The Constant Princess

by Philippa Gregory

  Doña Elvira will not learn English. She affects not to be able to understand French when it is spoken with an English accent. The Welsh she treats with absolute contempt as barbarians on the very edge of civilization, which is not very comfortable when we are visiting the townspeople of Ludlow. To be honest, sometimes she behaves more grandly than any woman I have ever known, she is prouder than my mother herself. She is certainly grander than me. I have to admire her, but I cannot truly love her.

  But Margaret Pole was educated as the niece of a king and is as fluent in Latin as I am. We speak French easily together, she is teaching me English, and when we come across a word we don’t know in any of our shared languages, we compose great mimes that set us wailing with giggles. I made her cry with laughing when I tried to demonstrate indigestion, and the guards came running, thinking we were under attack when she used all the ladies of the court and their maidservants to demonstrate to me the correct protocol for an English hunt in the field.

  With Margaret, Catalina thought she could raise the question of her future, and her father-in-law of whom she was frankly nervous.

  “He was displeased before we came away,” she said. “It is the question of the dowry.”

  “Oh, yes?” Margaret replied. The two women were seated in a window, waiting for the men to come back from hunting. It was bitterly cold and damp outside, neither of them had wanted to go out. Margaret thought it better to volunteer nothing about the vexed question of Catalina’s dowry; she had already heard from her husband that the Spanish king had perfected the art of double-dealing. He had agreed a substantial dowry for the Infanta, but then sent her to England with only half the money. The rest, he suggested, could be made up with the plate and treasure that she brought as her household goods. Outraged, King Henry had demanded the full amount. Sweetly Ferdinand of Spain replied that the Infanta’s household had been supplied with the very best, Henry could take his pick.

  It was a bad way to start a marriage that was, in any case, founded only on greed and ambition, and a shared fear of France. Catalina was caught between the determination of two coldhearted men. Margaret guessed that one of the reasons that Catalina had been sent to Ludlow Castle with her husband was to force her to use her own household goods and so diminish their value. If King Henry had kept her at court in Windsor or Greenwich or Westminster, she would have eaten off his plates and her father could have argued that the Spanish plate was as good as new, and must be taken as the dowry. But now, every night they ate from Catalina’s gold plates and every scrape of a careless knife knocked a little off the value. When it was time to pay the second half of the dowry, the King of Spain would find he would have to pay cash. King Ferdinand might be a hard man and a cunning negotiator but he had met his match in Henry Tudor of England.

  “He said that I should be a daughter to him,” Catalina started carefully. “But I cannot obey him as a daughter should, if I am to obey my own father. My father tells me not to use my plate and to give it to the king. But he won’t accept it. And since the dowry is unpaid, the king sends me away with no provision; he doesn’t even pay my allowance.”

  “Does the Spanish ambassador not advise you?”

  Catalina made a little face. “He is the king’s own man,” she said. “No help to me. I don’t like him. He is a Jew, but converted. An adaptable man. A Spaniard, but he has lived here for years. He is become a man for the Tudors, not for Aragon. I shall tell my father that he is poorly served by Dr. de Puebla, but in the meantime, I have no good advice, and in my household Doña Elvira and my treasurer never stop quarreling. She says that my goods and my treasure must be loaned to the goldsmiths to raise money; he says he will not let them out of his sight until they are paid to the king.”

  “And have you not asked the prince what you should do?”

  Catalina hesitated. “It is a matter between his father and my father,” she said cautiously. “I didn’t want to let it disturb us. He has paid for all my traveling expenses here. He is going to have to pay for my ladies’ wages at midsummer, and soon I will need new gowns. I don’t want to ask him for money. I don’t want him to think me greedy.”

  “You love him, don’t you?” Margaret asked, smiling, and watched the younger woman’s face light up.

  “Oh yes,” the girl breathed. “I do love him so.”

  The older woman smiled. “You are blessed,” she said gently. “To be a princess and to find love with the husband you are ordered to marry. You are blessed, Catalina.”

  “I know. I do think it is a sign of God’s especial favor to me.”

  The older woman paused at the grandness of the claim, but did not correct her. The confidence of youth would wear away soon enough without any need for warnings. “And do you have any signs?”

  Catalina looked puzzled.

  “Of a child coming? You do know what to look for?”

  The young woman blushed. “I do know. My mother told me. There are no signs yet.”

  “It’s early days,” Lady Margaret said comfortingly. “But if you had a child on the way I think there would be no difficulty with a dowry. I think nothing would be too good for you if you were carrying the next Tudor prince.”

  “I ought to be paid my allowance whether I have a child or not,” Catalina observed. “I am Princess of Wales, I should have an allowance to keep my state.”

  “Yes,” said Margaret drily. “But who is going to tell the king that?”

  “Tell me a story.”

  They were bathed in the dappled gold of candlelight and firelight. It was midnight and the castle was silent but for their low voices, all the lights were out but for the blaze of Catalina’s chambers where the two young lovers were resisting sleep.

  “What shall I tell you about?”

  “Tell me a story about the Moors.”

  She thought for a moment, throwing a shawl around her bare shoulders against the cold. Arthur was sprawled across the bed but when she moved he gathered her to him so her head rested on his naked chest. He ran his hand through her rich red hair and gathered it into his fist.

  “I will tell you a story about one of the sultanas,” she said. “It is not a story. It is true. She was in the harem—you know that the women live apart from the men in their own rooms?”

  He nodded, watching the candlelight flicker on her neck, on the hollow at her collarbone.

  “She looked out of the window and the tidal river beneath her window was at low ebb. The poor children of the town were playing in the water. They were on the slipway for the boats and they had spread mud all around and they were slipping and sliding, skating in the mud. She laughed while she watched them and she said to her ladies how she wished that she could play like that.”

  “But she couldn’t go out?”

  “No, she could never go out. Her ladies told the eunuchs who guarded the harem and they told the grand vizier and he told the sultan, and when she left the window and went to her presence chamber, guess what?”

  He shook his head, smiling. “What?”

  “Her presence chamber was a great marble hall. The floor was made of rose-veined marble. The sultan had ordered them to bring great flasks of perfumed oils and pour them on the floor. All the perfumiers in the town had been ordered to bring oil of roses to the palace. They had brought rose petals and sweet-smelling herbs and they had made a thick paste of oil of roses and rose petals and herbs and spread it, one foot thick, all across the floor of her presence chamber. The sultana and her ladies stripped to their chemises and slid and played in the mud, threw rose water and petals and all the afternoon played like the mud larks.”

  He was entranced. “How glorious.”

  She smiled up at him. “Now it is your turn. You tell me a story.”

  “I have no stories like that. It is all fighting and winning.”

  “Those are the stories you like best when I tell them,” she pointed out.

  “I do. And now your father is going to war again.”

  “H
e is?”

  “Did you not know?”

  Catalina shook her head. “The Spanish ambassador sometimes sends me a note with the news, but he has told me nothing. Is it a crusade?”

  “You are a bloodthirsty soldier of Christ. I should think the infidels shake in their sandals. No, it is not a crusade. It is a far less heroic cause. Your father, rather surprisingly to us, has made an alliance with King Louis of France. Apparently they plan to invade Italy together and share the spoils.”

  “King Louis?” she asked in surprise. “Never! I had thought they would be enemies until death.”

  “Well, it seems that the French king does not care who he allies with. First the Turks and now your father.”

  “Well, better that King Louis makes alliance with my father than with the Turks,” she said stoutly. “Anything is better than they are invited in.”

  “But why would your father join with our enemy?”

  “He has always wanted Naples,” she confided to him. “Naples and Navarre. One way or another he will have them. King Louis may think he has an ally but there will be a high price to pay. I know him. He plays a long game but he usually gets his own way. Who sent you the news?”

  “My father. I think he is vexed not to be in their counsel. He fears the French worse only than the Scots. It is a disappointment for us that your father would ally with them on anything.”

  “On the contrary, your father should be pleased that my father is keeping the French busy in the south. My father is doing him a service.”

  He laughed at her. “You are a great help.”

  “Will your father not join with them?”

  Arthur shook his head. “Perhaps, but his one great desire is to keep England at peace. War is a terrible thing for a country. You are a soldier’s daughter and you should know. My father says it is a terrible thing to see a country at war.”

  “Your father only fought one big battle,” she said. “Sometimes you have to fight. Sometimes you have to beat your enemy.”

  “I wouldn’t fight to gain land,” he said. “But I would fight to defend our borders. And I think we will have to fight against the Scots unless my sister can change their very nature.”

  “And is your father prepared for war?”

  “He has the Howard family to keep the north for him,” he said. “And he has the trust of every northern landlord. He has reinforced the castles and he keeps the Great North Road open so that he can get his soldiers up there if needs be.”

  Catalina looked thoughtful. “If he has to fight he would do better to invade them,” she said. “Then he can choose the time and the place to fight and not be forced into defense.”

  “Is that the better way?”

  She nodded. “My father would say so. It is everything to have your army moving forwards and confident. You have the wealth of the country ahead of you, for your supplies; you have the movement forwards: soldiers like to feel that they are making progress. There is nothing worse than being forced to turn and fight.”

  “You are a tactician,” he said. “I wish to God I had your childhood and knew the things you know.”

  “You do have,” she said sweetly. “For everything I know is yours, and everything I am is yours. And if you and our country ever need me to fight for you, then I will be there.”

  It has become colder and colder and the long week of rain has turned into showers of hail and now snow. Even so, it is not bright, cold wintry weather but a low, damp mist with swirling cloud and flurries of slush which clings in clumps to trees and turrets and sits in the river like old sherbet.

  When Arthur comes to my room he slips along the battlements like a skater and this morning, as he went back to his room, we were certain we would be discovered because he slid on fresh ice and fell and cursed so loudly that the sentry on next tower put his head out and shouted, “Who goes there?” and I had to call back that it was only me, feeding the winter birds. So Arthur whistled at me and told me it was the call of a robin and we both laughed so much that we could barely stand. I am certain that the sentry knew anyway, but it was so cold he did not come out.

  Now today Arthur has gone out riding with his council, who want to look at a site for a new corn mill while the river is in spate and partly blocked by snow and ice, and Lady Margaret and I are staying at home and playing cards.

  It is cold and gray, it is wet all the time—even the walls of the castle weep with icy moisture—but I am happy. I love him, I would live with him anywhere, and spring will come and then summer. I know we will be happy then too.

  The tap on the door came late at night. She threw it open.

  “Ah love, my love! Where have you been?”

  He stepped into the room and kissed her. She could taste the wine on his breath. “They would not leave,” he said. “I have been trying to get away to be with you for three hours at the very least.”

  He picked her up off her feet and carried her to the bed.

  “But, Arthur, don’t you want…?”

  “I want you.”

  “Tell me a story.”

  “Are you not sleepy now?”

  “No. I want you to sing me the song about the Moors losing the Battle of Málaga.”

  Catalina laughed. “It was the Battle of Alhama. I shall sing you some of the verses; but it goes on and on.”

  “Sing me all of them.”

  “We would need all night,” she protested.

  “We have all night, thank God,” he said, his joy in his voice. “We have all night and we have every night for the rest of our lives, thank God for it.”

  “It is a forbidden song,” she said. “Forbidden by my mother herself.”

  “So how did you learn it?” Arthur demanded, instantly diverted.

  “Servants,” she said carelessly. “I had a nursemaid who was a Morisco and she would forget who I was, and who she was, and sing to me.”

  “What’s a Morisco? And why was the song banned?” he asked curiously.

  “A Morisco means ‘little Moor’ in Spanish,” she explained. “It’s what we call the Moors who live in Spain. They are not really Moors like those in Africa. So we call them little Moors, or Moros. As I left, they were starting to call themselves Mudajjan—‘one allowed to remain.’ ”

  “One allowed to remain?” he asked. “In their own land?”

  “It’s not their land,” she said instantly. “It’s ours. Spanish land.”

  “They had it for seven hundred years,” he pointed out. “When you Spanish were doing nothing but herding goats in the mountains, they were building roads and castles and universities. You told me so yourself.”

  “Well, it’s ours now,” she said flatly.

  He clapped his hands like a sultan. “Sing the song, Scheherazade. And sing it in French, you barbarian, so I can understand it.”

  Catalina put her hands together like a woman about to pray and bowed low to him.

  “Now that is good,” Arthur said, reveling in her. “Did you learn that in the harem?”

  She smiled at him and tipped up her head and sang.

  “An old man cries to the king: Why comes this sudden

  calling?—Alas! Alhama!

  Alas my friends, Christians have won Alhama—Alas! Alhama!

  A white-bearded imam answers: This has thou merited, O

  King!—Alas! Alhama!

  In an evil hour thou slewest the Abencerrages, flower

  of Granada—Alas! Alhama!

  Not Granada, not kingdom, not thy life shall long remain—

  Alas! Alhama!”

  She fell silent. “And it was true,” she said. “Poor Boabdil came out of the Alhambra Palace, out of the red fort that they said would never fall, with the keys on a silk cushion, bowed low and gave them to my mother and my father and rode away. They say that at the mountain pass he looked back at his kingdom, his beautiful kingdom, and wept, and his mother told him to weep like a woman for what he could not hold as a man.”

  Arthur let
out a boyish crack of laughter. “She said what?”

  Catalina looked up, her face grave. “It was very tragic.”

  “It is just the sort of thing my grandmother would say,” he said delightedly. “Thank God my father won his crown. My grandmother would be just as sweet in defeat as Boabdil’s mother. Good God: “weep like a woman for what you cannot hold as a man.” What a thing to say to a man as he walks away in defeat!”

  Catalina laughed too. “I never thought of it like that,” she said. “It isn’t very comforting.”

  “Imagine going into exile with your mother, and she so angry with you!”

  “Imagine losing the Alhambra, never going back there!”

  He pulled her to him and kissed her face. “No regrets!” he commanded.

  At once she smiled for him. “Then divert me,” she ordered. “Tell me about your mother and father.”

  He thought for a moment. “My father was born an heir to the Tudors, but there were dozens in line for the throne before him,” he said. “His father wanted him called Owen, Owen Tudor, a good Welsh name, but his father died before his birth, in the war. My grandmother was only a child of twelve when he was born, but she had her way and called him Henry—a royal name. You can see what she was thinking even then, even though she was little more than a child herself, and her husband was dead.

  “My father’s fortunes soared up and down with every battle of the civil war. One time he was a son of the ruling family, the next they were on the run. His uncle Jasper Tudor—you remember him—kept faith with my father and with the Tudor cause, but there was a final battle and our cause was lost, and our king executed. Edward came to the throne and my father was the last of the line. He was in such danger that Uncle Jasper broke out of the castle where they were being held and fled with him out of the country to Brittany.”

  “To safety?”