Brandy Purdy Read online

  The portrait shows them in their wedding clothes, Mary, “The French Queen” as she would ever afterward be called, in chic black velvet embroidered with a fortune in pearls, some formed into exquisite rosettes, and rich golden roses set with sapphires to match her necklace. Her handsome, rusty-bearded bridegroom stands beside her, holding her hand, in sable-trimmed black velvet covered with silver piping with a row of silver-braided lovers’ knots marching down his chest. In her other hand, the newly wed duchess holds an artichoke, a pun on the orb she would have carried as queen, to show that she had disdained another royal marriage for one of true love, and also as an emblem of ardent love and fertility. I like to think that perhaps she already knew her firstborn child, my lady-mother, was already growing in her womb, like the leaves of an artichoke unfurling as it ripens.

  The second portrait shows my parents dressed for the hunt. Hunting and gambling being the two passions that endured throughout their marriage, it seems somehow most appropriate that they chose to don these clothes for their wedding portrait. And it is how I best remember them. My lady-mother never seemed to be without her riding crop, and if satin slippers ever peeked from beneath her hems instead of gold or silver spurred leather riding boots, I do not remember. My lady-mother, Frances, the Duchess of Suffolk, stands in a grand gold-embellished russet velvet riding habit gripping her horse’s bridle in one leather-gloved hand and her riding crop in the other, a proud, fierce, willful, determined, voluptuous beauty, flesh already at war with the restraining influence of her corset, threatening to break out in open rebellion. She holds her head high, showing off her Tudor red hair, snared in a net of gold beneath her round feathered cap, and stares unwaveringly straight ahead with her shrewd ice-gray eyes, avaricious and calculating as a bird of prey eyeing a gentle, innocent sparrow with a wounded wing. There is something in the way she holds herself, her chin, firm and unyielding as chiseled granite, and the way she grips her riding crop that defines the words dominance and control. My father, Henry Grey, Hal to his wife and friends, stands beside her, auburn-bearded and handsome in a weak-chinned way in his white linen, brown velvet, and hunting leathers, with a hooded falcon on his wrist; he is a man awestruck, with the tentative smile and quizzical eyes of one who can’t quite believe his good fortune.

  The third, and most unfortunate, wedding portrait shows my fat and florid piggy-eyed, sausage-fingered mother with her second husband, our Master of the Horse, Adrian Stokes, the boy of not quite twenty-one she married a scant two weeks after Father lost his head on Tower Hill. Her eyes remain the same, flinty, cold, and hard, but the hair has darkened, and the strong chin is softened by the pads of pink flesh that swaddle the bones, pushed higher still by a tall, most unflattering chin ruff with a fortune in pearls edging its undulating frills. And beneath the rich pearl-embroidered black velvet of her gown it is obvious that flesh has won a great, bursting victory over restraint, her defeated corset remains only as a nominal presence, because no proper lady would ever be seen in public without one; it has become an obsolete ornamental necessity that serves no actual purpose except to add one more expensive, luxurious embroidered layer to my lady-mother’s opulent person. She looks like she could devour the pale and slender black-haired boy standing beside her clutching his gloves as if they could save his life, and trying to look older than his twenty years, while showing off his grand gold and silver ermine-edged garments. Supported by a gold-laced ruff, his gaunt face always makes me think of the head of John the Baptist being offered to a most corpulent Salome, one who should keep her seven veils on instead of wantonly discarding them. Poor Master Stokes’s dark eyes seem to say his is a life of hard bargains, and also to question whether it’s really worth it—he’s risen in the world by marrying a duchess, the niece of Henry VIII, and 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 parlor. 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 gray between black and white, and of these two stark colors 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 honor 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 gray 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 delic
ate 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-colored 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 at her, like a cannonball covered with bouncing copper curls, Jane absorbed the impact with barely a flicker. When I saw this, my smile and steps faltered and I hung back, feeling as though I were trespassing on my sister’s sorrow, even though all I wanted to do was banish it.

  She was still wearing the black velvet gown she had worn to the Dowager Queen’s funeral, where she had acted as chief mourner, with her long, wavy chestnut hair still pinned tight and confined beneath a plain white coif, and her thin shoulders shivering under the little white silk capelet, both of which, coupled with the black gown, signified that the deceased had lost her own life bringing a new life into the world. With two black-gowned, white-coiffed, and caped maids bearing her long black train, Jane, carrying a lighted white taper clasped tight between her trembling hands, hoping her tears would not drip down and douse the flame, had led the grim and solemn procession into the chapel at Sudeley Castle.

  Our always elegant lady-mother disembarked from the coach with a wave of rose perfume strong enough to knock any weak-stomached man or maid down, her leather stays creaking in violent complaint beneath the grandeur of her gold-embroidered green velvet gown and her favorite leopard skin cloak. Our father had given it to her when she, as a young bride, triumphantly announced that she was carrying a child that they were both confident would be a son, though it was in fact Jane in her womb as time would reveal. But our lady-mother kept and prized her leopard skin cloak just the same, even long after she had given up all hope of a son. “I deserve it,” I often heard her proclaim as she preened before her mirror with it draped about her broad shoulders. “After all that I have endured—I deserve it!” Though I never dared question her, I knew she meant us—Father’s weak will and his body grown cushiony soft through unrestrained indulgence of his love for sweets; Jane’s recalcitrant and willful ways that ran so contrary to our world’s most cherished ideas of feminine beauty and charm; Kate’s thinking with her heart instead of her head; my stunted, deformed body—a dwarf daughter is a daughter wasted, she can do no good for her family or herself; and the tiny baby boys born blue and dead with limp little phalluses that waggled mockingly, reminding our parents of the son, the star of the Grey family, the hope of the future, they would never watch grow to strong and lusty manhood and carry on our proud and noble lineage.

  Jane blindly followed our lady-mother toward the house, meek and docile in her grief, her long train trailing forgotten over the dusty flagstones behind her. Her mind shrouded in black velvet sorrow, Jane didn’t feel its weight or hear the rustling whisper that tried to remind her, like a little voice urgently hissing, Pick me up! Pick me up! Sudden as a serpent striking, our lady-mother swung around and dealt Jane’s face a sharp leather-gloved slap that almost knocked her down. “Pick up that train!” she snapped, though we all knew it was a gown Jane would never wear again, for every stitch of that hastily sewn frock was full of sorrow.

  Jane staggered and stumbled backward, a livid pinkness marring the milky, cinnamon-freckled pallor of her cheek and a drop of blood falling like a ruby tear from her nose to stain her white silk capelet. Seeing it, our lady-mother snorted like a horse, blowing hot fury, before she shook her head in a way that seemed to say to Jane, You’re hopeless! and spun on her leather-booted heel and flounced into the house, the feathers on her hat bobbing with every step as she nimbly plucked the gloves from her fingertips, tossed them to a maid, and untied her cloak strings, as she called for wine and demanded the whereabouts of her husband. As soon as the door closed behind her, Kate ran to gather up Jane’s train, bunching up the dusty velvet, wadding it against her chest as best she could, being quite daintily built and only eight. And I took Jane’s hand and gave a gentle tug to get her moving and led her inside and upstairs to her chamber.

  Jane never said a word as her nurse, Mrs. Ellen, ordered her to sit, and then, with an efficiency born of familiarity, silently bathed Jane’s face and pressed a cold cloth to her nose to staunch the bleeding while Kate and I knelt beside her chair and held and rubbed our sister’s hands. As
soon as a servant appeared bearing Jane’s trunk, she sprang up and ran to open it. From inside she took a portrait, which she had wrapped in petticoats to protect it on the journey. She unswaddled it tenderly as a mother would her child, as Catherine Parr would never have the chance to do for her own infant daughter, then propped it on a chair and sat back on her heels before it.

  It was a portrait of the late Dowager Queen, gowned in sumptuous claret satin, her bodice and sleeves elegantly embellished with gold-embroidered black bands. Her auburn head was covered by a round, flat black velvet cap adorned with fanciful gold and pearl buttons and brooches. With its jaunty, curling white plume, the hat looked far more cheerful than the pensive pearl-pale face unsmilingly framed by the pearl-bordered white coif she wore beneath it. In the hollow of her pale throat I noticed was a pendant I had seen on portraits of our uncle’s previous queens, all now deceased, their lives bled out in childbed or on the scaffold, a great cabochon ruby resting in a nest of gold acanthus leaves with a smaller emerald set above it and an enormous milky teardrop of a pearl dangling beneath.

  I had never met Queen Catherine, but Jane had told me so much about her I felt I knew her: the book she had written, The Lamentation of a Sinner, a labor of love boldly espousing woman’s equality to man, emphasizing femininity’s Christlike virtues, such as meekness and humility; the finely arched brows she plucked with silver tweezers; the discreet henna rinses she applied to her hair when her husband was absent; and the quick pinches she gave her cheeks, to give them color, before she came into his presence; the milk baths she soaked in to keep her skin soft and fair; the vigorous scrubbings with lemons to fade and discourage freckles; the rose perfume she distilled herself from her own mother’s recipe; the cinnamon lozenges her cook prepared in plentiful batches to keep her breath sweet; and the red, gold, and silver dresses her dressmaker made to show off the still slender figure of an aging woman who kept her waist trim by exerting steely self-discipline at the dining table, shunning the rich, decadent fare laid before her on gold and silver plates, and, to her great sorrow, by never having borne a child. All to keep a man who wasn’t worth keeping, an ambitious scoundrel who lusted after a crown and was hell-bent on seducing her own stepdaughter—the flaming, vital, young Princess Elizabeth who stood just two steps down from the throne her brother sat upon. Only her sister, the Catholic spinster Mary, stood above her in the line of succession, and she had already rebuffed the Lord Admiral’s passionate overtures.