But those in the Tower lived in shadow of the scaffold, where black birds strutted about the green, their hoarse cries proclaiming the deaths they’d witnessed. The confined could only wait for word whether or not they’d join the toll of those before them—queens, dukes, lords, cardinals, bishops, and great men of state.
Jane had been brought to the Tower by her father, the Duke of Suffolk, and her father-in-law, the Duke of Northumberland, to be proclaimed queen.
I, arriving at a side gate in the hot night amid the rain, escorted by a contingent of Northumberland’s men, was not supposed to know that.
Ostensibly, I’d heard only that Jane needed a needlewoman to help her with the new wardrobe she’d have now that she’d married. Why Northumberland believed he could keep his plot so secret I scarce knew, but those in great power sometimes thought all those around them blind fools.
The small courtyard we entered teemed with activity. Men in armor, guards in livery, pages and servants, and soldiers with swords or pikes—weapons of war—scurried here, there, and everywhere, despite the late hour. My mouth went dry as I hurried through the melee, following the gentlewoman who’d come to fetch me.
As it was long past midnight, I assumed I’d be shoved into a chamber to sleep, with Lady Jane sending for me in the morning. To my surprise, the woman chivied me toward a back staircase, hissing that she needed me.
I was tired, dirty, smelly, and irritated, but I could only obey. The lady took me by the elbow and propelled me up staircases and through passages until we emerged into the suite in which King Henry’s queens had lived before being given their crowns.
Young Jane had changed little from the days when she, I, and Elizabeth had sewed together at Hatfield or Enfield, or when she’d shared lessons with Elizabeth in Catherine Parr’s house.
Jane had large eyes in a slim face and was slight for her sixteen years. She appeared even smaller under the vast beamed ceiling of the chamber in which she awaited me.
The enormous, embroidered robe she wore dwarfed her, its sleeves belling over her too-thin wrists. Her hair had been dragged back and pinned under a hood, from which her pale, rather rabbity face jutted.
Her figure was as slender as I remembered—it was obvious that, even had she shared a bed with Guildford Dudley in these last months, she had not yet conceived.
Jane was not alone in the large chamber. Her mother, Frances Grey, née Brandon, the haughty Duchess of Suffolk, paced the long room with impatience. The duchess did not even glance at me as I hurried in but lifted a long finger and pointed to a corner filled with bolts of cloth. “Over there.”
I’d grown up sitting in corners while I sewed for royal women, and had learned early in life how to discover the most comfortable, out-of-the-way spaces in a room and make them my own. Sometimes I, sewing with all my might in a nook by the fireplace, was far warmer and more content than the great people who shivered across the chamber in cushion-strewn chairs.
The niche to which the duchess directed me was dark, shadowy, and not to my taste, but the July night was stuffy, and the corner was the coolest in the room. I took up my place without a murmur.
The duchess paced and fanned herself vigorously. Jane stood out of her mother’s path, beads of sweat on her face, her gaze following the duchess’s stride back and forth.
“It must be done by morning,” the duchess said abruptly, as though I knew exactly what she was talking about. Her glare fixed on me, and I dropped my gaze in deference. “You will finish, won’t you, girl?”
My temper splintered. I was the daughter of a gentlewoman, a Champernowne. Though my mother had made an unfortunate marriage, I was not, and never had been, of the serving class. I did not mind waiting on great ladies I respected, like Elizabeth, or even Jane, but I was here at the insistence of Northumberland, who had risen to a dukedom from nothing, on nothing but ambition.
But the daughter of old King Henry’s sister Mary, and now Duchess of Suffolk, had royal blood in her veins and never let anyone forget it. Thus, she glared at me and called me girl.
I did not speak directly to Jane, but I made it plain my words were for her. “This cloth is quite fine. ’Twill make up in no time, as long as I know what it is I am to create.”
The duchess’s lip curled. “Everything is there for a gown. You will sew.”
“I will need light.” I could hardly cut a pattern and seam a skirt without being able to see. “And perhaps assistance. There is enough cloth here for two or three garments. How many did you wish?”
As I hoped, I goaded Jane into speech. “Bring her light.” Jane waved to the servants who occupied the shadows. “Bring them now, and I will assist her.”
“You will not.” The duchess rounded on her daughter. “Remember who you are.”
I thought Jane would crumple to the floor. She had never been one to defy her elders, and her duchess mother had a personality that flattened all before her.
However, Jane, like most timid people, retained a stubborn streak, which, when invoked, hung on like grim death. Jane didn’t quite meet the duchess’s eye, but the corners of her mouth firmed.
“I will sew with Eloise,” she announced. “It is something I can do.”
The duchess flushed. I could point out that sewing was a most royal pastime—Henry’s wives sewed his shirts and helped in the making of linens. Mary sewed and embroidered quite well and so did Elizabeth, although Elizabeth did not always have the patience.
I had chosen a bench so I would not have to perch on a precarious stool or sit on the hard floor. I busied myself sorting the cloth while Jane had her quiet confrontation with her mother in the middle of the room.
They had certainly supplied her with sumptuous fabric—cloth of gold, green brocade, thin silk taffetas, sumptuous velvets, damask lined with silk and fur. Fur, I thought in incredulity, for hideous July weather. But they want to present her as a great queen.
I pictured the gown I’d make—a velvet overskirt revealing a sheath of the brocade, with the same green brocade trimming the sleeves. The costume would be beautiful on Jane, wearable art, and I would create it for her.
