The Queen's Sorrow Read online

  How dare there be any threat to our happiness.

  The two of them, together, were invincible. Even by Francisco’s eleventh day, parenting had taken on a life of its own and was the only life there was.

  That evening, Rafael skipped supper, retreated early to bed, in daylight. He woke later, in darkness, because someone was coming into his room. His heart flew at his ribs and he inched back the bed-hanging. There was a blaze of linen in the blackness of the gaping doorway.

  ‘Shhh,’ it said. Cecily. Her shape, long and lean. And the grace with which it was turning to close the door: definitely Cecily. His heart was beating so hard that she must have been able to hear it.

  She said, ‘It’s –’

  – all right: she hadn’t been detected.

  She’d come no further, though; she’d stopped by the door, her back to it. ‘You hit Antonio,’ she said. No reproach detectable, but his heart swallowed itself because he wasn’t a man to hit anyone and he wished she knew it. ‘Usually I don’t,’ he whispered back, his English failing him. He could have sworn he heard her smile: a change to the silence, although soundless itself; a lessening of its hold.

  ‘Perhaps usually you should,’ she said.

  His turn to smile, if only he’d dared move a muscle. ‘How did you know? Did he tell you?’ That, he’d find hard to believe.

  ‘His fat lip,’ she said. ‘I guessed.’

  She came towards him – he didn’t dare even breathe – and drew back the bed-hanging as far as it would go, then perched on his bed: the very end of it, the very edge. All he could see of her was the grainy illumination that was her nightgown. He kept himself still, didn’t want to startle her, although there was nothing in her manner to suggest she’d be easily scared.

  ‘Rafael?’

  He waited. She was about to tell him something, he felt, that he should know even though he might not want to know it. He had a sense he should protect himself, but didn’t know how.

  ‘That man – at night? He’s my husband.’

  Husband? You’re a widow, he wanted to protest. She’d certainly seemed like one.

  But she’d never said so and he despised himself for having been stupid. Because what, really, did he know of her? Nothing. It whipped his breath away, that he’d been so stupid.

  Yet still it beat inside him like a pulse: There is no husband. Because what kind of a husband would she visit in the absolute dead of night? ‘Husband’ was definitely what she’d said, not ‘lover’. Was this a trick? Some kind of English joke? But he knew it wasn’t, from how she was sitting there, composed and grave, trusting utterly to him to believe her, and despite her seriousness she wore it lightly, he felt, this fact of her husband. She was accustomed to it. My husband. It hadn’t sounded odd to her when she’d said it.

  He tried, ‘I thought –’

  ‘I know what you thought.’ Because you wanted to. Because I let you.

  Complicity: it settled over them with equal weight. But Rafael understood nothing. And he didn’t know where to start. ‘Why – at night?’ An explanation might just explain him away, this husband.

  ‘He’s a priest,’ she said.

  Priest? For a breath he forgot that England had ever allowed priests to marry, so what she said was ridiculous – priests weren’t husbands, husbands weren’t priests – but then he remembered that they had been. Some priests had married. So, Cecily had been married to a priest. Priest’s wife: she’d had a life of which Rafael had known nothing. She’d told him nothing and let him believe a lie. And he’d been stupid enough to believe it. Stupid Spaniard: that was what he was. Stupid, stupid Spaniard.

  ‘I – see him, Rafael,’ she said, ‘I mean, I just – meet up with him.’ She spoke emphatically: this, too, was something she felt he should know, and he understood her to mean that she didn’t sleep with him. The intimacy of the confession impressed itself upon him – she hadn’t had to tell him, had she. ‘I go to see him, sometimes.’ And as if to justify herself – although of course he hadn’t asked it of her – she added, ‘He’s Nicholas’s father.’ She said, ‘We talk. There’s a lot to talk about.’ Of that, though, she sounded weary, even unconvinced.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he heard himself whisper; and he was, very much so. He understood it, that weariness, that lack of faith. Separation, he understood. Distrust and hopelessness and disillusionment: those, he understood.

  He made himself ask it: ‘But he’s your husband.’ Not phrased as a question – nothing so intrusive – but that was what it was. He had to know. He had to get it straight.

  ‘He chose the Church,’ was how she answered. ‘He says he’s chosen us both: us – his family – and the Church. But there was no such choice, Rafael. It was us or the Church: that was the choice he was given. And he’s still in the Church.’ A pause. ‘For him to stay in the Church, he had to abandon us, publicly. And publicly, he did’ – Rafael winced – ‘but privately, he didn’t. That’s his view on it. His setting aside of us was a sham: that’s what he says. He’d already asked us to follow him to London and live near him. Which I’ve done,’ but she emphasised, ‘for Nicholas, and Nicholas alone.’

  ‘But your husband still thinks of you as married,’ Rafael probed.

  She considered before answering: ‘He says he’s biding his time. We did that once before, Rafael. Six years, because he was sure it’d come: a time when priests were allowed to marry. Only a matter of time, he said. And he was right, that time. It did come. And now he believes it’ll come again, soon, very soon.’

  She could only be referring to the imminent death of the queen, heirless, and the succession of her Protestant sister.

  ‘What do you think?’ he barely dared to ask. He didn’t mean the queen, and she’d know it. He was asking her if she’d be there for her husband if and when the day came when priests could once more be married.

  Again, she took her time. ‘He chose the Church over us.’ Not quite an answer, but also very much one. She added, ‘I do think he had to,’ and Rafael heard that she understood it; however she felt about it, she also kind of understood that he’d done what he had to do. Then, ‘But I’d like Nicholas to have a family to grow up in.’

  ‘Do you still love him?’ Rafael was surprised to hear himself ask, but pleased with himself that he’d dared. It was what mattered, here.

  ‘I don’t know.’ And it was no mere dismissal: she really did seem to mean that she didn’t know. And that she wished she did know. And that, too, he understood.

  ‘I did,’ she mused, and he heard the wonder in it. ‘Oh God, I did, Rafael,’ hoarse with disbelief, not at the fact of her past love but its intensity, and Rafael’s heart laid itself low.

  ‘He’s still Nicholas’s father. They can make him my ex-husband, make me his ex-wife, they can say we were never properly married, but they can’t ever say that Nicholas isn’t our son.’

  Rafael’s heart folded in on itself. ‘Does Nicholas see him?’

  ‘Yes, sometimes. Whenever it can be done. That’s the idea. It’s why I see him,’ she said: ‘to make plans, keep it going.’ She sighed. ‘He hasn’t been able to turn his back on his little boy – he’ll never be able to do that, I know. Nor, though, has he been able to turn his back on the Church: the faith, the fight’ – she shrugged – ‘the people of England. He won’t give in to what’s wrong, and I can understand that, of course I can, and it’s all very admirable, but how do I explain it to a distraught four-year-old? He misses his dad,’ she said.

  ‘Yes,’ said Rafael.

  ‘He really, really misses him, Rafael. He hates this, and I can’t explain it to him.’

  ‘No,’ of course not. It made no sense to an adult, let alone to a four-year-old.

  ‘“Daddy’s a couple of streets away but he’s not supposed to see you. No one can ever see him with you. He has to pretend he never sees you. We have to pretend he never sees us.”’ She sighed, a harsh, jagged sigh. ‘I did try to make a game of it, for a while, but it j
ust didn’t work.’

  I’ll hurt the ones you love.

  Rafael said, ‘Can’t you pretend Nicholas is his nephew, or something?’

  ‘Too risky. They know he did have a wife and son.’

  ‘Do they know you’re in London?’

  ‘I’m not in London.’ And there was a wry smile in the words. She explained: ‘I’m not here under my own name.’

  That was almost as big a shock as the rest of it. You’re not Cecily?

  Who, then?

  ‘No one here knows,’ she warned him. ‘No one, Rafael. I’m a widow, to them.’ She added, ‘It was the first thing she did, you know.’

  He didn’t follow.

  ‘The first act she repealed: the one that allowed priests to marry.’

  She: the queen.

  The queen, who’d stood beside him spouting about families and marital love. These ‘heretics’ of hers were people, just people. If she could hear what he was hearing, she’d see what she was really doing. Perhaps she did have a point – Rafael had no idea, he was no theologian – in deciding that priests shouldn’t have been allowed to marry. Perhaps they should be forbidden from doing so in the future. But those who already had – well, it was done, wasn’t it? There were children. It was madness to pretend it hadn’t happened and that the ties weren’t there.

  Cecily shivered.

  ‘You’re cold.’ Rafael had drawn back the bedclothes before he’d realised he’d done it; and there she was, getting in beside him. The scent of her was instantly recognisable although he didn’t think he’d ever noticed it before. Here it was, like a secret code or signal, a word in his ear. The fragrance itself was like that of the apples that’d overwintered on the rack near the kitchen. He was glad of the darkness, of the privacy it gave them. He understood her getting into bed for what it was – tentative and partial. This was no capitulation nor seduction. He was under no illusions, and he was on guard against them. This was the taking up of an unspoken offer of warmth and comfort, of intimacy but not of a sexual kind. That was all it was. And as such, there was nothing wrong in it: it seemed right, to him, to offer refuge to someone he loved.

  She said, ‘I don’t want to talk any more about it. Not now. I’m so tired, Rafael.’

  ‘Sleep,’ he said.

  They lay side by side, careful to avoid contact. To be in bed with her was more than he could ever have hoped for, more than he had ever dreamed possible: this, alone, was a privilege. Of course he’d have loved to be closer, but above all he wanted her to stay and he’d not do anything to jeopardise that. Any contact was accidental. In time, though, under cover of sleepiness, he did move a little closer and so did she, and then there they were: she turned from him, and he against her back, an arm draped over her. He was determined to honour her reticence.

  He was aroused. No point in trying to hide it. He could either spend this time agonising over it, or accept it and try to ignore it, trusting that she’d understand he was ignoring it and would perhaps appreciate that. And he hoped she understood his arousal for what it was: a physical reaction, beyond his control.

  He couldn’t do more than doze, for fear of what – in this state – he might do. Anyway, sleep would’ve been impossible – a turning away, a turning inward when he was wide open to her presence, the shapes of her bones, the rhythm of her breathing, the abundance of her hair. Perhaps also he was awake because he was at the ready for any lead from her, even though he remained vigilant against any expectations. Duly, some time later she turned over towards him, and he sensed intent. There followed a pause, and there was a questioning in it. He shifted purposelessly – just to let her know that he, too, was awake and responsive. He couldn’t tell who made the first move but they kissed. Just the once: slow, measured, mindful. And light, too – a mere press of lips to lips, that was all. But there it was: a kiss. After all this time. A belated, mute declaration. Done. No going back. In recognition of that, and perhaps to make clear to each other that it was no mistake, no slip-up, they did it again: just the once, just the same, just a simple kiss; no more, no less. And then there really was no going back. So they did it again, but this time differently, very slightly exploratory, a stroke of lips over and around lips. Her breath was hot in his mouth – he was surprised by the heat of it – and flavoured with English cooking: salty and musty. His arousal was painful now – he felt helpless, and resentful that he had to risk offending her.

  A peep of her tongue and then a slide of it against his own, and then they kissed and kissed as if kissing were everything and they could make a night of it. They were pressed closer together for all this kissing: one of his thighs between hers, one of hers between his. He was all too aware of her breasts and a womanly tang billowing up from inside her nightgown. He didn’t dare move his hands, but eventually she moved hers, stroking down casually over one of his buttocks and letting her hand rest there, and then he was nothing but the skin under that hand, as if she were conjuring him. He had to make himself go on kissing because he’d stopped, his attention stuck under that hand of hers. He renewed his efforts at just-kissing.

  But then she sat up. So, she was leaving, and of course she was. Of course. But no: she drew her nightgown up over her head. His eyes had adjusted and he could see something of her – shapes, shadows – and what he saw now were her nipples, big and dark, fruit-like, quite unexpected for a woman so pale. He followed her, shed his own nightgown – could hardly not, now – and was glad to be free of it. Her petal-soft skin was made to be touched and it took his hand around and around, over and over it. Down the length of her back, over the swell of her bottom, back up to the silkiness of a breast. With a fingertip she traced his nose, cheekbones, brows and lips – then re-traced them with the lightest of kisses, somehow all the more intimate for that. In turn, he took his lips along her hairline, her jawline, and into the tiny chamber of her ear. He moved them back and forth over her eyebrows, savouring their roughness. And her hair, the smell of it, and its freedom; he wanted it hot on his face, he wanted to drown in it.

  ‘Cecily?’ it sounded odd in the darkness; so close up, anything would have sounded odd.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘You know I love you?’ This was no declaration; he did mean exactly what he said: Did she know? He had to have her know; he couldn’t have her think of this as being down to mere frustration, to having been too long away from home.

  Her reply was a half-laugh, which failed to reassure him.

  He pressed: ‘Do you?’ He didn’t want to scare her off, but he had to have her know.

  ‘Yes, I know,’ and she sounded amused even as she was sad. He heard the sadness and of course he understood. It didn’t do, to love someone who was married to someone else and was soon to be more than a thousand miles away.

  They were stuck together; there was an unseemly sound as they moved to re-settle themselves, which brought to her lips – on his – a smile, which teased one from his. He was on top of her, now, and he dipped to kiss her neck and down it, along to a shoulder. Raised on one elbow, he drew back to look at her breasts, laid his lips on and around one nipple and then the other.

  She struggled a little to free an arm, a hand; she shifted their weight and reached down, took hold of him. And so she was moving them on; Rafael couldn’t quite believe it. He felt light-headed, felt a release of tension that he could only have dreamt of at the same time as its predictable, almost unbearable intensification. Beneath him, her hips shuffled; she was positioning him. He intended to check – You’re sure? – but his English wasn’t there and instead he simply asked, ‘Yes?’

  ‘Oh yes,’ she replied, humourfully.

  In response – in recognition and thanks – he kissed her. But he was thinking: What about the risk of pregnancy? Wasn’t she worried? She didn’t seem to be.

  She was closed against him.

  If he just stayed there, she’d let him in; he’d melt into her. ‘Don’t worry,’ he whispered, ‘I won’t hurt you.’ He’d said it
in his own language, but he sensed she’d understood and there was the slightest give. With her guidance, he began to find his way inside her; her hand still there as if to keep him hard, as if there were any danger of him not being so. And then he was inside her and they were both moving. It was like waking, for him: he wasn’t quite there yet. Even though the sensation was exquisite, it remained slightly over there – he felt he was chasing it, not quite able to catch it, hold it. But then he did wake to it and was utterly in the moment: there was nothing else.

  He took one of her hands, pressed it back and open beneath his, his fingers between hers. I could die now, this would be enough; I ask no more than this.

  She said something – but more to herself than to him – and he didn’t catch it. Even if he had, he wouldn’t have understood. Or perhaps he would have, in a way. At that, he smiled mid-kiss and in response so did she, and somehow that was funny – two joined smiles – so his smile got bigger and then so did hers, which was funnier still. She wouldn’t understand him, either: he could say whatever he wanted to say and she’d make of it what she would but wouldn’t be far wrong. He longed to be deeper, higher, more fully inside her. More precisely – bizarrely, that was the word that came to him. It was impossible, though: there was no room to move; they were jammed up against each other. She was insistent, pushing for more, pushing against him, and her breathing was changing. He had to have her kissing him when she came, when he came. Don’t turn away, don’t breathe, don’t come up for air; be joined to me.

  Afterwards, they lay there, still joined, for a time; time, now, to relish it, to dissolve into the sensation of skin on skin. He told himself he should be ready for her regrets and recriminations, that he should ready himself for them, although he had no idea how.

  I should never have done that, Rafael. We should never have done that.

  The misgivings were there for him, too, hovering, and later he’d square up to them, he’d come to some understanding with them, but not now, not just now. For now, they had to leave him alone.