Philippa Gregory's Tudor Court 6-Book Boxed Set (36 page)

He released her and stood shaking with desire so strong that he could not believe its power as it washed through him. Catalina pulled her hood forwards as if she would be veiled from him, as if she were a girl from a harem with a veil hiding her mouth, only dark, promising eyes showing above the mask. That gesture, so foreign, so secretive, made him long to push back her hood and kiss her again. He reached for her.

“We might be seen,” she said coolly, and stepped back from him. “We can be seen from the house, and anyone can go by on the river.”

Henry let her go. He could say nothing, for he knew his voice would tremble. Silently, he offered her his arm once more, and silently she took it. They fell into pace with each other, he tempering his longer stride to her steps. They walked in silence for a few moments.

“Our children will be your heirs?” she confirmed, her voice cool and steady, following a train of thought very far from his own whirl of sensations.

He cleared his throat. “Yes, yes, of course.”

“That is the English tradition?”

“Yes.”

“They will come before your other children?”

“Our son will inherit before the Princesses Margaret and Mary,” he said. “But our daughters would come after them.”

She frowned a little. “How so? Why would they not come before?”

“It is first on sex and then on age,” he said. “The firstborn boy inherits, then other boys, then girls according to age. Please God there is always a prince to inherit. England has no tradition of ruling queens.”

“A ruling queen can command as well as a king,” said the daughter of Isabella of Castile.

“Not in England,” said Henry Tudor.

She left it at that. “But our oldest son would be king when you died,” she pursued.

“Please God I have some years left,” he said wryly.

She was seventeen, she had no sensitivity about age. “Of course. But when you die, if we had a son, he would inherit?”

“No. The king after me will be Prince Harry, the Prince of Wales.”

She frowned. “I thought you could nominate an heir? Can you not make it our son?”

He shook his head. “Harry is Prince of Wales. He will be king after me.”

“I thought he was to go into the church?”

“Not now.”

“But if we have a son? Can you not make Harry king of your French dominions, or Ireland, and make our son King of England?”

Henry laughed shortly. “No. For that would be to destroy my kingdom, which I have had some trouble to win and to keep together. Harry
will have it all by right.” He saw she was disturbed. “Catalina, you will be Queen of England, one of the finest kingdoms of Europe, the place your mother and father chose for you. Your sons and daughters will be princes and princesses of England. What more could you want?”

“I want my son to be king,” she answered him frankly.

He shrugged. “It cannot be.”

She turned away slightly, only his grip on her hand kept her close.

He tried to laugh it off. “Catalina, we are not even married yet. You might not even have a son. We need not spoil our betrothal for a child not yet conceived.”

“Then what would be the point of marriage?” she asked, direct in her self-absorption.

He could have said “desire.” “Destiny, so that you shall be queen.”

She would not let it go. “I had thought to be Queen of England and see my son on the throne,” she repeated. “I had thought to be a power in the court, like your mother is. I had thought that there are castles to build and a navy to plan and schools and colleges to found. I want to defend against the Scots on our northern borders and against the Moors on our coasts. I want to be a ruling queen in England, these are things I have planned and hoped for. I was named as the next Queen of England almost in my cradle, I have thought about the kingdom I would reign, I have made plans. There are many things that I want to do.”

He could not help himself—he laughed aloud at the thought of this girl, this child, presuming to make plans for the ruling of his kingdom. “You will find that I am before you,” he said bluntly. “This kingdom shall be run as the king commands. This kingdom is run as I command. I did not fight my way to the crown to hand it over to a girl young enough to be my daughter. Your task will be to fill the royal nurseries and your world will start and stop there.”

“But your mother . . .”

“You will find my mother guards her domains as I guard mine,” he said, still chuckling at the thought of this child planning her future at his court. “She will command you as a daughter and you will obey. Make no mistake about it, Catalina. You will come into my court and obey me, you will live in my mother’s rooms and obey her. You will be Queen of England and have the crown on your head. But you will be my wife, and I will have an obedient wife, as I have always done.”

He stopped—he did not want to frighten her—but his desire for her was not greater than his determination to hold this kingdom that he had fought so hard to win. “I am not a child like Arthur,” he said to her quietly, thinking that his son, a gentle boy, might have made all sorts of soft promises to a determined young wife. “You will not rule beside me. You will be a child bride to me. I shall love you and make you happy. I swear you will be glad that you married me. I shall be kind to you. I shall be generous to you. I shall give you anything you want. But I shall not make you a ruler. Even at my death you will not rule my country.”

*     *     *

That night I dreamed that I was a queen in a court with a scepter in one hand and wand in the other and a crown on my head. I raised the scepter and found it changed in my hand, it was a branch of a tree, the stem of a flower, it was valueless. My other hand was no longer filled with the heavy orb of the scepter but with rose petals. I could smell their scent. I put my hand up to touch the crown on my head and I felt a little circlet of flowers. The throne room melted away and I was in the sultana’s garden at the Alhambra, my sisters plaiting circlets of daisies for each other’s heads.

“Where is the Queen of England?” someone called from the terrace below the garden.

I rose from the lawn of chamomile flowers and smelled the bittersweet perfume of the herb as I tried to run past the fountain to the archway at the end of the garden. “I am here!” I tried to call, but I made no noise above the splashing of the water in the marble bowl.

“Where is the Queen of England?” I heard them call again.

“I am here!” I called out silently.

“Where is Queen Katherine of England?”

“Here! Here! Here!”

*     *     *

The ambassador, summoned at daybreak to come at once to Durham House, did not trouble himself to get there until nine o’clock. He found Catalina waiting for him in her privy chamber with only Doña Elvira in attendance.

“I sent for you hours ago,” the princess said crossly.

“I was undertaking business for your father and could not come earlier,” he said smoothly, ignoring the sulky look on her face. “Is there something wrong?”

“I spoke with the king yesterday and he repeated his proposal of marriage,” Catalina said, a little pride in her voice.

“Indeed.”

“But he told me that I would live at court in the rooms of his mother.”

“Oh.” The ambassador nodded.

“And he said that my sons would inherit only after Prince Harry.”

The ambassador nodded again.

“Can we not persuade him to overlook Prince Harry? Can we not draw up a marriage contract to set him aside in favor of my son?”

The ambassador shook his head. “It’s not possible.”

“Surely a man can choose his heir?”

“No. Not in the case of a king come so new to his throne. Not an English king. And even if he could, he would not.”

She leapt from her chair and paced to the window. “My son will be the grandson of the kings of Spain!” she exclaimed. “Royal for centuries. Prince Harry is nothing more than the son of Elizabeth of York and a successful pretender.”

De Puebla gave a little hiss of horror at her bluntness and glanced towards the door. “You would do better never to call him that. He is to be the King of England.”

She nodded, accepting the reprimand. “But he has not my breeding,” she pursued. “Prince Harry would not be the king that my boy would be.”

“That is not the question,” the ambassador observed. “The question is of time and practice. The king’s oldest son is always the Prince of Wales. He always inherits the throne. This king, of all the kings in the world, is not going to make a pretender of his own legitimate heir. He has been dogged with pretenders. He is not going to make another.”

As always, Catalina flinched at the thought of the last pretender, Edward of Warwick, beheaded to make way for her.

“Besides,” the ambassador continued, “any king would rather have a sturdy eleven-year-old son as his heir than a newborn in the cradle. These are dangerous times. A man wants to leave a man to inherit, not a child.”

“If my son is not to be king, then what is the point of me marrying a king?” Catalina demanded.

“You would be queen,” the ambassador pointed out.

“What sort of a queen would I be with My Lady the King’s Mother
ruling everything? The king would not let me have my way in the kingdom, and she would not let me have my way in the court.”

“You are very young,” he started, trying to soothe her.

“I am old enough to know my own mind,” Catalina stated. “And I want to be queen in truth as well as in name. But he will never let me be that, will he?”

“No,” de Puebla admitted. “You will never command while he is alive.”

“And when he is dead?” she demanded, without shrinking.

“Then you would be the Dowager Queen,” de Puebla offered.

“And my parents might marry me once more to someone else, and I might leave England anyway!” she finished, quite exasperated.

“It is possible,” he conceded.

“And Harry’s wife would be Princess of Wales, and Harry’s wife would be the new queen. She would go before me, she would rule in my place, and all my sacrifice would be for nothing. And her sons would be kings of England.”

“That is true.”

Catalina threw herself into her chair. “Then I have to be Prince Harry’s wife,” she said. “I have to be.”

De Puebla was quite horrified. “I understood you had agreed with the king to marry him! He gave me to believe that you were agreed.”

“I had agreed to be queen,” she said, white-faced with determination. “Not some cat’s-paw. D’you know what he called me? He said I would be his child bride, and I would live in his mother’s rooms, as if I were one of her ladies-in-waiting!”

“The former queen . . .”

“The former queen was a saint to put up with a mother-in-law like that one. She stepped back all her life. I can’t do it. It is not what I want, it is not what my mother wants, and it is not what God wants.”

“But if you have agreed . . .”

“When has any agreement been honored in this country?” Catalina demanded fiercely. “We will break this agreement and make another. We will break this promise and make another. I shall not marry the king, I shall marry another.”

“Who?” he asked numbly.

“Prince Harry, the Prince of Wales,” she said. “So that when King Henry dies, I shall be queen in deed as well as name.”

There was a short silence.

“So you say,” said de Puebla slowly. “Perhaps. But who is going to tell the king?”

*     *     *

God, if You are there, tell me that I am doing the right thing. If You are there, then help me. If it is Thy will that I am Queen of England, then I will need help to achieve it. It has all gone wrong now, and if this has been sent to try me, then see! I am on my knees and shaking with anxiety. If I am indeed blessed by You, destined by You, chosen by You, and favored by You, then why do I feel so hopelessly alone?

*     *     *

Ambassador Dr. de Puebla found himself in the uncomfortable position of having to bring bad news to one of the most powerful and irascible kings in Christendom. He had firm letters of refusal from Their Majesties of Spain in his hand, he had Catalina’s determination to be Princess of Wales, and he had his own shrinking courage, screwed up to the tightest point for this embarrassing meeting.

The king had chosen to see him in the stable yard of Whitehall Palace. He was there looking at a consignment of new Barbary horses, brought in to improve English stock. De Puebla thought of making a graceful reference to foreign blood refreshing native strains, breeding best done between young animals, but he saw Henry’s dark face and realized that there would be no easy way out of this dilemma.

“Your Grace,” he said, bowing low.

“De Puebla,” the king said shortly.

“I have a reply from Their Majesties of Spain to your most flattering proposal, but perhaps I should see you at a more opportune time?”

“Here is well enough. I can imagine from your tiptoeing in what they say.”

“The truth is . . .” De Puebla prepared to lie. “They want their daughter home, and they cannot contemplate her marriage to you. The queen is particularly vehement in her refusal.”

“Because?” the king inquired.

“Because she wants to see her daughter, her youngest, sweetest daughter, matched to a prince of her own age. It is a woman’s whim—” The diplomat made a little diffident gesture. “Only a woman’s whim. But we have to recognize a mother’s wishes, don’t we? Your Grace?”

“Not necessarily,” the king said unhelpfully. “But what does the Dowager Princess say? I thought that she and I had an understanding. She
can tell her mother of her preference.” The king’s eyes were on the Arab stallion, walking proud-headed around the yard, his ears flickering backwards and forwards, his tail held high, his neck arched like a bow. “I imagine she can speak for herself.”

“She says that she will obey you, as ever, Your Grace,” de Puebla said tactfully.

“And?”

“But she has to obey her mother.” He fell back at the sudden hard glance that the king threw at him. “She is a good daughter, Your Grace. She is an obedient daughter to her mother.”