“I’m nothing like you,” I say coldly.
“Oh, do you think you will be taller with a great crown on your sister’s head?” she asks, smiling. “Will her elevation make you grow? Will you rise up higher if she makes you a duchess?”
“I don’t know what you are talking about.” I turn away, but she catches at the skirt of my gown in her little square-palmed hand, so like my own.
“What is it?” I say crossly. “Let me go. D’you think we’re going to brawl in the yard like page boys?”
“There are some that would pay good money to see it,” she says cheerfully. “But I have always made my living as a miniature lady, never as a merry dwarf.”
“And I have never made my living at all,” I say grandly. “And my height has nothing to do with anything. I’ll thank you to let go of my gown.”
She lets me go, but her impertinent smile never falters. “There is a book indeed, Lady Mary,” she says shortly. “The scholars are putting it together, piece by piece. A page stolen from the chancery to show that your family was named as heir by Henry VIII, evidence of marriage to show that your line is legitimate, proof that all three of you, Lady Jane, Lady Katherine, and you, are English-born, Protestant, and royal.”
“Don’t you speak of Jane,” I say warningly.
“Buried in a coffin as big as a child’s!” she says jeeringly, and I turn on my heel and stride away, but I can hear her pattering after me, and she dodges around me and blocks my way.
“You want to know the rest of this,” she tells me. “Listen, for your own good. The scholars’ reports from France and Spain all name your sister Katherine as the rightful heir. The queen is furious. If it was you commissioned the report, you’d do well to warn your clerks to make themselves scarce. You could tell your uncle to take a trip to France for his health. You’d better keep your head down and stop running off to kiss the sergeant porter.”
I bite off a gasp of shock.
“I see a lot,” she adds quickly. “You know how. Nobody pays any attention to us.”
“And why would you warn me?” I demand. “When you live in her shadow?”
“Because we’re both dwarfs,” she says bluntly. “We are both small women in a very big and dangerous world. We have a sisterhood of shortness, even if you want to deny it. So I say to you—don’t offend her. She’s furious enough with your family as it is.”
She gives me a cheeky little nod of the head, as if to drive the point home, and then she turns and skips across the yard, looking like a little girl running after a teacher, and I see the door to Elizabeth’s privy stair bang behind her.
WINDSOR CASTLE,
SPRING 1564
I serve Elizabeth all through the bitingly cold spring with meticulous courtesy, and though she snaps her fingers at me for her fan, and complains that I scratch her neck when I tie her sapphire necklace, she can find nothing else to say against me.
I never even glance towards Thomasina the dwarf to thank her for the warning, and when a movement in the dance puts us side by side, I change my place if I can. I don’t acknowledge the sisterhood of tiny feet. I don’t subscribe to a stunted sorority. Of course I can recognize my features in Thomasina, in her rolling gait on her short legs, in the constant turn of her face upwards so that she can follow a conversation that is going on far above her head. I guess that her back aches like mine after a long day in the saddle, and that we both hate it when people address us as children, mistaking stature for age or wisdom. But I will never indicate that she and I are of the same mold. There is a coincidence of appearance but that is all. Should Elizabeth claim cousinhood with every redhead? Should Lady Margaret Douglas be sister to a horse? Appearance means nothing compared to breeding. I am all royal and no dwarf; I am all Grey and no pretty toy. I am an heir to the throne of England, and Thomasina is an heir of nothing more important than short bones.
But one evening, in early spring, we go to dinner and I see that William Cecil is absent, which is unusual, and Robert Dudley’s flattery and good humor are a little forced. Elizabeth bristles like a cat that has been caught in a shower of water tossed from a chamber window; everyone can see her irritability. No one but Thomasina the dwarf seems to know who has been so foolish as to cross Elizabeth, and I cannot bring myself to ask her.
When the tables are being cleared, Robert Dudley bends over the queen’s hand and I see her nod to her clerk, who gives him a sheaf of papers. He bows and takes them, and starts to leave the hall. I sidle round, against the walls, unnoticed by anyone as my head disappears behind the high-backed chairs, and I meet him just inside the great doors, and slip out when they are opened for him.
“Lady Mary,” he says, bowing to me. The doors close behind us, hiding us from the view of the court.
“Is there some trouble?” I ask him frankly.
He bends down low so that he can speak quietly to me. “Yes. Someone—I imagine the French ambassador—has put a book in the hands of the queen that supports your sister Lady Katherine’s claim to the throne.”
“Lady Hertford,” I say, giving her married title.
He scowls at me. “Lady Katherine,” he repeats. “This is not the time for you to be asserting a marriage that the queen has ruled is invalid.”
I look into the dark face of the man whose own marriage would have been ruled invalid, if his wife had not been conveniently murdered instead.
“We know the truth,” I say staunchly.
“And the authors have published what they think is their truth,” he replies evenly.
“Didn’t you commission the book?” I demand, knowing that he did.
“No,” he lies. “And those who are associated with it will suffer. The queen has issued a warrant of arrest for your uncle John Grey; for John Hales, the author; for Robert Beale, his clerk; for Edward Seymour’s stepfather, Francis Newdigate. Even for Nicholas Bacon, the lord keeper, who gave his opinion in favor of your sister.”
I go cold with shock. “My uncle arrested? The lord keeper arrested? But what about Katherine?” I clasp my hands on his sleeve. “Oh, Sir Robert! They’re not taking her back to the Tower, are they?”
“No.”
“But where is she to go, if my uncle is taken from his home? Are they leaving her there with Lady Grey? Or is she released? Oh, Sir Robert, is she released?”
“No.” He straightens up. “Lady Mary, I have to leave about Her Majesty’s business. I have to send out guards to arrest these men for questioning.”
I look up the long handsome length of him. “You, arrest them? You, who had nothing to do with the book, now arrest them?”
“Yes,” he says concisely. “As the queen commands me to do.”
There is no point complaining that he always does whatever the queen wants, that he never opposes her. You don’t get to be a favorite at a tyrant’s court without beheading your principles every day. All I can do is to try to keep him on Katherine’s side.
“Sir Robert, this is cruel to my sister and to her little boys. They have done nothing. She has done nothing. Someone else commissioned this book—perhaps even friends of yours—but she did not. Someone wrote it—not her. Someone published it—not her. Can’t you ask for her to be free? Even if you have to arrest these others?”
He shakes his dark head. “The queen won’t listen to me about this,” he says. “She won’t listen to anyone. She has the right to grant pardon only where it pleases her.”
“Margaret Douglas our cousin has been forgiven for far worse!”
“That is Her Majesty’s decision. It is within her power.”
“I know that!” I say. “She is—”
He throws his hand up to remind me that he cannot hear anything that is critical of the woman who rules us both.
“She is determined,” I continue, and as he turns and goes I whisper to myself: “Determined to be vile.”
I am at the gatehouse with Thomas Keyes, who is watching the gate and the guard on duty from the little window, wh
en I hear the clatter of horses, and Thomas says: “That’s your sister’s advocate, under arrest, poor fellow.”
He lifts me up onto a stool so I can peep out of the window to see, and not be seen. Hales rides in on a poor horse and behind him I see another man, his face downturned, in the center of an armed guard.
“My God! And that is my uncle John. John Grey, who was keeping my sister!”
Thomas leaves me, taking up his black staff of office. I hear his shout of challenge and then he opens the gate to them, admits them, and comes back to me, putting his great staff back in the corner and loosening his leather belt.
“But what have they done?” he asks me, his kind face puzzled. “Is it just for writing their book?”
“Yes,” I say bitterly. “You know my uncle would never do anything against Elizabeth. He has been loyal to her forever. And John Hales himself says that all he was trying to do was to prove the case for a Protestant to succeed. He wasn’t calling for Katherine to take Elizabeth’s place, just for her to be named as heir if Elizabeth should die without a son.”
“The Privy Council will see that,” Thomas says hopefully.
“Unless they close their eyes very tight,” I say bitterly.
GREENWICH PALACE,
SUMMER 1564
Elizabeth summons me to her bedchamber as she is dressing for dinner. She is seated before her table; her mirror of Venetian glass is before her, her red wig planted on its stand, candles all around her while her ladies meticulously, carefully paint her face with ceruse. She remains perfectly still, like a marble statue, as the mixture of white lead and vinegar is spread flawlessly from her hairline to her neck and down to her breasts. Nobody even breathes aloud. I freeze like all the other statues in the room until she opens her eyes, sees me in the mirror, and says, without moving her lips where the ceruse is drying, “Lady Mary, look at this.”
Obedient to the downward cast of her eyes, I step forward and when she blinks her permission, I take up the little book that is open before her.
The title is the Monas Hieroglyphica and the author is John Dee. It seems to be dedicated to the Holy Roman Emperor and the long preface challenges the reader to consider that the symbols of the planets are meaningful in themselves, and can be read as a language or as a code.
I look up and meet Elizabeth’s dark gaze in the mirror. “Look through it,” she orders through her closed lips. “What do you think?”
I turn the small pages. They are covered with designs and astronomical symbols and tiny print explaining what each one means, and how each fits with each other. I can see that there are some mathematical pages, demonstrating the connection between the symbols, and some that look more like philosophical writing, or even alchemy.
“I can’t understand it at first sight,” I say frankly. “I should have to study it for many days to understand it. I am sorry, Your Majesty.”
“I can’t understand it either.” Elizabeth exhales and a puff of white powder blows against the mirror. “But I think it is an extraordinary work. He brings together the symbols of the ancients, and the studies of the Muslims—he speaks of a universal world that exists alongside this one, behind this one, that we can sense but rarely see. But he thinks that these symbols describe it, and there is a language that can be learned.”
I shake my head in bewilderment. “I could read it carefully, if you wish, and write a digest,” I offer.
She smiles only slightly, so as not to crack the paint. “I shall read it with the author himself,” she says. “He is at my command. But you can sit and listen to our learned conversation, if you wish. I just wanted to see what you made of it, at first sight.”
“I have not had the privilege of your learning,” I say tactfully. “But I should be glad to know more. If I might listen to you, I am sure I would understand more.”
“But I hear on all sides that your sister Jane was such a scholar,” she says. “I hear that Roger Ascham is telling everyone that she was the greatest scholar of her time. He’s writing a book memorializing her. Everyone seems to want to publish these days—don’t they have enough to do?”
“He met her only once or twice,” I say, swallowing the desire to defend Jane against this old jealousy. “He hardly knew her.”
“I studied with the queen Kateryn Parr, too, remember,” Elizabeth says, brooding over long-ago rivalries.
“And I,” says Lady Margaret Douglas from the back of the room, desperate to join in and remind Elizabeth of her kinship. Elizabeth does not even turn her head.
“I am sure she never read anything like this book by Dr. Dee,” I say, trying to return Elizabeth to the present.
“Yes,” she says. “I daresay she would not have understood it.”
They paint her lips and darken her eyelashes and her eyebrows. They drop belladonna into her eyes to make them darken and sparkle. I stand holding the book, waiting to see if I am dismissed. This is not my night to serve her; it is not my night to paint the whited sepulcher that is this old queen. Tonight I should be free to do what I wish; but she keeps me here while she worries if I am clever enough to understand something that is unclear to her, fretting that my long-dead sister was a better scholar.
“At any rate, you don’t think it is heresy?” She rises from the table and they hold the skirt of her gown to her feet so that she can step in, and they can draw it up and tie it at her waist.
“I could not give an opinion,” I say guardedly. “Your Majesty would be the best judge of that. But I have always heard you speak well of John Dee.”
“I have,” she confirms. “And I am glad he has come back to England with such learning! I shall start to read his book tomorrow. You may join us.”
I curtsey as if I am most grateful. “Thank you, Your Majesty. I shall look forward to learning from you both.”
John Dee, dark-eyed, dark-gowned like a scholar, is surrounded by papers. Each one scrawled with a symbol, one pointed to the other, each one annotated with a dozen little notes. I see that he draws little hands with an accusing finger towards a paragraph that he wants us to note well. Elizabeth, his book open on her lap, sits among this scholarly storm, her eyes bright with attention. Thomasina, like an exquisitely dressed lapdog, kneels at her feet. I sit on a stool to one side; I will never cringe on the floor while Elizabeth sits.
John Dee speaks of the symbols of the stars: whatever is shown in the heavens is matched by what happens on the earth. “As above, so below,” he says.
“So can you foretell the marriages of princes?” Elizabeth asks.
“With great accuracy, if I had their dates, time, and location of their birth, which would tell me their astral house,” Dee replies.
“Is that not astrology?” I ask him, warningly.
He nods at my caution. “No, for I am not looking to foretell harm,” he says. “It is illegal to foretell the death of a prince, but it is harmless to foresee their happiness.” He turns his bright look on Elizabeth. “May I choose the best day for your marriage, as I did for your coronation?”
Elizabeth laughs affectedly. “Not mine, good philosopher. You know that I am not that way inclined. I have just been forced to disappoint the archduke Ferdinand. I told him I would rather be a spinster milkmaid than a married queen!”
“Celibacy is a calling,” John Dee replies, and I fight to keep my face grave at the thought of Elizabeth as a nun. I don’t dare to look at Thomasina, who keeps her head down.
At a little distance from our charmed circle the ladies sigh with boredom and shift position. The courtiers stand against the walls, talking among themselves, and one or two lean back against the paneling for weariness. Nobody is allowed to sit, though John Dee has been reading from his book for two hours.
Dee takes up another page and shows it to the queen as William Cecil enters the room quietly and bows.
“Forgive the interruption to your studies,” he says in a low voice. “But you wanted to know as soon as the Queen of Scots gave permission for Lady
Margaret Douglas’s husband to enter Scotland.”
The boy my pretty kinsman Henry Stuart, yawning in a corner, catches the whisper of his mother’s name and looks up, but Elizabeth and Cecil are head-to-head.
“Queen Mary has never agreed?” she exclaims, hiding her beam behind a painted fan.
Cecil bows. “She has.”
She takes his sleeve and pulls him closer. Only Thomasina and I can hear their whispered conference. “But I only asked because I was certain she would refuse him admission to his Scots lands,” she whispers. “I only asked in order to distract and trouble Mary while she was negotiating with Don Carlos of Spain.”
“You have won more than you intended, then,” Cecil says smoothly. “You have outwitted her. For she has given permission to both the Earl of Lennox and his son to enter Scotland, and as papists they are certain to divide her from her Protestant advisors. Shall they go, or would it be safer to keep the youth here?”
Elizabeth beckons to Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley, a fair-headed boy as beautiful as a girl. He is a cousin of mine, since he is the son of Lady Margaret Douglas, but I can’t say we share much family feeling. I have never liked his mother, who revels in Elizabeth’s unfairness—she goes free while my sister is imprisoned; her stock rises while my sister’s falls. I swear that she thinks of herself as heir to the throne while everyone knows that it should be Katherine.
Henry Stuart himself came back from France to serve like a little bird in the cage of court: he warbles away to please the queen but the cage door never opens. His mother would put him anywhere that he might be seen: she thinks he is irresistible. It is an open secret that she hoped he would marry Mary Queen of Scots, but the queen managed to resist his rosy-lipped promises in the first days of her widowhood. Now he bows low to Elizabeth, and he nods to me; but we neither of us waste much time on the other. He is a vain young man with little interest in any woman of any size. What he knows to perfection is how to please older indulgent women who enjoy the company of a pretty boy, like his mother or the queen. All he likes for himself is to get drunk and range around the town looking for trouble with other pretty boys. Either way, I do not attract his attention, and he does not waste any on me.