The Constant Princess ttc-1

by Philippa Gregory

  He smiled at Catalina and she shot him a look that she hoped was discreetly warm. But there was no opportunity to exchange so much as one word. She was firmly anchored farther down the table and she could hardly see him thanks to My Lady the King’s Mother, who plied him with the best of all foods from her own plate and interposed her broad shoulder between him and the ladies.

  Catalina thought that it was as Arthur had said, that the boy was spoiled by this attention. His grandmother leaned back for a moment to speak to one of the ushers and Catalina saw Harry’s gaze flick towards her. She gave him a smile and then cast down her eyes. When she glanced up, he was still looking at her and then he blushed red to be caught. “A child.” She shot a sideways little smile even as she silently criticized him. “A child of eleven. All boasting and boyishness. And why should this plump, spoiled boy be spared when Arthur…” At once she stopped the thought. To compare Arthur with his brother was to wish the little boy dead, and she would not do that. To think of Arthur in public was to risk breaking down and she would never do that.

  “A woman could rule a boy like that,” she thought. “A woman could be a very great queen if she married such a boy. For the first ten years he would know nothing, and by then perhaps he might be in such a habit of obedience that he would let his wife continue to rule. Or he might be, as Arthur told me, a lazy boy. A young man wasted. He might be so lazy that he could be diverted by games and hunting and sports and amusements, so that the business of the kingdom could be done by his wife.”

  Catalina never forgot that Arthur had told her that the boy fancied himself in love with her. “If they give him everything that he wants, perhaps he might be the one who chooses his bride,” she thought. “They are in the habit of indulging him. Perhaps he could beg to marry me and they would feel obliged to say yes.”

  She saw him blush even redder; even his ears turned pink. She held his gaze for a long moment, she took in a little breath and parted her lips as if to whisper a word to him. She saw his blue eyes focus on her mouth and darken with desire, and then, calculating the effect, she looked down. “Stupid boy,” she thought.

  The king rose from the table and all the men and women on the crowded benches of the hall rose, too, and bowed their heads.

  “Give you thanks for coming to greet me,” King Henry said. “Comrades in war and friends in peace. But now forgive me, as I wish to be alone.”

  He nodded to Harry, he offered his mother his hand, and the royal family went through the little doorway at the back of the great hall to their privy chamber.

  “You should have stayed longer,” the king’s mother remarked as they settled into chairs by the fire and the groom of the ewery brought them wine. “It looks bad, to leave so promptly. I had told the master of horse you would stay, and there would be singing.”

  “I was weary,” Henry said shortly. He looked over to where Catalina and the Princess Mary were sitting together. The younger girl was red-eyed, the loss of her mother had hit her hard. Catalina was—as usual—cool as a stream. He thought she had a great power of self-containment. Even this loss of her only real friend at court, her last friend in England, did not seem to distress her.

  “She can go back to Durham House tomorrow,” his mother remarked, following the direction of his gaze. “It does no good for her to come to court. She has not earned her place here with an heir, and she has not paid for her place here with her dowry.”

  “She is constant,” he said. “She is constant in her attendance on you, and on me.”

  “Constant like the plague,” his mother returned.

  “You are hard on her.”

  “It is a hard world,” she said simply. “I am nothing but just. Why don’t we send her home?”

  “Do you not admire her at all?”

  She was surprised by the question. “What is there to admire in her?”

  “Her courage, her dignity. She has beauty, of course, but she also has charm. She is educated, she is graceful. I think, in other circumstances, she could have been merry. And she has borne herself, under this disappointment, like a queen.”

  “She is of no use to us,” she said. “She was our Princess of Wales, but our boy is dead. She is of no use to us now, however charming she may seem to be.”

  Catalina looked up and saw them watching her. She gave a small controlled smile and inclined her head. Henry rose, went to a window bay on his own, and crooked his finger for her. She did not jump to come to him, as any of the women of court would have jumped. She looked at him, she raised an eyebrow as if she were considering whether or not to obey, and then she gracefully rose to her feet and strolled towards him.

  “Good God, she is desirable,” he thought. “No more than seventeen. Utterly in my power, and yet still she walks across the room as if she were Queen of England crowned.”

  “You will miss the queen, I daresay,” he said abruptly in French as she came up to him.

  “I shall,” she replied clearly. “I grieve for you in the loss of your wife. I am sure my mother and father would want me to give you their commiserations.”

  He nodded, never taking his eyes from her face. “We share a grief now,” he observed. “You have lost your partner in life and I have lost mine.”

  He saw her gaze sharpen. “Indeed,” she said steadily. “We do.”

  He wondered if she was trying to unravel his meaning. If that quick mind was working behind that clear lovely face, there was no sign of it. “You must teach me the secret of your resignation,” he said.

  “Oh, I don’t think I resign myself.”

  Henry was intrigued. “You don’t?”

  “No. I think I trust in God that He knows what is right for all of us, and His will shall be done.”

  “Even when His ways are hidden and we sinners have to stumble about in the dark?”

  “I know my destiny,” Catalina said calmly. “He has been gracious to reveal it to me.”

  “Then you’re one of the very few,” he said, thinking to make her laugh at herself.

  “I know,” she said without a glimmer of a smile. He realized that she was utterly serious in her belief that God had revealed her future to her. “I am blessed.”

  “And what is this great destiny that God has for you?” he said sarcastically. He hoped so much that she would say that she should be Queen of England, and then he could ask her, or draw close to her, or let her see what was in his mind.

  “To do God’s will, of course, and bring His kingdom to earth,” she said cleverly, and evaded him once more.

  I speak very confidently of God’s will, and I remind the king that I was raised to be Princess of Wales, but in truth God is silent to me. Since the day of Arthur’s death I can have no genuine conviction that I am blessed. How can I call myself blessed when I have lost the one thing that made my life complete? How can I be blessed when I do not think I will ever be happy again? But we live in a world of believers—I have to say that I am under the especial protection of God, I have to give the illusion of being sure of my destiny. I am the daughter of Isabella of Spain. My inheritance is certainty.

  But in truth, of course, I am increasingly alone. I feel increasingly alone. There is nothing between me and despair but my promise to Arthur, and the thin thread, like gold wire in a carpet, of my own determination.

  MAY 1503

  King Henry did not approach Catalina for one month for the sake of decency, but when he was out of his black jacket he made a formal visit to her at Durham House. Her household had been warned that he would come and were dressed in their best. He saw the signs of wear and tear in the curtains and rugs and hangings and smiled to himself. If she had the good sense that he thought she had, she would be glad to see a resolution to this awkward position. He congratulated himself on not making it easier for her in this last year. She should know by now that she was utterly in his power and her parents could do nothing to free her.

  His herald threw open the double doors to her presence chamber an
d shouted, “His Grace, King Henry of England…”

  Henry waved aside the other titles and went in to his daughter-in-law.

  She was wearing a dark-colored gown with blue slashings on the sleeve, a richly embroidered stomacher, and a dark blue hood. It brought out the amber in her hair and the blue in her eyes, and he smiled in instinctive pleasure at the sight of her as she sank into a deep formal curtsey and rose up.

  “Your Grace,” she said pleasantly. “This is an honor indeed.”

  He had to force himself not to stare at the creamy line of her neck, at the smooth, unlined face that looked back up at him. He had lived all his life with a beautiful woman of his own age; now here was a girl young enough to be his daughter, with the rich-scented bloom of youth still on her and breasts full and firm. She was ready for marriage, indeed, she was over-ready for marriage. This was a girl who should be bedded. He checked himself at once, and thought he was part lecher, part lover to look on his dead son’s child bride with such desire.

  “Can I offer you some refreshment?” she asked. There was a smile in the back of her eyes.

  He thought if she had been an older, a more sophisticated woman, he would have assumed she was playing him, as knowingly as a skilled angler can land a salmon.

  “Thank you. I will take a glass of wine.”

  And so she caught him. “I am afraid I have nothing fit to offer you,” she said smoothly. “I have nothing left in my cellars at all, and I cannot afford to buy good wine.”

  Henry did not show by so much as a flicker that he knew she had trapped him into hearing of her financial difficulties. “I am sorry for that. I will have some barrels sent over,” he said. “Your housekeeping must be very remiss.”

  “It is very thin,” she said simply. “Will you take a cup of ale? We brew our own ale very cheaply.”

  “Thank you,” he said, biting his lip to hide a smile. He had not dreamed that she had so much self-confidence. The year of widowhood had brought out her courage, he thought. Alone in a foreign land she had not collapsed as other girls might have collapsed, she had gathered her power and become stronger.

  “Is My Lady the King’s Mother in good health and the Princess Mary well?” she asked, as confidently as if she were entertaining him in the gold room of the Alhambra.

  “Yes, thank God,” he said. “And you?”

  She smiled and bowed her head. “And no need to ask for your health,” she remarked. “You never look any different.”

  “Do I not?”

  “Not since the very first time we met,” she said. “When I had just landed in England and was coming to London and you rode to meet me.” It cost Catalina a good deal not to think of Arthur as he was on that evening, mortified by his father’s rudeness, trying to talk to her in an undertone, stealing sideways looks at her.

  Determinedly she put her young lover from her mind and smiled at his father, and said: “I was so surprised by your coming, and so startled by you.”

  He laughed. He saw that she had conjured the picture of when he first saw her, a virgin by her bed, in a white gown with a blue cape with her hair in a plait down her back, and how he thought then that he had come upon her like a ravisher, he had forced his way into her bedchamber, he could have forced himself onto her.

  He turned and took a chair to cover his thoughts, gesturing that she should sit down too. Her duenna, the same sour-faced Spanish mule, he noticed irritably, stood at the back of the room with two other ladies.

  Catalina sat perfectly composed, her white fingers interlaced in her lap, her back straight, her entire manner that of a young woman confident of her power to attract. Henry said nothing and looked at her for a moment. Surely she must know what she was doing to him when she reminded him of their first meeting? And yet surely the daughter of Isabella of Spain and the widow of his own son could not be willfully tempting him to lust?

  A servant came in with two cups of small ale. The king was served first and then Catalina took a cup. She took a tiny sip and set it down.

  “D’you still not like ale?” He was startled at the intimacy in his own voice. Surely to God he could ask his daughter-in-law what she liked to drink?

  “I drink it only when I am very thirsty,” she replied. “But I don’t like the taste it leaves in my mouth.” She put her hand to her mouth and touched her lower lip. Fascinated, he watched her fingertip brush the tip of her tongue. She made a little face. “I think it will never be a favorite of mine,” she said.

  “What did you drink in Spain?” He found he could hardly speak. He was still watching her soft mouth, shiny where her tongue had licked her lips.

  “We could drink the water,” she said. “In the Alhambra the Moors had piped clean water all the way from the mountains into the palace. We drank mountain spring water from the fountains; it was still cold. And juices from fruits of course, we had wonderful fruits in summer, and ices, and sherbets and wines as well.”

  “If you come on progress with me this summer, we can go to places where you can drink the water,” he said. He thought he was sounding like a stupid boy, promising her a drink of water as a treat. Stubbornly, he persisted. “If you come with me, we can go hunting, we can go to Hampshire, beyond, to the New Forest. You remember the country around there? Near where we first met?”

  “I should like that so much,” she said. “If I am still here, of course.”

  “Still here?” He was startled. He had almost forgotten that she was his hostage, she was supposed to go home by summer. “I doubt your father and I will have agreed terms by then.”

  “Why, how can it take so long?” she asked her blue eyes wide with assumed surprise. “Surely we can come to some agreement?” She hesitated. “Between friends? Surely if we cannot agree about the monies owed, there is some other way? Some other agreement that can be made? Since we have made an agreement before?”

  It was so close to what he had been thinking that he rose to his feet, discomfited. At once she rose too. The top of her pretty blue hood only came to his shoulder. He thought he would have to bend his head to kiss her, and if she were under him in bed he would have to take care not to hurt her. He felt his face flush hot at the thought of it. “Come here,” he said thickly and led her to the window embrasure where her ladies could not overhear them.

  “I have been thinking what sort of arrangement we might come to,” he said. “The easiest thing would be for you to stay here. I should certainly like you to stay here.”

  Catalina did not look up at him. If she had done so then, he would have been sure of her. But she kept her eyes down, her face downcast. “Oh, certainly, if my parents agree,” she said, so softly that he could hardly hear.

  He felt himself trapped. He felt he could not go forward while she held her head so delicately to one side and showed him only the curve of her cheek and her eyelashes, and yet he could hardly go back when she had asked him outright if there were not another way to resolve the conflict between him and her parents.

  “You will think me very old,” he burst out.

  Her blue eyes flashed up at him and were veiled again. “Not at all,” she said levelly.

  “I am old enough to be your father,” he said, hoping she would disagree.

  Instead she looked up at him. “I never think of you like that,” she said.

  Henry was silent. He felt utterly baffled by this slim young woman who seemed at one moment so deliciously encouraging and yet at another moment quite opaque. “What would you like to do?” he demanded of her.

  At last she raised her head and smiled up at him, her lips curving up but no warmth in her eyes. “Whatever you command,” she said. “I should like most of all to obey you, Your Grace.”

  What does he mean? What is he doing? I thought he was offering me Harry and I was about to say yes when he said that I must think him very old, as old as my father. And of course he is; indeed, he looks far older than my father, that is why I never think of him like a father—a grandfather, perhaps, or
an old priest. My father is handsome, a terrible womanizer, a brave soldier, a hero on the battlefield. This king has fought one halfhearted battle and put down a dozen unheroic uprisings of poor men too sickened with his rule to endure it anymore. So he is not like my father and I spoke only the truth when I said that I never see him like that.

  But then he looked at me as if I had said something of great interest, and then he asked me what I wanted. I could not say to his face that I wanted him to overlook my marriage to his oldest son and marry me anew to his youngest. So I said that I wanted to obey him. There can be nothing wrong with that. But somehow it was not what he wanted. And it did not get me to where I wanted.

  I have no idea what he wants. Nor how to turn it to my own advantage.

  Henry went back to Whitehall Palace, his face burning and his heart pounding, hammered between frustration and calculation. If he could persuade Catalina’s parents to allow the wedding, he could claim the rest of her substantial dowry, be free of their claims for her jointure, reinforce the alliance with Spain at the very moment that he was looking to secure new alliances with Scotland and France, and perhaps, with such a young wife, get another son and heir on her. One daughter on the throne of Scotland, one daughter on the throne of France should lock both nations into peace for a lifetime. The Princess of Spain on the throne of England should keep the most Christian kings of Spain in alliance. He would have bolted the great powers of Christendom into peaceful alliance with England not just for a generation but for generations to come. They would have heirs in common; they would be safe. England would be safe. Better yet, England’s sons might inherit the kingdoms of France, of Scotland, of Spain. England might conceive its way into peace and greatness.