Innocent Traitor Read Online Free

last rites, she seemed better. She even sat up in bed and conversed with His Majesty, who was greatly relieved. And he was able to gladden her heart with the news that, while she was ill, he had named her brother, Sir Edward Seymour, Earl of Hertford. That evening, however, she suffered a relapse and lay delirious on her bed. The King was distraught and ordered the bishops to lead the clergy in a solemn procession through London to St. Paul’s Cathedral, where they offered prayers of supplication, beseeching Our Lord to spare the Queen’s life. But there was no improvement.”
    The man paused. My lord and lady waited, impassive, for him to go on, but some of his listeners were plainly fighting back tears. The Queen had enjoyed great popularity with the commons of England, who had hated Nan Bullen, that ill-starred witch who had magicked the King into loving her. And the thought of that poor motherless little Prince was enough to tug the strings of any heart….
    “The King,” the messenger continued, “canceled his plans to go hunting and remained at Hampton Court, since he could not bear to leave his wife in such a piteous condition. Then there was a slight improvement, and it was all round the court that the doctors had said to His Majesty that, if the Queen could last the night, they were in good hope that she might live. But that evening, the King was urgently summoned to her bedside, where he remained until the end, weeping and willing her not to die. We were all truly amazed that he, who is famous for his horror of illness and death, did not stir from his place. And truly, he has taken her passing in a most Christian manner and is minded to be both father and mother to the little Prince.”
    The tears were streaming down my cheeks by then. I have never had children of my own and carry the title Mrs. only as a courtesy of my status as nurse, but I have ever had a soft spot for the little ones, and I could not bear to think of that poor little boy, wrapped in cloth of gold and lying in his vast, decorated cradle, surrounded by pomp and luxury, yet deprived of the one thing that is vital to any child, a mother’s love. Even a prince may be pitied.
    By contrast, my lady has taken the tragic news impassively. I watched her as she stood there listening to the messenger, straight-backed and dignified in her crimson velvet. To look at her, you’d never think she herself was not long out of her childbed, for she’s as slender as before, and as energetic. Back in the saddle within a fortnight, she was. Of course, she’s said all the right things about the poor Queen, but it only goes skin-deep. She never had much time or sympathy for her. Still, what can you expect from a woman who’s handed her own infant to the wet nurse and barely taken a peek at her since? Oh, I know that the aristocracy are different, and that they consider it unnatural for a mother to rear her own child—I remember all the fuss when Nan Bullen wanted to breast-feed the Lady Elizabeth—but I’ve been employed as head nurse in three noble households now, and I’ve seen enough to know that most mothers love their babies and want to spend time with them. It’s the men who have imposed these harsh rules, insisting on wet nurses and rockers and the like, and I know why. It’s so that the milk dries up, and then they can breed more sons on their wives. And of course it would never do to have a mother get too attached to a child who is going to be sent away to be educated or be married off at an early age. It’s a terrible world we live in, to be sure. But I doubt Lady Dorset would share that view.
     
    Later, I happened to be in the kitchen. It’s my duty, as nurse to the Lady Jane, to oversee the preparation of food for the nursery and to ensure that the proper standard of hygiene is maintained. They are hot, noisy places, these great kitchens at Bradgate, but, coming from yeoman stock—my father sold his small farm and set up a successful