Chapter 32 #3
Elizabeth was still justifying her decision.
“I am inclined toward a single existence. I have found the celibate life so agreeable that I would rather go into a nunnery, or even suffer death, than be forced to renounce it. I would much prefer to be a beggarwoman and single than a queen and married. If I were a milkmaid with a pail on my arm, I would not forsake that poor and single state to marry the greatest monarch.”
“But why do you hate marriage so much, Bess?” Kate asked gently, lifting heavy ropes of pearls over Elizabeth’s head.
“I do not hate it. I hold nothing against it, nor do I judge amiss of those who, forced by necessity, cannot live another life. But I am determined not to give way to such fleshly weakness.”
Ah, there was the rub. It came to Kate that it was not marriage that Elizabeth feared, but the act of procreation.
She had guessed that there was a more fundamental reason for her mistress’s aversion to marriage.
“It is not fleshly weakness, but a natural instinct implanted by God,” she said.
“And it can be beautiful when two people love each other.” She was thinking with longing of Francis.
“And awful if they don’t!” Elizabeth retorted. “Imagine letting a man you hated do that to you!”
“But you can choose your husband. You do not have to marry a man you hate.”
“I do not have to marry at all!” Elizabeth rounded on her.
“Let me tell you, Kate, that certain events in my youth have made it impossible for me to regard marriage with equanimity or to see it as a secure state. Look at the marital problems of my father and my aunts, for example! Because of that, I stand in awe myself to enter into marriage, fearing what might ensue. And you must not say this to anyone, but I am very afraid of the dangers of childbirth. Two of my stepmothers, and my grandmother, died in childbed. My sister suffered the mortifying humiliation of two pregnancies that were not pregnancies. I have seen young brides marry, give birth, and die within the space of a year. My physician has warned me that childbirth might not be easy for me. I’m scared, Kate. I’m very scared.”
“But I myself have borne thirteen children, and I am here to tell the tale,” Kate said reassuringly, doing up the clasp of her mistress’s jeweled girdle. “You are strong and healthy, Bess—you could birth ten children!”
Elizabeth flushed. “I cannot bear the thought!”
“But you are denying yourself some of the greatest joys in life! Looking back, it was as if I was half alive before I had children. Until you have a child of your own, you can never know or understand how powerful that bond is. Your love for that child would overcome any of the problems you envisage.”
“I do not love children in general,” Elizabeth insisted. “I have no desire to be a mother. I am not like you, Kate. And there is more to life than marriage and children.”
Kate would not allow her love for her family to be belittled. “I want nothing more!” she declared. “I say again, until you experience it, you cannot know what you are missing or how powerfully love eclipses everything else.”
Elizabeth bridled, and Kate knew she had said too much, overstepped the bounds of their friendship.
“Love does not come into this. It was my supposed love for Lord Seymour that got me into trouble in my brother’s reign.
And look where love left my mother. No, Kate, this is about politics.
I cannot look for love. I know that in Catholic courts fantastic tales of my alleged promiscuity abound. I must be circumspect.”
She dismissed Kate soon afterward. Kat and Blanche could attend her at her afternoon audiences, she said.
As Kate sped downstairs, hoping to find Francis, she was thinking that if Elizabeth cared that much for her reputation, she would take the trouble to conceal her partiality for handsome, virile men.
She was an outrageous flirt, so it was no wonder that there were rumors about her, rumors of which Kate had recently become aware.
Yet she knew that Elizabeth was too much mistress of herself, and too frightened of physical love, to succumb to the temptations of men.
Proud and dignified, she was deeply conscious of her exalted status and would never risk her reputation.
She did not live in a corner. A thousand eyes could see all that she did.
Kate felt certain that she was inviolably chaste.
Those rumors were sheer inventions of the malicious, possibly to put off those princes who would have found an alliance with her useful.
—
By a stroke of luck, Kate ran into Francis in a gallery. What with the coronation and the Queen’s demands, she had not seen him for days. His face lit up when he saw her.
“Darling! What brings you here?” He took her hand and squeezed it.
“I was looking for you. Can you spare some time?”
“Of course.”
“But you were hurrying somewhere.”
“It is nothing that cannot wait.”
They sat down on a stone window seat. “I have missed seeing you,” Francis said.
“I know, I know. I have missed you, too, but the Queen keeps me at her side and it is difficult to get away. Oh, Francis, I am weary of my life here already. I did not come back to England for this.”
He shook his head sadly. “I suppose we should be grateful for our good fortune. But could you not tell her that you need more time at home? Say you are unwell, or something…”
“That’s just it—I can’t. She says she depends on me and that I must never leave her. And she confides in me. I know things that she would never tell her councillors, even Cecil.”
“What things?” Francis’s voice was suddenly serious.
“I can’t tell you here.” Courtiers and servants might pass along the gallery at any time. “Come into the courtyard.”
A door farther along led into a tranquil garden enclosed on all sides by covered walks.
The garden was bare now, but Kate imagined that it would look lovely in a few weeks when spring came.
Once she was sure that they were alone, she told Francis what Elizabeth had said about remaining unmarried, and why. “I thought you should know.”
He frowned. “Indeed, I should and so should her Majesty’s Privy Council. This is a matter of national importance. The Queen’s marriage is not a matter of personal choice, but of state policy. She must marry. The kingdom needs an heir.”
“She is set dead against it, and I worry that she is condemning herself to a lifetime of loneliness and enforced chastity. It seems that the act of procreation frightens her to the extent that she would be unable to give herself to a man.”
Francis looked exasperated. “Now you can see why women are not born to rule! A king would just get on with things and do his duty. She should be focusing on whom she should marry, not whether she should! I’ll wager that once the right suitor presents himself, she will change her mind about remaining celibate. She loves nothing more than flattery.”
Kate wasn’t so sure. Francis had not been there when Elizabeth opened her heart.
He pulled her into his embrace. “Let’s not spend our precious time talking about the Queen. When are you going to come to bed with me?”
She kissed him full on the lips. “When I can get away at night. Having had the afternoon free, I may be expected to sleep in the Queen’s bedchamber.”
He groaned. “I ache for you, Kate. I’ve hardly claimed you since we returned to England. Just for tonight, pretend you’re ill and come to me.”
“I’ll try,” she agreed, fearing that Elizabeth was too sharp-witted to be duped.
“If you don’t come tonight, darling, I’ll be away for the next few days.”
“Away?”
“Aye. The Queen has made me steward of the borough of Reading, and she has leased Reading Abbey to us both. I am going to see it and take possession, then see what my duties involve.”
“She’s said nothing to me, but that’s good news! I wish I could come with you.”
“Ask her if she can spare you. It would be wonderful if we could go together.” Francis’s eyes were shining in anticipation.
“I will think of a way,” she promised, determined to wrest permission from the Queen.
—
She did not feel so bullish when she stood before Elizabeth later that afternoon. She did not like lying, but after thinking up and rejecting numerous pretexts for craving leave of absence, she had finally settled on one that the Queen was bound to accept.
“Your Majesty, I am sorry to say that I am not well. This morning, I suffered a laxness in the belly, so I consulted a physician in the Strand this afternoon, and he told me that I have a contagious humor and must rest.” God forgive me the lie, she prayed inwardly, rubbing her stomach.
Elizabeth looked alarmed. “Contagious? Then you must go home, Kate. Send for your litter at once, and do not return to court until you are better.”
“Your Majesty is too kind,” Kate said weakly. “By great good fortune, my husband is going to Reading. He can escort me part of the way.”
Elizabeth’s eyes narrowed. “We can’t have him catching this humor. I will arrange for one of the grooms to escort you.”
Panic seized Kate. “I thank your Majesty, but I have my own groom, who brought me here. He lodges across the river at Lambeth, where he has family. I will send a messenger to summon him.”
Elizabeth still looked suspicious. “Very well, then,” she said stiffly. “Do not stay away any longer than you have to, Kate. I shall miss you very much.”