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  TheKing's

  Sisters

  Books in The Cross and The Crown Series

  TheAlterpiece

  City ofLadies

  TheKing'sSisters

  Praise for

  The Cross and The Crown Series

  Foreword Reviews' INDIEFAB Book of the Year Award, Honorable Mention in Historical Fiction (City of Ladies)

  “. . . . a very good piece of historical fiction.”—Kinx’s Book Nook

  “The Altarpiece by Sarah Kennedy is the first in The Cross and The Crown Series and what a fantastic start! . . . Of course I knew of the priories and monasteries being taken by force by King Henry’s men but I’ve never read anything that focused on any one house so I found this very interesting.”—Peeking Between the Pages

  “ . . . a well-researched history of this turbulent time when vows were broken and allies became enemies overnight. . . . recommended for historical fiction readers.”—Booksie’s Blog

  “What makes The Altarpiece a particularly interesting work of historical fiction is Kennedy's dynamic portrayal of women in sixteenth-century England. The author shows a diverse array of distinctive female characters moving the story forward. Strong female characters abound in this novel. Though set in an historical era when women's stories are often overlooked entirely in favor of those belonging to their male counterparts, the female experience of this time period is vital throughout the novel. . . . The Altarpiece has much to offer its readers: intelligence, wit, romance, mystery, and a setting that haunts even as it enchants. The energy in the language conveys the urgency of a fraught moment in history with prose as bright and dazzling as Catherine's illuminated manuscripts. Kennedy's command of her characters and subject matter is impressive, and The Altarpiece is a very promising beginning to Kennedy's The Cross and Crown series.”— Per Contra

  “If you love a great historical fiction series that is impeccably researched, this one is for you!”—Celtic Lady’s Reviews

  “A true page-turner.”—Historical Novels Review

  “Much of a historical novel’s success lies in the author’s ability to accurately cement the story in its time and place, and Kennedy excels in this aspect with detailed descriptions of the daily life of her characters, from clothing to architecture to medicine. . . . It is not necessary to read the first novel in the series to enjoy this book, but those finding this their first introduction to Catherine will surely search out the first novel to spend more time with this feisty woman in her richly detailed world.”—Foreword Reviews

  “Having chosen William Overton, Catherine Havens Overton, in Book Two of the Cross and the Crown series, now struggles to manage her wifely duties in his house, where her extraordinary gifts in physic and healing are feared as witchcraft as well as sought after by all, creating a difficult and dangerous situation. Filled with drama, suspense, vivid scenes and larger-than-life characters, City of Ladies fast becomes impossible to put down. . . . Kennedy is clearly as gifted as her main character, almost supernaturally at home in the 16th century as she combines the striking vocabulary of the time with her own poetic talents to create a rich and original tapestry of language. Such writing! Sarah Kennedy brings a lost world blazingly to life.”—Lee Smith

  “. . . . In City of Ladies Kennedy takes her place with Daphne du Maurier, Anya Seton, Rosemary Sutcliff, and Hilary Mantel as writer of superb historical fiction.”—Suzanne Keen, author of Empathy and the Novel

  “I did not read the first book in this series, The Altarpiece – it’s on my tablet – but I didn’t feel any loss for not having done so. . . . by the time I was about a quarter of the way in I was hooked and had a hard time putting it down to go to sleep at night and one night I just didn’t until I finished. Catherine is a fascinating character and I hope to find time to be able to read the first book in the series.”—Broken Teepee

  “It’s not hard to see why City of Ladies is a contender for the INDIEFAB Book of the Year. Sarah Kennedy has quite a gift for storytelling and is sharing it with readers in her series The Cross and the Crown.”—Black Dog Speaks

  “This is a mystery, romance, political intrigue, story of women, exploration of the past, and a caution for the future. Sarah Kennedy brilliantly crafts her characters to drive a narrative that will have you guessing to the very end.”—San Francisco Book Review

  “In the spirit of Philippa Greggory (The Other Boleyn Girl), Kennedy delivers an intelligent and well-researched work of historical fiction that vividly re-creates the most tempestuous years of the English Reformation.”—The Sixteenth Century Journal

  “This book will thrill and delight lovers of historical fiction and mystery alike as well fans of C.W. Gortner and Philippa Gregory.”—History from a Woman’s Perspective

  TheKing's

  Sisters

  Book Three of The Cross and The Crown Series

  Sarah Kennedy

  KNOX ROBINSON

  PUBLISHING

  London - New York - Atlanta

  KNOX ROBINSON

  PUBLISHING

  34 New House

  67-68 Hatton Garden

  London, EC1N 8JY

  244 5th Avenue, Suite 1861

  New York, New York 10001

  3104 Briarcliff Road NE, #98414

  Atlanta, Georgia 30345

  First published in Great Britain and the United States in 2015 by Knox Robinson Publishing

  Copyright © Sarah Kennedy 2015

  The right of Sarah Kennedy to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved.

  A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

  ISBN HC 978-1-910282-77-9

  ISBN PB 978-1-910282-39-7

  Typeset in Trump Mediaeval

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or used fictitiously.

  www.knoxrobinsonpublishing.com

  For Henry Adam Hill

  TheKing's

  Sisters

  1

  13 February 1542

  In the same week that Catherine Havens suspected that she, without a husband to her name, was carrying a child, the Queen of England was condemned to die for being a whore. At Hampton Court, all the reveling, the feasts and dancing, the flirtations and love-making, had ended, and the king disappeared into the inner rooms of Hampton Court after he signed the death warrant.

  Catherine didn’t believe it, at first, that it could happen a second time, that Henry VIII would kill another wife. But the laws were his, and now this other Catherine, a Howard, the royal girl, took her place in front of the crowd on a bitter winter morning, staring up at her executioner like a child preparing to be corrected. Catherine Havens’s stomach rebelled, and she clutched her fur cloak tight, though her own belly was still as flat as any proper widow’s. She’d allowed the court’s frivolous mood go to her head. A single New Year’s night of unrestrained holiday pleasure. Now I will be found out for a whore, she thought, and now my family will be ruined.

  The queen placed her little feet precisely as she moved up the steps of the black-draped scaffold to the platform. She paused. Rumor had gone round that she’d passed the dark hours of her last days in the Tower practicing this moment with a chunk of wood, and the watchers were murmuring about it. The sun was pale and withdrawn, drooping in the sky. One woman nearby began to curse the king softly, and another whispered, “Stop your mouth. You’ll be heard.”

  “She is just a spoilt child,” Catherine muttered, “who m
ade an error.”

  The swearing woman said, “Child or woman, queen or commoner, you’d keep your knees together if you knew what was good for you in this realm.” Her companion elbowed her, hard, and she cowered into a leaden silence. Catherine shuddered. The river’s stench clogged the air, and she thought she would vomit. She counted the days until Lent. Too few for a marriage, even if she could make one happen. Too few.

  The queen removed her headdress and collar, and, handing them to one of the women in attendance, lifted the thick hair to bare a white neck. Catherine raised herself onto her toes to search the people. A few of the king’s Council were here, their faces disinterested, as though they’d rounded up a dirty hound. A man stared at her, and she tried to shrink to the same height as the other women watching. Just as Catherine squeezed her fists into knots and started to shove her way through the people, the girl queen spoke to her audience, but the words wafted away. Catherine heard something about the King’s Royal Majesty and huddled again into her wrap, waiting for the end. The slight figure sank—she must have laid her head on the block—and Catherine saw the axe come up, catch a flash of early sunlight, and slice downward. One sullen thump and the viewers grunted. Someone wailed. It had only taken the one chop, thank God.

  Next up was Lady Rochford, her hair disordered and her dress half undone. She flung herself backward and side to side like a trapped animal, keening, and one of her women caught her by an arm. She stumbled up the steps as the queen’s oozing remains, tumbled into a blanket, were sloshed into a coffin. Catherine’s guts skittered, and she turned away as the axe flew up again. The thunk of metal against bone chimed back from the stone walls. Catherine put her cold palm against her forehead until the whistling in her ears stopped and she could face forward again. Finally, the scaffold was empty.

  “You must get yourself back to Yorkshire now, where you’ll be safe,” said her friend, Ann Smith, into her ear. “There’s no time to waste.”

  People began to push forward, eager to be out of the foul air where they could sit by a fire with a mug of ale and retell the bloody events. The nobles were already gone, the blood mopped up and the bodies boxed.

  “In the middle of winter? On the sudden? What reason will I give?” Catherine found the manservant who had accompanied her. “The king will give me no permission now. He knows my name,” she said quietly. “He will watch all the women now, and the nuns will be the first ones he punishes for looseness. I will not be allowed to marry wherever I am. The law will come down like that axe, and I will be stuck in the Clink for a whore, if they don’t hang me. There’s no time, in any case. There will be no speaking of marriage before Lent comes.”It didn’t need saying that no marriages at all could be performed during the hungry season before Easter. They both knew it well enough.

  “You might do it secretly.”

  “Against the law?” Catherine felt her hands wringing themselves. “There is no time. They will take my land, Ann. My children’s land. The king’s got to have another wife to lift his spirits. He must. And he must do it quickly. Or this child must not be born.”

  “No talk of that.” Ann scanned the retreating mob. A lithe wind had come up, and people were scurrying toward the gates. “There’s no time.” She leaned close. “You’ll have to move against the law.”

  “And then what? My son will have to be told if I enter upon a second marriage. And that means the prince will know. Then everyone will know. The king will know. And what if he is still in the killing vein? He must take the Lady of Cleves back, for all of our sakes. He must do it now. He must.”

  Ann pulled her cloak around her neck. Catherine followed her friend’s strong back. They did not speak again until they had shouldered their way beyond the Tower walls to the Thames and spotted a barge that would carry them back to Richmond Palace. A man, shouting at the river’s edge, waved something gleaming. Metal. He pointed it toward the sky, and it exploded upward, shooting a cloud of smoke. A woman screamed, and Catherine grabbed Ann’s elbow.

  “What in the devil’s name is that?”

  Ann shaded her eyes with her hand. “It looks like one of those cannons for the hand. They say the wielder cannot hit the broad side of a horse with one of those. They make a large noise, though, and many men seek that these days.”

  “What machines of death will they dream up next?” Catherine paid their fare and slumped onto a board seat, toeing a slimy rag aside. Their manservant Sebastian sat at Catherine’s side, gazing into the dull sky. “She was Anne Boleyn’s own cousin.” She could keep it in no longer. “I will not call such a man the ruler of my conscience. King he may be, and he may make the rules. He may rule my mortal body. But he will not be the tyrant of my soul.”

  “Sh,” said Ann, settling beside her. “Don’t bring attention on yourself.”

  Catherine’s head blazed again and she cooled her brow with her fingers. “My body will bring me enough attention. What will I do?”

  “You will be silent until you decide the best course of action. But you had better decide it soon. Before Lent. At least you will avoid a crime against the church.”

  “And what if all courses are closed to me?”

  The boat lurched into motion, and Catherine’s stomach heaved. She twisted and threw up her breakfast over the edge. Sebastian scooted away, and Ann wiped her brow with a cloth. Catherine sat back and sucked in the damp air. “Thank God for the winter.” She flopped the cloak over her lap.

  “Wear roomy skirts. With plenty of pockets.”

  Sebastian leveled his eyes, grey and overcast as a dead mackerel’s, ahead.

  Catherine counted on her fingers. “Katherine. Anne. Jane. Anne. Catherine. Why are the ones who are divorced or killed the ones with our Christian names?”

  Ann Smith pulled at the skin of her neck and tried out a smile. “I believe myself safe from his notice. I am getting the wattles of an old hen. And yet I hope he chooses a Frances next. Or a Cleopatra.”

  “Lady Anne. She will be the one. He might marry her again now. She will take him, and that would bring an end to our troubles. He would be comforted, and she would intervene on my behalf.” Catherine leaned into her friend and put her head back, watching the clouds form up together, then break into factions. “Once upon a time, I thought we might be two happy crones together, you and I.”

  “Who is old?”

  “Not us, to be sure. I suppose I am as much as married, in the sight of God.” Catherine tried on a smile, but bit it off and swallowed her joy. “The king looks with different eyes. And I don’t relish going to the church door like a sheep at market, about to drop a lamb. I could be sent to the shambles just as quickly. Oh, Christ in heaven, there is no time.”

  Ann’s hands were raw, and she rubbed them together, then blew warm breath into her palms. “You love him? Enough to give up your widowhood?”

  “I know what you mean to say. Love and marriage do not always knit into a single cloth. He’s a man. And men change. But yes.”Catherine closed her eyes but could not remain among the images in her darkness and opened them again. “I never imagined there could exist so much death behind my lids. I still see all of the ghosts, as though they had just departed life.” A gull circled over their heads, and Catherine pulled her hood forward. “Some days, I am surrounded by specters, and they gnaw at my dreams.”

  “Then let your man press the demons out of you, if you’ll have him. The living ones as well as the dead.”

  “Can a man keep the king from our spirits?” Catherine spat into the river and watched the oarsmen for a few moments. “Mark my words, the Lady of Cleves will expect Henry to return to her now. Her family will go to battle for it. She must force his hand. She will do it.”

  Ann raised an eyebrow. “She will be refused. She is the king’s sister now.”

  “But she will want it. And if she doesn’t get it, she will not want to see any marriages go forward i
n her presence. And there’s another who will be against me. Oh, Ann. She must go to war and win him back.”

  “Our combats with Henry will not end until God ends him,” said Ann with a weight in her voice. “He doesn’t want her. She’s been shown that clear enough. She should make her peace.”

  “It is a shameful peace to her. She’s a nun without the vows.”

  “Perhaps.” Ann shrugged. “But she has land and jewels and more gowns than a woman can wear in one lifetime. She has servants and good wine.”

  Catherine shivered. “All true. Good jewels, too. Have you seen the ruby? It puts me in mind of my own garnet. You know the one I mean.”

  Ann nodded. It was the ring Henry VIII had placed into Catherine’s hand. She’d never worn it.

  Catherine said, “But she might make the attempt. Come to him like the Trojan horse, all smooth, and overtake him before he knows what’s happened.”

  “And if she succeeds, then we will all be happy and life will go forward. England will be all dancing and mirth.”

  “I can’t speak of England. But I would be able to go forward without walking into a gaol cell.”

  The sky in the west was low-browed and dark now, threatening snow. The oily river slapped the sides of the barge.

  “And why should she want him after this?” said Ann. “She doesn’t want to lose her head, any more than you want to have that chap show his face to the world just now.” She set her hand on Catherine’s lap.