The Fallen Queen - Emily Purdy

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mother of the best-forgotten nine days’ queen, but he doesn’t relish what will come afterward when they are alone together behind the bedcurtains and everything but our lady-mother’s riding boots comes off.

      There is one more portrait in my parlour. A frosty, formal portrait of the cousin I was named for, the Tudor princess, and later queen, Mary, born of Henry VIII and his first wife, the proud and devout Spaniard, Catherine of Aragon. A plain and pious spinster, this Mary stands sunken-cheeked and stern-faced, severely gowned in high-necked black satin and velvet with a bloodred satin hood, petticoat, and full, padded under-sleeves; even the glimmer of the gold at her throat, breast, and wrists seems subdued and the jewels dulled amidst so much bloodred and black. Though it was painted years before people put “Bloody” before her name, at times I think it a prophecy in paint, a sign of things to come. Her hands are pure white and lovely, but I cannot look at them without seeing blood staining them.

      Why do I keep it? Well … there was a time, many years ago, when my royal cousin and I shared a special kinship, something only the sad, hurt, lonely, passed over, and forgotten can truly understand. We both knew what it was like to live every day knowing that love, no matter how much we longed and dreamed of it, and needed it, was likely to pass us by and shower its blessings upon those pretty and fair. For us, even the royal blood in our veins might not be enough to tempt a husband. Cousin Mary had already dared to hope and been disappointed many times. With no husband or babies to give her time and love to, she would often come visit me, always bringing with her a basket filled with pretty scraps of material and bits of lace and gilt and gaudy trim she had been saving just for me, to fashion gowns for my doll, just as she had done for my other cousin, her half sister, the precocious, flame-haired Elizabeth, before Elizabeth, who was always old beyond her years, lost interest in dolls and turned her back on Mary and her sumptuous offerings, declaring them “a pastime fit only for babies.”

      We would sit and sew for hours. She was the very soul of kindness and patience, and taught me so much of stitches and styles, patterns and cuts, the dressmaker’s craft and art. “Mayhap I flatter myself,” she would often say, “but if I had to make my way in the world, I fancy I could make a comfortable life for myself as a dressmaker.” It was true of Mary Tudor and equally true of me; my skill with the needle supplements my income and my embroidery is avidly sought after to this day. “There is magic in these fingers, little cousin,” she would say, taking my hands and kissing my stubby little fingers when I showed her my latest creation.

      When a rainbow of silken threads and materials pass through her hands, a dressmaker soon learns that there are many shades of grey between black and white, and of these two stark colours that stand like sentries at the ends of the spectrum there are variations as well—charcoal, ink, raven, shimmering jet hiding a dark rainbow, rusty black with its bloody undertones, and midnight blue black, and the white of eggshells, ivory, milk, snow, and the silvery white glimmer of a fish’s belly, and the cream of custard and old lace. I cannot forgive Cousin Mary for taking Jane’s life, yet I cannot forget the love and kindness she lavished on me, a lonely, ugly, deformed child best kept hidden away, consigned to the shadows of shame, and I cannot take back or kill the love I gave her either. Master Stokes’s eyes speak truly, and his is not the only life filled with compromises and hard bargains.

      And though I like not to look upon it, and keep it hanging, shrouded in shadows, in a dark corner downstairs in my humble dining room, there is my own portrait, the only one I have; there was once a miniature painted by Lavinia Teerlinc, long ago when I was just a child, but I don’t know where it is now, like so many other things, it has been lost. My Thomas wanted this portrait, so I sat for it to honour and please the one I loved most. Mercifully, it shows me only to my waist, so that those unaware of my stunted condition can gaze upon it without guessing that they are looking at a freak of nature. In a deep charcoal grey and black velvet gown discreetly embellished with silver embroidery and marching rows of shining bright buttons, with puffs of rose-kissed white satin protruding through my short, slashed over-sleeves, and a profusion of beautiful blackwork Spanish embroidery and gold wrist and neck frills decorating the delicate lawn of my under-sleeves and partlet, and ropes of blushing pearls layered at my throat, I stare warily out at the world, proudly displaying the gold ring set with the “mystic ruby” my husband put on my finger on our wedding day. He kissed my hand and said it would protect me always, even when he could not, and safeguard me from all poisons and plagues, explaining that this bloodred cabochon, so rich a hue that its light shines even through fine linen, was forged from the crystallized blood of a very old and wise unicorn that congealed when its horn was severed. And upon my little black velvet cap is a pink gillyflower, to tell all those who look upon my portrait that here is painted a loyal and loving wife. And arranged behind it, prophetically posed just above the pink gillyflower, is a silver pin from which teardrop pearls drip like a shower of tears. Yes, I still weep for my husband.

      A scorching whiff suddenly reminds me of the cakes I have left baking in the ashes, thankfully before they burn. My rusty knees creak and pop in protest as I kneel to retrieve them—three warm, round, golden honey cakes, each decorated with red currants to spell out one dear initial—J for Jane, K for Kate, and T for Thomas—the three people I loved most. The red currants look like scabs of newly dried blood, and I shudder at the sight of them, thinking of the beloved blood that was spilled in vain. And as the wind howls outside my window, I think I can almost hear them calling my name as my mind journeys back to the long ago February day when our lives changed forever, when we three sisters found ourselves standing at a crossroads and realized that the moment had come when we must all take different paths. Solemn, sullen Jane, “the brilliant one,” took the road to the scaffold and a martyr’s fame, and saucy, carefree Kate, “the beautiful one,” skipped along light and airy as a butterfly with jewel-coloured stained glass wings, following her heart wherever it might lead, living, and dying, all for love, and I, “the beastly little one,” thought I was destined to always walk alone, shrinking fearfully into the shadows to hide from those who passed me by lest they wound me with their words, laughter, blows, or even worse, the pity in their eyes. I thought for certain that Love, though he would surely stop for Kate and might even pause for Jane, if she let him, would pass me by.

      

1

      Only a fool believes in Forever. Yet I was a fool, though I was only five years old at the time—take that as an excuse or not as you like—when my eldest sister, Jane, came home to Bradgate after the death of the much beloved Dowager Queen Catherine Parr, the sixth and final wife of our magnificent, fierce uncle, King Henry VIII. Jane had been the sixth queen’s beloved ward and lived with Catherine and her new husband, the Lord Admiral Thomas Seymour, quietly pursuing her studies, until death and heartbreak brought her home to us. That was in September 1548, and Jane was a month shy of eleven, though her intelligence and quiet, solemn ways always made her seem much older than her actual years.

      We would be constantly together in the years to come, we three sisters—Jane, Kate, and I, “the brilliant one, the beautiful one, and the beastly little one!” as we used to laughingly call ourselves as we stood together before the looking glass, poking fun at the way everyone saw us, like characters in a fairy tale. Rather than rage, pout, or weep, we had adopted it as our own and laughed about it instead. I didn’t think then of marriage, of husbands, households, and babies, the responsibilities that would inevitably tear us apart, take us away from our home at dear rosy-bricked Bradgate in Leicestershire, and each other, and divide us from a trio of sisters into three separate lives. I thought we would go on forever, always together.

      Jane was so sad when she came home that long ago September. Never before had I seen her so listless and full of sorrow. When she stepped down from the coach, she moved like one in weighted shoes, stunned by a heavy blow to the head, as though she were walking in her sleep, her swollen, red-rimmed eyes open but oblivious, even to Kate and me as we ran out with open arms and joyful, eager smiles to welcome her. But Jane didn’t notice us. Even when Kate hurled herself

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