad apple. Or perhaps it is not that.
Perhaps our desire clouds our judgement. Anyway, Dot, I am happy that you have your
William Savage.’

‘But what of you?’ Dot asks.

‘One thing I have learned, Dot, is
that you can never know what fate has in store for you.’

There was a time when she would have said
something
more like, ‘You can never know God’s
plan.’ She has changed. But then they have all changed. Dot thinks about visiting
Ma and how she felt like she didn’t belong in her own family any more, that
she’d left them behind, without even knowing it. She has wondered if it was being
able to read that changed her most, or the weeks in Newgate, or all that time spent in
the royal palaces and seeing all those things.

She sometimes thinks about how, as a girl,
she’d imagined the King and his court to be like Camelot, and how she’s
since come to see for herself that it is not one little bit like that. Camelot is
nothing but a place in her imagination, for the court may be beautiful on the outside
but inside it is as ugly as sin. She wonders if perhaps those stories of knights and
maidens are just tales for children and that she has grown out of them. One day,
hundreds of years from now, people will tell stories about the court of King Henry and
the romance of it all – the Eighth King Henry and his Six Wives. But will they tell of
the terror that came with it, she wonders, or will it be made to seem a golden age?

They are sorting a pile of jewelled gloves
into pairs and there is one left partnerless.

‘Where do all those single gloves
go?’ Katherine laughs, placing the rest of them in a box. Then, leaning back and
bringing her hands to her stomach, she says, ‘Dot, feel this.’ She takes
Dot’s hand and places it on her round belly.

Dot can feel the movement under her fingers,
like a fish is swimming in there. ‘Oh,’ she sighs, thinking of her own
little fish wriggling away inside her, a whole new life that will be lived one way or
another. ‘He’s a busy little lad.’

They’ve always talked of him as a boy,
never even imagined he might not be.

‘I have this little one to think of,
Dot,’ says Katherine. ‘He
makes me happier than I could
ever have believed, and though I’m losing you, I have many true friends around me.
And I have had a letter from Mary.’ She takes a fold of paper from her purse,
opening it out, waving it as if to prove to herself that it exists. ‘We are
reconciled. It is this little fellow,’ she taps her belly, ‘who has
rekindled our friendship. He is already doing good for us all, even before he is born.
What a blessing he is.’

‘I wonder how I will fare without your
wisdom.’ Dot feels then the painful drag deep inside her, like the pulling of a
tooth, marking the beginning of their separation.

‘Wisdom, pah!’ Katherine says
with a tight little laugh.

Dot isn’t sure what she means by that,
whether wisdom is not all it’s cracked up to be, or if she is not as wise as Dot
thinks.

‘Here.’ Katherine picks up a
bracelet, gold with garnets. Taking Dot’s hand, she slips it on to her wrist.
‘Have this for luck with your baby.’

Dot smiles, holding up her arm to admire it.
‘Thank you. Not just for this … I mean thank you for
everything.’

‘No need for thanks.’ Katherine
is suddenly brusque, seems embarrassed.

Dot wonders if she, too, is feeling that
painful tug of separation.

‘I do miss my mother’s cross,
Dot. I wonder if that woman will ever return it.’

Dot circles the bracelet on her wrist and
thinks about her future. Little Min and her family are already installed at Coombe
Bottom and she wonders how it will be, living with her sister. She knows so little of
her, for Little Min was barely eight years old when Dot left Stanstead Abbotts. She
thinks of the life taking form in her and of her dear William Savage
and imagines their future stretched out like a garden on the brink of blooming, each
bed differently planted, lavender here and roses there, nasturtiums and hollyhocks and
all the herbs that she will make into remedies, as Katherine has shown her, so she can
care for her family. In the distance, vague and unformed, as she does not really know
what it looks like, is the sea. William says that you can see the sea from the gardens
at Coombe Bottom.

‘I suppose, in time,’ utters
Katherine, as if thinking out loud, ‘I will find a way to forgive
Elizabeth.’

‘But
how
will you forgive
her?’ Dot asks. She can’t imagine that such a thing could be possible. She
stops what she is doing – folding linens – and looks to Katherine, waiting for her
answer.

‘It is not Elizabeth who made Seymour
the way he is. He was ever thus.’ She meets Dot’s gaze. ‘It was
I
who did not see it.’

‘But –’ Dot begins.

The Queen raises a hand to hush her.
‘Elizabeth is …’ She pauses with a sigh. ‘She is only
fourteen.’ She stretches her arms up to unclasp her necklace; it is a pretty chain
of daisies enamelled in yellow and white on gold. Dot passes over her coffer, which she
opens, tipping the chain into one of its silk pockets. ‘Elizabeth suffers more
than I for her deeds. It is easier to be betrayed than to betray, Dot.’

But Dot cannot forgive her. She was
horrified by what she had walked in on that day. It was as if she herself had been
betrayed. Regret eats at her still for the way she led Katherine to Elizabeth’s
chamber. William had always said that no good came from meddling, and he was right. But
Dot couldn’t help herself, and in her mind it was her loyalty to Katherine she was
thinking of. If she’s honest, though, she’d also done
it
for her loathing of Elizabeth. Only it ended up being Katherine who was hurt. Would it
have been better if Katherine had never known?

Dot wishes she could be more like Katherine,
forgiving, instead of the type to harbour a grudge. But she still blames Elizabeth for
Meg’s misery, even more than she blames Murgatroyd. How to explain that? Meg would
have said that God was testing her faith, like Job; Dot can’t see it like that.
She never did understand the story of Job.

Elizabeth is a puzzle. The day before she
left, Dot had overheard her talking with Jane Grey in the long grass at the bottom of
the orchard. It had reminded her of how she and Meg used to hide in the orchard at
Whitehall and share their secrets.

Dot was by the pond with little Ned Herbert,
counting the fish. Elizabeth had strolled by, arm in arm with Jane Grey, without even so
much as a look Dot’s way – nothing new in that. But Jane had waved and called out
a greeting with one of her bright smiles. Dot is glad that Jane Grey will go to Sudeley
with Katherine. She is a sweet girl, if rather serious. She always has her nose in a
book – usually the Bible. In that way she is a little like Meg, but she is a smiler and
much sunnier than poor Meg ever was.

Dot couldn’t help but overhear Jane
ask Elizabeth about her – what family did Dot come from? – and had crept closer to
listen better, bringing Ned with her, telling him it was a spying game.

‘She is the daughter of a
thatcher
, would you believe it,’ Elizabeth had said, throwing off her
hood, unlacing her gown and falling into the grass with a laugh.

Jane had shrugged. ‘Her husband plays
like an angel. And besides, I like her.’

‘Is that so?’

Jane had said nothing. Sometimes there is no
way to respond to Elizabeth.

Elizabeth pulled up a blade of grass,
putting it between her thumbs, blowing through it to make it sing. ‘If you were a
man for a day, what would you do?’

‘I cannot imagine that,’ Jane
replied.

‘Think of the power. I would like the
feeling of that, to have all the women in the world do your bidding. I would make a good
man, I think.’

They were silent then for a while. Dot was
thinking about how everyone did what Elizabeth said anyway.

‘The Queen will not see
me …’ Elizabeth suddenly blurted out, pausing, then adding, ‘Do you
know what it is that I have done, Jane?’

Jane shook her head, saying nothing.

‘I have betrayed her, and she
won’t see me now before I leave.’

‘Is there some message you would like
me to pass to her?’ Jane asked.

‘There is,’ said Elizabeth.
‘Will you tell her that I have taken to heart everything she said and that I hope
one day she will be able to forgive me?’

‘I’m sure she will do
that,’ said Jane. ‘She is one of the most forgiving people I have ever come
across.’

‘Perhaps. But Jane, you don’t
know the extent of my betrayal …’ She paused to pluck a daisy, twisting it in
her fingers. ‘She told me I am a girl who likes to hold the reins. Do you think
that, Jane? That I am someone who likes to hold the reins?’

Jane picked another daisy and passed it to
her. ‘I suppose so. You do not like to be ruled.’

‘Does that make me more man than woman
then?’ Elizabeth had laughed bitterly, not waiting for an answer, and then
suddenly confessed, ‘You know I lay with her husband.’

Jane gasped loudly at this, covering her
mouth, embarrassment flushing over her face.

‘I cannot explain why,’
Elizabeth continued. ‘I have tried to understand it but I can’t. Sometimes,
though, there are things I cannot find a way of resisting, though they are terrible
things.’ She rolled on to her front, propping herself on her elbows, resting her
chin in her hands. She had broken the daisy chain and let it drop. ‘I do things to
make myself feel alive but then I end up feeling more dead than ever.’