The Constant Princess

by Philippa Gregory

  They brought the Moor to Katherine under cover of darkness, to the chamber where she was confined. She sent the women from the room at the appointed hour and told them that she wanted to be alone. She sat in her chair by the window, where the tapestries were drawn back for air, and the first thing he saw, as she rose when he came in, was her slim, candlelit profile against the darkness of the window. She saw his little grimace of sympathy.

  “No child.”

  “No,” she said shortly. “I shall come out of my confinement tomorrow.”

  “You are in pain?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Well, I am glad of that. You are bleeding?”

  “I had my normal course last week.”

  He nodded. “Then you may have had a disease which has passed,” he said. “You may be fit to conceive a child. There is no need to despair.”

  “I do not despair,” she said flatly. “I never despair. That is why I have sent for you.”

  “You will want to conceive a child as soon as possible,” he guessed.

  “Yes.”

  He thought for a moment. “Well, Infanta, since you have had one child, even if you did not bear it to full term, we know that you and your husband are fertile. That is good.”

  “Yes,” she said, surprised by the thought. She had been so distressed by the miscarriage she had not thought that her fertility had been proven. “But why do you speak of my husband’s fertility?”

  The Moor smiled. “It takes both a man and a woman to conceive a child.”

  “Here in England they think that it is only the woman.”

  “Yes. But in this, as in so many other things, they are wrong. There are two parts to every baby: the man’s breath of life and the woman’s gift of the flesh.”

  “They say that if a baby is lost, then the woman is at fault, perhaps she has committed a great sin.”

  He frowned. “It is possible,” he conceded. “But not very likely. Otherwise how would murderesses ever give birth? Why would innocent animals miscarry their young? I think we will learn in time that there are humors and infections which cause miscarriage. I do not blame the woman, it makes no sense to me.”

  “They say that if a woman is barren it is because the marriage is not blessed by God.”

  “He is your God,” he remarked reasonably. “Would he persecute an unhappy woman in order to make a point?”

  Katherine did not reply. “They will blame me if I do not have a live child,” she observed very quietly.

  “I know,” he said. “But the truth of the matter is: having had one child and lost it, there is every reason to think that you might have another. And there should be no reason you should not conceive again.”

  “I must bear the next child to full term.”

  “If I could examine you, I might know more.”

  She shook her head. “It is not possible.”

  His glance at her was merry. “Oh, you savages,” he said softly.

  She gave a little gasp of amused shock. “You forget yourself!”

  “Then send me away.”

  That stopped her. “You can stay,” she said. “But of course, you cannot examine me.”

  “Then let us consider what might help you conceive and carry a child,” he said. “Your body needs to be strong. Do you ride horses?”

  “Yes.”

  “Ride astride before you conceive and then take a litter thereafter. Walk every day, swim if you can. You will conceive a child about two weeks after the end of your course. Rest at those times, and make sure that you lie with your husband at those times. Try to eat moderately at every meal and drink as little of their accursed small ale as you can.”

  Katherine smiled at the reflection of her own prejudices. “Do you know Spain?”

  “I was born there. My parents fled from Málaga when your mother brought in the Inquisition and they realized that they would be tormented to death.”

  “I am sorry,” she said awkwardly.

  “We will go back, it is written,” he said with nonchalant confidence.

  “I should warn you that you will not.”

  “I know that we will. I have seen the prophecy myself.”

  At once they fell silent again.

  “Shall I tell you what I advise? Or shall I just leave now?” he asked as if he did not much mind which it was to be.

  “Tell me,” she said. “And then I can pay you, and you can go. We were born to be enemies. I should not have summoned you.”

  “We are both Spanish, we both love our country. We both serve our God. Perhaps we were born to be friends.”

  She had to stop herself giving him her hand. “Perhaps,” she said gruffly, turning her head away. “But I was brought up to hate your people and hate your faith.”

  “I was brought up to hate no one,” he said gently. “Perhaps that is what I should be teaching you before anything else.”

  “Just teach me how to have a son,” she repeated.

  “Very well. Drink water that has been boiled, eat as much fruit and fresh vegetables as you can get. Do you have salad vegetables here?”

  For a moment I am back in the garden at Ludlow with his bright eyes on me.

  “Acetaria?”

  “Yes, salad.”

  “What is it, exactly?”

  He saw the queen’s face glow. “What are you thinking of?”

  “Of my first husband. He told me that I could send for gardeners to grow salad vegetables, but I never did.”

  “I have seeds,” the Moor said surprisingly. “I can give you some seeds and you can grow the vegetables you will need.”

  “You have?”

  “Yes.”

  “You would give me…you would sell them to me?”

  “Yes. I would give them to you.”

  For a moment she was silenced by his generosity. “You are very kind,” she said.

  He smiled. “We are both Spanish and a long way from our homes. Doesn’t that matter more than the fact that I am black and you are white? That I worship my God facing Mecca and you worship yours facing west?”

  “I am a child of the true religion and you are an infidel,” she said, but with less conviction than she had ever felt before.

  “We are both people of faith,” he said quietly. “Our enemies should be the people who have no faith, neither in their God, nor in others, nor in themselves. The people who should face our crusade should be those who bring cruelty into the world for no reason but their own power. There is enough sin and wickedness to fight, without taking up arms against people who believe in a forgiving God and who try to lead a good life.”

  Katherine found that she could not reply. On the one hand was her mother’s teaching, on the other was the simple goodness that radiated from this man. “I don’t know,” she said finally, and it was as if the very words set her free. “I don’t know. I would have to take the question to God. I would have to pray for guidance. I don’t pretend to know.”

  “Now, that is the very beginning of wisdom,” he said gently. “I am sure of that, at least. Knowing that you do not know is to ask humbly, instead of tell arrogantly. That is the beginning of wisdom. Now, more important, I will go home and write you a list of things that you must not eat, and I will send you some medicine to strengthen your humors. Don’t let them cup you, don’t let them put leeches on you, and don’t let them persuade you to take any poisons or potions. You are a young woman with a young husband. A baby will come.”

  It was like a blessing. “You are sure?” she said.

  “I am sure,” he replied. “And very soon.”

  Greenwich Palace,

  May 1510

  I SEND FOR HENRY, he should hear it first from me. He comes unwillingly. He has been filled with a terror of women’s secrets and women’s doings and he does not like to come into a room which had been prepared for a confinement. Also, there is something else: a lack of warmth. I see it in his face, turned away from me. The way he does not meet my eyes. But I can
not challenge him about coolness towards me when I first have to tell him such hard news. Lady Margaret leaves us alone, closing the door behind her. I know she will ensure no one outside eavesdrops. They will all know soon enough.

  “Husband, I am sorry, I have sad news for us,” I say.

  The face he turns to me is sulky. “I knew it could not be good when Lady Margaret came for me.”

  There is no point in my feeling a flash of irritation. I shall have to manage us both. “I am not with child,” I say, plunging in. “The doctor must have made a mistake. There was only one child and I lost it. This confinement has been a mistake. I shall return to court tomorrow.”

  “How can he have mistaken such a thing?”

  I give a little shrug of the shoulders. I want to say: because he is a pompous fool and your man, and you surround yourself with people who only ever tell you the good news and are afraid to tell you bad. But instead I say neutrally: “He must have been mistaken.”

  “I shall look a fool!” he bursts out. “You have been away for nearly three months and nothing to show for it.”

  I say nothing for a moment. Pointless to wish that I were married to a man who might think beyond his appearance. Pointless to wish that I were married to a man whose first thought might be of me.

  “No one will think anything at all,” I say firmly. “If anything, they will say that it is I who am a fool to not know whether I am with child or no. But at least we had a baby and that means we can have another.”

  “It does?” he asks, immediately hopeful. “But why should we lose her? Is God displeased with us? Have we committed some sin? Is it a sign of God’s displeasure?”

  I nip my lower lip to stop the Moor’s question: is God so vindictive that He would kill an innocent child to punish the parents for a sin so venial that they do not even know that they have committed it?

  “My conscience is clear,” I say firmly.

  “Mine too,” he says quickly, too quickly.

  But my conscience is not clear. That night I go on my knees to the image of the crucified Lord and for once I truly pray, I do not dream of Arthur, or consult my memory of my mother. I close my eyes and I pray.

  “Lord, it was a deathbed promise,” I say slowly. “He demanded it of me. It was for the good of England. It was to guide the kingdom and the new king in the paths of the church. It was to protect England from the Moor and from sin. I know that it has brought me wealth, and the throne, but I did not do it for gain. If it is sin, Lord, then show me now. If I should not be his wife, then tell me now. Because I believe that I did the right thing, and that I am doing the right thing. And I believe that You would not take my son from me in order to punish me for this. I believe that You are a merciful God. And I believe that I did the right thing for Arthur, for Henry, for England, and for me.”

  I sit back on my heels and wait for a long time, for an hour, perhaps more, in case my God, the God of my mother, chooses to speak to me in His anger.

  He does not.

  So I will go on assuming that I am in the right. Arthur was right to call on my promise, I was right to tell the lie, my mother was right to call it God’s will that I should be Queen of England, and that whatever happens—nothing will change that.

  Lady Margaret Pole comes to sit with me this evening, my last evening in confinement, and she takes the stool on the opposite side of the fire, close enough so that we cannot easily be overheard. “I have something to tell you,” she says.

  I look at her face; she is so calm that I know at once that something bad has happened.

  “Tell me,” I say instantly.

  She makes a little moue of distaste. “I am sorry to bring you the tittle-tattle of the court.”

  “Very well. Tell me.”

  “It is the Duke of Buckingham’s sister.”

  “Elizabeth?” I ask, thinking of the pretty young woman who had come to me the moment she knew I would be queen and asked if she could be my lady-in-waiting.

  “No, Anne.”

  I nod. This is Elizabeth’s younger sister, a dark-eyed girl with a roguish twinkle and a love of male company. She is popular at court among the young men but—at least as long as I am present—she behaves with all the demure grace of a young matron of the highest family in the land, in service to the queen.

  “What of her?”

  “She has been seeing William Compton, without telling anyone. They have had assignations. Her brother is very upset. He has told her husband, and he is furious at her risking her reputation and his good name in a flirtation with the king’s friend.”

  I think for a moment. William Compton is one of Henry’s wilder companions, the two of them are inseparable.

  “William will only have been amusing himself,” I say. “He is a heartbreaker.”

  “It turns out that she has gone missing from a masque, once during dinner and once all day when the court was hunting.”

  I nod. This is much more serious. “There is no suggestion that they are lovers?”

  She shrugs. “Certainly her brother, Edward Stafford is furious. He has complained to Compton and there has been a quarrel. The king has defended Compton.”

  I press my lips together to prevent myself snapping out a criticism in my irritation. The Duke of Buckingham is one of the oldest friends of the Tudor family, with massive lands and many retainers. He greeted me with Prince Harry all those years ago; he is now honored by the king, the greatest man in the land. He has been a good friend to me since then. Even when I was in disgrace I always had a smile and a kind word from him. Every summer he sent me a gift of game, and there were some weeks when that was the only meat we saw. Henry cannot quarrel with him as if he were a tradesman and Henry a surly farmer. This is the king and the greatest man of the state of England. The old king Henry could not even have won his throne without Buckingham’s support. A disagreement between them is not a private matter, it is a national disaster. If Henry had any sense he would not have involved himself in this petty courtiers’ quarrel. Lady Margaret nods at me, I need say nothing, she understands my disapproval.

  “Can I not leave the court for a moment without my ladies climbing out of their bedroom windows to run after young men?”

  She leans forwards and pats my hand. “It seems not. It is a foolish young court, Your Grace, and they need you to keep them steady. The king has spoken very high words to the duke and the duke is much offended. William Compton says he will say nothing of the matter to anyone, so everyone thinks the worst. Anne has been all but imprisoned by her husband, Sir George, we none of us have seen her today. I am afraid that when you come out of your confinement he will not allow her to wait on you, and then your honor is involved.” She pauses. “I thought you should know now rather than be surprised by it all tomorrow morning. Though it goes against the grain to be a talebearer of such folly.”

  “It is ridiculous,” I say. “I shall deal with it tomorrow, when I come out of confinement. But really, what are they all thinking of? This is like a schoolyard! William should be ashamed of himself and I am surprised that Anne should so far forget herself as to chase after him. And what does her husband think he is? Some knight at Camelot to imprison her in a tower?”

  Queen Katherine came out of her confinement, without announcement, and returned to her usual rooms at Greenwich Palace. There could be no churching ceremony to mark return her to normal life, since there had been no birth. There could be no christening since there was no child. She came out of the shadowy room without comment, as if she had suffered some secret, shameful illness, and everyone pretended that she had been gone for hours rather than nearly three months.

  Her ladies-in-waiting, who had become accustomed to an idle pace of life, with the queen in her confinement, assembled at some speed in the queen’s chambers, and the housemaids hurried in with fresh strewing herbs and new candles.

  Katherine caught several furtive glances among the ladies and assumed that they too had guilty consciences over misbehavior i
n her absence; but then she realized that there was a whispered buzz of conversation that ceased whenever she raised her head. Clearly, something had happened that was more serious than Anne’s disgrace; and, equally clearly, no one was telling her.

  She beckoned one of her ladies, Lady Madge, to come to her side.

  “Is Lady Elizabeth not joining us this morning?” she asked, as she could see no sign of the older Stafford sister.

  The girl flushed scarlet to her ears. “I don’t know,” she stammered. “I don’t think so.”

  “Where is she?” Katherine asked.

  The girl looked desperately round for help but all the other ladies in the room were suddenly taking an intense interest in their sewing, in their embroidery, or in their books. Elizabeth Boleyn dealt a hand of cards with as much attention as if she had a fortune staked on it.

  “I don’t know where she is,” the girl confessed.

  “In the ladies’ room?” Katherine suggested. “In the Duke of Buckingham’s rooms?”

  “I think she has gone,” the girl said baldly. At once someone gasped, and then there was silence.

  “Gone?” Katherine looked around. “Will someone tell me what is happening?” she asked, her tone reasonable enough. “Where has Lady Elizabeth gone? And how can she have gone without my permission?”

  The girl took a step back. At that moment, Lady Margaret Pole came into the room.

  “Lady Margaret,” Katherine said pleasantly. “Here is Madge telling me that Lady Elizabeth has left court without my permission and without bidding me farewell. What is happening?”

  Katherine felt her amused smile freeze on her face when her old friend shook her head slightly, and Madge, relieved, dropped back to her seat. “What is it?” Katherine asked more quietly.

  Without seeming to move, all the ladies craned forward to hear how Lady Margaret would explain the latest development.

  “I believe the king and the Duke of Buckingham have had hard words,” Lady Margaret said smoothly. “The duke has left court and taken both his sisters with him.”