sarah eve kelly

Things go from bad to worse for our Elizabeth this week. Having fought with her best friend only to find she’s disappeared, Elizabeth now sees a new side of the Queen of England. Comments and lambasts urged as always.

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After chapel the next morning, I follow the Queen with her other women to her watching chamber, to report for duty. Lettice is not there. The Queen dismisses everyone except me, and her secretary hands me a stack of reports, bowing out.

The Queen sits, filling the room.

I am waiting for her to speak. This is one of the rules - Lettice told me, on the day we met - that I do not forget: I mustn’t speak first.

‘Well?’ the Queen says, gesturing to the papers in my arms. ‘I am all agog to hear. They want the Scots Queen dead - still - they want me to entertain the notion of a French marriage. They want me to build more ships, always more ships. I ask you, Lady Carey, what has gone so amiss in my stewardship of this kingdom that we are every moment in danger of invasion?’ She sighs, and scratches beneath her wig. ‘Well?’ she shouts.

‘Madam,’ I say, and it is not in my reading voice. It is a small, almost inaudible voice, a voice that might be calculated to make her foul mood fouler, but I find I cannot speak any louder. ‘I wonder - I wonder why the Countess of Essex was not with us in chapel today? Is she unwell?’

It is extraordinary: as I watch, the Queen’s eyes shrink from the size of almonds to infinitesimal black pinpricks, darts to pierce my skin. ‘Let us review, shall we?’ she asks, prettily. ‘Today, I have told you of the menace of all Catholic Europe, its centre in my own kingdom. I have told you of the impending loss of my virginity, without which I am nothing, without which I am an ordinary foolish woman like you. And what you heard was an invitation to ask after the health of my cousin Lettice.’ She stops here. And then: ‘I have greater concerns than the wanderings of my women!’ she shrieks, and now my hands are shaking to make me drop the stack of papers, and that does it. She closes her eyes, but opens them again, whippet-quick, and looks around her for the briefest of moments before yanking up the hem of her gown and pulling off a jeweled slipper.

I brace myself, but not nearly quick enough, and the shoe, heavy with stones, finds its mark on my right shoulder. It hurts more than I could have imagined, and in spite of myself I look up at her - the worst thing to do, under the circumstances - as I clutch my new wound. I remember again the day I met her, when she pulled me up from my cushion with such ease: this, it seems, is how she keeps her slim arm in condition.

I stoop to gather the papers to me, and already it smarts too much to hold them up; I shift them from my right arm to my left. I also pick up the slipper, but am less sure of what to do with that. After a moment I approach her, my eyes on the floor, and hand it back to her. I wait. Should I have re-armed her - or indeed have reminded her of what she’s just done? She takes the shoe from me, and with grand, almost comic serenity, returns it to her foot. I step back.

‘Well, then,’ she says after a long pause. ‘That’s that out of the way.’ She smiles at me and claps her hands onto her knees. ‘I feel quite ready to hear my Council’s bleatings now.’

I am hobbled with pain. I wonder if she will invite me to sit.

‘The Countess left for her own estates this morning,’ she says. ‘I’m surprised you didn’t know. She asked my permission weeks ago. Now read. And I want those reports to sound quite dulcet - otherwise, why would I keep you?’

My first teaser in ages, and given I have only a moment it’s slightly longer than I would have wanted. This is from the work in progress, and here we find Elizabeth, our heroine, sent home to her parents to recover from illness. Comments and lambasts welcome as always.

I am in London today so I won’t be able to get to others’ teasers, but I’ll do it as soon as I can. Happy Tuesday!

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After a week a letter arrives from Lettice. Her script alone speaks volumes, while the uninspired words say little enough. It is obvious to me that she has had a good education, everything done properly. Her italic is very similar to the Queen’s, though not nearly so expert, but she cannot write in a straight line, and the spaces between the words tell me that she was distracted from writing more than once.

Althorp
Northamptonshire

Elizabeth,

The court is very boring without you. You got ill just in time to avoid meeting W, that’s how clever you are. Robert and Penelope are terrible scamps and I could fetch a great price for them at market. The Queen is very well and asks after you, as if I know. It is tiresome, but she is the Queen. He - you know who I mean - is always with her, but I catch him watching me more often now. I have to be careful because W is here now too. I hope not for long. We are moving to Hampton later in the spring and I will send the children back where they belong, with their blasted governess. W will be gone, and the children, and it will be just me again. You will like Hampton. It is very new and not falling to pieces like Greenwich. Why we stay here when there are new palaces like Hampton I will never know. Sleep up and come back.

Yours &c.

L. Essex

It might be a child’s letter for all of its fitful stops and starts. It is just enough of a cipher to be confusing to me, but not - I imagine - nearly enough of one to stop her getting into trouble should anyone except me happen to read it.

I cannot help noticing that she does not ask how I am, if I am well again. I cannot help hurting from it.

She is terribly cavalier about the Queen, Lettice is. I put the letter on the fire before Isabel can ask what it is. ‘W’, I suppose, is Walter, her husband. And ‘he’ can be no one but the Earl of Leicester. It never occurred to me, talking to Lettice at court, that she might have plans, real plans, to seduce Leicester, who is, in every practical sense, the Queen’s property. I tell Isabel that I miss the court, but in truth I want to return to stop Lettice in these plans. I was only at Greenwich three months and I understood that Leicester is not to be touched by any woman - by any man, by any spear or crossbow or real responsibility. The Queen is terrified for his safety and will not even allow him north to negotiate the fate of the Scots Queen.

For that she sends more hardy, more expendable fellows like my husband and her cousin Hunsdon.

All the same seeing the writing, hearing her voice behind it, makes my heart lurch for Lettice, and makes some small part of me hate Leicester for being the subject of her scheming. Is she truly in love with him? Or does she hate the Queen and want to take something from her? It must have been difficult for a beautiful young girl to grow up in the shadow of such a formidable woman, the savior of English Protestants, who gets the attention of every eligible man in Europe when Lettice was married too young, far too young, to a man she despises.

For she does seem to despise him. She has never told me why, but then I have never spoken to her of George, not really. And if I did, what would I say? There is nothing truly objectionable about George. He treats me kindly, if indifferently, when I’m not shouting at him. That, I think, is what is infuriating about him: that if asked why I do not like him, I could not answer. Not without sounding an ungrateful shrew. It makes me dislike him more. It makes me hope that he does not check on me, does not write or call in while I am ill after having lost his child. That, at least, would be something I could point to.

And so I rumble through Althorp, no secret letters to send, no scheming, no escaping to the meadow. If it weren’t for Isabel’s stories about King Henry’s court - and they are few, for she seems uncomfortable and sad when I ask her - I would go mad. The sun comes stronger and I help my father in the garden, cutting away the dead leaves in the topiary. He seems happy to have me at home, for all that he wanted a titled daughter, a daughter at court. He chatters to me of this and that. I am careful not to bring up the subject of Edmund to him, but when his name slips out Father is less angry than I thought. In this short time, he seems to have softened. Perhaps I was the last thing standing between him and running a great empty house, with only my mother for company. He is kinder now.

Perhaps, too, my condition has made him kinder. I cannot be sure of that. I am a young woman who could not carry a child. ‘You were new to the court,’ Isabel says, ‘and new to your marriage. You did not know to take care of yourself,’ she says. ‘There will be other children.’

Other children. Again I think of Lettice. Terrible scamps and I could fetch a great price for them at market. But Lettice is teaching me, in so many ways, that I have a bigger heart than I had once imagined. Here at Althorp I see my anxious mother, my gruff father, both big-hearted and loving in their ways. I see Charlie and his mother, devoted to one another. All of them devoted to me, and I wanted none of it. Edmund wanted to marry me, and I wanted none of it. I was shipped to George for marriage, and I could not love him either, and so I supposed myself cold-hearted, small-hearted. But Lettice is so much more open and plain about it; she cares nothing that I know her contempt for her husband, her exasperation with her children. Her indifference to the Queen.

And what I feel for Lettice, too: the drop in my belly when she enters a room, when she writes me a mediocre letter. My fear that she will find herself in trouble. These multitudes who have been so kind to me could not tease this concern from me. They - my parents, and Charlie, and Edmund, and George - made me think only of myself. But Lettice, flawed, selfish - she has made me care for something outside of myself. It is an unfriendly feeling, and an unwelcome one.

This teaser comes from my completed novel, The Fidelity Trial. Here we find Anne Boleyn on the fourth day of her imprisonment in the Tower of London, trying to make some pleasant conversation with her captors and figure a few things out. Comments and lambasts &c. Enjoy!

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5^th May 1536. Lieutenant’s Lodgings, The Tower.

‘They have all confessed, you know,’ Lady Shelton said.

Anne looked up from her writing desk. ‘This paper is very difficult to write on,’ she replied. ‘Surely there is no harm in sending me my own paper. Please ask Cromwell if he would be so kind.’ Here she paused. ‘Confessed - to what?’

She still had not been told the charges. ‘The musician Smeaton, Henry Norris, Francis Weston -’

‘Weston!’ Anne cried. ‘Is he here now as well?’

‘All the guilty parties are being gathered,’ Shelton said.

‘Being gathered,’ Anne muttered. ‘So what? They are guilty of what?’

‘Adultery with you, madam.’

‘A - ‘ Anne could not complete the word as laughter burst out of her. She leaned back in her chair and howled with it, losing her breath and gasping it in again, great bursts that began low and teetered higher and higher until she was almost frightened by the sound of it - two women now, she knew not which, were at either side of her, holding her, shouting at her to be calm, and she was reminded of her miscarriage, when her legs were held open so her child could be taken from her.

When the laughter subsided she shrugged both shoulders violently to get the women away from her, and pressed her forehead into her slim hands. ‘He’s gone mad,’ she said at length.

‘Who, madam?’ Shelton asked.

‘Who?’ Anne repeated, and felt a bubble of mirth rise in her again. ‘Who knows? Cromwell! The King! They’ve all gone mad.’ She spied Lady Kingston, scribbling in a corner. ‘What are you writing, Lady Kingston?’ she called. ‘Tell them I don’t think my loving husband is truly mad. Whoever will get that letter.’ She rattled into silence. ‘He’s doing this to test me,’ she said after a moment. ‘Henry’s doing this to test me. He isn’t mad at all.’

Lady Kingston kept writing.

Anne looked up at Shelton, whose face was blank and white. ‘What of your nephew, aunt?’

‘Madam?’

‘To what has your nephew George Viscount Rochford - to what has he confessed?’

‘Why, madam -’

‘The others. Cromwell says it was adultery, does he? Well, what of my brother? He can’t possibly - ‘ she paused. Shelton moved into the next room. ‘He cannot - it can’t be true.’ Anne’s eyes trailed Shelton through the door into the bedchamber. ‘Aunt!’ she called. ‘Do they mean to make the world believe that I have fornicated with my brother?’ She heard the rasp of Lady Kingston’s quill. ‘Oh, leave off, won’t you,’ she hissed.

‘They say that Mark Smeaton is being kept in irons,’ Lady Kingston said by way of reply.

‘Of course he is,’ Anne said, distracted. ‘He isn’t a gentleman, he’s not entitled - oh, my God, George!’

Shelton did not return.

‘George,’ Anne murmured again, and then stood and strode over to Lady Kingston, who scrambled to get her papers out of Anne’s reach. ‘Write whatever you like,’ Anne said with a brittle smile, standing over her. ‘I’ve no interest in it. Write whatever you like, whatever you like. I want only some proper paper.’ And she snatched it out of Lady Kingston’s lap. ‘Those poor men,’ she said, resuming her seat at the writing-desk. ‘Those poor men, they haven’t my mettle, you see, and they’re being kept here because of me, and George… I will make this right.’

Smoothing Lady Kingston’s much finer paper with her forearms, Anne picked up the quill on the desk. It was not hers, but it would do. ‘I suppose you’ve got better ink than me, too,’ she said to Lady Kingston, and began to write.

I’m a member of a writing group. There are no hacks in this group, no one who doesn’t have a chance, and we’re all somewhere in this blasted writing-to-publication process, either debuting or waiting on editor feedback or querying literary agents. No one in this group complains about the process, or ignores its guidelines, or misbehaves. I cannot describe how alone I would have felt in this universe over the past year without them. And from them I learn: there are bad days, very bad days. Sometimes this is prompted by circumstance, sometimes by a crisis of confidence, sometimes both.

Yesterday I had a bad day, a very bad day. I was angry at my novel and angry about the economy and generally feeling petulant and petty and all the other bratty p-words. It was rough going. But this morning I woke up, feeling like shit, and had a small epiphany while brushing my teeth: the sinkhole economy is, in a way, a gift. Why? Because we - writers, trying to break in - have to be really, really good. If you can sell a novel in this economy, if you can convince strangers to spend money taking a chance on you, you’re gold.

So there it is: we have to be really, really good. It means taking what you thought was good enough and bashing at it until it’s better, better, the best you can make it, and then going back and making it better still. This economy is making sharp artists of us, because no one’s going to pay attention unless you’re better, better, better than everyone else.

There really is no use whining about it; that’s not going to get you on shelves. Yesterday I whined about it; today I determined to do something about it. Hence this teaser. I wasn’t going to post one today, because it seemed too difficult a thing to do, putting myself out there again. But screw it: that’s what we have to do, and keep doing.

One more thing: in this climate of having to be better than everyone else, of constantly honing and improving and pushing your art to the top of the pile, it is a bloody miracle that my writing group - this group of extraordinary, patient, supportive, gifted people - can even exist. So thank you, Purgatory: I dedicate this gloomy and non-uplifting teaser to you.

Now, back to our Elizabethan adventure. Here we find our heroine, Elizabeth, testing the boundaries of her marriage. Enjoy. Comments and lambasts are &c &c.

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Silence for a moment. His cheeks are pink now; there is some satisfaction in that. ‘Stop it,’ he says. ‘I am tired. You are my wife. You will behave. I needn’t defend soldiering to you.’

I have behaved! How I have behaved! ‘Sufficeth this to prove my theme withal!‘ I shout. There are poems about war: writing and soldiering, joined in two lines from Gascoigne’s Posies, a new discovery. ‘That every bullet hath a lighting place!‘

He crosses the room to me in two strides. The back of my head is in one hand, my shoulder in the other, his grip strong enough to leave a mark. ‘You do not shout at me,’ he says in that same low voice. ‘You do not raise your voice to me, or to anyone. Do you understand? I will not have you raise your voice. I do not do it; you will not do it. There will be no more,’ he says, steadily, ‘no more shouting.’

I stare up at him. I have made a game of this argument. I have treated him as I might have treated Edmund, years ago. I wanted this, I think. I asked for this.

He seems calm, yet his eyes are larger now, unblinking, looking down at me. He jerks my head. ‘Do you understand?’ he asks.

‘Yes,’ I reply, in a voice as low as his - in my reading voice. ‘I understand. I am not a child.’

He lets go of me by pushing my head and shoulder from him. My hood falls from my hair, drops to the floor; in backing away from him, I step on it. It is ruined, I see when I pick it up. George is still standing close, too close; he sees the hood and takes it from me. ‘See what you’ve done,’ he says, holding it up, and I am surprised to see that he is close to tears. ‘No shouting. No violence. See what you have destroyed.’ Again he looks at the hood, a plain thing, a few shillings. ‘Act like an animal again and I shall cage you.’

Did I know that my arguments would bring about such a reaction? I think I did. But the hood surprises me: a thing of no great value, easily replaced, and he holds as if it is a dead child, his eyes red-rimmed. Not once has he raised his voice.

‘I am not an unkind man,’ he says. ‘I am not an unfair man.’ Still he holds the hood. ‘I would be a good husband to you, Elizabeth.’ How long has it been since someone said my name? ‘I would be a good husband, but you mustn’t raise your voice. Not ever.’

‘I am sorry,’ I tell him, and mean it. ‘It will not happen again.’

‘Then I am pleased,’ he says, and that crooked smile - the one he wore when we first met - finds its way to his mouth. ‘I am pleased. Do something with this.’ He hands me the hood. ‘I don’t want to see it again.’ He touches my shoulder gently - my sore shoulder - and kisses my temple. ‘I will sleep before supper, I think,’ he says. ‘It’s been a long journey.’ He kisses me once more and leaves the room.

This is what we do, when we marry: we look for sores to pick at. We find ways to hurt each other, because it is of great value to do so. I stare after my husband. He has shown his hand to me; I learn and remember: I cannot shout; I cannot destroy objects, however small their worth. I know how to cause pain.

You mustn’t think that I enjoy such a thing, that I seek to inflict pain. I don’t. I am kind, if heartless - I cannot love this man, any more or less than I could love Edmund. I have no desire to hurt him. But it is good to know how, just in case.

This is a relic from the novel I had to abandon in favour of the current work-in-progress. I hope to return to it one day if I have a publisher who can indulge me (or if I don’t); for the moment, it’s relegated to my free time. I’ll return to my Elizabethan adventure next week.

The novel is called A Castle in Putney, set in the present day, and follows the adventures of Clara Stafford and her unlikely family in and around her eponymous home. In this scene, her brother and sister - four and eight - have just come in from an afternoon playing in the mud, and Clara is reluctantly conscripted into giving them a bath.

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1996

“Should I put them in the washer?” the now-nude Henry asks, holding up his clothes.

“Yes, into the washer,” Suzanne says, “and into the bath with you.” She goes into the kitchen and calls for Clara.

But Clara has gone into her bedroom and closed the door: she is fifteen and wants to be alone. She’s done her bit, played with the children. Now she pulls out The Liar and immerses herself in the life of public schoolboys.

Eleanor and Henry were born after Suzanne finished her doctoral dissertation, which is why they are called Eleanor and Henry, after the twelfth-century king and queen of infamous memory. Clara is just Clara, and she feels cheated. She’s never asked after the origins of her own name, but she knows enough about her parents to know that she couldn’t have been named after Clara in The Nutcracker. Like wine, opera, and cooking, Clara’s parents tried ballet and found that they couldn’t appreciate it enough. Books, newspapers, Suzanne’s covert cigarettes, and the mounds: that is where all the clues are.

Clara was born before the dissertation had even begun.

She can hear Henry fiddling with the faucets in the bathroom down the hall and knows that disaster will strike soon. She listens for sound on the stairs, footfalls in the vast corridor, but hears nothing. No, not nothing: Henry has got the water started, and Clara hears a visceral blast that ricochets off the sides of the tub; she hears Henry’s scream of pleasure. Hissing a sigh through her teeth, she throws down her book and crashes out of her bedroom.

“Henry!” she shouts over the din of the water as she walks down the corridor. “Henry!” The corridor is a long one, and the water that courses through the Byzantine pipes when a toilet is flushed or a tap is turned on can be heard everywhere. It’s a castle, after all. A real castle, with turrets and all. Clara wanted a turret for her own, but her parents were worried. When you’re older, they kept saying, until Clara gave up. “You idiot,” she mutters, about Henry, as she opens the bathroom door.

“I did it I did it!” Henry crows over the water.

“You sure did,” Clara says, leaning over him to turn the water off. “Feel clean yet?” she asks.

“I don’t know,” says Henry, earnestly, looking down at himself.

Clara inspects him. He is, really, only dirty where his clothes didn’t cover him sufficiently: around his ankles; his hands (and, by extension, the taps, Clara observes); his face; his forearms. Clara swishes her hand around in the water, which hasn’t had the chance to heat up. “Are you cold, Henry?”

“No,” says Henry.

She turns the hot tap on anyway. “Shall we clean you off with the poof?” By poof Clara means her bath lily, which she uses for Henry’s baths because she likes him, and because she’s long forgotten how to use ordinary washcloths. He screams with glee, and she takes it down, using (again) her own body wash, which smells of nutmeg, to get the mud off her small brother. She will scrub his back and his arms and his feet and his armpits, but she hands the poof to him for his chest and his private parts. “Do your bits,” she says, and he does.

Eleanor bangs the door open. Clara sees that she, too, has no clothes on. “I have to pee,” she says, and makes for the toilet.

“We have a lot of bathrooms,” Clara mutters, watching Henry again.

“I should have a bath too,” Eleanor announces from the toilet, her legs swishing back and forth.

“You’re not dirty, Eleanor,” Clara says.

Eleanor hops off the toilet, flushes it, and makes her way to the enormous free-standing tub. Watching Clara narrowly, she climbs in.

“Mom!” Clara hollers. Henry has no problem with the intrusion of his sister into his ablutions: he scoots forward and Eleanor sits behind him. A great splash hits Clara in the face. “Mom!” she bellows again.

“I need to wash,” Eleanor says, and Henry, obligingly, hands her the bath lily.

“No!” Clara says, before she can stop herself, but Eleanor has already found the body wash. She dollops some generously onto the poof and begins primly rubbing herself. Henry, finished, has begun splashing, for something to do. Clara looks mournfully at the almost-empty bottle. She snatches it away and puts it up into the caddy by the shower, where Eleanor can’t reach it. Nutmeg fumes fill the bathroom and Clara thinks, for a moment, that she’s going to be sick.

It’s Arthur who shows up to rescue Clara. Clara can’t help herself: “Where’s Mom?” she asks.

“Downstairs,” Arthur says. “Now, what have we got here?”

He’s lucky he can’t smell. The nutmeg and steam fill the air until Clara, dripping, stands up to leave. Arthur is already on his knees by the tub. “Rinse, rinse, rinse,” he says, pouring water over Eleanor, who squeals. “Done rinsing?”

They both nod, and Arthur scoops them out of the tub, one on each side of him. “Grab the towels, Clara,” he says, and she does, throwing them over her two siblings like blankets over camels as they scream and kick with laughter in their father’s arms. Arthur carries them gamely through the bathroom door and down the hall. Clara looks around the bathroom, which is now quite as wet as the mounds and the grass and the footpaths outside. The tub is still full of grey water: her father never quite gets it right. Her mother will be horrified when she sees it. Clara tries, very hard, to turn on her heel and go back to her bedroom, back to her book, but finds that she can’t. She pulls the plug, which slurps and gurgles, and then grabs a towel and begins mopping the floor.

Suzanne, she knows, will still be angry that Clara used one of the good towels for a chore like this. That Clara doesn’t care about.

A longer teaser this week, from the work-in-progress. You can find other teasers for this work here and here. As usual, comments and lambasts are welcomed.

This week Elizabeth, our heroine, has just gotten married, and is on the threshold of a new life. But on her wedding night, she’s having a bout of insomnia.

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No, the snoring - these hours of sleeplessness - are far more painful than anything he did when he was awake. The snoring is more than sound, I find: it is an insult; it is calculated, I am sure, to make me suffer. Something about it stings me like toothache, like panic. Every time he draws breath, my ribcage closes tighter.

I shall have to find a way to command a second chamber. My parents sleep apart. How uncommon can it be? Now I try to remember remedies, remember what has made me sleepy in the past. Warm wine? Perhaps some warm wine. I climb out of bed quietly - though I do not know why I make this effort not to wake him - and take up my dressing gown and my candle, which I can still light from the dying fire. In the next room, surely, there will be wine.

But in the next room, I find that I am not alone. The fire is lit, and two candles too. A woman is asleep in a chair next to the fire, long, messy, red curls framing a face I cannot see. I know she is sleeping not only because her head is tipped forward, but because I can hear her breathing: a gentler sound than my husband’s, but a snore for all that. The door has opened and closed soundlessly, and I move on bare tiptoe across the cold wooden floor towards the sideboard, where the wine is, and where I can see this woman properly.

It is Lettice. I hold my breath and listen to her, and in listening I am at peace, drowsy even, despite my heart bounding in my chest.

The wine. I came for the wine. I set my candle on the sideboard and reach for the silver flagon. But my hands are shaking; it clashes against the goblet. The sound is not a loud one, but it rises above the crackle of the fire, above her breathing, above mine, and she wakes.

‘Madam!’ she cries, and although the act of her moving to her feet puts her in command, I see her making infinitesimal adjustments, compensations for my having seen her like this: she arranges her hair; she smoothes her dressing gown; she runs her hands across her face. ‘I thought you asleep,’ she says.

I have returned to the act of pouring the wine, although it is a hollow remedy, now, as I look at her. Still I bring the goblet to my lips in a bid to save myself talking. ‘I could not sleep,’ I say, after a moment.

We met yesterday, Lettice and I, but I feel years older, years younger.

She is fully awake now. ‘Can I bring you some lavender oil?’ she asks. Lavender oil. I would have no idea what to do with lavender oil. ‘It is to help you sleep,’ she says. ‘It works very well for the Queen, who’ - she pauses - ‘has great cares, and finds herself unable to sleep. Sometimes.’ She looks at me. ‘It was the Queen sent me,’ she says. ‘To ensure you passed a comfortable night.’

‘That was very kind of her,’ I manage. ‘And if lavender oil is good enough for her Majesty, I am sure it will help me very much.’

Lettice disappears through yet another door I had not noticed, and it seems no time at all before she returns with a bottle in her hand. ‘Sit,’ she says, and I am relieved that she is speaking with her old authority.

‘Relax your head.’ I tip my head against the back of the chair, and would be looking up if I dared open my eyes. I feel her fingers running through my hair, straightening it, pulling it back. ‘Can you smell it?’ she asks, and at once I can: she is wafting her hand underneath my nose. I nod. ‘Good,’ she says. ‘The therapy is in the smell.’ But then her fingers are at my temples, rubbing in warm circles, first forward, then back, and the therapy is there: it is in her hands. ‘You feel the pressure?’ she asks, and her breath - the smell of sleep - is on my face. ‘Just that pressure, in circles, front and back.’

‘Yes,’ I murmur.

‘Good,’ she says. ‘You’ll have to learn this. The Queen needs all her ladies to be able to help her sleep.’

And now her breath is gone; she feels far away. This is a lesson, and she is my tutor. But I will not think on that tonight. I keep my eyes closed.

When I wake, my neck hurts. Lettice has returned to her chair, and is looking at me. I feel blurry, contented. ‘You will be able to sleep now,’ she says, and I smile at her. She does not smile back. ‘Return to your husband,’ she says, and all at once I am wide awake again, as surely as if she had thrown water in my face. We are silent, and I listen: I can hear the snores in the next room. I look at Lettice; she looks blankly back.

‘Where do you sleep?’ I ask.

I succumb again. To add to the frazzle of writing in present tense for the first time, I’ve decided to convert the entirety of the Elizabethan work-in-progress to first person. I welcome comments and lambast. Herewith:

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Freed at last, the sun melting into the hedges beyond my bedroom window, I find the white cotton gown and drape it against the back of my chair. My writing desk - they allow me that much, to write in the open! - is ready with pen, ink, and paper. Quickly, I scrawl:

They speak of my marriage. I find I must see you one more time. Meet me tomorrow at midday under the tree. E.S.

I fold the paper carefully and write Edmund’s name on the outside. No time for sealing wax. I ball up my soiled gown into one arm and trip downstairs - all the way downstairs - to the laundry.

Charlie, the laundress’s son, is there as I hoped, sitting on the wooden steps and jogging a hot meat pie from hand to hand, blowing on it.

‘Heigh-ho, Charlie, my soldier of fortune,’ I say, softly so as not to startle him. Still he bounds up from the step, almost drops the pie, and bobs his head to me. ‘Are you busy, Charlie?’

‘Not busy, miss,’ says Charlie. ‘Just finishing my supper, miss.’

‘It looks a treat,’ I say, but inwardly: God’s teeth, can’t you eat that thing faster?

‘Would you have me on a errand, miss?’

I smile at him. ‘I wouldn’t want you to let your pie grow cold,’ I say.

‘No, see, look, miss,’ he says, blowing loudly on the pie, and then eating half of it in one impressive, messy bite. He exhales rapidly, several times - ‘Hooh! Hooh! Hooh!’ - and I can imagine the meat scorching his little throat.

‘Now, Charlie, you needn’t - ‘

He swallows, makes an incoherent noise, and then the rest of the pie disappears.

We wait together, while he chews. His eyes begin to water.

‘Now,’ Charlie manages, swallowing the last of it, ‘miss, what were it you wanted me to do?’

‘What a fine man you will make,’ I say, and mean it. Charlie’s watering eyes are earnest upon me, awaiting his task. ‘I need you to take this’ - I hand him the grass-stained gown - ‘to your mother for cleaning. Will you bundle it in with the other cotton, and make sure no one sees it?’

‘I will, miss.’ And he will: he’s done it before.

‘And I should like it if you took this’ - I hold up the letter - ‘to the inn.’ He makes to snatch it up, but I stop him - ‘Wipe your hands, Charlie, there’s a good lad!’ This done, as daintily and quickly as possible on his short pants, I pass him the letter. ‘It is for friend Edmund, and do you make sure you pass it straight into his own hands. You can do this?’

‘Of course, miss!’ I can all but see his mind whirring, planning his adventure.

‘You must go quickly, before the stars pop out,’ I tell him.

‘I’ll leave right away,’ Charlie says, impressively. ‘And I’ll run.’ I press a penny into his hand. ‘I need nothing of that, miss!’ he cries, and makes to hand it back to me.

‘Tut, a soldier of fortune must have his fortune,’ I say. ‘Off you go now, before it gets any darker. And Charlie,’ I say, pulling his sleeve and bending down to him, ‘you remember to tell no one.’

He nods, three times for good measure, and is gone.

I want so badly to be cool. I really do. I was told that Teaser Tuesday is the way to do it. Look at blogs all over the web of a Tuesday, and you’ll find teasers from scores of up-and-coming authors. It’s the only thing that mitigates the horrid suckitude of Tuesdays generally. Trust me.

So, herewith: a teaser from my work-in-progress, an as-yet untitled Elizabethan historical novel. Elizabeth Spencer is meeting the queen for the first time on the day before her marriage.

&&&

‘Yes, a good man,’ the Queen is saying. ‘Do you want children?’

‘Of course, your Majesty.’ This is an odd question: who asks such a thing?

‘There is no ‘of course’ about it,’ the Queen says. ‘You haven’t asked me if I want children.’ She seems to take pity on Elizabeth’s terrified look. ‘But you and I are not the same.’ This last is quiet, perhaps mournful. ‘You might ask if I would trade places with you.’ Elizabeth looks around the chamber once more. The cushion beneath her is deliciously soft, the room covered in violets and greens. The books. Would Elizabeth trade places with this queen? ‘I say that I would, sometimes, but I would not. I have known enough of men. I’ve known enough of women, come to that,’ she says, and takes another comfit. Having sucked it once, she winces slightly. Elizabeth pretends not to notice: it is the Queen’s bad teeth, but she is not meant to know this. ‘I have my books. You’ve had a good education? You read?’

Elizabeth knows the answer to this. ‘Religious works, your Majesty.’

The Queen laughs. ‘No doubt you’ve been told this is a safe answer, but it is not as safe now as it once was. Do you write?’

Elizabeth swallows. ‘Letters, your Majesty. Poems - trifles, for myself.’

The Queen’s black eyes brighten. ‘That is me, too. We are more than just signatures, we Elizabeths, eh?’ She nudges Elizabeth, who again feels the power of something much stronger than a long white hand. She smiles, pleased to have said something right at last.

But the Queen is standing, now, and rising looks as simple a matter for her as was sitting. She reaches out her arm to pull Elizabeth up. Elizabeth is surprised at the strength of her: the arm looks like the branch of an elm, just as ready to break. This stops her thinking on the strangeness of the gesture.

The Queen cups Elizabeth’s face in her hands, looking carefully into first one eye, then the other, and back again. So far from being frightened, Elizabeth feels suddenly calm, loved, cared for. The Queen might be a mesmerist. ‘You are a dear girl,’ the Queen says, her voice low and quiet. ‘And George Carey is a good man. But hear this, and heed it, for I have known many women, yes?’ She smiles encouragingly; Elizabeth smiles back. ‘Do not have children straightway. Know your husband first. Keep writing your trifles. Children can wait.’ She smiles again. ‘They have waited this long for me!’ she cries, laughing, and takes her hands away. The magic is gone, and Elizabeth feels, for a moment, unsteady on her feet. ‘I may have children yet!’ the Queen says, louder still. ‘I can do it, you know.’ She winks at Elizabeth and gestures beyond the door. ‘The sycophant physicians say so. At one and forty summers. They poke and prod and tell my Council that I can bear children.’

‘I am sure you can, your Majesty.’ Elizabeth stops a moment, dares look up again into those black eyes. ‘Thank you, your Majesty. You have been so kind.’

‘Let me show you something.’ Elizabeth follows the Queen to her writing desk. The Queen plucks a fat, ancient-looking volume from the back of a pile of books. Elizabeth looks. ‘You see?’ the Queen asks. ‘It is Malory’s work. Le Morte d’Arthur. You see where the pages are fattest?’ She runs one white finger over a bloated section of pages. ‘That is Book Eleven. The story of Elaine of Astolat.’ Elizabeth reaches out to see the book more closely, but the Queen retreats, replaces it on the desk. ‘It was my mother’s,’ she says quietly. ‘She liked Book Eleven best.’ A last pause. ‘It’s enough,’ she says at length. ‘That’s enough.’