The Rest is Silence

PROLOGUE

Westminster Abbey, London, England – 1588

He lingers. Still, he lingers. I am surprised, really. No. He always surprised me. I only wish I could have once surprised - no. No more wishes. That is ended.

My name is Anne and this is my husband, lurking in the gloom beyond the light from the grimy colored windows. And the monstrosity there before him, that he cannot take his eyes from? That is my tomb.

My ague could not be cured, even with opium poppy juice, the spider’s web I nearly choked on several times, or the leeches bleeding me at the outside of my ankles. I know Father squabbled with the physician over the standard charge of ten shillings for my treatment. Yes, my husband should have paid it.

There were many mourners; I've heard some people whisper. Father hired 40 poor men, recruited to grieve over me in procession of Vespers for the Dead. I am certain, as ever, they were supplied with black gowns for the occasion and pretty tapers to hold in their hands and that their chanting of Psalm 116’s ninth line, I shall please the dead in the land of the living, never sounded more tiresome. Six hundred and ninety pounds, ‘tis what Father paid for my funeral, I heard someone else murmur. A pittance, for Father, that is. But I know Father too. He will play on it for pity from anyone who will listen. And the monument itself with its tiny statues of my living daughters praying beside my prostrate body adds to the sense of perpetual sorrow and gloom.

But now that I'm here and it is there before me and any others who happen upon it, this state of being, compared to what they - the living - think of death, makes me wonder. What will I be remembered for? Does that thing help my daughters?

And what about him? I knew he was writing about me. I looked among his papers before each of his devices was presented to the Queen by his boys. I knew I was there, or rather some version of me, according to what mood he was in.

He thought I never noticed or that I didn't or couldn't possibly care. This was one pleasure, barren as even that must have been: that I made sure he had no clue how well I understood his portrayals of me.

I did not see him for days, nay weeks after my death. Here is where I must linger now and know he did not come for a long time. I heard others speak of a shipwreck and the Spanish defeat, but still it took weeks before he finally came. Now I cannot get him to leave.

I can hear his thoughts; how odd. He thinks now how proud he should be had I seen his Edward Bonaventure as it stood, fitted with its flapping flags and new sails before the ship embarked and arrived too late for the meeting on the sea with the Spanish. Why, dear Edward should this hold any interest for me? You are at least trying with your word, nay your thoughts. But -

It is no matter to me. There is nothing he can do to me now. But apparently there is much I can still do to him or at least my frozen flat stone body can do.

Death is nothing as I imagined it, nothing as the living conjures up. Those still alive have fondness for ghosts wandering and warning. This is laughable. We are here if the living wish us here. I am here when someone comes and thinks or muses of me.

Then, when the light fades here in the Abbey and no one bothers to light the tapers and the cold drafts drive any lingering to a warm hearth, I become less and less aware and dissolve in a manner most sweet until someone - even my husband Edward, perhaps - comes and rouses me from this sort of slumber when their thoughts turn to me. At least for this moment, this is how things are with me. The old folk rites of leaving candles lit and a cup of salt nearby to toss in the flames to keep away the departed is as useless as singing after a death to send our corpses solemnly on to the afterlife.

I feel hurt - pain, anger, vengeance and even joy; and anon the wonder in seeing someone bring me to life of a sort through their own living thoughts. The wonder expands with each of his visits.

But I never see the one who is responsible for that stony me with its frozen spawn locked in prayer. Where is Father? I know he has not died and even if I did not know this, I hear Edward mutter of him so I know he lives.

But what of him? Has he forgotten me so quickly, put me from his thoughts and his life with such awful speed? I feel no sadness in any of this, just an overwhelming curiosity on all of it. For it is left for the living to understand people for whatever reason. I have already had my share of trying to understand. Even as a little child, my earliest memories are of trying to understand.

Look, look once more on that name there: Anne. It is no longer mine. I feel no connection to it. But I do have other names which echo, nay pulse through my very thoughts: Lucianna, Isabella, Helena, Julia, Hero, Ophelia, Desdemona - a favorite of mine, Juliet - and another which haunts me too, Imogen. I whisper the words he breathed into that last one. Here, have them once again, my poor Edward:

"The dream's here still. Even when I wake it is

without me, as within me; not imagin'd, felt."

Chapter One

Dream, dream I ponder – nay whisper – but surely this is no dream. I know this place. Knowledge comes to me as the opposite of a dream as one awakens and sees the strangeness, ugliness, fantasy or delight if that be truth in one’s bustling slumbering brain has become now the solid, the familiar. The real fills the scene. And here am I in my husband Edward’s ancient home, Hedingham. I am awake wide in a small bed chamber with – could it be? – a crying babe.

I am too taken with the ruddy-faced, full screaming child exuding that milky-sour scent of young health to notice the girl. She leaves a much larger child, sleeping on a pallet in the corner to tend to this newborn.

Surely ye could not want more. I had just set you down…get ye to sleep, Child, she hisses. What should thy name be, when will they name ye? I cannot rock a nameless babe to sleep.

Her words jar me from the comfort of the scene I have only just entered. What could this mean?

Damned changeling babe. I have barely enough suck to my teat for my own child.

Changeling child? A sadness fills me and the pitiful cries seem to drive me away from this place. But I am soon just beyond the thick oaken doors of Hedingham Keep with others, others I do not know either.

It might take awhile, Master John," says Will Somers. The late King Henry VIII’s former jester stands shivering. His voice sounds hoarse. He looks thin and pale, less comical than sad to me. I know this, but I am quite unsure of what I am doing here, at this place and with these people.

Why aren’t you inside the keep, Somers? asks John de Vere, the 16th Earl of Oxford, my husband’s father. I search his face for any sign of Edward in his eyes but see none.

They’re afraid I come a beggin’ for more food. The guard doesn’t even answer when he hears it’s me, whispers Somers.

John pulls his own cloak off and wraps it around Somers’ narrow frame. They’ll not keep you out in the cold, Somers. Wait until that guard returns. Just wait and listen.

But Somers does not seem to hear his threat. He stares down at his tattered shoes and waits for the Earl to finish. Cecil’s here again, Earl John, Somers whispers without looking up.

The words catch John by surprise. He stares at the thick doors and lets his eyes fill with the handsome carved arch, weathering in the cold and rain, already ancient when he was a tiny boy.

Why can this huge bolted door not keep out these new forces sweeping through his world? I read his thoughts as easily as I look on his face. How dare the woman he’s chosen to wife be taken from him, be refused him, while this other woman – forced upon him – still waits inside? I feel the wave of fear sweep through me right along with him. He tries to fathom Somers' words. My father, William Cecil never comes to exchange pleasantries. I know this as does he. Something is wrong. Somers always knows when it’s about to happen.

John kicks the door. His boot splinters the rough wood. My command was for the door to be unbolted when the wind starts up like this. Can you hear me, guard?

The guard opens the door partway and looks from him, sheepishly to Somers. John pushes the huge doors the rest of the way open.

Benches line the great hall for the players’ show later in the evening. At least this is how John had wanted it. We’ll still have them put on their play tonight, Somers. No matter what Cecil has to tell me. Things could not be that bad, could they? asks John.

Somers stares at his feet again. At last John grabs Somers’ scraggly chin hairs and brings his head up. Don’t go saying I didn’t warn ye, Master. You’re not going to be of a humor for any device tonight, says Somers.

John lets go of Somers’ chin. Sit, there by the fire. But before ye do, give me back my cloak. I don’t care what Cecil has come for. We have the players tonight. You have my word on it.

John has never recalled feeling the way he does now. He searches back in his memory to a time when his world felt this uncertain. I can read this in his brooding eyes. He walks down the hallway and nearly reaches his wife’s door, but fights to keep the image of who lies inside from his thoughts. Laughter behind him from the players tumbling and singing, preparing for the night’s entertainment breaks his stream of thoughts. Here is life far more bizarre than any device his players could do.

Margery Golding is her name, and now Margery the Countess of Oxford. How odd. What should the records say of this unnatural union? Could anyone who ever took an interest in his story not suspect the events of last summer?

He did not deny his trouble with women. John’s first wife, Dorothy Neville, though the mother of his beloved Katherine, could no longer find the words to speak with him in the last year of her life when she was in bed far more than up and out with him.

Another Dorothy, this one named Fosser had never refused his requests to be out with the falcons and hawks. She listened when he spoke of them and even more incredibly, learned the falconer’s art – eventually curing all his birds of the bumble foot, saving even a few he’d held no hope for.

John still has a peregrine named for her as his best hunter. He also named another bird, Joan for his mistress, Joan Jockey. So confident was he of his love for Dorothy that he did not think she’d mind or care about Joan. Had it not been for that awful day, he’d still see Joan whenever he wanted. But now they’d cut off her nose and dragged her away. This would not have happened were it not for the Lord Protector and his secretary, Father who now sits, no doubt, meddling within John’s castle walls.

The day of John’s intended marriage to Dorothy Fosser started out well. The scene flashes through my mind as if I were there. John went on the road from Castle Hedingham nearly to her home when he heard them. Why did they race to him? What was their confounded rush?

By command of the Lord Protector – Lord Protector, the words brings bile to his mouth and tongue – he was to accompany these horsemen to the Golding home. The Golding home? Edward Seymour, the Lord Protector had already demanded funds that John did not have and threatened him with the Tower. Would the Golding home be the last place he’d visit before his death at the Tower?

John reached the Golding estate with the others. While waiting for a servant to reach the door, Father told him, as if quoting a row of figures, that he was brought here to marry Margery Golding. Father did not laugh with him.

When no servants came, Father nodded for the others to open the doors all while John fought to control his laughter. But no one else was laughing. A player in one of his devices while visiting Hedingham, saying lines from rote, had more power and control than John did that day. He’d never felt more like a drowning man.

Now he stands at the reception chamber door. John cannot recall passing his so-called wife, Margery‘s door. This brought him the one shred of peace he could spare himself this day. Before he has a change of heart, he goes to knock. Instead he pushes open the thick door as rudely as he can muster.

At another door, on the far side of the room, the visitors from London stand talking in hushed voices. Other men hunch over papers on the oaken table. He cannot see Father’s face at first. The scribe – or whatever he was – with him rises and stands shuffling through the papers. Father grasps the scribe’s wrist. They both pause.

We are sorry, sir. We did not see you at first, says Father. He rises and stands beside his scribe. We made ourselves at home here. I hope-

What other wondrous gifts have you for me? Another wife, perhaps? asks John.

Father’s mouth works up into a half smile. He clears his throat. Then he glances at the small stack of pages below his hands. No, not another wife, my Lord.

John wants to laugh. At last the words he’d just heard start to sink in. If not another wife, then what? He watches Father nod to an even pastier man near the door. The man leaves and quickly returns with a young woman clutching a screaming bundle. Why has he bothered this poor girl from the village?

This is a newly-born male child, my Lord. The Lord Protector instructs me to tell you to raise it up as your own. There is no need to make announcement of your new son until word comes from the Lord Protector, says Father.

John’s head throbs. He sits at his massive table at the far corner of Hedingham Keep. The air in the room is still and stuffy despite the open windows nearby. A falcon’s airborne scream and caws from distant crows bring a longing to be far from here. He cannot recall how long ago the others had left. John takes another bite of the apple he’d started to eat earlier that day. It had grown mealy, just as his life had.

He hates what time does to things, how a few days or a few hours turn an apple from a crispness that explodes in his mouth to tasteless mush. Even I, though I crave the taste of this real fruit have no desire for it. I smell its bitterness in his mouth. His thoughts rush ahead to Father, my father. This creature with his endless papers and leaden words has done more to change his life, he an earl whose line stretched back countless years to William Conqueror – no before. Father had once again turned John’s life. Father is time to an apple, John thinks, spoiling all with his long sentences that mean nothing, yet creating such brown mealy days for those who must hear his voice.

John gazes up from his chair out at the corner yard. Will Somers has strung up an old rope. Players of all sizes take up the late King Henry’s old fool’s dare and attempt to cross from an old scraggly oak to a more substantial sycamore tree. Hoots arise when the first attempt ends on a formerly inconspicuous dung heap.

They have no fear, none of the players, least of all Somers, the one who’d served the master beheader – King Henry. Why should John fear my father’s wrath? This is still John’s home. What power has the Lord Protector or his messenger, my father, William Cecil, here at Castle Hedingham?

Apparently more power than John had dared to think about. The child, no the children being forced upon him and his so-called wife, Margery de Vere, clearly are not just any children. They most concern themselves with the boy. Whose child is this? Who is this other – a girl child – said to be coming to him and the woman Margery?

He picks up the quill and dips the end in the ink. There are two letters that he wants to write. But he is not much of a writer. John is not sure when he finished the first one, to his natural and rightful child, Katherine. The pale light from the window has faded to the murky gloom that brings sadness to this place. He signs his name, blows on the page to dry the ink, works on a smudge with his licked pinky and folds the sheets. At last he lights a candle and heats the blue wax of his family’s seal.

My father will never see the letter, not if he could help it. John locks it in the chest with other things to be given to Katherine upon her marriage. Though only twelve, an agreeable match with a young man named Baron Windsor would happen within the next three or four years. Then this letter would give her at least a part of the truth: that this child, now in his midst and care had little right to any inheritance, if only for no other reason than that he and Margery had not even married – or known each other - at time of the child’s conception. At last he breathes out in satisfaction. A mere knight – this Cecil, he thinks – will not have the better of him.

The players are gone. But they’ve left their cord strung up for their rope dancing. He’d be free as a player too this night and craves the look in Father’s eyes when he takes his new son up before the crowd. He grasps a bottle of French wine from the shelf and pours out a glass that will bring back a flood of memories. He will permit himself no tears this night though.

The crowd of villagers and Hedingham servants grow quiet. They know the Earl’s players are prompt. John looks around the hall. No Cecil. He grabs more candles from the side table, raises them to the others already lit and brings more light to some of the darker rows. He knows all the faces. None are my father’s or those others he dragged to Hedingham Castle with him.

The players file in from a side door and take their places on the floor at the front of the crowd. Sit. John holds up his hands for the actors to wait. John feels generous today, despite how little food he knows remains in the stores of his keep. He points to a bowl of turkey legs and meat on a corner table. Pass those out, Will. Your players look hungry.

The crowd laughs at the actors hungrily attacking this windfall of food. They grow noisy once more knowing the entertainment will not be starting, at least until the chewing stops and the bones are thrown in the corner.

I am glad you could make the players’ device at last, says John. He pats some empty benches near the front that he’d kept clear for Father and the others.

We would rather have left earlier and got more of his Majesty’s business done, says Father.

His Majesty is put to bed at the time when all boys of eleven should be asleep, says John.

The Lord Protector, though, rarely sleeps long, says Father.

Then tell His Majesty Lord Protector, Edward Seymour that he is a fool. says John. It feels good to him mouthing the words. John studies Father’s face to see what result they brought. But Father reveals nothing. The same old owlish mask of blankness remains.

Are you certain you would like me to tell him that? asks Father.

Tell him anything you want. I have a son now – oh and a wife as well. Nothing else matters, says John. The wine buzzes in his head. John feels fearless. He approaches Margery on the end the bench and grabs her nose. What a wife I have. And such a good nose – not like the other nose-less one.

Margery whines and winces. He holds his grip on her nose. At last she puts up a hand and breaks free, slapping his face. I don’t care if you be earl or duke, you’re a wicked man, John.

Full of fight, isn’t she? He rubs the red spot where she hit him. She has the fight of my best gamecock. I knew on the day I met her I had to marry her, Cecil. In fact marry her I did – on that very day. Father’s slight blush brings a smile to John. Enjoy our device, Master Cecil.

John watches Father through the entire play. Those eyes lifeless as ever, make John’s head hurt. The play ends.

I have a show now of my own, says John. In that room lays a young child, a son for your Earl. Will you let me show him to you?

Father rises to his feet. John nods to him as he passes. He thinks he’s heard Father shout out some words but if he had, none heard them. The cheers and howls of the crowd drown them out.

The girl with the infant resists when he pulls the baby from her arms. Her breast lays exposed against the cheek of the sleeping form. They want to see my new son, says John.

He has just fallen asleep. Please don’t take him, she pleads.

I shall have him back soon. The infant shudders when lifted away from her.

If you don’t hold your hand behind his head, it shall bob and get him screaming once more.

None shall know the difference, says John. He smiles down at her and cradles the baby in the crook of his arm, closing the door with his back.

Father waits in the doorway of the great hall. Our Lord Protector made quite clear he did not want this child shown, says Father.

The Lord Protector will have to come for himself and stop me, says John. A tumble announcing his procession through the crowd - that would round this evening off well. He spies Somers standing to the side. John waves to him. Tumble up the aisle to the platform, Somers.

My head still hurts from the last one, Master, moans Somers.

I don’t care. Do this or you sleep outside tonight, supper-less.

Do you mean it?

Hurry. Cecil looks ready to go.

Somers’ series of rolls increases in speed. By the time he reaches the platform it looks as if he’ll be squashed like a kicked pumpkin against the boards. The baby awakens and cries.

What could they do to John that had not already been done? He stands with Somers as the old fool rubs his sore head after the long series of somersaults. Father, lingers in the shadows at the side of the hall.

Er-Er-Er-Errrrrr. Somers’ rooster crows silence the crowd.

With Somers beside him John stands, the baby screaming in his arms. Nothing more. They can do no more to him. The Lord Protector demands more money and land from him, had taken the only woman he’d loved from him – one he’d courted for nearly five years – forced him into this hateful union with one beneath his class and now this mere knight, my father, thrusts a baby from some womb God alone knew, upon him.

Whose child do ye hold squalling for us to hear, Earl John? The shouted question brings scores of wondering Ayes in reply.

Father shakes his head. Somers looks from the back of the room, studying the strange gesture, to John.

I could not keep my news from you any longer. Here is my new son and heir.

Son? asks Somers.Your child, Earl John?"

The crowd quiets. Somers’ question mirrors the amazement of all the rest. A ripple of unbelieving, uncomfortable laughter rises from the audience. Where’ve you been keeping him? This question from the right side of the hall brings even more muted laughter.

He’s been a bit sickly. But he’s my child.

It don’t sound too sickly. Somers’ comment brings more laughs. The baby’s screams drown out the chatter. Has he a name - this son of yours?

John hadn’t thought of this. The question makes his head hurt again. Father looks ready to leave. What had I decided to record as his name, Sir? You, Cecil, can you tell me? Even in the gloom of dying candlelight, John sees the crimson of Father’s face at his question. But the crowd awaits an answer. The infant’s crying calms to a whimper.

The Lord Protector has reported he favors the name Edward-

Well, Cecil that does sound like a good fit – considering the Lord Protector is known too, by the name ‘Edward’. But we shall call this child Edward for our young King Edward, not Edward Seymour. Long live King Edward.

Long live King Edward. The people murmur the statement. Life has flown from the room.

John holds the baby up again. Its screams start in earnest once more. Long live Edward, our prince and son. He could have held him there all night. He likes the feeling his impudence gives him. Father and Edward Seymour, the Lord Protector, cannot touch him now.

You think you’ve just run him off, don’t you? Somers’ question breaks the spell. But he’s a Cecil, isn’t he? asks Will Somers.

Cecils do not matter here.

Think on this, Earl John. My old, King Henry always said this Cecil’s father was the best.

Best at what, Somers?

Throwing the stone without that the hand be seen.

Chapter Two

There is no more time, no time to adjust his hose, cap, feather and doublet once more, no time to answer any more questions. John stands in the cramped side chamber at Westminster Abbey awaiting word. He dabs at the sweat gathered at his temples with a damp cloth. Though I cannot feel the stuffy heat in this chamber myself, My imaginings are strong enough and I sense this in my own fashion.

Once more, Father, please? asks Edward.

John looks down at the boy and closes his eyes. Would this child ever know the truth? He stares at those hands. Could the boy ever keep them still? They reach for the feather astride the trim purple cap and adjust the angle. Once. Twice. Three more times. Then the eyes rise once more into his, pleading.

If you will stand still your hose should not gather, Edward, says John. He kneels behind Edward and tugs until the gold silk hose tighten. Then he makes sure the hooks at the garters lay firm near the top of the boy’s russet britches. John waits for acknowledgement. None comes. He rises from his knees. The sounds of the crowd from beyond the door mean that the Princess Elizabeth still has not arrived for her coronation.

She is as brash as this one, thinks John. Edward already has lifted the top of a small chest in the corner and found some papers inside with which amuse to himself. Those fingers, so thin and bony, full of nervous energy, they could easily be hers, those of the Princess Elizabeth, soon to be Queen. Whose child is this, rummaging through an old dusty chest ready to pounce on any stray piece of information?

Father, look at what I’ve found. Come here quick. Please. ‘Tis a written description of how the Earls of Oxford must bear the water by ewer for their prince. That’s what we Oxfords have always done and is one more reason why we stand here today. Is this not something which fills you with wonder?

A blast of horns on the other side of the door startles John and me before he can answer the boy. He catches his breath. Outside their door the crowd is silent. He puts a finger to his lips and looks at Edward before he speaks again. One of the new looking glasses from the continent hangs near a tiny window. John stares at his reflection in the long dim glass, adjusts his hat and doublet and studies his hands. His fingers could be those of a Hedingham mason or field hand, a blacksmith, cooper or baker. They feel solid, thick – almost fat. But those who deceive themselves that pudginess means weakness do not know his strength. He can nearly crack hazelnuts with those fingers. I chuckle to myself at his thoughts.

What could this boy over there already rummaging through more sheets in an old chest do with his skimpy fingers? He fears for Edward somehow. I sense this in the tension in the small room. John grasps the sword from where it hangs on the old hooks. How long would this one last? He’d carried the old weapon for others of the Tudors as they were crowned. I don’t want to do this again. I hope this one lives, whispers John. He motions with his chin for the velvet burgundy cushion in the corner.

What could be better, Father, than carrying your prince’s coronation sword here at Westminster Abby?

That is simple: being out with my falcons, my hawks. ‘Tis all I ever wanted, says John.

John is anxious to have this visit or progress, by the Queen, three years after her reign began, over with. He folds his hands in his lap and waits for the servants to take away the plates from dinner. The Queen has already roamed the perimeter of Hedingham Keep. She would be back soon, no doubt.

Three knocks sound at the great door, but whoever knocked gives up quickly. Perhaps she hurt her hand, says John. He looks at his wife. A servant pulls open