Three Maids for a Crown: A Novel of the Grey Sisters (49 page)

The jailer walked through the door with my little son and closed it. The last thing I saw was his eyes peering back at me.

Before the morning was out, Thomas and I left our Tower room as well. We were bundled into a litter scattered with pomander balls to ward off the plague as we wound through the embattled city. Not until we were beyond London’s walls did I dare peek out from behind the curtains, show little Thomas his first sight of forest and meadow and unbroken blue skies.

It felt so strange to be in the world again, beyond the fortress walls after two long years. It was all too big, too open, too unfamiliar. I felt that sensation I had had as a child when I dreamed of falling.

I was falling. Falling away from everything I knew. Away from Ned and little Beauchamp. Away from London and my rooms and the noises of the Tower courtyard beneath my window.

After we reached the more modest quarters at Ingatestone, I tried to be brave. But as time dragged on, I could not eat, wanted only to sleep. For when I slept I could dream I held my older son in my arms. Was I a terrible mother to prefer those dreams to caring for the son I had left? Much as I loved Thomas, he could not fill the gaping hole that losing Beauchamp had torn in my heart.

That void widened as my son turned two years old without me. It grew vaster every night I could not feel Ned near me or touch Beauchamp’s velvety cheek. I could not even write to them of my love.

I spent hours writing pleading letters to anyone who might help us, to Robert Dudley, to Cecil, all to no avail. As one year fled and then another with no sign of the queen granting us a reprieve, I feared I might never see my husband and son again.

Dread and loneliness hammered at my nerves. I was breaking inside, pieces of my spirit falling away one by one. Desperate, I tried to catch hold of my strength, my will—for Thomas, for Beauchamp, for Ned. But I could not put myself together again.

Chapter Thirty-six

M
ARY
20
YEARS OLD
W
HITEHALL
P
ALACE
J
ULY
16, 1565

ow long can one wait for joy before it crumbles like the dried petals of a flower, all the beauty sucked away? For two years Thomas and I loved. He drew me into his circle of warmth, friends he had made with his loyalty and kindness, people smaller and often weaker drawn to my steadfast sergeant porter as one clings to an oaken mast during a storm.

I bloomed under his tender care. I learned that beneath even the nastiest bullying by the other maids lay fear. Who could they trust? Each other? They grappled for a handhold in a world of shifting sand, where others were desperate enough or greedy enough to make even their best friends fall.

That was what Elizabeth faced as well, queen as she was. Even Robert Dudley valued her crown more than her love, while she tried to use him to further her own ends. The court watched in outrage as Her Majesty made him Earl of Leicester, openly planning to send him to Scotland to wed their troublesome queen. Elizabeth’s intent was to have a loyal Englishman on the Scottish throne. But even that sacrifice was to no avail. Mary Stuart wed one of the queen’s other subjects instead, eloping with Henry Darnley, the Countess of Lennox’s comely fool of a son. A pretty, petty boy whose Catholic parents had once stirred rebellion in Yorkshire.

I confess to feeling some pleasure in the discomfiture of my cousin, this woman who ruled our world. She still could not mold it to her liking, stir love where there was none, nor crush love where it flourished.

She could clutch her power, she could rage, and she could pretend to be worshipped by legions of courtiers. But she would never know the richness I knew, the calm, the peace, the
home
I found in Thomas Keyes’s arms.

By July of the year of Our Lord 1565, Thomas and I both knew we could wait another year, another five, another ten, and little would change. Elizabeth Tudor could never trust love, so she must loathe it. No wonder she hated my sister so.

But surely she could not feel the same bitterness toward Thomas and me, we reasoned. She could scorn our love openly, laugh at it with her favorites, and mock us easily if she chose. I did not mind. I would have Thomas as my husband until death parted us. She would be alone.

So it was that, come July, Thomas put everything in place for our union. The queen and her favorites were off to another wedding at Durham House, and I was left behind. Strange to think that my opportunity to seize happiness hinged upon Her Majesty going to a wedding at the very place where our father had hurled Kat and Jane into Northumberland’s web, my sisters more sacrifices in some bloody myth than brides.

How I missed them. How I wanted them with me to share my joy that night.

I hesitated a moment, peering up at the stars.

“What is it, sweetheart?” Thomas asked. “That is a pensive look on your dear face. We might still call the wedding off if you are having second thoughts.”

“No, Thomas. Nothing like it. I was just thinking about my sisters.”

“It is cruel of the queen to ban you from even writing to the Lady Katherine or from visiting your nephews.”

“I have not heard from Kat since last I saw her in the Tower. But I was reminded of another time, long ago. The wedding the queen is attending is at Durham House, where Jane wed Guilford Dudley.”

“I see.”

“Jane was so unhappy, Thomas. Beaten until she agreed to the match. Only now do I understand how she must have suffered taking those vows.”

“Lady Katherine was married the same night, was she not? To Pembroke’s son?”

“Kat loved him. It is so easy for Kat to love. But he deserted her when the seas grew rough. Of all she has endured with Ned Seymour, one thing is certain. He has stood firm in his love for her. Sometimes I fear it will not be enough, that Kat will wither to nothing without him and their older boy.”

“She has not seen them since they left the Tower?”

“No. Beauchamp is nearly four years old now, and he does not even have his father to care for him anymore. The queen discovered that Ned was trying to get clerics on the continent to judge the marriage legal, and she grew so angry she sent Ned away from Hanworth into the care of Sir John Mason, a man who loathes him.”

“Poor, lonely little Viscount Beauchamp,” Thomas said.

I fingered the blue ribbon I had used to trim my wedding gown. “It is painful to be separated from the little fellow, I know. But it troubles me when I hear how unhappy she is. Why can Kat not be content with the child she has left?” I looked to Thomas, confident he could unravel such matters of the heart.

He brushed a tendril of hair from my cheek. “Babes are as different from each other as sisters are, Mary. Each fits a special place like”—he paused, then smiled—“like a key fits a lock. Only one person can open that room in your heart. Think of spring, when all the rooms are open to the fresh air—how sweet it is to breathe. Your sister has always lived in a heart with doors flung wide. The queen has shut her in a tiny room, and she cannot help but long for what she has lost.”

I looked up at him—this man who would be my husband—and felt blessed to the depths of my soul. “Thomas,” I said softly, “do you know how wise you are? I have spent my whole life shut in a tiny room, allowing even my sisters only glimpses inside. You opened me up, so wide that I could never go back to that dark and solitary place now that I have known love. Poor Kat. To have all the love in the world and have so much of it taken away. It must be like losing the sun. As for Jane—she never had love at all.”

“She had you and Kat and her books.”

“I will love you enough to make up for what she never had. I will make certain that Jane can look down from heaven and see it. When we have a little girl someday, I will give her the poppet Jane made for me, and I will tell our daughter how much I loved my sister.”

“You will never have to tell that daughter how much I love you, my elf. She will see it in my eyes.”

We started on our way again. The windows in Thomas’s rooms, high above the water gate, shone golden as our hopes and dreams. Behind those glittering panes our future was waiting.

Thomas paused at the foot of the stairs. He lifted me up to kiss me, his mouth soft and warm, his beard tickling my cheek. “I love you, Mary Grey,” he said.

“I would rather be Mary Keyes.” I reached my arms around his neck.

“So you shall be, my own, my wife. The priest awaits within.”

He did, a short man with graying hair. He performed his office there among a cluster of friends Thomas had gathered, determined we would not risk what had befallen Kat and Ned, a single witness dying. I felt beautiful the moment Thomas slid his tiny gold ring onto my finger. I
was
beautiful. I saw it in my husband’s eyes.

H
ow did I even know, two weeks later, that my secret marriage had been revealed? No one had told me. I felt it—a crackling in the air—as I knew in childhood when lightning would strike a barn or thatched roof or a tree.

That devil who had twisted my back must have whispered:
Listen to the guard marching nearer, Mary Keyes. This time they come for you …

Strange, I was not as afraid as I should have been. Deadly calm descended over me as I went to the maids’ lodgings. I crossed to my chest, opened it. Sifting through petticoats and bodices and shifts, I found the one thing I possessed that mattered: the Thief’s Coffer. I pulled it from its hiding place and opened it. Touched its precious store. Jane’s wedding glove and my poppet with its mismatched eyes. The iridescent feather that Cousin Mary had returned to me when she promised to spare Jane’s life. The disk of sealing wax with a unicorn pressed into it, taken from one of Kat’s letters to Ned. A red-gold curl I had clipped from their first Tower-born babe. The blue ribbon I had used to trim my wedding gown and—most precious of all—Thomas’s mirror, the mirror in which I saw that love could make me beautiful. I cradled the Thief’s Coffer against my breast.

The guard marched nearer, and I remembered something Jane once said:
Sinners must carry with them the burden of all the wrong they have done
. This coffer held my heavy store.

I squared my shoulders and straightened as tall as I was able. Pain wrenched my back, but I did not flinch. I faced my captors like a princess of royal blood. I faced them prouder still that I was Thomas Keyes’s wife. The door swung wide, and the scarlet livery of the guards filled my sight. The captain entered, but I did not wait to hear what he said.

“What is to be done with my husband?” I demanded.

The man froze in surprise. “Better to ask what is to happen to you, my lady.”

I gave him the fierce look I had seen my mother level at people so often.

The captain answered my question. “Mr. Keyes’s breach of trust is a terrible one. As sergeant porter, he was charged with the security of the whole castle. His betrayal of the queen is even greater than yours.”

“He betrayed no one. He only loved me, married me. That will not make Whitehall’s defenses fall. The queen should be grateful to him for giving her an excuse to banish me from court. She has always hated me. Let the two of us go to Mr. Keyes’s farm, as her sister Queen Mary allowed my mother and her horse master to retreat from court.”

The captain wiped his brow. “It is not for you to decide. The queen has given me orders that Mr. Keyes is to be taken to the Fleet Prison.”

Horror spilled through me. The Fleet was notorious for its pestilence and filth. “It is a death sentence!” I charged. “The queen would have been more merciful to deal him a blow with an ax.”

“True enough,” the guard said, looking miserable. He knew Thomas, I realized, respected him. But he was hiding something. An even darker secret lay behind his eyes.

“There is more,” I said, bracing against yet another blow. “You will tell me.”

“My lady, I cannot think Mr. Keyes would want you to know.”

“You will tell me!”

The captain’s Adam’s apple bobbed in his throat. “I fear in some ways your husband’s fate will be even worse than death,” he said, his voice strangely gentle. “Once I deliver him to the Fleet, Mr. Keyes is to be placed in the smallest cell the jailer can find.”

I do not know how I stayed on my feet. I wanted to crumple to the floor. I wanted to wail and shriek and claw out Elizabeth Tudor’s vicious black eyes.

I wanted Thomas. To tell him I was sorry. To tell him I loved him. To beg him not to die. Or was that crueler still? Four years Kat had been a captive at the queen’s command. I thought of Thomas, his long limbs used to striding across the courtyard, always outside in the sun and wind and rain.

Elizabeth would crush the life from him in a room so small he could not stand, he could not stretch out his legs and arms. She would crush him in that tiny cell because her own heart was so small.

“Lady Mary, you are to go to the Tower,” the captain said.