Tangled in Time 2 Page 9

  Rose became obsessed with the idea of celebrating Christmas with her dad and possibly Franny, and on this particular night, sleep seemed impossible. She began to wonder if one of her trips back might ever be at Christmastime. When she slipped through time, there was never predicting the date she would arrive on. Not the day, nor the month, nor the year in that distant century. She tried to keep track of these two time zones as she slid between them. She even kept a diary. The first date that Rose had ever visited that century had been September 10 in her own century. She had fallen through that crack in time when she was in the greenhouse, high up in one of the cupolas checking on some jasmine. When she had arrived, in the year 1544, she found herself at Hatfield. It was midsummer. Not September at all. Possibly July, and the day was hot.

  There were leaps in years as well. One year it might be 1544, and then inexplicably she would return three years later, as she did at the time of King Henry VIII’s death in January 1547. Her method of keeping track of time was to cross out the actual twenty-first-century date in her own diary and write in the sixteenth-century date above it. She had done just that around Thanksgiving, near the time that Joe had broken his ankle. The date was crossed out and above it she’d written February 10, 1547.

  She reread what she had written. Holy smokes do they have weird funeral practices here. First of all, King Henry died almost two weeks ago and it’s taken them that long to bury him—in parts, I might add. Yeah, creepy! His body was buried in Westminster, his heart and “entrails” in Windsor Palace. I’m not the only one who finds this creepy. Princess Elizabeth really freaked. She told her tutor and the chief steward of her household no way, Jose, though she didn’t quite use those words.

  But I have to say the mourning clothes are totally cool. As soon as I got back, I made some sketches of some of the best outfits. My favorites were the cone sleeves that a lot of the women wore. The Duchess of Somerset was the classiest at the funeral. Too bad I didn’t have my iPhone, but here’s a picture of her I found on Wikipedia. I’m going to post these on my blog, and some other pictures I found on Wikipedia too.

  Rose tiptoed to her laptop and clicked on her blog, Threads, and looked up her posts on mourning clothes.

  A passing interest of mine is sixteenth-century mourning clothes. Take a look at those sleeves and the big fat pearls that the Duchess of Somerset is wearing. Pearls were very in back then. A symbol of chastity. Ha! There were rumors about the Duchess of Somerset. Let’s just say she got around.

  And on Pinterest I found some more pictures of mourning clothes. Here are my two favorites. The first dress shows the cone sleeve, lined in gold cloth. I’m crazy about cone sleeves. The second is very Batwoman. I love it! Very fashion forward for the age.

  Clothes to Die For

  Rose crawled back into bed. It was almost midnight. In another minute it would be December 21, and the shortest day and the longest night of the year would begin. The winter solstice. The North Pole would tilt toward the sun and a new cycle of light would commence. She looked at the window. This was the first night it hadn’t snowed heavily since the blizzard. It was a crystalline winter night. The moon was no more than an eyelash. The utter blackness of the sky had become like a Christmas tree for the ornaments of the constellations. It reminded her of the night that she had stood in the courtyard of Westminster Palace and her father had cradled her face in his hands so gently. She knew that she had to go back. Christmas or not. It was as if she herself were being tilted toward a night that only existed almost five centuries ago.

  At 12:01 on this longest night she once again put on her robe and fuzzy slippers and tiptoed down to the greenhouse. She stood in front of the graftling and studied it. She tried again to imagine its roots. She tried to imagine its life three years from now when its first buds might open up and the petals unfurl—unfurl perhaps in the distant dawn of midsummer’s longest day, a day that would spill with light.

  Chapter 16

  They Burn Witches Here, Don’t They?

  “They say she has accepted him.”

  “He’s at least ten years younger!”

  OMG, Rose thought. All this again! That’s all anyone talked about—when the queen would decide on the proper husband. That, and would Queen Mary put her half sister, Princess Elizabeth, in the Tower of London. The religious laws were becoming stricter and stricter. Rose was walking through the presence rooms of Beaulieu Palace. The presence chamber was where the ladies-in-waiting of the queen sat, just outside the most private chamber of the queen. She was not sure why she had been called. This palace, Beaulieu, was one of the queen’s favorites. She had reclaimed it on the death of her hated stepmother, Anne Boleyn. In her spiteful way, Mary seemed to enjoy occupying it more than ever now that she was queen. She loved inviting Princess Elizabeth, daughter of the beheaded Anne Boleyn, to visit. “Inviting” was hardly the word. It was more like a command performance. There was no choice.

  Rose entered the queen’s private chamber. It was an odd scene. Simon Renard, the Spanish ambassador, was standing by a large portrait of a very handsome man. Three members of the queen’s Privy Council stood by looking anxious. Queen Mary stood in front of the portrait, trembling, with her hand pressed to her chest. “Is it a true likeness?”

  “As true as you’ll ever see, Your Majesty. It is by Titian, the Venetian painter,” Simon Renard replied.

  At that moment Edward Waldegrave entered the room. “I’ve brought the swatches, Your Majesty.”

  “Can you have the gown completed by his visit?” All eyes turned toward Rose.

  “And when, might I ask, is the visit?” asked Rose.

  “Three weeks,” Ambassador Renard replied. “That is, if the weather permits and the Bay of Biscay is calm.”

  Rose could feel Waldegrave’s eyes boring into her. She of course had no choice. It could be nuclear war—of course, it couldn’t really, as that would not be a possibility for several centuries—but nukes or not, the dress had to be finished. Rose nodded and softly said, “Of course, the dress shall be done.”

  The dress was almost finished and the Bay of Biscay was calm, but the queen had fallen ill. Rose of course was not informed until the last minute. No one was, except for the most intimate members of the court. Rose was just coming through the presence room with the gown, a sumptuous russet color called gingerline, trimmed in ermine at the queen’s request. Rose had mildly objected to the ermine, fashion-wise—completely wrong move! But what could she do? The queen’s fashion instincts were beyond bad, actually atrocious. There were more than five pounds of pearls encrusting the sleeves. Princess Elizabeth would never veer down this path of gaudy opulence. In comparison the princess dressed like a nun. She was of what Rose’s mom would have called the “less is more” school of fashion. Whereas Queen Mary was of the “more is more” school.

  She had taken barely three steps into the presence room when she noticed a thick pall in the air. Snail Head slid her eyes toward Rose and muttered something.

  “No! She wants to see it.” Lady Susanna now got up from the chair she was sitting in next to Snail Head. Her embroidery hoop was still in her hand. Susanna Clarencieux was the queen’s favorite gentlewoman.

  “Her Royal Majesty has fallen quite ill. The physicians are with her now. The visit of Prince Felipe has been postponed. But it is felt that showing Her Majesty the dress might lift her spirits and hasten her recovery.”

  It was a strange sight that greeted Rose as she entered the bedchamber. There were several people in the room. Some she recognized, others she didn’t. There of course was Ambassador Renard. The lord chancellor was pacing up and down the royal bedchamber. The portrait of handsome Prince Felipe was propped a few feet from the bed. And Jane the Bald was performing what were called “gentle antics” for the sick queen’s amusement, perching herself in odd places and making an assortment of bird sounds, then performing a cartwheel or two. This seemed odd to Rose, but she supposed that since there was no television, a fool like J
ane the Bald was as good as any entertainment. She could recite a nonsense poem, turn a cartwheel, and imitate all sorts of animals. One of the most frequent commands that could be heard coming from Queen Mary was “Send for the fool! I need to laugh.” And Jane the Bald would almost instantly materialize.

  Most surprising to Rose was to see Edward Courtenay standing beside the portrait, handsomely dressed as if not for the sick room but for a grand occasion. He was almost posing. Was he actually trying to court the queen in some way? Hadn’t it been decided that Prince Felipe of Spain was to be the husband Mary had selected to share her throne? Hey, you lost, Rose thought. Go back to Snail Head. The lord chancellor flashed Courtenay a sharp look.

  Two men whom Rose did not recognize hovered over the bed. Then one with his back turned suddenly called out, “Basin!”

  Jane Dormer rushed forward with a metal basin, her own maid, Daisy, beside her. When Daisy passed by Rose, Jane Dormer hissed, “For God’s sake, step back, child.” Rose looked at the basin in horror. There was at least a cup of blood sloshing about in the bottom.

  “What in the world,” Rose whispered to herself.

  “Don’t look.” It was Jane the Bald, who was now beside her and grasped Rose’s elbow as if to steady her.

  “What is this?”

  “Never seen anyone bled before?”

  “Uh, not on purpose.”

  “Bloodletting is a treatment. Does wonders for the humors.”

  “There is absolutely nothing funny about this!” Rose said, her eyes wide with horror.

  “The humors, my dear. It keeps them in balance.” Rose blinked and shook her head in dismay. “Really, child, where are you from that you’ve never seen bloodletting?”

  “Never seen it.”

  “It can cure everything, from spots on your face to pneumonia to gout and dropsy.”

  “Dropsy?”

  “Swelling. Look at her hands—not the arm with the vein where they are drawing the blood. The other one.” Jane suddenly stiffened as her eyes fell on Edward Courtenay. Then she gave a muffled little chirp. “Time for a somersault, I believe.” She squatted on the floor, and Rose heard the thump of a somersault follow.

  What is he doing? Rose wondered. Edward Courtenay had now picked up the hand of the queen and was stroking it. She was about to ask Jane what it meant. But in a split second Jane had seemed to somersault away into thin air. Rose couldn’t imagine where she had gone so quickly.

  Edward Courtenay was now leaning close to the queen’s ear, whispering. She looked dreadful, but a fragile smile seemed to struggle from the corners of her pale lips. Even sick and with this smile creeping across her face, Mary Tudor looked mean in Rose’s eyes. A nasty piece of work, as her grandmother Rosalinda might say. The lord chancellor was having none of it.

  “Your Majesty, Rose Ashley the seamstress is here with your meeting dress,” the lord chancellor said.

  A sour look crossed Edward Courtenay’s face as his mother, Lady Gertrude, let her eyes shoot daggers at the lord chancellor. Rose was suddenly paralyzed, caught in a crossfire of court politics and dazzling ambitions. It was dangerous. She started to take a step forward, then felt a heavy hand on her shoulder.

  It was Lady Gertrude. “I think that would be overstimulating, my dear. Much too exciting to see your meeting dress, let alone the wedding dress.”

  The lord chancellor came up and whisked the dress from Rose’s arms. “I’ll take that,” he said firmly. Lady Gertrude turned a liverish color. Rose backed away.

  “Basin!” a doctor called out.

  Another basin was brought forth, and another cup of blood collected.

  So much for dying in peace, Rose thought as she retreated from the royal bedchamber.

  “Pssst.” The sound was like a dart whistling out from the shadows. She had just left the presence room and turned into a corridor. “Pssst!” The sound lanced the shadows as Rose spied a tuft of dyed pigeon feathers.

  “Jane!”

  “Surprise!”

  “Yes, how did you manage to get out of the sick room with no one spotting you? One minute you were there, the next gone.”

  “Gone? Not exactly.” Her painted-on eyebrows shot up to that hairless expanse of her skull. She had painted a moon on one of her cheeks and a radiant sun on the other. “I didn’t get out. I got under.”

  “Under? What are you talking about?”

  “I somersaulted under the bed just while that TOD was whispering into the queen’s ear.”

  “TOD? What is that?”

  “Turd of a dog.” Rose was hardly surprised by this talk. The court loved bathroom humor. They might be masters of the sixteenth-century world in the greatest of kingdoms, but there was more fart and poop talk than in a second-grade classroom.

  “Well, what was he saying? Still courting her, I suppose, despite Prince Felipe.”

  “Yes, courting in a manner of speaking.”

  “And just what do you mean by that, Jane?”

  “I mean it was not exactly sweet nothings he was whispering in her ear.” Her face grew rigid; the jittering eye stilled for several seconds.

  “What was it?”

  “In a word?” She hiked one eyebrow up, and her bulging eye flitted about as if tracking a gnat. Rose nodded. She felt a dread begin to creep through her.

  “Murder,” Jane said softly. “It takes a fool to know a mad queen.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  Jane’s face softened. She took Rose’s hand.

  “Listen carefully, dear child. I know not from whence you come.” Rose started. “Calm down. You need not tell me anything, but I sense it is from afar.”

  “But this is murder he was speaking of, you say?”

  “Soon.” Her nose twitched. “I can smell the coals now.”

  “Fires burning?” Rose asked.

  Jane nodded solemnly. “Mark my words, soon it will begin.”

  “But Edward Courtenay—how does he fit into this?”

  “Oh, my dear! What an innocent you are! He is the most disliked of all her courtiers. His manners are slovenly, to say the least. His horsemanship—well, awkward would be putting it kindly. But as Renard said, ‘He is proud and poor and stubborn, but worst of all, spiteful.’”

  He’s Mean Queen Carrie in guy form! Rose thought. And suddenly all the nasty things Carrie had ever said stormed through her brain. Myles, how can you sew? All you can do is push a button? . . . I don’t exactly hate you, but if you were on fire and I had water, I’d drink it. . . . I hear your boyfriend wears diapers. . . . Our leetil amigo . . . Marisol! It all rushed back to Rose. Every vile, hateful thing that Carrie had hurled at all the kids she bullied.

  Jane had continued talking. “He is determined to do the queen’s bidding, to the point that she will finally succumb to his proposals of marriage.” Jane took a deep breath. “To that end he goes to Mass not just three times a day as required, but four or five. And of course that he checks that all others do as well. He takes only Catholics into his service. Those Catholics who never rejected the faith in the time of young Edward. . . .” Jane paused again. Her painted lips began to quiver. “There have been rumors already, but as I was listening to him under the queen’s bed, I heard that he suspects Elizabeth of not going to Mass. He of course has spies at Hatfield. There will be arrests made there and other places, especially in London, where groups of Protestants are said to hold secret services. There are clandestine groups of Protestants that meet throughout the countryside. There is even a book dealer in London who has been sent to the Tower for importing Bibles from Geneva.”

  “That’s a crime now, isn’t it?” Rose asked.

  “Indeed.”

  “That’s what I don’t understand,” Rose said. “Why is the Bible so bad?”

  “The Bible was only translated from Latin into English thirty years ago. Then the common folk could read it.”

  “So what? Why isn’t that good?”

  “If they could read it,
they could talk or argue about it. The pope would no longer have the last word. And the pope’s power cannot not be questioned. Nor can Queen Mary’s. She is set on destroying such questions. Edward Courtenay has presented her with a list of suspected Protestants. There are several in Princess Elizabeth’s household.”

  Franny! Franny was a Protestant. When Rose had taught her to read, she said that the thing she most wanted was to save her wages to purchase a Bible.

  “And the coals? What’s that about, Jane?”

  “They aren’t just going to lock these people up in the Tower. They will burn them at the stake.”

  “And he’s whispering all this into the queen’s ear?” Rose asked.

  Jane nodded. “Rough wooing, I would say.” Then Jane gave a harsh laugh. “I must be off.”

  Rose sat down hard on the steps leading up to the tower. Her father had warned her, after all. She was absolutely dizzy with fear, with shock. She shut her eyes tight and tried to banish the image of Franny being tied to a stake. The kindling bursting into flames. Then another image came into her mind—the smugglers, the ones they called coyotes, circling Marisol. And the Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers that Sam Gold had told them about. Until Marisol got her papers, she was endangered. If the agents grabbed her, she’d be off to a detention center. Rose had never felt so torn in her life. She needed to be in two places at once. At her grandmother’s house in the twenty-first century, where she could help Marisol, and Hatfield, where she could warn Franny. And then there was her dad too—was he in danger already? “Oh, Dad,” she sighed.

  She touched that spot where the locket had hung. She almost felt nauseous when she thought of it hanging from Queen Mary’s neck. If the queen opened it and saw the pictures inside, it would be over for Rose. It would be called witchcraft. They burn witches here, don’t they?

  Chapter 17

  Without Darkness There Is No Light