The Fallen Queen. Emily Purdy

softness of our winter furs, gold-fringed and embroidered leather gloves, and new velvet riding habits—cinnamon for Kate and black cherry for me.

      Cousin Mary was always very kind to us, and a visit to, or from, her always meant lots of presents. She liked to pretend that we were the little girls, the daughters, she always longed for but never had and lavish us with the gifts she would have given them.

      But Jane came out dragging her booted feet as though her severely cut ash-coloured habit were made of lead instead of velvet, and the silver buckles on her boots iron shackles, letting the skirt drag until our lady-mother shouted at her to pick it up.

      Jane mounted her horse with such a glum spirit I could almost see a dark rain cloud hovering over her, dripping icy rain onto her head. She despised our royal cousin’s devotion to the Catholic faith she was raised in, and the rich ornaments, jewelled crucifixes, “the accoutrements of Papist luxury,” with which she adorned her person and her chambers.

      I had such a feeling inside me as we left the courtyard and passed through the gates, such a sick, fearful foreboding that I slowed my prancing pony to a walk and glanced back at Jane’s scowling countenance. One look at her made me wish I had the power to tell her to turn back, but I was only a little girl, powerless to intervene or change anything. Our lady-mother, riding before us, looking grand as a queen, sitting straight in the saddle in her orange velvet, red fox furs and golden roses set with rubies, with her hair netted in gold beneath her feathered hat, had decreed that we would go, and she would make certain that I regretted it if I dared speak up about the fear that so suddenly and overwhelmingly possessed me. And I knew that if I tried to put it into words it would sound quite silly, just as I knew that the laughter that would burst from her lips would not ascend to her eyes; there I would see only derision and contempt. And that I did not like to see in my own mother’s eyes, so I kept silent.

      When we arrived at Beaulieu, Lady Anne Wharton, one of our royal cousin’s ladies-in-waiting, came out to greet and escort us inside. As we passed the chapel, she paused before the open doorway and curtsied deeply to the altar upon which sat the golden monstrance containing the Host, the wafer of bread the Catholics believed would be miraculously transformed into the body of Our Lord when elevated by the priest during Mass.

      Jane bristled, and I felt the icy prickle of fear down my back. I tugged at her sleeve, but she ignored me.

      “Why do you curtsy?” my sister asked, in a voice sickly sweet, like rotten meat disguised beneath a thick coating of spices. “Is our cousin within?”

      “No, my lady,” Lady Wharton patiently explained, “I am curtsying to the Host—Him that made us all.”

      Jane brushed past her and made an exaggerated show of peering into the candlelit chapel, then turned back to face Lady Wharton with wide-eyed amazement. “Why, how can He be there that made us all when the baker made Him?”

      My sister was fervently opposed to the Catholic belief in Transubstantiation and the Doctrine of the Real Presence. She had no tolerance at all for anyone who believed that during Mass the bread became Our Saviour’s body and the wine His precious blood. She scoffed and derided and venomously attacked this belief at every opportunity, insisting that it was an insult to common sense, faith, and intelligence.

      At such times I was always glad I had never confided in Jane, the way I had Kate, that I believed in miracles and prayed every night that God would work one for me and make me grow up into a beautiful and shapely, slim-limbed young lady just like my sisters. Jane would have been so disappointed in me if she had known and I cringed to think of the scathing sermons and lectures she would have bombarded my poor little ears with. But Kate and our father were always kind and quick to assure me that our family breeds diminutive and dainty women, our beefy, robust mother being the exception of course, but we always knew that I was different. Even though I used to sneak out into the forest surrounding Bradgate and climb a tree and tie to my feet the bricks I had stolen when the workmen came to build a new wall and hang from a limb, ignoring the bite of the bark into my tender palms and the awful, wrenching ache in my arms and shoulders, and in the small of my back, praying and concentrating with all my might, willing the weight of the bricks to straighten my spine and make my arms and legs stretch, I never grew another inch after my fifth birthday.

      It was at that moment that our royal cousin appeared. Her sumptuous jewel-bright purple satin gown, gold brocade under-sleeves and petticoat, and the elaborate jewelled hood perched like a crown atop her faded grey-streaked hair could not disguise the lines etched across her brow and framing her taut, thin-lipped mouth, her deep-sunken eyes, or the fact that she was pale and pinch-faced. A bulge in her cheek and a strong scent of cloves hovering about her, vying with the flowers of her perfume, told me that she was nursing a toothache. I saw the smile falter then die upon her lips, and her eyes were both fire and ice when she looked at Jane.

      “I would lay my head on the block and gladly suffer death rather than sit through one of Edward’s prayer book services!” she declared as she and Jane faced each other like enemies on a battlefield.

      Thinking fast, I hurled myself at Cousin Mary, embracing her knees. She tottered and reeled backward, flailing her arms, and only our lady-mother’s quick intervention kept her from falling. Drowning out our lady-mother’s angry words with my tears, as soon as Cousin Mary had regained her footing and knelt to try and soothe me, I flung my arms around her neck and into her ear whispered a fervent plea that she not be angry with Jane. “She has been so sad since Queen Catherine died.”

      Cousin Mary gave a quick nod and said, “I understand.” Then she rose and went to embrace first Kate, then our lady-mother, and lastly Jane, lingering as she held my sister’s stiff-backed body in her arms and offering her condolences over the death of the Dowager Queen. I thought for certain Jane would challenge her when she said that Queen Catherine had been in her prayers, for Jane, as a Protestant, did not believe in saying masses for departed souls and prayers for the dead; the living had greater need of them. But Jane bit her tongue and smiled wanly when our royal cousin caressed her pale face and said she would pray for Jane too, for her “sadness to be lifted,” and that happiness would again find her in this household. “I shall endeavour to make it so.”

      “I have a special gift for you, little cousin Jane—and for Katherine and Mary too,” she added with a warm smile as she urged us to follow her upstairs. While our lady-mother, her patience sorely tried by Jane’s, as well as my own, antics, claimed a headache and let Lady Wharton lead her to the room that had been prepared for her, Kate and I each took Cousin Mary by the hand and, with Jane trailing sullenly behind, followed eagerly to the room she had prepared especially for us.

      In the great, grand pink and gold brocaded chamber we three sisters would share, sleeping in a giant canopied bed with gilded posters as round and thick as burly men, lovely gowns waited, spread out upon the bed for us to sigh over and admire. But first, three white-capped and aproned maids—one for each of us—stood by in readiness to undress and bathe us. There were three copper tubs lined up in a row before the massive carved stone fireplace, and the maids stood ready to pour in steaming pails of water and sprinkle dried rose petals on top. The baths would warm our flesh, and while we soaked, there would be cups of steaming, spicy hippocras to warm our insides as well. And then … the dresses!

      For Jane there was a gown of palest sea green silk, a marvellous colour that seemed to shift between blue and green as the shimmering folds, embroidered with silver, white-capped waves and exquisite little silver fishes, flowed like water over my sister’s limbs, rippling as she moved. It was trimmed in pearly white embroidery, like the finest, most delicate filigree, punctuated with pearls, giving the illusion of white froth floating upon the sea. And for Kate, to complement her gleaming copper curls, there was a pale orange silk, not too delicate nor too bold, over which gold-embroidered butterflies fluttered, with frills of golden lace edging the square-cut bodice and encircling her dainty wrists. And for me, Cousin Mary, knowing that I preferred darker hues to clothe my person, had chosen a deep mulberry silk with a kirtle and sleeves of silver floral-figured crimson damask, with silver lace at the neck and wrists. And there were satin slippers to match each gown. With what loving care our royal cousin had chosen each gown and its accessories!

      She