The Queen's Sorrow (34 page)

He said that he was very, very sorry. He didn’t specify; he didn’t need to.

She seemed to consider what he’d said, and he guessed she was unaccustomed to hearing it. Then, ‘Thank you, Mr Prado.’ Careful to reveal no emotion. Careful, too, though, to give it weight: ‘Thank you.’ She inclined her head towards the bay of a window.

There, looking down on to the now black river, she remarked, ‘You’ll be going home soon.’

In the entourage of her husband, yes. Uneasy, Rafael was dismissive: ‘Oh, I don’t know …’

She wouldn’t have it. ‘You will.’ And, mustering an imitation of brightness, ‘You’ll see your son.’

He echoed her tone: ‘Oh, I’m not sure he’ll know who I am.’

That, too, though, she knocked back. ‘He’ll learn, again. Soon, it’ll be as though you were never away.’

Blithely said, and he knew it could never be so, nor would he want it to be. He made himself say it: ‘Your Majesty …’

Nothing from her; he had to assume she was listening.
If
there’s ever anything I can do for you
…

‘In the house where I live in London, there’s a four-year-old boy. Like my son,’ he reminded her: four years old.

She did look around at him, and there was a chink of the old openness. ‘He reminds you of Francisco?’

He shook his head, almost smiling because the notion was so unlikely as to be – despite everything – amusing. ‘No, same age but nothing like Francisco.’ Except that he didn’t actually know, did he? He didn’t know, nowadays, what Francisco was like. He forced down despair. ‘This little boy,’ he tried again, ‘Nicholas: he’s a very unhappy little boy. He doesn’t talk –’

‘Can’t talk?’ – the query so quick and the frown so hard that Rafael was taken aback.

‘
Can
,’ he blustered. ‘Can. But …’ It was hard to explain, and anyway it was irrelevant; what mattered was, ‘When he was three, he lost his father.’

She’d turned from him again and spoke distantly, towards the river: ‘Are you worried that your son will be like this, when you get home?’

Again, he shook his head but what she’d raised allowed him to say, ‘My son has been told that his daddy’s away across the sea, working for a queen.’

She didn’t respond but her silence had a softness to it as if she was faintly pleased to find herself in their story.

‘And he’s told that I’ll be coming home’ – he pressed on, the sensation one of striding over an unexpected dip – ‘and that everything’ll be fine. And while I’ve been here, I’ve been able to write to him, draw for him –’

‘Draw?’

Again, she’d thrown him off track. He shrugged: ‘London Bridge …’

Which seemed to be good enough, because she nodded.

‘Pictures are better,’ he felt he should continue, ‘for –’

‘– Yes.’

So, he looped back to where he’d left off. ‘The other one, I tell stories – the boy here.’

She seemed lost to him, again; lifeless at the window, an absurdly extravagant rag doll. But then she surprised him with, ‘Stories from Spain?’

‘Stories from England.’ He felt nervous: she probably favoured biblical stories; and King Arthur might be particularly poor ground to be on, what with his wicked half-sister and his doomed marriage.

‘Oh?’

He felt she was merely following form, so wearily did she ask, but he’d have to answer. ‘King Arthur.’ He’d made sure to sound dismissive:
child’s stuff
.

‘England’s last good king,’ she said, airily, sceptically, as if quoting. Then, ‘Did Francisco like those stories?’

‘Oh, he was too small.’

‘Maybe when you get home, then.’

‘Maybe.’ Home, again; he didn’t want to think about home, not at this moment.

She surprised him again, this time by asking, ‘Is it hard to leave the boy – the boy here in London?’

‘Yes.’ Grateful to her for raising it. ‘Yes, it is.’ Then, ‘His mother, too: she’s been a good friend to me.’

She’d already lost interest, managing only a dutiful, ‘I’m sure they were glad of your company.’ Then, though, something changed and she turned to him, looking at him with something like feeling. ‘It’s been a difficult time, for you; it’s been a long time. I’m sorry.’

Unwittingly, he’d reminded her of her own awful time.

Not knowing what else to do, he pressed on with what he’d come to ask her: ‘Your Majesty, is any father better than none?’

She replied emptily, ‘God’s gift, fatherhood.’ Not to be questioned, was the implication. But she had questioned it and had taken some fathers from their children. His blood was stirring hot beneath his skin.

‘The greatest of His gifts, perhaps,’ she said, but without enthusiasm: ‘the love between parent and child.’

He disliked talk of children as gifts from God, because what did that make of what he’d done? By being Francisco’s father, had he misappropriated someone else’s gift? Or perhaps God’s gift was all the greater in his case, giving him what he otherwise wouldn’t have had.

‘It’s a gift from God, and should be honoured.’

But you haven’t been honouring it
, he almost said. Instead, though, he made himself say what he’d come to say: ‘I’ve come here to beg for your help, Your Majesty.’

She turned to look at him, that sharp little fold between her eyes.

‘I can’t just go back,’ he implored her, ‘knowing what I know. It’d be wrong of me just to go back as before. I can’t pretend nothing has happened here.’

No change in her expression: she was waiting for him to deliver it, whatever it was that he had to say. Now that he’d come to it, though, he didn’t know how. He’d been wrong to trust to knowing how when the time came.

But then suddenly he did know, or at least knew where – how – to begin. ‘Your Majesty, I know a man who has to lie to be able to be a father to his son. A man who, if people
knew the truth, many of them would say he should give up his son.’ His heart had taken flight inside his ribs, driving his air ahead of it and leaving him little to breathe. ‘But is it wrong,’ he rushed, ‘can it ever be wrong to …’ he faltered ‘… do the work of fatherhood, for a little boy?’ It came convoluted in English, but struck him as being true: ‘It is work,’ he insisted, more to himself than to her. ‘It’s love, I know, but it’s what God gives us to do, isn’t it? It’s what we have to do, and we can do it well or not well, and we can do it better –’

He’d forgotten what he was asking her. She looked blank, but had offered no contradiction. ‘And the better we do it,’ he felt blindly ahead, ‘the stronger the child, and a strong child can be …’

Be
: know and feel, and love and do, and …
wonder
. Yes, that was it, that was what he wished, above all, beyond all, he realised, for Francisco: that he’d look up at the stars or into someone’s eyes with wonder.

He said, ‘There’s a man I know who lives his whole life as a lie just so that he can be a father to his son. Just to be able to ruffle his son’s hair, kiss his head, ask him how his day has been.’

‘But why?’ Her question more than a question, an expression of frustration at an absurd situation.

Well, he could tell her that. ‘Because he’s a priest.’

He wouldn’t have believed that so pallid a face could blanch.

‘When priests were allowed to marry, he married and had a son.’ He rephrased it: ‘God gave him a son. But then he was told to give up the work God chose him to do, or give up
being a father.’ He shrugged. ‘I think, neither of those can a man give up.’

Her eyes were glossed with tears. Never before – despite everything – had he seen tears in her eyes.

‘His wife has come to London in secret; she lives a secret life close enough for him to see his son. They meet up for him to be a father, sometimes, to his son. It’s a secret, the little boy is told, because to everyone else Daddy must say he doesn’t want to be your daddy.’

She blinked, and the tears spilled. She didn’t acknowledge them, nor wipe them away.

‘And you asked why he doesn’t speak.’

She nodded; she knew: ‘The four-year-old in your house,’ she whispered.

‘Nicholas.’ Nicholas’s fate handed over to the queen of England herself for safekeeping. ‘I had to tell you.’ He was so glad that he had. He could see he’d done the right thing. What he’d come to do: it’d worked.

She looked down at her clasped hands. ‘I understand.’

‘I knew you’d see.’ No one else would have dared, but no else knew her quite as he did.

Not looking up, she did at last wipe her eyes. ‘I do see, yes, thank you, Mr Prado. I do see. Thank you. You were absolutely right to tell me.’

They’d said their final, formal goodbyes, wishing each other well. She’d said that perhaps he’d return to undertake the unfortunately stalled sundial project when relations between
her people and Spanish visitors had improved, and he’d agreed. Surely she didn’t believe it. He certainly didn’t, and wondered anxiously how long her reign would last, and how it’d end.

He’d been taken to Hall just in time for the Spanish sitting and had slipped in, squeezing on to the table nearest the door, relieved to see no one he knew. He was happy in his own company. Glancing around, he considered how he might well have had to spend his entire time in England in this palace-bound, all-male Spanish household, and how utterly different – unimaginably different – the year would’ve been. He felt no connection to these dull-eyed men. His connection was to Cecily, and how strong and vibrant it was, somehow all the more so for the physical separation. Sitting there, his whole body sang with it. He was holding her close and carrying her forward: his memories of her and the certainty now of her future, her freedom.

He was famished and ate well before crossing the palace to present himself – as instructed – at the riverside gatehouse, where he was to spend the night. Settling down in the bed, he anticipated sleeping soundly. He felt that he’d handed Cecily back to herself: he’d arrived in her life and made it no easier, probably made it harder, but now, before leaving, he’d made good. He expected to feel something similar for himself but instead, all night, he felt shadowed, waking time and time again to the memory of what he’d done. The feeling was of being troubled, which made no sense.

At sunrise, he was down by the river to ask about the tide and was told that he’d have to while away the morning. Which was easy, in view of the length of the queue at the
Spanish office. Hours later, at the head of the queue, he was given the name of a ship and told to expect the call in two days’ time. He paid a final visit to the astronomical clock before lunching in Hall.

Arriving at the Kitsons’ as darkness was falling, he found that the house was being packed up. Just inside the door, two walls were bare, and the soles of his boots sounded on the uncovered floor. But of course: there was no longer a reason for the Kitsons to be in London. They’d been waiting for the royal birth but could now retreat to the countryside for what was left of the summer and for the autumn. Cecily, presumably, would be staying. For one anguished thump of his heart, he felt that, if only he were staying, too, then it’d be how it’d been a year ago, when for months the house had seemed to be their own.

The steward’s sudden presence in an adjacent doorway made him jump. ‘Ah! – message for you, Mr Prado: far side of London Bridge by ten tomorrow.’

Exhausted and distracted, Rafael grasped none of it, which the steward must’ve seen because he gave what looked to be a genuine smile and explained, ‘You’re going home.’

Rafael’s heart hung in his chest like a stopped pendulum. ‘Tomorrow?’

‘By ten.’ The steward sounded pleased to be able to tell him. ‘Far side of London Bridge.’ Where the ships docked. ‘I’ll have a couple of lads take your trunk.’

Disintegrating into shakes, Rafael could barely stand or breathe.

The steward was turning, resuming a dash elsewhere, and Rafael had to blurt it out to catch him: ‘MrsTanner – is she around?’ He hadn’t been intending to ask for her, but the
question had come and he was relieved. Because what on earth had he been thinking? Could he really have gone with no word of goodbye?

The steward halted – a definite, reluctant halting – but only half-turned back, and seemed to need to steady himself with an intake of breath. ‘No.’

No?

What did
that
mean?

‘No?’

‘No.’ Held in Rafael’s stare, he said, ‘Some men came for her, this afternoon.’

Rafael understood nothing by what he’d said. ‘Some men?’

‘The duke’s men.’

The men who rode around the streets to keep order. ‘The duke’s men?’ He hated parroting the steward but didn’t know what else to do, what to ask.

‘I don’t know why,’ the steward confessed.

Well, Rafael could guess. A guess was all it was, but surely coincidence didn’t explain it: that he’d been to see the queen about her, and now this. The duke’s men, though? The law-enforcers? Perhaps there’d been some misunderstanding, and the queen would have to intervene. And soon, he hoped, very soon, because where – now that it was dark – was Cecily? With a shock, he realised he hadn’t asked: ‘Nicholas?’

‘Nicholas, too.’

Trying to gauge how it’d been when the men had arrived, he asked, ‘Was Mrs Tanner – surprised?’