The Poyson Garden Read Online Free PDF Page A

astride, but it was worth the pain, the risk--at least she prayed so.
    Jenks appeared on foot and windmilled his arm. "The Lady Stafford left orders for the Lady Cornish to go direct in to see her," he called as she rode forward. A man and woman, stout and simply dressed, stared up at her in the cobbled central courtyard, curiosity easy to read on their open faces, so different from those at
    court or even Hatfield.
    Jenks helped her down. "Welcome, my
    Lady Cornish," the man said, as the woman managed a half curtsy so awkward
    Elizabeth instantly knew how it had been for her aunt these years of willing exile. Queen Anne Boleyn's sister Mary had never brought ceremony here and had been much the better for it.
    The two servants introduced themselves as Piers and Glenda, the household steward and his wife. As she entered, Elizabeth saw that the great hall lay dim and silent but for the low crackle of fire on the hearth. Jenks walked a step behind her, rotating his flat cap in one hand, his other still resting warily on the hilt of his sword.
    Along the upstairs gallery that overlooked this large room, a chamber door banged open. From above a flicker of firelight threw a long shadow of a figure on the high-beamed ceiling. A woman clothed in a white shift or night rail with long silver hair ran forward to clutch the banister and lean toward them, wavering like a specter who would take flight.
    "Is it you?" the woman cried. "Bless God, is it you?"
    Glenda started up the stairs. "My lady, you're not to be up. I'll skin that girl Meg for leaving you alone and ailing. This here's the Lady Cornish, come like you hoped she would--"
    But Elizabeth was quicker than Glenda up the stairs, around the turn of the landing. Her skirts dragged, but she lifted them and almost sprinted. Unladylike, unroyal to run, but she had never dared to dream of this reunion.
    Mary Boleyn's face was gaunt and haunted, white skin stretched over fine bones, eyes once deep blue, now washed almost colorless by tears and pain. Mary pressed one hand to her belly and breathed through her mouth. How could it be that this once blond beauty could look so faded and frail--and old? Elizabeth had always pictured her young, laughing like those muted memories of her own mother, but Mary Boleyn must be in her middle fifties now.
    Yet Elizabeth saw in a closer glance that her inner spirit flamed. Mary held up a trembling hand to halt her woman's approach and said, "My friend, Lady Cornish, will help me back to my bed. Please fetch her a hearty breakfast--now." She looked as if she would be
    ill, but she only dry-heaved once, pressing her palm to her mouth. She leaned for strength with one hand on the banister. Glenda turned and plodded back down the stairs, mumbling.
    "Dear aunt," Elizabeth whispered, "let me help you." She put one arm around the woman and her other under her elbow. How skeletal she was under the linen night rail.
    "I will be fine now," she insisted through lips thinned with pain. "Everything will be fine now." They shuffled into the bedchamber, and Elizabeth closed the door behind them. Though she leaned her aunt against the bed, the moment she let go to reach for the mounting stool, Mary Boleyn slid back to her knees on the woolen rug.
    "Not the strength to curtsy anymore, can't manage it," she murmured as Elizabeth knelt beside her, then lifted her again. "Besides, there has been no one else for years, no one who truly deserved my curtsy after he killed my --our--family."
    "Don't talk now," Elizabeth insisted. "No one here must curtsy to anyone. Save your strength so we may talk."
    Suddenly, huge tears began to pour down the woman's wan face. Elizabeth, trained by duty not to cry but when alone, held her aunt to her, blinking back tears.
    "Oh, my dearest," Mary Boleyn said in a rush, as if Elizabeth would disappear if she were silent, "you have your mother's slimness, her dark, snapping eyes, and long, elegant hands too. His red-gold coloring, of course,