Queen's Gambit: A Novel of Katherine Parr Read Online Free PDF

is a
disappointment.’
    ‘I must respect a period of mourning
for my late husband.’
    ‘Yes,’ Mary says quietly, bringing
a hand up, closing her eyes and pressing the place between her brows for a moment.
    ‘Are you in pain? I can mix you
something,’ says Katherine, bending to stroke a hand over Mary’s brow.
    ‘No no, I have tinctures – more than
enough,’ she replies, sitting upright and taking a deep breath.
    ‘If I rub your temples that might ease
it.’
    Mary nods her assent, so Katherine stands
behind her and gently presses the pads of her fingers to the sides of Mary’s
forehead, moving them in a circular motion. The skin there is parchment thin, revealing
an isthmus of blue veins. Mary closes her eyes and leans her head back against
Katherine’s stomacher.
    ‘I was sorry to hear about Lord
Latymer,’ Mary says. ‘Truly sorry.’
    ‘That is kind, my lady.’
    ‘But Katherine, you will come back
soon to serve in my chambers … I am in need of friends. There is only your
sister and Susan whom I fully trust. I want to be surrounded by women I know. There are
so many ladies in my rooms – I don’t even know who they are. You and I shared a
tutor as children, Katherine, your mother served my mother. I feel we are almost
kin.’
    ‘I am honoured that you think of me in
that way,’ Katherine replies, realizing only now how lonely life must be for a
woman like Mary. By rights she should have been married long ago to some magnificent
foreign prince, borne him a flock of princelings and allied England to some great land,
but she has been pushed from pillar to post, in favour, out of favour, legitimate,
illegitimate. No one knows what to do with her, least of all her father.
    ‘Are you still of the true faith,
Katherine?’ Mary asks,dropping her voice to a whisper though
there is no one else in the room save for Meg, hovering awkwardly behind her stepmother.
‘I know your brother is committed to reform, your sister and her husband too. But
you, Katherine, you have been long wed to a northern lord and the old faith holds sway
up there still.’
    ‘I follow the King’s
faith,’ Katherine replies, hoping nothing is assumed from her vagueness. She knows
only too well how things go in the North when it comes to faith. She cannot think of it
without feeling Murgatroyd’s rough hands on her, the unwashed stink of him. She
tries to push the thought away but it persists.
    ‘My father’s faith,’ Mary
is saying. ‘He is still a Catholic at heart, though he broke with Rome. Is that
not right, Katherine?’
    Katherine has barely heard her, can’t
help herself from remembering her dead baby, his black eyes popping open, his
disquieting gaze reminding her from whence he came. But she collects herself, replying,
‘It is, my lady. Matters of faith are no longer straightforward as they used to
be.’
    She hates her own ambiguity, feels no better
than all the other perfidious courtiers, but she cannot bring herself to say to what
extent she has taken up the new faith. She couldn’t face Mary’s
disappointment. This is a woman whose life has been a series of great disappointments
and Katherine cannot bear to add to that, even in a small way, by telling the truth.
    ‘Mmmm,’ Mary murmurs.
‘Would that they were. Would that they were.’ She fiddles absently with a
rosary, its beads clicking as she moves them along the silk string. ‘And this is
your stepdaughter?’
    ‘Yes, my lady. Allow me to present
Margaret Neville.’
    Meg makes a tentative step forward and drops
into a deep curtsy as she has been taught.
    ‘Come closer, Margaret,’ Mary
beckons, ‘and sit, sit.’ She waves towards a stool beside her. ‘Now,
tell me your age.’
    ‘I am seventeen, my lady.’
    ‘Seventeen. And you are promised to
someone, I suppose?’
    ‘I was, my lady, but he passed
away.’
    Katherine has told her to say this. It
wouldn’t do to publicize the fact that her betrothed was one of those hanged for
treason