Read The Sixth Wife: The Story of Katherine Parr for Free Online Page B

admiration while she talked, and nothing pleased her more than a compliment. Edward never forgot to admire her gown. She had asked him whether he thought Jane prettier than she was, and Edward found it very difficult to give a truthful answer to that, for a reply in the affirmative would have infuriated her; so he told her that as Jane was just a child and merely Lady Jane Grey, and she herself was grown up and a Princess, there could be no comparison.
    Then Elizabeth had kissed him in her quick way and burst out laughing. She knew that he deceived her, but she did not mind that. She told him he was a clever little boy.
    He was not so pleased to see his sister Mary, for she always saddened him. When she came into a room she seemed to bring sorrow with her. She was often ill, as he feared he was. Mary had been so ill a little while ago that it had been feared she would die. The King had not greatly cared what befell his elder daughter, but when his son was sick there were doctors all about the boy. His father, sparkling with jewels, looking bigger than anyone else in the world, would stump up and down the chamber, haranguing the doctors, threatening them—almost threatening Edward himself—if the Prince should die.
    I dare not die! Edward often said to himself. I must not complain of this pain in my head. I must be a King, and a Tudor King. I am my father’s only male heir.
    It was a great responsibility for such a small boy and such a frail one. No wonder he liked to sit in an alcove with Jane and talk to her of what he had read or what he had learned.
    Yet it was pleasant to gaze at Elizabeth, with the color flaming under her pale skin, the freckles across her nose. Such a diplomatic Prince did not mention the freckles—although they pleased him— for Elizabeth’s women prepared lotions to make them disappear, as the vain creature imagined that they spoiled her lovely skin.
    When she kissed him and told him he was her dearest brother, he could not be quite sure whether she was not remembering all the time that one day he would be the King and very important, and that she would need him to be kind to a Princess of uncertain birth.
    Today she was excited. She had news.
    She came in haughtily, as she did when the mood took her; and he fancied that she played a game of makebelieve in which she was a Queen and he her subject. With her came Mistress Ashley, her governess, whose life the Princess plagued, though the woman adored her.
    Elizabeth was dressed in a new gown of which she was very proud, yet she was angry because she lacked jewels. She had told him that she wished for emeralds, because emeralds suited the color of her hair. He wished that he had emeralds that he might give her. When he was a King he would do so; but he hoped that would not be for a long time; he dreaded that day when he would have to be the King.
    Now here was his sister, taking his hand and kissing it. “Nan Bullen’s girl,” he had heard her called; that was when people were angry with her. “Who is she?” they said then. “Who but Nan Bullen’s bastard.”
    He knew of Nan Bullen, who, some said, had been a witch, a sorceress, and who had died that his father might marry his mother, the one pure Queen whom his father had loved.
    Elizabeth, in her haughtiest manner, dismissed all attendants.
    “That is what you wish, is it not?” she demanded, almost menacingly of the little boy.
    “Yes,” he answered. “That is what I wish.”
    Then Elizabeth looked from him to little Jane and back to him, and said: “Have you heard the gossip, brother?”
    “What gossip?”
    “The gossip that is all over the court. Our father has chosen his new wife.”
    “A new wife!” cried Jane.
    “A new stepmother for us!” said the boy with a perplexed look.
    “But you like your stepmothers. You liked the last one.”
    “Queen Catharine was so pretty,” said Edward wistfully.
    “But she died.” Jane’s gentle eyes filled with tears. It was obvious