Whitehall Episode 11: A King and No King by Sarah Smith

Author:Sarah Smith [Smith, Sarah]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: historical, romance
ISBN: 9781682100783
Publisher: SerialBox Publishing
Published: 2016-08-15T04:00:00+00:00

She looked through and saw nothing but brocade; then whatever man was blocking the door moved, and Jenny could see the queen.

The queen was sitting in bed, propped up by pillows positioned on either side of her. She looked like a wooden doll, her face waxen and two rouged circles on her white cheeks. Her eyes stared straight forward, like nail holes in her face. Jenny wedged her knuckles into her mouth. At the right of the spy hole, between the wall and the queen’s bedside, a bearded man was standing, a stooped shoulder in tinseled brocade: the French ambassador. He was saying something ceremonious in French, which the queen spoke no more than Jenny did herself.

The most horrible thing was that the queen was trying to stay conscious and gracious and like a queen. Her lips moved, though she could make no sound.

They will kill her, Jenny thought.

Who could stop this? There were no English Ladies of the Bedchamber here, only the Condessa de Penalva and in the background, the few Catholic servants droning their Hail Marys.

The ambassador fell silent. His visit was at an end. He had come privately, by this corridor; he would return the same way. “Back!” Jenny hissed to Edmund. They turned and fled back down the narrow tunnel.

Only the Countess of Suffolk could stop this. Dona Maria was the sister of the ambassador from Portugal, but Lady Suffolk was First Lady of the Bedchamber—

“Edmund, where’s Lady Suffolk now?”

• • •

Jenny found her in the Chapel Royal, praying like a common person in one of the bays underneath a window, head down over her clasped hands. Jenny paused in confusion. It was one thing to talk to the poor little queen; another entirely to approach the rich and stately Lady Suffolk, and at her prayers at that.

But the queen will die if I don’t.

“Your Ladyship—”

The countess raised her head. “She is dead?” Lady Suffolk asked. She had been crying.

“No, Your Ladyship, but she will be if she’s not kept quiet.”

“It is the sickness that will kill her, child.” Lady Suffolk blinked back her tears.

“No, it’s not! Ma’am. Your Ladyship. I’m sorry.” She was making a mess of this. “Folk come back from the spotted fever. But she needs rest! Go back and throw them out of there!”

“You are the girl who makes teas for the queen, are you not?”

“The Condessa de Penalva has got her sitting up, trying to tend to the French ambassador—”

“Maria de Penalva was chosen by Portugal to care for the queen.” The countess was kneeling, Jenny standing, but it was as if the countess’s cool gooseberry eyes were looking down on her. “I can do nothing. And you must not forget yourself.”

“Your Ladyship,” Jenny said. “She’ll die of being queen.”

Lady Suffolk closed her eyes a moment. “So do we all, child,” she said. “Our places here consume us. Go. Pray for her.”

Jenny sketched a curtsy and a cross toward the altar, and moved back, but then—

You must not forget yourself. Jenny should have left already, but her feet would not move.

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