‘I didn’t mean to confront you with a difficult … on our first meeting …’
‘No, you are right. It is something I must think of.’ I was running through all the great monarchs of England in my mind, pondering which I might emulate, when it came to me as a moment of epiphany, in a single word. ‘I will seek to be just. Yes, a
just
queen, that is what I want to be.’
‘Ah, then’ – he rummaged a hand beneath his clothes, procuring a volume of Plato’s
Republic
as if from nowhere – ‘we must look to Socrates first, I think.’ His eyes flashed bright and he stroked the book as if it were sentient and might respond to his affection.
Though Starkey served as chaplain in our household as well as tutor, and often reminded me that when I was queen I would be God’s envoy on earth, I never saw him touch a bible with the fondness he showed to that volume of Plato.
Clerkenwell
Ami arrives at the backfield, heaving the Mansfields’ dirty linens. The washerwomen eye her up and down and seem to approve as they introduce themselves and offer to share the hot water from their large communal vat that hangs over the brazier by the river. A number of small children scurry about collecting kindling and dry wood to keep it stoked. Their children, she supposes, which makes her feel her years. The other women are robust, with sturdy bodies, and half her age.
It is hard, physical work, layering the linens in the bucking tub, filling it with water, hefted by the bucketful from the vat and adding the lye, so sharp it stings her eyes and the back of her nose. As she labours she thinks of the irony that once she disguised herself as a laundress. She wonders whether she will be mentioned masquerading in Lady Arbella’s story. Donning the garb of a laundry maid hadn’t prepared her for the sharp reality of the back-breaking work. That familiar remorse prods at her, for failing her friend – but it was worse than that. Failing makes it sound accidental. Perhaps this work she does now is a penance. Hal also hovers about her thoughts. He hasn’t written back. It has been four days. Worries peck at her. She fears he hasn’t accepted her inadequate explanation and that he might have come to the truth about his paternity. But perhaps he is simply too busy to write.
Once her linens have been well soaked the women make space for her at the row of trestles, where they beat the dirt out of their whites together. It makes a rhythmic, thwacking sound, a music of sorts. They laugh as they go along thetables, taking it in turns to confess who it is they imagine is at the other end of their washing bats receiving a beating. When it is Ami’s turn she says Alphonso’s name, and finds there is some satisfaction in this make-believe.
They exchange gossip and stories, local matters mainly: who has a fancy for whom, who’s been caught with their fingers in the pot, who’s having a baby that isn’t fathered by the husband. Ami doesn’t say much, afraid that her refined turn of phrase, learned from those years at court, might set her apart.
Inevitably talk turns to the big scandal: the court proceedings in which the King’s fallen favourite and his wife, the Earl and Countess of Somerset, are being tried for murder. It has captured the public imagination: a mysterious death in the Tower, the implication of a countess and the woman who’d been hanged for it already, a whiff of witchcraft, corruption seeping upwards through the court. Ami recalls meeting the Countess of Somerset, she was Frances Howard back then – a striking creature even at the age of twelve, with confidence beyond her years, the kind of girl who inspires envy.
Ami imagines telling the women that she has known the illustrious accused, laughing inwardly, for they’d doubtless assume she was spouting nonsense and think her half demented like Mad Dot, who wanders Clerkenwell looking for her dead babies – it is said they all died in a single night. It forces Ami to
‘No, you are right. It is something I must think of.’ I was running through all the great monarchs of England in my mind, pondering which I might emulate, when it came to me as a moment of epiphany, in a single word. ‘I will seek to be just. Yes, a
just
queen, that is what I want to be.’
‘Ah, then’ – he rummaged a hand beneath his clothes, procuring a volume of Plato’s
Republic
as if from nowhere – ‘we must look to Socrates first, I think.’ His eyes flashed bright and he stroked the book as if it were sentient and might respond to his affection.
Though Starkey served as chaplain in our household as well as tutor, and often reminded me that when I was queen I would be God’s envoy on earth, I never saw him touch a bible with the fondness he showed to that volume of Plato.
Clerkenwell
Ami arrives at the backfield, heaving the Mansfields’ dirty linens. The washerwomen eye her up and down and seem to approve as they introduce themselves and offer to share the hot water from their large communal vat that hangs over the brazier by the river. A number of small children scurry about collecting kindling and dry wood to keep it stoked. Their children, she supposes, which makes her feel her years. The other women are robust, with sturdy bodies, and half her age.
It is hard, physical work, layering the linens in the bucking tub, filling it with water, hefted by the bucketful from the vat and adding the lye, so sharp it stings her eyes and the back of her nose. As she labours she thinks of the irony that once she disguised herself as a laundress. She wonders whether she will be mentioned masquerading in Lady Arbella’s story. Donning the garb of a laundry maid hadn’t prepared her for the sharp reality of the back-breaking work. That familiar remorse prods at her, for failing her friend – but it was worse than that. Failing makes it sound accidental. Perhaps this work she does now is a penance. Hal also hovers about her thoughts. He hasn’t written back. It has been four days. Worries peck at her. She fears he hasn’t accepted her inadequate explanation and that he might have come to the truth about his paternity. But perhaps he is simply too busy to write.
Once her linens have been well soaked the women make space for her at the row of trestles, where they beat the dirt out of their whites together. It makes a rhythmic, thwacking sound, a music of sorts. They laugh as they go along thetables, taking it in turns to confess who it is they imagine is at the other end of their washing bats receiving a beating. When it is Ami’s turn she says Alphonso’s name, and finds there is some satisfaction in this make-believe.
They exchange gossip and stories, local matters mainly: who has a fancy for whom, who’s been caught with their fingers in the pot, who’s having a baby that isn’t fathered by the husband. Ami doesn’t say much, afraid that her refined turn of phrase, learned from those years at court, might set her apart.
Inevitably talk turns to the big scandal: the court proceedings in which the King’s fallen favourite and his wife, the Earl and Countess of Somerset, are being tried for murder. It has captured the public imagination: a mysterious death in the Tower, the implication of a countess and the woman who’d been hanged for it already, a whiff of witchcraft, corruption seeping upwards through the court. Ami recalls meeting the Countess of Somerset, she was Frances Howard back then – a striking creature even at the age of twelve, with confidence beyond her years, the kind of girl who inspires envy.
Ami imagines telling the women that she has known the illustrious accused, laughing inwardly, for they’d doubtless assume she was spouting nonsense and think her half demented like Mad Dot, who wanders Clerkenwell looking for her dead babies – it is said they all died in a single night. It forces Ami to
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