A Dangerous Inheritance

‘Please, Lord Robert, hush!’ I whisper urgently. ‘It is Katherine Grey. I must speak with you. I need your help. I am desperate.’

‘What?’ He sits up. I can see his form clearly in the moonlight. He is bare-chested and quite a feast for female eyes, with his hirsute muscular torso, dark good looks, tousled black hair, neat beard and chiselled features. Not for nothing does the Queen call him her Gypsy. His face, however, is in shadow.

‘What are you doinghere, Lady Katherine?’ he hisses, sounding none too pleased to see me. ‘The Queen lies only next door! Do you want to get us both into trouble? If she heard us and came in, there would be a lot of explaining to do!’

‘My lord, I beg of you!’ I cast myself down on my knees by the bed, weeping; unable to help myself. ‘A few minutes of your time is all I crave. Hear me out, please! I beg you to be a means to the Queen’s Highness for me. My very life may depend on it.’

He does not look surprised, although my distress seems to soften his heart a little.

‘Very well,’ he whispers. ‘But be quick, and keep your voice down, for God’s sake.’

It takes more than a few minutes, of course, but he listens as my sorry tale unfolds, shaking his head at intervals and at one point burying his face in his hands and sighing, as if he ca

When I have finished, I remain kneeling there, looking at him beseechingly, but his voice comes low and disdainful.

‘And you want me to intercede for you with the Queen, and tell her what you have done? Why should I do that? You have acted with the crassest folly. Did you never take warning from what happened to your sister and your father?’

‘I have not committed treason!’ I protest.

‘Some would say you have, and that, in defying the Queen’s express order not to marry without her consent, you are a rebel too. Are you mad, Lady Katherine? Do you not understand that you are near in blood to the throne, and the peril in which that places you?’

‘I but married the man I love!’ I weep.

‘You little fool. You thought to defy the Queen and all good order and sense by taking a husband for love, rather than waiting for a suitable one to be found for you. In one of your estate, that is sheer insanity. By yielding to your lewd affections, you have defiled your royal blood by an unlawful union. And if this be not treason, then I might remind you that your intrigues with Spain may yet be viewed as such.’

I am in full flood now, racked by silent sobs.

‘Go now!’ Dudley commands me coldly. ‘I can have no part in this. You have compromised me enough this night.’

I rise, gathering the remnants of my dignity. ‘I am sorry to have troubled you, my lord,’ I whisper brokenly. ‘Goodnight.’

After taking care to close the door quietly behind me, I hasten away from that hated chamber, stung by Lord Robert’s cruel words. And yet, if I am honest with myself, I have to confess that there was truth in them. I have been a fool – a fool for love, indeed – but, as God is my witness, I never meant harm to any. What to do now? If Dudley will not speak for me, who else is there?

I lie down with a heart of lead, knowing that nothing can avert the tempest that must surely erupt in the morning.

Kate

August 1485. Raglan Castle.

They waited anxiously for news, Countess A

It was towards the end of the month that William at last came home. She saw him approaching with his escort, and flew down to the courtyard to greet him, with the Countess and the rest of the household not far behind her.

‘My lord, what news?’ she cried.

He looked down on her impassively from his great destrier, then his gaze moved to the people crowding behind her in the courtyard. He remained in his saddle and addressed them in ringing tones, not looking at his wife. ‘There has been a great battle in Leicestershire,’ he told them, ‘at a place called Bosworth. The usurper Richard has been killed and we have a new king – Henry VII, by the grace of God.’

‘No!’ screamed Kate. ‘No!’ She began trembling violently, and would have fallen, but the Countess and Mattie were at her side at once, supporting her and trying to calm her. All around, folk were looking aghast at each other, dismay in their faces. Their lord had backed the losing side. What would this mean for them? Suddenly a great swell of lamentation burst forth.

‘Hush, you faint-hearted fools!’ William cried. ‘There is no need for your howling. By a lucky chance, I did not get to Bosworth in time. I was delayed, rooting out so-called rebels. And when I did arrive, they were breaking up the camps and burying the fallen. Fortunately, King Henry was still there, preparing to depart. I hastened to where he was sitting before his tent, wearing the royal circlet that had been Richard’s, and made my submission on my knees, apologising for my tardiness, and offering him my sword and my allegiance. And he was most gracious to say he accepted both, as tokens of my future loyalty.’ William’s steely eyes raked around the assembled company. ‘So if you value your skins, good people, you will remember that our loyalty has long lain with the Tudor, because we were persuaded thereto by the widespread fame that the late tyrant Richard had shed the i

Kate stared at her husband in horror. She could not speak; this was too much for her to take in, and worse – far worse – than anything in her nightmares. People gawped at her as she stood there with wild, ravaged eyes and a countenance white as a corpse. In a few faces she detected compassion; in most a chilly distancing and an aversion born of fear. And that, she suddenly realised, was how it was going to be from now on. She was the tyrant’s daughter – and she was alone in a hostile world.

As William raised his sword and a cheer for the new King, the Countess and Mattie led a half-fainting Kate away from the courtyard and helped her up to her chamber, where they made her lie down. Mattie stayed with her, holding her hand, while she lay there in a shocked daze, trying to come to terms with what had happened. All she could think of was that her father was dead and those people – her own household officers and servants – had looked at her with hostility. She did not think she would ever want to leave this room again. She could not face the changed world outside.

Mattie sat silent, her sweet, pert face sad beneath the white coif, her hand warm on Kate’s. It seemed like hours that they stayed there thus. At length, the Countess came back.

‘Drink this,’ she commanded, offering Kate a goblet with steam rising from it. ‘It is wine infused with camomile leaves and honey, to soothe you, my daughter.’ At her kindness, Kate began to cry again.

‘There, there,’ A

She cried herself to sleep, and Mattie gently laid a sheet over her, and closed the shutters against the sunset. Hours later, when Kate awoke to the awful realisation of her terrible loss, the Countess was sitting beside her, reading her missal.