The Secret Bride (2 page)

While their eldest brother, Arthur, had always been weak, she never imagined that England’s heir might actually die. At eight, she thought little of death and tragedy, especially living the idyllic life she did in the country, surrounded by endless emerald hills, water-meadows and streams, well protected from the harshness of court life.

Only four months ago Arthur, at age fifteen, had been married off to Katherine of Aragon, daughter of Queen Isabella of Spain, with whom he had been betrothed since his infancy. The match had been made in order to secure the alliance between their two countries. But Katherine at seventeen was pretty and sweet enough, and Henry and Mary both liked her. Arthur had seemed happy with her too; his tenuous health had seemed strengthened by their union, in spite of his youth. But all of that was over now. Gone in a moment.

The world would change for everyone, but most especially for Henry, who she could see had only just now fully realized that he would next be King of England.

Then, to her surprise, Charles Brandon, and not her brother Henry, extended his arms in that odd, silent moment, and drew her against him in a comforting, fatherly embrace.

The feel of his lean, muscular torso pressed against her own flat child’s chest startled her, in spite of her grief. The sensation was a shock to a girl who was not yet even nine. Until that day—that moment exactly—she had never thought of Charles as anything but her brother Henry’s friend and companion.

At eighteen, Brandon was older than them both—there by the grace of the king, who had installed him at Eltham as a debt owed to Charles’s father. William Brandon had fought nobly beside the king at Bosworth Field and lost his life there. His mother had died in childbirth, leaving Charles orphaned, and two siblings, a sister and brother, left to distant relatives to care for. But the family had made sacrifices which the king meant to honor. Henry VII was many things; most especially he was loyal to those who had shown loyalty to him, and so Charles Brandon had been chosen as a companion for his son.

With Arthur and Katherine away establishing their own court in Wales at their father’s command, Brandon had quickly become Henry’s closest friend just as Jane had become Mary’s. In spite of the difference in their ages, the boys were well matched, not only in athletics, but in their sense of humor, and Henry watched and sought to learn everything from an older Charles’s remarkable effect on women.

Many was the time Mary had sat at dinner in the great dining hall with her sister, Margaret, and Jane, watching Henry and Charles wager how quickly Charles could entice a particular girl more rapidly. Most often, Mary observed Charles win out, which only made Henry push himself the more. Henry was a natural and graceful athlete and he ex-celled in everything—tennis, archery, the hunt, dancing—and he was learning from the master about flirtation.

Realizing the way she was shivering in Charles’s arms, Mary pulled away from him and cast a glance at Henry. “What are we to do?” she asked, wiping her own tears with the back of her hand.

“We are to do nothing.”

“What of Katherine? She must be so sad and afraid, all alone now.”

“I imagine the king will send her back to Spain, believing she has failed her family.”

“But Arthur’s death is not her fault!”

“Of course not. But only if by some miracle she is already carrying an heir will she have accomplished her family’s goal.”

He and Henry both smiled wryly at the thought of Arthur fathering a child and she found it shocking, especially when Arthur was dead and Katherine, with whom she had laughed and danced the branle so happily not a month before, at Richmond, would need to return to Spain suddenly in dis-honor and shame.

“Oh, come now,” Charles remarked, seeing Mary’s expression. “We only hope to put a bit of a brave face on a horrid tragedy.”

“And how difficult for you is that?” she asked tautly, sounding much older than her years. “Now your dearest friend will next be king. Arthur barely knew you, and what he knew he did not much like. But my brother Henry adores you. It seems to me great fortune for you in the tragedy of another.”

“Mary!”
Henry charged. “I understand you are upset—we all are. But you really must apologize for such words.”

“I will not,” she stubbornly declared, tipping up her chin with a defiance like his own, which ran so thickly through her blood that she could not have tamed it. “Charles is arrogant and selfish and I do not like him.”

“Yet
I
do. And it is I whose command you shall be made to follow soon enough.”

“You can command my compliance, Harry, but never my heart!”

“Would you prefer I leave the two of you alone so your sister can insult me in privacy?” Charles moved a step nearer, his normally arrogant expression suddenly decorated with challenge.

“Stay where you are,” Henry shot back, despite hearing the nickname she always used to soften him. His own defiance was as sharp as hers now. “My sister was just leaving, so that she does not risk embarrassing herself further.”

“But Harry!” Mary heard herself cry out. Her anger was swiftly undone at the thought of losing her brother’s affection for that of a mere friend. Insecurity rose up within her as a flood of tears clouded her eyes. “You would choose him over me? I am your sister. Your Mary!”

“And Charles is my friend. The two of you must come to an understanding as we are all bound to be together for a very long time to come—particularly after I am king.”

Hearing his harsh tone toward her at that moment was like a slap in the face. Mary bolted from the room, her eyes so full of warm tears that she could barely see her way as the skirts and petticoats of her brocade dress rippled out behind her. Charles Brandon was someone to be feared and respected, for he had a place in Henry’s heart that he stubbornly meant to retain. Realizing it fully then made her feel as if she had lost two brothers that day instead of just one.

But she would never take for granted Charles Brandon, or his power over Henry, ever again.

Henry came alone to her bedchamber not quite an hour later, knocked, then let himself in. She was sitting within the window embrasure, arms wrapped around her legs, her profusion of red-gold curls loose on her shoulders, meeting the silver medallion at her chest. She was gazing out across the green expanse of hills and valleys as he sat down beside her and took up both of her hands. They looked startlingly alike: their hair, the square shape of their faces, the pale green eyes with long light lashes and the small rosebud lips. Neither Margaret nor Arthur looked like them, which was one of the many things that had bonded them. They sat together quietly for what felt to Mary like a very long time, both of them pretending to see all that was before them beneath the cloudless sky.

“You know you are always first in my heart, my little Mary,” Henry finally said very gently. When she met his gaze, his face was so full of that irresistibly boyish charm she wanted to cry all over again.

“I know it not,” she pouted, tears still filling her eyes.

“It was only the shock of things. Forgive me, do you?”

“I will always forgive you, Harry,” she replied on a teary sob full of relief a moment later. “I can’t quite believe it will just be the two of us left as soon as Margaret marries. That makes me feel so sad.”

“I’ll always take care of you, Mary, you know that,” he declared in the almost fatherly, protective voice that she loved. He wrapped his arm around her then, pulled a handkerchief from his doublet and patiently wiped her eyes.

“Someday, when I am king, we will rule England together.

Will that not be grand? You will have no time to be sad then.”

“What about your queen?”

“Her as well, of course. But I could not rule without
you
.

That would be unthinkable,” he mused. They both refused to acknowledge for the moment that one day she would likely leave England in some political arrangement their father would make, as he had for Margaret and Arthur already.

Marriage would be the first duty for them both. But right now they were children, and they could ignore the future. At least in this little world of their own making at Eltham. “And one of the very first things I am going to do when I am Henry VIII is name a great ship after you . . . the
Mary Rose
, I will call it, and it will be the most spectacular ship in my fleet.”

“I do like the sound of that.”

He always knew how to make her smile, she thought, even if their conversation did seem horribly disrespectful to Arthur. “But, in the meantime, you really must learn to like Charles better, Mary. Beneath the lionesque exterior he has the heart of a lamb. If you look for it, you will see it as I do.”

“I will try,” Mary resolved on a tearful little hiccup, her lower lip turned out. “But only for you, Harry.”

Henry smiled at her and chucked her gently beneath the chin. He had a way with her—and she with him—that no one else did. “Splendid. Because I could not bear it if we were really angry with one another, especially with all that is about to happen,” he said with a weary little chuckle, and Mary could not help but feel the enormous weight of the future in that sound.

Their brother’s funeral was a great state occasion, costly and somber. He had died on the second of April and had lain in state until St. George’s Day, on the twenty-third of that month. The king was devastated by his elder son’s death.

Like Mary, he had not allowed himself to believe that Arthur might actually die. Margaret, Henry and Mary were taken to Ludlow Castle to participate in the somber procession. It was to culminate at the great Worcester Cathedral, with its towers and pointed spires and massive stained-glass window, on the banks of the Severn River. No one was surprised that a foul April day blanketed the procession in cold, gray rain.

Stricken by the same sweating sickness that had killed Arthur, Katherine was too ill to attend her young husband’s funeral. The king and queen would attend the funeral, but would enter the cathedral privately. They were too bereft to ride in the procession. It was therefore left to Henry, Margaret, Mary and their grandmother Lady Beaufort to hold their heads high and show the dignity of their line to those who, three and four people deep, lined the muddy, rain-soaked roads. The people had come to pay their respects to a prince who had been loved and respected by everyone in England.

The children rode white palfreys in a somber cadence behind the queue of bishops, abbots and priors who followed a cart draped and canopied in black velvet, drawn by four sleek Italian coursers. Despite the crowd, the only sounds were the muffled clop of horses’ hooves in the mud, the jangle of harnesses, the tolling of church bells and the soft echo of weeping. There was an unending procession behind Mary, Margaret and Henry, lords and ladies cloaked in black satin or velvet. In spite of the thick black mourning attire, the cold, windy rain seeped through their cloaks and beneath the brims of their plumed hats and headdresses.

As she rode, Mary tried to ignore the constant rhythmic drip, drip, drip of raindrops from the frame of her black gabled headdress as they fell into her eyes. She was glad for the rain, which helped to hide her tears. She had been wiping them away until her grandmother shot Mary a reproachful glare from eyes that were deep-set and commanding. The family matriarch was as religious as she was stern. Her expression reminded Mary they were Tudors, victors in war, and meant to suffer with the greatest dignity and grace no matter what they felt inside. They were above all other things to be gravely royal. Mary learned that lesson well in those days just before her eighth birthday, not only from her grandmother, but from watching her brother Henry work hard not to shed a single tear, and succeeding.

When they finally entered the cathedral, Mary saw the plain wood coffin was surrounded by torches and beeswax candles all blazing beneath banners embroidered with the royal coat of arms for both England and Spain in a soaring nave lavish with marble and medieval carvings. The bishops, gowned in copes of rich velvet, stood beside a grand collection of stone-faced abbots and priors. A choir of children in the gallery above them, wearing white surplices, looked, Mary thought, like little angels come to bear poor Arthur up to heaven.