“She’s been asked,” she said. “And refused. I think her cares now all be focused on her favored son, who is besieged.”
“I have a certain … personal interest from which I might plead with her,” I said.
The duchess looked up at me. “Yes, yes, now I do recall that Lord Thomas Seymour was, well … I see your point. Quite. Yes, mistress, if you desire to plead your case to her, do write. And send one of my messengers, if you like.”
I spent the next weeks rehearsing how I might best appeal to a woman who loved me and my mother not, and who had already bluntly refused help to her own grandchildren. As far as I could see, this was Mary’s last hope.
In late May a messenger came from Barbican House, the duchess’s London residence. I had asked her for funds for Mary’s clothing and an increase in the money required to feed her small staff. She replied that the clothing would have to do, for now, and that I should not expect her to return to Grimsthorpe until after the June wedding of Lady Anne Seymour, the daughter of the tottering lord protector, to John Dudley, son of the Seymours’ rival and enemy. All of London would be present for the festivities.
“Will there be a response, mistress?” the messenger asked me.
“Yes,” I said. “I shall have it to you tomorrow.” I did not have any idea what I was going to say. I prayed for direction but, I admit, worried that there would not be an answer forthcoming as we had been left on our own for so long. I dressed Mary in a slightly too-short gown and hose and took her hand.
“Walk, Am?” she asked me, her face delighted, as it always was when we took our daily stroll. Lucy had done up her hair in some small curls anchored by ribbons at the base of her scalp and she looked angelic.
“Yes, dearest, we’ll go for a walk.” She called me Am, not being able to say Juliana, and I took her first to the stable as she loved the horses best. When we got there, one of the stable boys waved us away.
“Do not bring the child here,” he said, a worn look upon his own face, “nor come yourself. Jemmy’s got tha plague and he was here just yesterday. It arrives right regularly in the summer now.”
I hurriedly backed away from the stables, picking Mary up and clutching her close to me, quickly making my way to my own room, not to her chambers. Jemmy’s wife was her new nurse. I called Lucy to me.
“Did you know Jemmy is suspected of having plague?”
“No!” Her eyes looked toward the stable, where Gerald sometimes worked.
“Gerald is in the house,” I said. “But we must dismiss Mrs. Tiller, his wife, till we know she does not have it.” I hurriedly scribbled out a note and put some money with it. By evening, the little household thrummed with fear, scattered among Grimsthorpe’s many long corridors. There was not enough kitchen staff to light the hearth so we ate cold platters.
The messenger came to find me. “I be leaving in the morning, miss, no later, seeing as …”
I nodded. “I will have my response ready.”
That night I stayed in Mary’s room watching for any sign of the shivering or hot flesh that predicted the onset of disease. Who would have whisked this child to safety if I had not remained? There were truly none, save I, who loved this child, whose mother had so readily loved so many. They had divided the carcass of her inheritance, devouring it shamelessly for themselves. The king, whom Kate had loved so gently till the end, had not a word on behalf of his cousin. Gardiner, the wolf, would be set free when the Lady Mary came to power as queen and then the lambs the duchess spoke of so easily would not be merry.
I read to Mary in her room after her servants had been dismissed and she was quiet in her cradle. I often told childish stories to her, and tickled her and laughed at silly antics, but this night I chose her mother’s book once more so she could know something of Kate. I began at the place where I had last left my own reading. Within ten minutes I began to tire and had almost closed the book when I arrived at a passage that startled me anew.
“But our Moses, and most godly, wise governor and King, hath delivered us out of this captivity and bondage of Pharaoh. I mean by this Moses, King Henry the eighth, my most sovereign favorable lord and husband …”
I then closed my eyes. Did you really think the king to be Moses, lady? Moses noble, leading his people, or Moses ill tempered, striking out to murder?
Of a sudden, I was pricked with the desire to read of the account of Moses for myself. I reached into the cupboard in which I kept Mary’s books and pulled out a copy of holy writ. I opened it to the second book of Moses, called Exodus, and read with opening eyes. Though pharaoh had commanded the children be slain, the midwives had cunningly hid them whilst claiming they were dead so they would not perish. And for their good works, they were promised by God households of their own. I closed my eyes in a rapture of certainty as I realized who was sent, in particular, to look after the child Moses, floating on the river.
His older sister.
Who knoweth whether thou art come to the kingdom for such a time as this?
My heart quivered with excitement and would not be stilled. I would not have to wait about any longer, allowing time and chance to overcome us. I stirred from the torpor that the mannerisms of court had lulled me into and determined to take action. I set Mary down and made my way to Lucy’s chamber. She was already abed in her knitted cap but she came to the door anyway.
“I have something to ask of you,” I said. I told her of my plan and asked if she, and Gerald, too, would be willing to assist me.
“Ooh, I’m certain of it,” she said. Her face gleamed. “Who can ye get ta help us, then?”
“I need someone who knows how to smuggle.”
“The child’s father is dead,” Lucy reminded me.
“Someone of good character who knows how to smuggle,” I said, amending it.
“Your father is dead too,” she said. “God rest him.”
My eyes opened wide. “You knew my father smuggled?”
She nodded. “We all did. He did ri’ by it, though, not for profit, only for others.”
I shook my head and pressed on. “There is one other.”
“Tha man wi’ the strawberries,” she said, grinning widely. “I knew you’d come back ta him. You don’t lose lightly.”
I grinned back. “But I don’t know if he will help. And he is like to be married already.”
“He will help anyway,” she said. “I told ya, he be a man.”
The next morning I sent the messenger off to London with a letter for the duchess saying that, as plague had hit Grimsthorpe, I was taking Mary with me to Wulf Hall to plead with her grandmother in person. Then I handed him a second envelope.
“If you promise to get this letter to Lady Fitzgerald Browne at Horsley within a day, I shall pay you a month’s wages in advance.”
He took the letter, and the money.
“You must keep this to yourself,” I said. “Or I shall find some way to come back and reclaim the moneys.”
“I will do as you say, mistress.” He left quickly, spurred on not only by money but by fear of contagion.
I watched him as he rode away, the horse’s hooves sponging heavily in the mossy green, the horse’s meaty flanks flexing as they made speed out of the property. I sank to my knees in the damp field and prayed, but with hope now, not caring if I ruined my gown.
Whom have we now but You?
TWENTY
Summer: Year of Our Lord 1550
We made our way in a litter with the drapes pulled, though it was summer and hot. We left Lincolnshire and then made our way to Rutland, whence we would then aim for Northamptonshire, Oxfordshire, and finally Wiltshire on the journey of one hundred fifty miles toward Marlborough. I made a great display of stopping at an ancient, mighty, and imposing cathedral headed by priests likewise described. I loudly asked one, “Where do you bury children who die of plague, if they are baptized? In consecrated ground? And whom shall I speak to about this if I have such a child who died on a journey?”