FILLOS Elizabeth Tudor: Ancestry of Sorcery

Part 9

September 1542

Hatfield House, Hertfordshire

I would one day be expected to host every holiday in the kingdom, so my education as hostess began with my ninth birthday. "I do not feel like wearing something so constricting, Blanche," I remarked as the woman cinched my waist tighter.

"Arriving early and overstaying one's welcome is the material practice of nobility, my Lady. Since your event is but four days away, I predict you will be busy receiving family and friends this afternoon and you must look the part." Blanche, who acted as my personal waiting maid, stated this information without any disdain. It was fact and not to be judged.

"Come now, Blanche. I have plans."

Blanche pursed her lips. "We shall see."

Naturally, I spent the afternoon greeting guests. Before my boots were laced, I was called down to the sitting room. My cousins had arrived.

I took Blanche with me to greet them. Bless her heart, she did not give me a single snide look, but she did talk merrily with everyone. I found I was not in the mood for talking. I was thinking—thinking about how I did not want to act like a grown up right now. I wanted with all my heart to leave all these people behind and find Robert, or, have him come to me. In my mind, I saw him walking through the doors, smiling at me, and kissing my hand. I sighed and could not help myself from wanting it to be so.

A few minutes after this desire settled in my heart, and I had almost decided to excuse myself, Robert and his father entered the drawing room. He quickly came over to my side. I could not help but brighten as I saw him, and I checked my dress and touched my hair to make sure all was in order. He bowed low and said casually, "Lady Elizabeth, how are you this evening?"

"Greetings Robert, Sir John. I am wonderful...now," I added quietly, and intensified my smile.

"Wonderful. I only ask, for just a moment ago, I had a strange, overwhelming feeling." Robert's cheeks flushed, and he cleared his throat unconsciously. "Never mind." There was a crinkle to his brow and I sensed a nervousness in him. "It's silly. I guess I just had the feeling that you needed to be rescued."

"Nice as it would be to call you to my side whenever I should need rescuing, sir, I do not have that power. Do you think it indigestion?" I said with a laugh on my lips.

"No, I do not." His face would not laugh. He was serious.

"Come, it is cooling down outside. Let us go out on to the terrace and talk." Robert walked next to me as we left the room. "Do you think we will be missed?"

"I am sure you will be. You're the hostess. But it is not as if we are hiding," he replied.

"I do not feel like a hostess. I feel like this is a punishment for all the fun I had with you today." I took out my fan and began sweeping it back and forth in front of my face.

With the heat, and the gown, and the expectations waiting inside, my mind tumbled and finally settled. I'd never been unhappy with my life, with its plethora of rules and intense training. I knew that some royalty balked at the control exuded upon them, but I'd never felt that way. I was a sponge, longing to know and to do and to be everything.

Until Robert came.

Ever since he arrived, a growing knot of uneasiness had been settling in my belly. Now that I had a taste of freedom, I did not want to give it up.

A touch of a breeze brushed my face and I instantly felt refreshed.

"I have thought of nothing else but all we did this afternoon." I turned to him, "Thank you for forcing me to have fun. And our conversation...I feel it is the first of its kind for me with anyone but Kat." I thought about that for a moment and realized that perhaps the conversation I had with my father at Pyrgo was in this same category. "Alright, perhaps the second real conversation I have ever had." And before I knew what I was doing, I recounted all the particulars of my visit to Pyrgo. I told him how wonderful and strange it all was.

He must have misunderstood my meaning, for his response was, "I do not assume to instruct you on your relations with your father, but everyone has been talking of nothing but Queen Catherine's beheading, and the toll it is taking on the king, so I would humor him."

Catherine beheaded? I sputtered, and my heart instantly burned with anger and hatred toward the man whom I loved so dearly moments before. Father had beheaded another one of his wives? How could he do that when he knew that I was still alive to hear about it? I thought over his words to me, for they were fresh in my thoughts, having just recounted them, and I wondered if part of his apology to me included, at least in his mind, the offense of this situation.

I wished all manner of ill on him at that moment because I was not thinking of him as a king. I was thinking of him as a man who killed a young woman I very much liked and admired. A woman whom I had known better than I knew him, my own father.

For some reason, at that very moment, Mary's face came into my mind and I knew that I now understood her anger toward our father. I needed to know everything if I was going to forgive him for this, and I wanted to forgive him. I reached into the pocket of my dress and felt the birthday gift he had helped make for me.

Steadying myself, I looked up at Robert and asked, "What was her crime?"

Absolute shock covered his face. "You do not—do not know?"

"I did not want to know. I have asked everyone to keep it from me. But now I must have the details, or I will just continue to be angry with him," I said, my hand shaking inside my pocket.

"Infidelity," he said shortly. "She was caught in the act. There was no question, unlike..." He trailed off uncertainly.

"Unlike with my mother," I finished for him. Then angry words exited my mouth. "I saw them. Catherine loved my father and he adored her." My fan beat back and forth more veraciously. "Well Robert, if that is how love ends when you are a prince, I am glad that I have been cut off. If I am ever in that high office, I shall never marry." This was said as seriously as I could say it, and when I looked at Robert's face, I knew that he knew I meant it.

He seemed very taken aback.

I did not want to discuss my now definite resolve, so I began mumbling about how I was feeling.

"I know it is feminine and insensible, but I am angry with him for cutting off her head. That is a personally offensive executionary method for me and yet"—I put my fan down— "and yet, I never truly knew my mother. So, I find myself angry, but still loving my father. Not ignoring him, despite his deplorable actions, but wanting his approval, even in the wake of them. I do not understand myself. Do you understand me, Robert?"

"Not a bit...or I think maybe a little," he said with a mischievous smile.

"Come, Robert, let us not talk like we were born north of the Northumberland."

He laughed so hard that I had to shush him. I did not want Blanche to descend upon us when I was finally having a good conversation. But, with his laugh came the light heart that I had felt before.

I would not think about this news of my father right now. I would just listen to Robert and have my mind be here, with him.