Free Ladies in Waiting by Laura L. Sullivan Page B

someone who should support him above all others? You took a vow too, Your Majesty.”
    That bolt struck to Catherine’s heart, and Zabby pressed home.
    “He loves you deeply. Do as he asks.”
    “He does not love me,” Catherine insisted. “He cannot love me if he . . .”
    Zabby almost wished the queen would hold her ground. Perhaps she would win, in the end, and Charles would give up Castlemaine and his other more casual mistresses. If I can’t have him . . . but she had promised Charles, and she too believed in loyalty. She clenched her fist unseen against her skirts, then pulled something from her pocket.
    “He does love you, Your Majesty. He gave me this to give you.” She fumbled for some convincing falderal as she handed Catherine her precious seashell. “He said that like the shell, you are a natural miracle, a small, fragile object of perfection.” She saw the queen’s eyes moisten. “He said your . . . soul . . . was like the whorls of the shell.” Zabby didn’t know what that was supposed to mean, but the queen seemed to like it. “And the creamy whiteness at the lip reminded him of your . . . bosom.” They both blushed at this. “He thought you’d appreciate a curiosity more than a jewel,” she concluded. When she parroted the king’s words she had to dig her nails into her palms so physical pain could beat back the pain in her heart.
    Catherine clutched the delicate shell to a breast that heaved with grateful sobs. She longed for a reason to forgive her husband.
    I give up his gift, Zabby thought, and I give up all those childish thoughts of loving him. He belongs to the queen.
     
    It was a gradual but inexorable thawing. Charles was kind enough to keep Lady Castlemaine out of sight for a few days, and she didn’t immediately assume her new duties as lady of the bedchamber. Then, one night, the two women sat on opposite sides of the hall during a court masque, and Catherine didn’t have a fit. A few days later Castlemaine drifted nonchalantly into the queen’s apartments to seek out her aunt, Lady Suffolk, though she left in a hurry. Before long the king danced openly with his mistress in full sight of Catherine, and the queen merely chatted with her attendants and pretended not to notice.
    “ Mort dieu, ” Eliza said one morning while the queen was dressing. (All the fashionable Londoners freely interlarded their conversation with bad French, though they affected to despise French citizens themselves.) “Don’t wear that drab black again, Your Majesty. It’s as good as sackcloth. Here, why not try this blue? It will brighten your complexion to a nicety.” She pulled a lustrous azure confection from the clothes press.
    All three girls learned a certain freedom with the young queen in those first few weeks. Because she only understood a fraction of what Eliza and Beth said to her, they grew accustomed to saying whatever they liked. It was a habit that stuck as Catherine’s English improved, and she never objected.
    Catherine eyed the garment suspiciously but finally put it on. It took only one glance in the mirror, to the accompanying chorus of ahh s from all the maids of honor, to make her give up her farthingales forever. When Charles saw her he kissed her before all the court. It was scarcely acceptable to kiss your mistress in public; no one kissed his wife.
    That night Zabby dried silent tears on the doomed silken boatmen that had wrapped the seashell, and fell asleep with the scarf twisted so tightly about her hand that her fingers were numb all the next morning.

Chapter 7
    The Forbidden Man
    T HE HONEYMOON was over. Like a great colony of ants, the court gathered up its effects and on August 23 made the ponderous move from Hampton Court to Whitehall Palace. Catherine’s sumptuous bridal bed was left behind. It had not done its sole duty, nor yet had the queen. The three Elizabeths had charge of handing the queen’s underthings on to the washerwoman, and knew, as