The King's Rose (29 page)

“Don’t you see her? Don’t you see?” I point toward the ghost, still standing in her accusatory pose. My lady looks at the ghost, blankly, then returns her gaze to me.

“It is a mirror, my queen.”

I turn to glare at her; she winces at my expression, but does not falter from my gaze. I step forward, and the revenant steps closer. I reach out and my fingers make contact with a sheet of cold glass.

Now I can see: it is my own reflection staring back at me.

 

MARY, MATHILDE, AND ELSIE
are a more subdued trio of ladies than I have ever had in my company. Even their names are plain, and part of me would like to tell them so. But even when I am cross they seem untroubled by my behavior. They are quiet, sedate, but also diligent. This room does still seem a queen’s chamber, if only for their fastidiousness in dressing me, arranging my hair, bringing my meals, and offering whatever meager comforts they can manage. Truly, it is not so mean an existence as I had expected; I am still being treated with some mercy, perhaps there is hope yet for more.

“You know I won’t eat that,” I inform Mathilde as she places a breakfast tray upon the table.

“Whatever you wish, my queen. But, for your sake, I humbly beg you to eat. You must be hungry, and it is important for you to keep your strength.”

“I see no reason for strength, if I am stuck here all day. I don’t know what is happening in the world beyond these walls.”

“We want you to be prepared for whatever happens, my queen.”

The other ladies look up from their embroidery, their gazes locked on my face.

“We all must be prepared for whatever may happen.” Mathilde reaches forward and places her hand lightly upon my arm.

“What do you know?” My voice is sharp with sudden anger, my eyes burning. “Tell me right now—I order you. Tell me what you know.”

“I know nothing, my queen, save what you have already been told. Your ladies, along with Henry Manox and Francis Dereham, have been taken to the Tower for questioning.”

“For
torture
and questioning,” I tell her, just to see her eyelids quiver with fear.

“I have not heard it said aloud, but it is most likely true. Yes.” She gazes down at my hand as she says this. “Beyond that, I know nothing more. We none of us know more, but we would tell you if we did.”

“I don’t know what I’m doing here,” I whisper. The sound of my own voice frightens me. “I don’t know what I’m waiting for.”

“We are here,” she tells me. Her voice is calm. “We will wait with you. We will wait for whatever is to come.”

The hole in the floor is there. I look away from it. I look back to Mathilde’s face.

“You are tired, you must get some sleep.” She sits on a cushion beside me and reaches up to stroke my hair. I am tired, it’s true, but I’ve been too afraid to sleep, too afraid of dreaming. But the ladies are all seated around me, and a fire is lit. I place my head upon a pillow, just to rest.

 

THESE GIRLS ARE
not the usual type one finds at court. Perhaps I would have been better met with them as companions than the ladies of Lambeth, in my youth. I dream of this often, in fact: the dream of an alternate life, an alternate Catherine. This Catherine never caught the king’s eye, but instead married Thomas Culpeper and became the mother of his children. I imagine our wedding in lavish detail: the gown, the church, all of my family present, proud of me. It is all so precious, so beautiful, until the moment the king appears to grant his blessing to us both and I awake, screaming and shaking uncontrollably.

“Breathe, my queen, breathe. Breathe.” Always when I wake, one of the ladies is here, beside me. At first they were interchangeable, but now I notice slight differences: Mathilde is the oldest, her eyes lined with age. Mary is the prettiest, with soft hands and a soothing voice. Elsie is the youngest, and talks just above a whisper. She must not be any more than thirteen years old. I should tell her to be wary of King Henry, who likes a fresh young girl, but I think her plain face will keep her safe from all of the trouble I have endured.

“They will not let me see my husband,” I tell Mary. The room is dark. I don’t know when it became nighttime—have I been swallowed by the darkness? But then how would Mary be with me, if I’ve already been consumed? I blink; Elsie is stretching forward from her chair and lighting a candle. The shadows stretch up and light her gaunt, tired face.

“Have they told you why?” Mary asks.

“No, they have not told me why. I need to see him, I need to explain.”

“You have offered him your confession, Catherine.” Mathilde rests her cool hands against my hot forehead. “All we can do now is pray for mercy.”

Mary and Elsie take my hands, and we are linked together in a circle. They are quiet, their eyes closed, praying. I have confessed, I have—but not everything. I can’t even bear the thought of confessing it all to these ladies, for fear of what they may think of me. I clench my lips tightly shut, for fear the damning truth will spring free of its own accord. Will God deem me worthy of mercy? I close my eyes, in spite of my fear. I pray, silently, for mercy, a stream of words I dare not say aloud.

 

FOOTSTEPS
.
I OPEN MY EYES
again, sit up from bed. The ladies are sleeping. I enter the main chamber to find Thomas Wriothesley—another heretical council member, according to Norfolk. But what is he now, ally or enemy? I should assume enmity in everyone, my own uncle Norfolk included.

“Will I be permitted to see the king?” I ask, before he can say a word. “I would like to see him and speak to him in person. It is my only request.”

Wriothesley only nods at this solemnly, and gestures to a chair in the middle of the room—the interrogation chair. But I have no interest in sitting there.

“Am I to see the king, my husband?”

“Not yet,” he says, studying my face. “I have more questions that must be answered.”

What could he possibly want now? I’ve already offered my confession. I’ve already written—

“What was the nature of your relationship with Thomas Culpeper?”

I blink at him, as if I don’t understand the question.
Did he really say that? Am I dreaming?
The room is full of blue shadows; it is either dawn or twilight. This could be a dream, I could be—

“Catherine,” he says sternly. He is calling my name, as if calling me back from a far-off place. “You must answer me. You must know the answer. What was the nature of your relationship with Thomas Culpeper?”

“He is my cousin,” I tell him.

“Yes, and perhaps much more than that, according to your ladies. Only your full confession will grant you any mercy from the king. You must tell all.”

But how would mercy be possible, once I’ve told all? Does he realize what he is asking me to admit? What do they already know? I can’t tell the truth! There is no mercy for treason.
The king’s will be done!

“Culpeper has been taken in for questioning,” he continues efficiently. The words echo deafeningly in my head: Thomas has been taken in for questioning. Thomas is in the Tower.
The Tower!

“Did you have a precontract to Culpeper, before your marriage to the king?”

“No, I didn’t.”

“Did you allow him carnal knowledge of your person before or after you consummated your marriage to the king?”

This is my only hope, to protect him, to protect us both. He is my love, my one true love, and he will never fail me.

“No,” I tell him.

“This was found on Culpeper’s person and identified as a gift from you.” He brandishes the ring before my face—the token I had bestowed on Thomas, in secret. But what does that mean? That means nothing, on its own.

“Did you love Thomas Culpeper?”

“No,” I tell him. “I did not love him. Nothing transpired between us.”

“Do you admit to having met with Culpeper, in private?”

“No.”

“Lady Rochford tells a different story, Catherine.”

Of course, Jane told them. Then it is too late, isn’t it, to deny it in its entirety?

“She urged me to meet with him. She arranged the meetings. But it was entirely innocent. The ring was merely a gift, a trifle.”

The ring glitters on Wriothesley’s fat finger. It winks at me like a cruel, bloodred eye. The blackness is here—close, so close to me.

“Did you ever tell Thomas Culpeper that you loved him?”

“No.” But my voice is growing smaller. I am separating from myself, like the cream curdling away from the milk. I am floating up from my head, floating up above this room, above it all. I think I am safer, here. I don’t know when I will ever come down, and live in my body, again.

“No,” is all I manage to repeat. “No, no, no, no.”

Thomas is in the Tower, but he will protect me. If there is anyone sworn to protect me, it is him. I would stake my life upon this. It is quite possible that I already have.

This world is a danger ous place and I float above it, safe from its insistent grasp. I float and I am safe. The ladies try to call me back to eat, to talk to them, to lie down and sleep. But I know it is better this way. I stay away from the black hole in the floor, though it gets bigger by the day. I watch as the others sidestep it, or nearly fall in. But they won’t fall in. That hole was meant for me. It is my madness, it is my fear.

But I am not a part of this world. I am not living in flesh, anymore, as I’ve lived my life until now. I sit upon this window seat with a fur pulled over me, but I can’t feel the warmth of the fur, or the cool of the stone wall pressed against my cheek. I can’t smell the food, or hear the fire crackle. Sometimes I start shivering, but soon enough the quakes pass through me and I move on, through the storm. Elsie’s voice calls to me, from very far away, but I don’t answer her. I don’t have a voice left to answer. When I look again, I see little Elsie, her mousy-brown head bent over her embroidery sample, and she is crying. I don’t know why she’s crying. I look at it like a painting:
Girl in Tears.
I turn away. I float.

“Do you have anything else to confess, Catherine? You must confess it now.” Voices are dim, are far away. I look at my uncle, but he is only a shadow. I am only a shadow. I can’t answer him.

I dream of Thomas. I feel as if he is near me, now, and I hope that he can feel me near him, no matter where he is. No matter what they are doing to him. It has to be all right, it has to. Hope is not yet dead, though there are those bent upon destroying it. He is my love, and he will not fail me.

The sky beyond the window is dark, and I see my own face reflected dimly in the warped glass.
Who is that girl?
I wonder, staring at the contour of my cheek, the shape of my full lips. I barely recognize myself, or perhaps I never really looked at myself this hard, this carefully. I half expect the image of my face to dissolve before my eyes.

There is a flicker of movement in the window. I see a stark face reflected beside my own, staring at me. White face, black eyes, black hair. I turn my head, and she’s still here.

It is Anne Boleyn.

“I was a girl, just like you,” she tells me, “can you imagine such a thing?”

She sits up on the window seat, across from me. She rolls her shoulders back and stretches her long, slender torso. She is sharp and elegant and womanly and proud, just as I saw her that day, on her coronation. But as she stretches I can see the red streak across her white neck—I look away, but she only laughs.

“No, I wasn’t just like you. We are quite different. I was crowned queen and I produced an heir. But here you are, so soon, so soon. Here you are, waiting and waiting and waiting.”

I feel dizzy looking at her; I can’t breathe. She makes my vision blur: her skin so pale, her hair so dark, the wound upon her neck dripping red.

“What will you do now, Catherine?” She cocks one slim eyebrow as she asks me this. “How far will you go to save yourself?”

Henry loves me, Henry will save me. Thomas will protect me. Love will save me in the end. Anne laughs suddenly, as if reading my thoughts. Nothing is safe from her. She stares at me, her eyes gleaming, feral.

“Love will not save you, Catherine. Especially not love from Henry, for he loves nothing so much as himself. You should know that by now.” She turns her head to the side again, craning her elegant neck, brandishing the wound before me. “You are not so special, so singular, to have been granted the king’s love.”

“But he chose me, he married me.” I whisper.

“He chose you for lust, not love. He glorifies his lust into love—he would glorify the spot where he shits if he could.” She bristles, eyes gleaming. “His tiny man-member wagged, and he followed wherever it led him, destroying all that stood in his path. His family, his country, his church—his lust was paramount to all. Do you think he will hesitate to destroy you?”

I am his wife,
I think, but dare not say aloud.

“This is the predicament of a woman’s power.” She tilts her chin down, lifting her eyes to mine—her eyes glisten like onyx. “We are blamed for a man’s lust. You can see this now, can’t you?”

I nod my head slightly. She smiles, her mouth a gleaming red crescent.

“We inspire lust in men; it is our power. But does it really make us powerful, or vulnerable? We are desired, and then we are debased. First we are goddesses, then mere mortal women, then harlots. It was this way with me, and now with you, too.” She narrows her eyes at me, inspecting me carefully. “I am sure you had no idea of the danger of the power you possessed.”

He loved me. He thanked God for me.
I grit my teeth angrily.
He does not want to be rid of me, the way he wanted to be rid of you.

“That can hardly matter now, Catherine.” Anne responds to my thoughts. As she stares at me, I can see a realization dawn in her eyes; she smiles with malicious amusement. “You still think he will save you, don’t you? How can you possibly think such a thing?”