“We shall soon see the Queen,” Kate whispered. “This is the start of the coronation festivities.”
“Shall we see her?”
“That is why we are here,” answered Kate with exaggerated patience.
And we did see her. Tom’s skillful oar work brought us close to the palace itself so we saw the new Queen with her retinue of pretty girls board her barge. She was dressed in cloth of gold and she looked strangely attractive…not beautiful perhaps but more elegant than anyone I had ever seen; and her enormous dark eyes were as bright as her flashing jewels.
Kate could not take her eyes from her.
“They say she is a witch,” she whispered.
“Perhaps she is,” I answered.
“She’s the most fascinating woman I ever saw! If I were in her place….”
Kate held her head high; I knew that she was imagining herself in that barge sailing down the river to the Tower where the King would be waiting for her.
The Queen’s barge had passed by; a passing boat rammed us and the water shot up soaking me to the skin. Kate burst into peals of laughter.
“We’d better go straight back,” said Tom nervously.
“Certainly not!” cried Kate.
“The Queen’s barge has gone.”
“I shall say when we shall go,” retorted Kate.
I was surprised that Tom was so meek. I had not noticed that he was before.
But Kate seemed suddenly to realize that everything she could see now after the passing of the Queen would be dull in comparison so she said: “Very well, we’ll go now.”
I was shivering in spite of the warm weather. I said: “We could have seen them pass from our privy stairs.”
“We could not have seen the Queen so close,” said Kate, “and I wished to see her close.”
“I’m surprised they gave us permission,” I said.
“I gave the permission,” retorted Kate.
“Do you mean my parents did not know that we were on the river?”
Tom looked uneasy.
“But who said Tom might row us out on such a day?”
“I did,” said Kate, and she was looking at Tom as she spoke. I wondered that she should have such power over him.
We were seen disembarking and my mother came hurrying out; when she saw my drenched clothes there was a great fuss. I was shivering! Where had I been? On the river! On a day like this! What had Tom been thinking of!
Tom scratched his head. “Well, Mistress,” he said, “I didn’t see the harm….”
My mother said nothing but I was hustled off to my bedchamber with instructions to take off my damp clothes and drink a posset.
Kate came up to tell me that Tom had been questioned and he had said that the young ladies wanted to go and he had thought there was no harm in taking them.
“Didn’t you tell them that you made Tom?”
“So you know I made him?”
“I couldn’t understand why he took us. He didn’t really want to.”
“You are right, Damask. He didn’t. But he dared do aught else when I commanded.”
“You talk as though you own him.”
“That’s what I’d like to do…to own people. I’d like to be the King or the Queen, with everyone afraid of offending me.”
“That shows an unpleasant nature.”
“Who wants a pleasant nature? Does that command people? Does that make them afraid of you?”
“Why do you want them afraid of you?”
“So that they do what I say.”
“Like poor Tom.”
“Like Tom.” She hesitated but she was so anxious that I should be aware of her cleverness that she blurted out: “I heard him coming out of Keziah’s bedroom early one morning. He wouldn’t want anyone to know, would he? Nor would Keziah. So if they want me not to tell they have to do as I say.”
I stared at her in amazement.
“I don’t believe it,” I said.
“That they sleep together or that I have discovered them?”
“Neither.”
“You get on with your Greek and Latin. It’s all you can do. You know nothing…nothing at all. And I’ll tell you something else. We are going to see the coronation. We are going to have a window in your father’s house of business.”
“Father would not wish us to see it.”
“Oh, yes, he does, and I’ll tell you why. I have made him.”
“You are not going to tell me he dares not obey you?”
“In this he dare not. You see, I said: ‘Uncle, why do you not wish us to see the coronation procession? Is it because you don’t believe the Queen to be the true Queen?’ Very innocent…I was…none could look more so. And he grew pale for there were servants there. You see, he dare not keep us away now and I knew it because if it were said that he would not allow his family to see the coronation, people would say he was a traitor and so….”
“You are wicked, Kate.”
“The way to get what you want,” said Kate, “is to make people afraid of not giving it.”
She was right. We did see the procession pass through the city. Father and Mother took us and we sat there at the upper window of his business premises looking down on the street which had been graveled like all those from the Tower to Temple Bar. Rails had been set up so that the people should not be hurt by the horses. My father’s house was in Gracechurch Street and it was a goodly sight to see the decorations of crimson and velvet and cloth of gold.
What a sight that was! All the nobility were present. There was the French ambassador with his retinue of servants in blue velvet; the archbishops were there and for the first time I saw Cranmer, the Archbishop of Canterbury, who looked very stern and serious. There were the Dukes and the Earls, the highest in state and church; and at last the one on whom all attention was centered—the new Queen herself. She lay in a litter made of cloth of gold shot with silver and two palfreys supported the litter and these were led by the Queen’s footmen. But it was the Queen on whom one must gaze, for she was magnificent with long dark hair flowing from the ruby-studded coif to fall around her shoulders like a silken cape. Her dress and surcoat were of silver tissue, ermine trimmed. She looked indeed a Queen, lying there in her litter with four handsome men to hold a canopy of cloth of gold over her.
I could not forget her; nor, I guessed, could Kate. She stared at her as though in a daze and I was sure that her imagination had transported her and she was that young woman in the litter, going to the Abbey to be crowned; she was the woman whom the King had delighted to honor even though he had to send many to their deaths in order to reach her. There were wonderful pageants in the street set about the fountain from which on this day wine flowed instead of water; but when the Queen had passed I knew that Kate lost interest in what followed.
My father’s men of business joined us for refreshments afterward and for the first time I met Simon Caseman—a man then in his early twenties.
My father said: “Ah, Damask, this is Simon Caseman, who will be joining our household shortly. He is learning to be a lawyer and will live with us for a while.”
We had had a young man living with us before, but he had made so little impression on me that I had scarcely been aware of him. He had stayed for about three years, I supposed. That was when I was much younger; but it was not unusual for men in my father’s position to take those whom they were tutoring into their households.
Simon Caseman bowed. Then Kate came forward. Kate was always interested to make an impression and I could see that she had. I was not quite sure what I thought of Simon Caseman. One thing I did know was that he was different from that other young man whose name I could not recall and who although a part of our household had somehow made so little impression on me.