The Redheaded Princess: A Novel (8 page)

"The Lord High Admiral is here to see you, my lady."

I felt my face burn, as it did whenever she or Mr. Parry spoke of him. And they spoke of him often in my presence. "Did he ask for me?" I tried to make my voice sound casual.

"Yes. He is waiting downstairs to see you.”

“Tell him I have a fever. I can't come down."

Cat Ashley frowned and shook her head. "Why is he here?" I asked before she left the room.

"He is consulting with Mr. Parry about your lands, your holdings, your accounts," she said. As a suitor would, I thought to myself. And still I refused to go down to meet him. After she left, Mr. Ascham looked at me with those gentle brown eyes of his. "Playing the coquette?" he asked.

"I can't," I said. "I can't see him.”

“I've heard he's a dashing hero of a man, involved in everything. A man for the new times, as I consider myself to be. Don't be hard on him, Bess." Leave it to one man to defend another. He called me "Bess" in only the most intimate moments. I went back to my Greek. Outside, through the large glass window, I saw Sir Tom and his men riding away.

***CHAPTER NINE

"Oh, and he would make you a good husband," Cat Ashley said as she combed my hair the next morning. "He is tall and handsome and so involved in important matters. And he is uncle to the King.”

“As I am sister to the King," I reminded her. "If the Protector and council give their consent, you should wed him. He loves you. He told Mr. Parry he would press his suit if you encouraged him.”

“I have some feeling left for him too, Pussy Cat," I answered, using my pet name for her, "but there is more at stake than that.”

“What? What could possibly deter you?" That I may someday be Queen, I thought. His own dear wife, Katharine, told me so. And as Queen, I must be careful of whom I wed. Sir Tom has not shown me many strong attributes, for me to want to make him my King. But I didn't say it aloud, for fear of being labeled brazen by Cat Ashley. I had already decided I would never wed any man. Sir Tom had broken my heart. He had been partially responsible for my disgrace. He had rendered me helpless. And then there was my own indignation. How dare he make me suffer, turn me this way and then that, like a puppet, and then come back to me again and expect me to marry him? I vowed I would never let any man so turn my world upside down again. She finished my hair. I put on my cap.

"I'm going riding with Mr. Ascham this morning," I told her. "It's Saturday. There are no lessons." I got sick soon after. I came down with some malady that the doctors could not put a name to. The top of my head felt as if rocks were piled on it. I was weak and could scarce get about. My nose was runny and my lungs felt inflamed.

So I stayed abed, obediently taking all the potions from the local apothecary that the doctors had ordered and providing fresh fuel for the fire of the rumors that were circulating about me. My serving girls told me everything they overheard at the apothecary. The rumor went that I was pregnant with Sir Tom's child, and that was why I was hiding out at Cheshunt. It got even better. There was a renowned midwife, they said, who was wakened from her sleep in the middle of the night to be blindfolded and taken on a horse to a manor house deep in the woods, where she was asked to deliver a baby of a woman with flaming red hair. The baby was delivered and carried off, never to be seen again.

Well, I thought, at least I am providing story fodder for people to be entertained with around their fires on cold winter nights. Cat Ashley blamed my malady on everything but the truth. The manor house, she said, was too close to a large marshland. The new surroundings at Cheshunt were full of vapors in the air that poisoned me. I was growing too fast. I was not growing fast enough. I was eating too much, not eating enough. I had never had a mother and now that I was becoming a woman I needed one more than ever before. She saw everything but the obvious. I was lovesick for Sir Thomas and I hated him at the same time. My insides were in a turmoil over what to make of this.

My malady lasted four weeks, then disappeared as quickly as it had come. We were now into December. I became homesick for Hatfield, house of my childhood. I asked Mr. Parry, who was about to go to London to see about my estates, if he would visit the King and entreat him to allow me to go home. I knew Edward would also remember Hatfield as a place where we had enjoyed good times as children. Perhaps even he longed for it. Mr. Parry came back in a week and sat down in my chamber next to my bed. In his hands were pages of official-looking parchment.

"Do you know the full extent of your holdings, Princess?" he asked. No. "Then let me read them off to you." And he proceeded to tell me all that I owned since my father's death. "These are letters patent," he said, "finally assuring to Your Grace all the properties mentioned in your father's will. There are dozens of manor houses to the immediate northwest of London. One group is in Oxfordshire. Another circles around Ashridge. You now own one of your childhood homes on the Buckinghamshire-Hertfordshire border, your own Berkhamsted, Hemel Hempstead, and in this grant are the towns of Princes Risborough and Missenden.”

“All that?" I gaped.

"And more, Princess. You now own Collyweston, the great country palace of your great-grandmother Lady Margaret Beaufort. There are estates and manors in Huntingdonshire, a group of manors across the Rutland border, lands in Newbury. There are estates in Dorset, Hampshire, and Lincolnshire. And you own Durham Place in London. It Is your town palace. Shall I go on?" He shuffled the parchments."

No. I'm breathless. Only tell me one thing, Mr. Parry.”

“Yes, Your Grace.”

“Did my brother say I could go back to Hatfield?" Permission had been given. I could go as soon as I wanted. So I had my maids pack. And taking advantage of the frozen ground, we set out two weeks before Christmas to go home to Hatfield. There were tears when we departed, of course. Sir Anthony Denny and his wife cried unashamedly and gave advice the same way.

"Be careful of all men," from Sir Anthony. "Study hard and keep your household well," from his wife. I thanked them for taking me in, for I had indeed been a waif in sore need of parental figures when I came. And they had played their parts well. Hatfield! We approached in the starkness of winter, with bright blue skies and all the oak trees bare around the place, with gold light bathing its brick facade. Everything was frozen and so every line of it stood out and reached into my very heart. I had been a child here. Here I had run and played with Edward and Lady Jane and Robin. Robin! Would I ever see him again? Was he still alive? The old house embraced me. Servants stood just inside the courtyard, and from here I could survey my whole world, it seemed. Inside, bright fires crackled. Tables were laden with sweetmeats and hot mulled cider. Dogs came over to greet me, remembering me and wagging their tails.

We kept Christmas at Hatfield that year instead of going to court. At Hatfield I felt safe. There the rumors couldn't touch me. There, there were no ghosts of Sir Tom or Katharine. There I could start new. I sent my gentlemen and yeomen out into the woods to collect red holly-berry branches and evergreens to decorate the place, chestnuts to roast. They went gladly. Then, just as gladly, my knights helped me decorate. After that they went hunting with Roger Ascham for the Yuletide dinner. I put cloth of gold and velvet ribbons on everything, from newel posts to clocks. We prepared a Yuletide feast that would do my father proud. My yeomen cut a Yule log and some applewood, and soon the fragrances of applewood, evergreen, and chestnuts permeated the whole house. The week before Christmas he came. He came riding up in the snow, with his men around him, brandishing a sword. With his dark, swirling cloak, his torso clad in an embroidered velvet doublet, and ruffles at his neck and wrists, he seemed to me a mixture of Christopher Columbus, Richard III, and Saint George right before he slew the dragon. I received him in the large front hall. I curtseyed and he bowed, and I frowned at Cat Ashley to send her from the room.

"So we're alone at last," he said. I was trembling. The nearness of him near drove me to distraction. He loomed over me, with the outside aromas he carried, of horse and fresh air and leather. He lighted his clay pipe, adding another lingering male aroma to the rest. We sat. I tendered my sorrow for Katharine's death. He said the baby was fine and I told him I'd heard he had broken up his household and sent Lady Jane home.

"Yes. Poor little waif. She thinks she has done something to offend me. I will put my household together again and bring her back, with my mother in charge. If only ..." His voice trailed off.

"If only what?" I asked.

"If only you would wed me, Elizabeth. I would love you for all of my days, and care for you." Like you loved Katharine? I wanted to ask. But I could not. He was a rascal, that was a known fact. But part of me--the part in every girl that loved rascals--still did love him. I knew that when he left me today, the world would turn cold. As to marriage, the large commitment of it fell over me like a storm cloud. What would become of us? I asked him. Where would we live? His answers were addled. He seemed uncertain. Was there any truth to the rumors that he was having to do with pirates?

"What pirates?" he asked innocently.

"Jack Thompson." I had heard the rumor and knew how rumors hurt, Lord knows. But he only smiled.

"The whole country is in ferment," I told him solemnly. "The Privy Council argue amongst themselves. There were attempted uprisings in many counties last spring. Anything you do will be scrutinized, but you do what you wish, always. You are known to have several irons in the fire at all times. You get into trouble and expect your charm to get you out of it. You have made an enemy of your own brother, who runs the country.”

“By my faith, I see you have been doing your homework as future Queen," he said.

"Roger Ascham keeps me informed. He said I must be.”

“You will not marry me, then," he said quietly. So I said what women have been saying for years.

"I will think on it." Those were perhaps the wisest words I've ever said in my life. For now I had another consideration: my many land holdings. Was he after them? Certainly he knew of them. He had offered Mr. Parry his services in "settling my estates." I did not feel very wise at the time. I felt lost and confused and upside down, so I did what I always do when I was perplexed about something.

I went for a ride with my knights, through the woods and across the white, snow-covered fields of Hatfield. The sky was robin's-egg blue, the sun warm on my face, the wind cleansing, and the world delicious and new after the snow. Everything sparkled. Deer ran across our path. Rabbits scurried. Squirrels chattered. Life could be so simple, I thought, turning and looking at the vast expanse of red brick and sparkling windows that was Hatfield. Why can't my life be?

***CHAPTER TEN

We got back from our ride, exhilarated and joking, to see a bevy of strange horses in the front courtyard. I stared. The horses wore the green and white of my brother's court. My heart jumped. Was something wrong with Edward, the King? In the great chamber, my main reception room where my gentlemen and yeomen waited as guards of honor, they were now standing, alert and none too happy looking.

"What is it?" I asked as one of my ladies helped remove my purple velvet riding habit. "What has happened?" There was a whole contingent of the Protector's men, armed and with the stoniest of faces. Their leader, a tall, dark-scowling man, turned and bowed. It was Sir Robert Tyrwhitt, who had once been Katharine's Master of Horse.

"What is the meaning of this?" came the loud demanding voice of Richard Vernon. "How dare you come into the Princess's house armed?" Immediately he and his brother, James, and Sir John Chertsey placed themselves around me protectively.

Sir Robert held up a scroll. "Princess Elizabeth, I am ordered by the King and the council to seize two of your servants and place them under arrest. I will take them with me now.”

“My servants? Who? Why?”

“Catherine Ashley and Thomas Parry, your accounting officer." Mr. Parry, Cat Ashley, and Roger Ascham had just entered the room. One of the soldiers grabbed Cat Ashley's arm and two others held Mr. Parry. Cat Ashley's face went white. She was trembling. Mr. Parry, good man that he was, seemed confused. I reached a hand out to them and my knights started forward, but I held them back as my two servants were pulled out of the house. Behind me I heard Roger Ascham saying, "Good Lord, is this Edward's new regime, then?"

The front door slammed. My dogs were in the hallway, barking. There was no other sound for a moment or two, and then a clattering of horses' hooves as they rode away. The silence in the place was like a rebuke. How could such a thing happen? The Vernon brothers and Sir John Chertsey felt denied their right to protect me.

"We could have driven them off, my lady," said Sir John. "No, no, something is going on. Something is not right. Leave me now--I must think." All left but Roger Ascham. "They'll take them to the Tower," I moaned. "Through Traitor's Gate. Oh, my Pussy Cat won't be able to abide it.”

“Come, Princess, mayhap you ought to rest. There will be no more lessons today." Obediently, accompanied by two of my maids, I went to my chamber, thinking grimly, I think, Roger, that the lessons are just beginning. Over the next two days I made a feeble attempt at study. But in the middle of a lesson on penmanship or translating Greek, I would stare off into space and say to Roger, "I want to talk about Pussy Cat and Mr. Parry. What could they have done? Help me to think through it." And so we would talk it through, all the while Roger reassuring me, making perfect sense out of his conjecture. I would believe his positive assessment one moment and in the next plunge into the dark hole of fear inside me.

"Edward, the King, is your brother," Roger would say. "He won't let anything happen to you or your people.”

“Suppose Mr. Parry has not been honest with my accounts?" We both agreed that was probably the problem.

"You must learn to think and act like a Queen," Roger told me. "It is now, if ever, that your education will see you through." Without Roger I would have perished. When there was no more talk in us, he would take me out for a ride in the bracing cold with my knights. "Your actions must always be Queenly," he kept telling me. In two days Sir Robert Tyrwhitt came for me. He came with a body of men, armed soldiers and servants. Fortunately my knights were in the dining hall out back when he came, or they would have died on the spot protecting me. He came with a writ from the council, which he read to me as I stood with two of my maids in the great hall. "Princess Elizabeth, I am ordered by the council of our Lord and King, Edward, to seize upon you. By the power invested in me I do arrest you now on the charge of high treason."