She looks up at Sir William. “How is this? They told me you would bring her to me within the month. I am leaving now to go to Greenwich.”
Sir William heaves himself down from the saddle and bows. “The guard came to escort her without notice the day before yesterday,” he says. “Orders. But her ladyship has been desperate to be free any day this past year,” he continues. “It would have been cruelty to keep her another day. I don’t think I could have kept her another day, to be honest. She has earned her freedom, God knows.”
A shadow passes over my stepgrandmother’s face. She turns to me: “But you know you are not freed?”
“What?”
She turns to Sir William. “She’s not free,” she says again. “She is in my care. She is released into my keeping.”
Sir William swears and turns to his horse to muffle his oath. He turns back to us and he is flushed red with anger and there are tears in his eyes. “Not freed?” he repeats. “On whose orders is this—” He bites off words that might be treasonous. “I thought she was to come to you as her lady grandmother, and then to go wherever she might please. I thought you were receiving her and taking her back to court.”
“Come in,” my lady grandmother says, conscious of the waiting servants and the people loitering in the street. She leads us into the great hall inside the house and then turns aside to the porter’s room for privacy. There is a table and a chair, and a writing stand for messages and accounts. I lean against the table, suddenly exhausted.
“My dear, sit down,” she says kindly to me. “Sir William. Will you take a glass of ale? Of wine?”
I cannot bear to sit. I feel if I sit, they will slam the door and never let me out again. I stand awkwardly, my back aching from the two-day ride, filled with a painful sense of dread. “Am I not free?” I can hardly speak, my lips feel swollen and stiff as if someone has slapped me hard in the face. “I thought I was free.”
She shakes her head. “You are in my keeping, like your poor little nephew is in the keeping of his grandmother at Hanworth. But the queen is not releasing you. I have had to promise to keep you confined.”
“I can’t” bursts from me. I can feel the tears coming and I give a shuddering sob. “Lady Grandmother, I can’t be confined. I have to be able to go outside. I can’t bear being kept in a little room like a doll in a box. I can’t bear it, Lady Grandmother. I will die. I swear I will die if I cannot ride out and walk out and go freely.”
She nods, her face pale. She glances at Sir William and says: “You kept her very close?”
He shrugs angrily. “What could I do? I was ordered to let her walk in the garden only as much as her health required. But I let her go out all day, every day, as much as I could. They ordered that she should have one room, a small room, and one maid, and no messages or visits or friends. She was not even supposed to speak to my servants. I was not supposed to speak to her at all.”
My lady grandmother turns to me. “Don’t cry, Mary,” she says firmly. “We’ll do what we can. And at least you are in my keeping and can live with me and my children: Susan and Peregrine. And we can talk freely and study and write and think.”
“I have to be free,” I whisper. “I have to be free.”
My stepgrandmother looks at Sir William. “I was leaving just now for Greenwich,” she repeats. “Lady Mary may come with me. Does a train of wagons with her goods follow you? Or will you send everything directly to Greenwich?”
“She has next to nothing,” Sir William blurts out. “She came to me with almost nothing. A few bits of tapestry, a pillow or two.”
My stepgrandmother takes it in, looking from him to me. “So where are her things? Where is her inheritance? Her mother was a princess of the blood, she had a great house filled with treasures. This is a wealthy family. They owned houses and lands and licenses and monopolies. Where are her gowns and jewels from court?”
Sir William shakes his head. “All I know is she came to me like a poor woman, and they sent nothing after her. I will deliver to you all that is hers. I am very sorry that it is not more, my lady.” He nods his head to me. “I will give you anything you need from Chequers,” he offers. “Just ask.”
“I want nothing.” I shake my head. “I want nothing but my freedom. I thought I was free.”
“You shall have something to eat and then we will go down the river to Greenwich,” my lady grandmother rules. “And then we shall see to your rooms and your furniture and your clothes, too. Her Majesty will provide what is missing, and I shall speak to William Cecil myself about providing for you and setting you free. Don’t fear. You will be free, my dear, I swear it: you and your sister and her boys, too.”
I look at her, this woman who has been exiled and persecuted for her faith, this woman who married beneath her so that she might freely love and freely live. “Please help us, Lady Grandmother,” I say quietly. “I will promise anything to the queen if she will set me free. And Katherine, my poor sister.”
Stepping aboard the Suffolk barge is like stepping back into the past when I used to sail downriver with the court to Greenwich or watch the green meadows going by as we went upriver to Richmond. It is a hot day and a heavy heat sits over the stinking city, but it is pleasant to be in the center of the stream with the silk awning fluttering in the cool breeze that blows upriver from the sea. The seagulls cry overhead and all the bells of London peal out the hour as if they are celebrating my freedom. My spirits rise as we go past the familiar stone walls of the Tower and the yawning waterside entrance of the portcullis at the watergate. At least I am not making that slow walk into the prison rooms. I am in my stepgrandmother’s keeping, but I am going to a royal palace in her barge, and the sunshine is on my face and the salt-smelling wind is blowing in my hair, and I can see more than a small square of sky.
The river widens as we come towards Greenwich and then I see the Tudors’ favorite palace—our favorite palace—like a dream shore, as if it were floating on the water, the quayside golden in the sunshine, the great doors standing open. It looks so rich and friendly and peaceful I cannot believe that this will be anything like imprisonment—not in this beautiful house with the doors standing wide to the rich gardens, greens, and orchards.
Elizabeth is not here. She is on progress at Farnham Castle at Guildford, and only a few servants are in attendance, engaged in the great work of sweetening the rooms, cleaning out dusty old rushes, and laying fresh green leaves and herbs in all the public rooms. My lady grandmother’s servants are expecting her, and they line up before her apartment in the palace and bow to me as I walk in with her. I had almost forgotten how many servants it takes to service one set of rooms, one demanding woman. I am so used to my cramped room and my one maid, I am so used to a window onto a small square of sky and silence. My lady grandmother leads the way into her private hall, takes her seat on the raised dais, and gestures to me that I am to sit beside her. They wash our hands with a silver jug and ewer, and bring us cold small ale and a plate with fruits and meat, and the steward of the Greenwich household reports to my lady grandmother about the running of her apartment here, the absence of one of the grooms without permission, the rise in the price of wine.
I have no appetite. Her sharp eyes watch me as she listens to her steward and, when he has finished and bowed and stood back, she says: “You must eat, my dear.”
“I am not hungry,” I say.
“You must be,” she insists. “You had that long ride, and then the voyage on the river. Your triumph is to survive and thrive, you know. To fast and to fail is to do your enemies’ work for them.”