“But it was you who wanted to go,” I said, for I always contrived to be on the side of Bruno against her.
“Ah,” she replied, “but he was the one who took us.” She pointed at him gleefully. “His was the greater sin.”
Then she taunted him with being the Holy Child so unbearably that he ran after her and I heard her laughing as he chased and when he caught her they rolled on the grass together and he pretended that he was going to hurt her. She goaded him as though she wanted him to do so, so that she would have something else with which to taunt him; I was always a little apart from these frolics; I could only look on; but I was aware of the excitement that seemed to grip them both when they played these rough games.
I grew up fast that summer; I passed out of my childhood. I knew that Kate had special privileges with Keziah because Keziah used to let Tom Skillen into her room at night, and not only Tom Skillen. Keziah was like Kate in as much as she had great interest in men; she changed in their presence even as Kate did; but whereas Keziah was soft and yielding, Kate was arrogant and demanding. But I did notice the men were immediately aware of them both, as they were of men.
Kate took me into her confidence a little. “It’s time you grew up, young Damask.”
One night she came into my room and said, “Get up. I want to show you something. She made me go with her up the spiral staircase to the servants’ rooms and listening at Keziah’s door I heard whisperings. Kate looked through the keyhole and made me look too. I could just see Keziah in bed with one of the grooms. Kate took out a key and locked the door and then we tiptoed down the stairs to the landing and went across to our own staircase and so to her room. Kate was stifling laughter. “Wait till he tries to get out and finds himself locked in!” she cried.
I said, “You had better unlock the door.”
“Why?” she demanded. “Then they wouldn’t know I’d seen them.”
She thought it was a great joke but I was worried about Keziah for I was fond of her and somehow I knew that these adventures with men were necessary to her, and that she would not have been Keziah without them.
Her companion of that night turned out to be Walt Freeman; he broke his leg when he scrambled out of her window soon after the dawn. As for Keziah, she couldn’t climb out of the window, and how could she get out while the door was locked? Walt told some story about his thinking he heard robbers and coming out early had tripped over a root. Kate made me come with her when she unlocked the door on a distraught Keziah.
“So it was you, you minx!” cried Keziah.
“We crept up and saw you and Walt in bed,” Kate told her.
Keziah looked at me and a slow flush spread across her face. I felt sorry because Kate had exposed her to me.
“You really are a wanton, Keziah,” said Kate, shaking with laughter.
“There’s more ways than one of being that,” said Keziah meaningfully, which made Kate laugh all the more.
Keziah explained to me when we were alone.
“I’ve always had too much love to give away, you see, Dammy,” she told me. “It would have been different if I’d had a husband. That’s what I’d have liked—a husband and lots of little ’uns like you. Not like that Mistress Kate.”
“Do you love many men, Keziah?” I asked her.
“Well, my ducky, the trouble with me is that I love them all and not being the sort that likes to say no…there it is. So it’ll be our little secret, eh, and you’ll not tell anyone?”
“Kezzie,” I said, “I think they all know.”
It was a lovely May day when we heard the news of the Queen’s arrest. It shook us all although we had been expecting something like it to happen; there had been so many rumors of the King’s dissatisfaction with his Queen and it was hinted that she was a witch and a sorceress who had tricked him into marriage. He was tired of her witchery; he wanted a good quiet wife who would give him sons. Already he had laid eyes and hands on Jane Seymour and her brothers were coaching her for the role of Queen. This we had heard; but there were many rumors and it was not until that May that we knew there was truth in them.
The King and Queen had gone to the joust together; then suddenly the King had left and the next thing was that the Queen was arrested and sent to the Tower—and some of those who were alleged to be her lovers were sent there too. One of these included her musician, a poor boy named Mark Smeaton, on whom it was impossible to believe the haughty Queen could have bestowed her favors; and more scandalous still her own brother was accused of being her lover.
My father had never believed that Anne Boleyn was the true Queen but now he was filled with pity for her, as I believed many others were too. Kate had seen herself so clearly as the fascinating Queen that to her this seemed almost a personal tragedy. That three short years ago she had ridden through the city in her triumph and was now in a dismal dungeon in the Tower had a sobering effect on us all.
As for Keziah she was full of compassion.
“Mercy me!” she mourned. “The poor soul! And what will become of her? That proud head will roll off her shoulders like as not and all because she fancied a man.”
“So you believe her guilty, Keziah?” I asked.
“Guilty,” cried Keziah, her eyes flashing. “Is it guilty to bring a little comfort to those who need it?” She had been frank with me since that night when Kate had locked her bedroom door, shutting her in with her lover. I was no longer a child. I had to learn about life, she had said, and the sooner the better. Life to Keziah was the relationship between men and women. “Men.” Her eyes flashed with anger and it was rarely that she was angry with men. She adored them, joked with them, placated them, soothed them, satisfied them, and if they were rough or gentle, pleading or demanding, she loved them all; but she did resent that what they might do with impunity was considered a crime in a woman; they might go their way and follow their will as far as she was concerned as long as the women who pleased them were not blamed for doing the same. But when a woman was shamed for sharing in what for a man was considered natural, she could be angry; and she was angry now.
“The King,” she said, “is not above a bit of fun and frolic. And if the Queen, poor soul, wishes for the same…well, then, why not?”
“But she will bear the King and the future King must be the son of the reigning one.”
“My patience, we are clever! We’re growing up and I’m glad. We can have some cozy chats now, Mistress Damask. But don’t you go thinking hard of the Queen.”
“What does it matter what I think of her? It’s what the King thinks that counts and he is determined to think ill because he is off after Mistress Seymour.”
Keziah put her finger to her lips. “Ah, that’s the root of it all, Mistress. This pale beauty has caught his fancy and he wants change. Men are rare ones for change, though there’s some that’ll be faithful. I’ll tell you this, Mistress Damask, there’s little about men that I don’t know. But you find out a little more every time. I knew about men before I was your age. I’d had my first by then. A handsome gentleman who came riding in the woods when I was with my Granny and he said to me, ‘Meet me in the woods close by the cottage’…that was my Granny’s cottage…‘and I’ll have a fairing for you.’ And I met him and our bed was the bracken which, when all’s said and done, can prove as good a virgin’s couch as feathers. It was dusk, I remember, and the air full of the scent of spring and when I got back my Granny was sitting there by the fire she always kept and the pot was brewing and her black cat that she used to say had more wisdom in his tail than most folk had in their whole bodies mewed and rubbed himself round my legs when I came in. She said, ‘Whafs that you’ve got, Keziah?’ I said, ‘A fairing.’ It had blue ribbons on it and was made of marchpane. ‘Oh,’ she said, ‘so you’ve gained a fairing and lost your virginity.’ And I was afraid being less than your age. But Granny said, ‘Well, you can’t learn the ways of the world too soon and you’ll always be one who’ll never say no to the men nor they to you, so whether you take your first now or in two years’ time it’s of no matter.’ He came back…that fine gentleman, and we tried it under the hedge and even in a good feather bed and it was better every time. And then he disappeared and I was sad but soon another came riding by…and so it’s been.”