She shakes my wrist. “Wake up! The King of France has died. So our cousin Mary Queen of France is now dowager queen. It’s not her throne anymore. She doesn’t have the French army behind her. She doesn’t have a little dauphin in the cradle and she’s not the most powerful woman in Christendom. Everything is changed again. She is not Queen of France; she is only Queen of Scotland.”
I glance at Janey, who is leaning back against a stone pillar, catching her breath.
“Then I am Elizabeth’s heir without a rival,” I say slowly. “Elizabeth has nothing to fear from Mary now she’s only Queen of Scotland, and Cecil’s treaty excludes her from the throne of England.”
I see the gleam of ambition in Janey’s eyes and I smile at her.
“You’re Elizabeth’s heir,” Mary agrees. “There is no other.”
WHITEHALL PALACE, LONDON,
DECEMBER 1560
I live in a dream. The palace seems to me a wonderland of beauty as they bring in the great boughs of fir trees and pines for the winter season and they light the candles earlier every day. They raise the kissing bough—the woven willow stems twisted with green ribbons and the effigy of a little baby Jesus at the heart of it. They tie it over the door to the presence chamber, and Ned and I manage to meet, as if it is a surprise, under the bough at least twice every day and he takes my hands and kisses me on the lips for the good fellowship of the season. Only he and I know that we are drunk with the scent of each other, that our lips are soft and tender, that each touch is a promise of a later meeting.
The windowsills are lined with greenery and bright with candles, and the dried oranges give off a sharp perfume, which mingles with the smell of pine sap so I think myself in a winter wood. We practice dances every day, and the dancing master scolds me and says that I must be in love, for my feet are all astray, and everyone laughs, and I laugh, too, for joy. I so want to tell all of them that it is true. I am in love, and I am beloved. Better than that: I am married, I am a wife. I have illuminated the terrible darkness that Jane’s death laid on our family, and I am free from grief and guilt at last. My name is no longer Grey. I am Katherine Seymour, the Countess of Hertford. I am the wife of one of the most handsome and wealthy young men in England, and when we tell everyone of our secret marriage, we will become the leaders of the court, the proclaimed heirs, and everyone will admire us.
Ned steals me away to Janey’s rooms and we snatch at moments for hurried lovemaking. I don’t care if we have no longer than a minute. I am in such a fever to be held by him that I don’t care if he has me like a girl of Southwark, up against a wall, or if he has no time for anything more than a swift kiss in a darkened corner.
One day he takes me to a quiet window bay out of the way of the noisy court and says: “I have something for you.”
“Here?” I ask flirtatiously, and am rewarded by a warm smile.
“Here,” he says lovingly. “Take this.” Into my hands he puts a parchment document.
“What is it?” I unfold it and read. It is a deed of gift. I scan it quickly and see that he has given me a fortune in land.
“It is your dower lands,” he says. “We had no parents or guardians to draw up our marriage contract so I am giving you this now. See your name?”
He has named me as his dearly beloved wife. I hold the document to my heart. “I shall love it for that alone,” I say. “The land doesn’t matter.”
“Nothing matters,” he agrees. “Not land nor fortune nor titles. Nothing but us.”
The court has more news from France. The young dowager queen, my cousin Queen Mary, has gone into deep mourning for her young husband, but it does not save her from being excluded from the royal family of France. She is not to marry the second son, she is not even to stay in France. Elizabeth has no sympathy for her at all, even though our beautiful cousin has lost her mother, and now her young husband is dead. All Elizabeth cares about—all I hear as I stand behind her chair during her low-voiced mutterings with William Cecil—is that if Mary decides to come to Scotland, how will that affect the Scots? Will they rise up against their new queen, as they rose against her mother, or will they take her to their hearts in a rush of sentiment like the savages they are?
Either way, I have become essential to the safety of England. It has never been clearer that Elizabeth must name me as her heir to parliament, to prevent her cousin Mary from claiming the position. Elizabeth turns to me with a sweeter smile than usual. She does not want to give anyone any reason to think that Mary Queen of Scots might some day become Mary Queen of England. “A very distant cousin,” she calls her, as if she can rewrite the family tree that shows us as all equal cousins of each other. “And England would never crown a papist queen.”
Cecil looks as if he is not so sure. “A very good time to determine on your husband,” he points out. “For no doubt Queen Mary will marry again, and you would be sorry to lose a suitor to her.”
Elizabeth widens her eyes. “Are you saying that Erik of Sweden would prefer Mary to me?” she challenges him. “Do you really think so?”
It is the most dangerous question in the world. Elizabeth has all the fears of the second-choice child; she has to know that she is everyone’s preference.
“I am saying that we would not want Mary Queen of Scots to marry a strong power and have him on our doorstep,” Cecil says cleverly. “Not if he was an ally that we wanted for ourselves. We have to make sure that if she comes to Scotland, it is not as a princess of France or Spain or even Sweden. If she does come to Scotland, it would suit us best if it were as a widow without friends.”
“Is that possible?”
Cecil shakes his head. “It’s not likely. But you should at least have first choice of the greatest men of Christendom. She should not snap someone up before you, because she was quicker than you to choose.”
“Perhaps she will not marry again,” Elizabeth observes.
“Not her! She knows well enough that she has to have an heir for the throne of Scotland,” Cecil says steadily. “She was raised up knowing that she has to do it, whatever her personal preference. She is eighteen, she is said to be healthy and beautiful, so she is likely to be fertile. Every queen knows that she must give her country an heir. It is the duty of a monarch, a God-given duty.”
“I have an heir,” Elizabeth says, smiling over her shoulder at me. “A young and beautiful heir to a young and beautiful queen.”
I curtsey and smile back.
“No one can deny the rightful position of Lady Katherine,” Cecil says with his infinite patience. “But the country would like a boy.”
WHITEHALL PALACE, LONDON,
SPRING 1561
As the weather gets warmer I can meet my husband out of doors, and every day we walk together in the little patchwork gardens that are dotted around the palace. The birds are so tame here that they sit in the budding branches above our heads and sing as if they were as happy as we are. I put a bell on Ribbon the cat to safeguard the nestlings that will come soon in orchard and hedge and tree.
Sometimes Ned slips up to my rooms and my servants vanish, leaving us alone. Sometimes Janey walks with me to the little house in Cannon Row and dozes in the sunny presence room while Ned and I spend the whole afternoon in his bed. I cannot think beyond our next meeting; I dream of him when I am asleep. All the day I find I am feeling the silky texture of my linen, the exquisite delicacy of my lace, the shine of my brocade gown, as if the whole world is more intense because of my passion for Ned.
“It is the same for me,” he tells me as we walk by the river and smell the salt behind the cool wind from the sea. “I am writing more than I have ever done, and with a greater fluency and understanding. It is as if everything is more vivid. The world is brighter, the light more golden.”