06/14/08 |
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A QUESTION OF WHEN by M.G It was not a night for ghosts. On the contrary, the Christmas court of 1540 had been unusually lively, and tonight was no exception. The stately red brick walls of Hampton Court buzzed with commotion late into the first night of the New Year. No detail had been overlooked by King Henry in delighting his captivating bride—his fifth wife, Lady Jane Rochford noted wryly as she walked behind the almost childlike new queen, in as many years. Tonight there had been dancing and drinking, mirth and merriment of magnificence unparalleled in her memory. Only when the musicians were spent did the court retreat into the recesses of the labyrinthine palace, seeking refuge from the January chill in the rich comfort of their chambers. Snatches of song sung by voices throaty with wine echoed through the corridors, and unbridled gaiety reigned. Queen Katherine was a sight to behold. She sparkled like the virgin snow, bedecked with the doting king’s New Year’s gifts: a luminescent rope of pearls, two pendants with a generous allotment of diamonds, and clusters of glittering brooches—miniature constellations as they bounced against her robes that night. When the king had retired to his rooms, she had insisted upon a brief jaunt outside to “cool her blood,” as she said—naturally, nearly half of the court had tumbled out into the night after her. Her cheeks were still flushed from the fires that yet blazed in the Great Hall. A strand of auburn hair had worked its way from beneath her French hood, brushing prettily against the pert roundness of her face. Her breath came in clouds as she threw off the propriety of queenship and laughed, her neck arched back in the pure body delight of youth. Something in her carelessness reminded Jane unnervingly of George Boleyn, her husband in those days long past. He had been careless once, and cruel. But Jane had been careful, and she had seen to it there would be no more laughing for him. Had she lied? Perhaps. She had seen enough at court over the years that she wasn’t sure she could recognize the truth anymore. The queen’s laughter was without the bitter edge of discontent that Jane knew so well, without any hint of George’s coldness or malice, and Jane was rather fond of her in spite of Katherine’s kinship with the Boleyns. God willing (if He would have anything to do with Jane now—or with anyone else in England, after the Great Matter), Queen Katherine at least might keep her joy. She had certainly begun well enough. The king’s appetite for Katherine was no secret, and his majesty could not indulge his fascinating little wife enough. The long-proposed Progress to Lincolnshire, Yorkshire and all the north, planned almost as far back as the first Queen Anne’s reign, was to be the Howard family’s moment of triumph. And there, at the center of it all was Katherine—at heart, still a mere giddy girl under the weight of the crown. The party passed beneath the king’s new astronomical clock, a very recent addition to the palace. Its craftsmanship was unmatched, and the light from lanterns and passing torches danced on its gilding from as if still enjoying the season’s revels. The clock was a spectacular contraption (His Majesty would allow for no less) that could tick off the hour, the month, the day, the phase of the moon and even the tide at London Bridge. Superstitious folk from the outlying villages said that Oursian had included in it a secret mechanism to count down to the Last Judgment. Down-at-the-heels servants who passed it grumbled to themselves that it might as well reckon the riches Good King Harry had squandered to the last farthing while they yet darned their own hose, if it did that much. All who saw it agreed that it was a marvel. To Jane, however, it had always seemed faintly ominous. Every sure movement of its hands seemed so decisive, so inflexible in pushing all those who passed beneath its shadow to an infinitely unknowable future while denying them access to the past. Time seemed so thin here in the icy air, as if it could be parted, veil-like, but Jane knew better. The clock, like time itself, was a deceiver. It tempted king and commoner alike with the gilt promise of possibility in one hand even as it strangled them with the other. It was, and especially in this court, purely a question of when. “Lady Rochford,” called the teasing voice of her mistress, breaking Jane from her reverie. “You, who are so deep in your thoughts tonight, go before and see to my chamber. Your contemplation would fain be better engaged in my bidding than your brooding.” The other ladies tittered. Jane only curtsied and slipped away in the direction of the Great Hall, oblivious to the ridicule of the others and grateful to be alone for a moment. She ducked back inside the warm maze of Hampton Court with a marked lack of enthusiasm, as the chill wind had been refreshing after the night’s carousing. Following the twists and turns of the wood-paneled halls mechanically, Jane took a longer route to the queen’s chambers to avoid company. She bothered little with glancing about her as she walked the gallery leading to the Chapel Royal. Certainly, no one was thinking much of God tonight after the subtleties and dancing, and she was not surprised to find herself alone in that part of the palace, if only momentarily. She had no sooner breathed a sigh of relief than a cold, hard knot formed in her belly. A sudden prickling at the back of her neck told her that she was, most definitely, not alone after all, and she raised her gaze reluctantly. There, out of absolute nothingness, the contours of a person seemed to materialize at the end of the hall, moving in the direction of the chapel. The form was vaguely luminous and indistinct, shrouded in a sort of patchy fog. Was it George Boleyn, coming back to take her revenge for Jane’s damning testimony against him? His sister, the proud Anne? Her heart caught in her throat as the figure turned toward her. Jane made the sign of the cross and staggered back into a doorway when she realized with horror who it was. It was her own Queen Katherine—of that she was certain. But her face appeared thinner and waxen, her pretty hair askew, her dress rumpled, her eyes sunken. The apparition tore down the corridor toward the chapel as if her very life depended on it. She seemed to be screaming, though Jane heard no sound. Her hands opened, supplicating to some ghostly and unseen confessor, and she collapsed in a sobbing heap in the middle of the passage until pairs of phantom arms dragged her away into the mist. Then they disappeared entirely. Jane stood alone again in the hall. Her hands and teeth clenched and her heart hammered at her ribs. After a moment, she raised a pair of thin, gloved hands, both trembling violently, to her temples. Every passing second seemed to hang suspended in the air like a broken chord. “Lady Rochford! What keeps you? You are not lost, surely?” Jane jumped at the voice. Queen Katherine stood behind her, bemused. She was as she had always been—fetchingly plump, perfectly dressed with nary a pearl out of place, and looking at Jane with that authoritative yet caressing way that made her so admired—almost too admired—with the ardent young men of the court. “My Lady Queen!” Jane gasped, sinking to her knees. She had a difficult time reconciling the hysterical ghostly figure she had seen with the animated form of the queen standing before her and her mind swam with the contesting images. “What can you mean by this? Rise, rise!” The queen gracefully concealed a yawn behind her jeweled muff. “I might be abed by now but for your sluggishness!” she chided her, laughing. Jane forced a smile and felt the heat of eyes upon her—the ladies, of course, looking at her askance. But as she thought of that great clock ticking away in the courtyard, she could not help but feel an even deeper sense of foreboding at what the moments were counting down to for the young queen, and for herself. Now—now, as the specters of days to come and days gone by mingled wordlessly and slid through cracks in the brickwork of the eternities—it was surely a question of when.
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06/14/08 |
This site was last updated 06/14/08