Princess of Thorns

by Saga Hillbom

My sister is beside herself, yet maintains a mask of composure. I never hear her weep or cry out, nor does she retire from the public eye, but I know a grieving mother when I see one. I feel infinitely sorry for her, for she is convinced she must keep up a dignified facade while I could wallow in my sorrow, and still there is a tiny, vicious part of me content she is not so far above me in terms of fortune as she once was. It is cruel, I know, but I want her to understand how it feels to lose more than one can bear. After a moment of indulging in this sentiment, I give myself a slap and return to my sister’s chambers to sit with her in silence, allowing her grief to fill the room while I hold her hand.

  Tudor returns shortly thereafter, distraught like I rarely saw him before. I dare not ask—and in truth I care little for his emotions—but methinks he is afraid, afraid that the male line of his sketchy dynasty will go extinct. Unlike the Yorkists, the house of Tudor is not established enough to allow for cousins and other more distant relatives to step forth and make a credible claim in place of the former heir. Lincoln and poor Warwick were not unthinkable kingly alternatives, but if any of Tudor’s cousins were to replace his sons, their claim would likely be even weaker than Tudor’s own.

  Still, the Pretend-King need not worry, for he does have a healthy heir and a more than thriving spare at hand. The chances of both of them dying before they come of age and can produce sons of their own are fairly slim, especially seeing as Prince Arthur’s wedding is a mere year away.

  In the autumn, another proxy wedding is held, with the Spanish ambassador Rodrigo de Puebla acting on Catalina’s behalf. Prince Arthur does not look nearly as content with this swarthy older man as I am certain he would with his actual bride, and I have to hide a smile throughout the ceremony.

  ‘It is a good thing they shan’t have to kiss,’ I whisper to Anne.

  My sister grants me a faint resemblance of a smile. She flinches slightly when her husband, who is sitting on her right, puts his hand on her arm and says something too low for me to discern. His beak-nose and thin mahogany hair, his burnished doublet and black hat, these are attributes I have come to shun away from. Though frequently updated on the latest fashion, Thomas Howard is not a man to dress flamboyantly. His speech matches his attire: distinguished but discreet, masterfully crafted but subtle. Unlike his father and grandfather, he has gone at lengths to ensure his own political rehabilitation and assimilation into the Tudor regime, serving his sovereign with faultless prowess in the field, but his rising star is equally dependent on his words. I have watched him many times as he leans over to whisper something to Tudor under the guise of unassuming council, slowly making his way to the core of the crown, as patient and calculating as Tudor himself. They make a fine match, unlike Howard and Anne, whose intimacy I struggle to comprehend. Few can resist loving her, and perhaps the secret to capturing my sister’s heart is as simple as convincing her the opposite: that he alone cares for her.

  After the proxy wedding, Howard slips away to consult with the Earl of Oxford and Reginald Bray, both confidants of the Pretend-King and both men whom I loathe. Young Buckingham and Young Northumberland trot at the other men’s heels, a look of poorly concealed desperation on their faces. Despite the elevated positions they occupy at court as former wards of Tudor and Margaret Beaufort, they are little more than figureheads, since Tudor fears he would not be able to continue stripping them of the income from their lands if he allowed them true influence. It serves them right for their fathers’ betrayals.

  I take Anne’s hand and pull her with me to a secluded space in the walkway. ‘Tell me how you are, and please do not lie. Your hands fidget when you do.’

  She shakes her head. ‘I am no worse than I’ve been before.’

  ‘You flinched when he touched you.’

  ‘You are reading too much into the silliest little things, Cecily. I love my husband—he is everything I wish for.’

  I think she means it; her eyes are bright and her gaze genuine, shielded only by a strand of finely spun hair that has escaped her gable headdress.

  I sigh. ‘I thought you wished for a chivalric knight to sing you ballads and give you flowers.’ The description is half in jest, half serious, and fits Thomas Howard like a description of a lamb fits a wolf. Anne, however, is far from amused.

  ‘I was young and fanciful and a dreamer. He might not sing but he is awfully clever and fights bravely, and cares for no one but me. Is that not what’s most important?’

  ‘The important thing is he does not want you, either, to care for anything but him, and if you let that happen, you’ll have surrendered everything for someone who gives you bruises.’

  She hauls up her sleeve and lifts her veil to show me her arms and neck. ‘Look. All gone. And there is something else, too. I am with child.’

  I do not know what to say. In the end, I decide on the most dazzling smile I can summon, trying to imitate our mother, and Anne returns it, relief flickering in her face. Her only son is still the cause for some concern, being a sickly child, and four full years have passed since he was born.

  ‘When is it due?’

  ‘Oh, I cannot be certain, but I should think in April. I know it will be a son.’

  ‘Everyone always knows their child will be a son.’ I regret my snicker instantly.

  Anne gives me a reprimanding look through her lashes. ‘Do not be unkind, Cecily, not now.’

  ‘Forgive me. I only meant to say that daughters can be…can be wonderful in their own right. I would give anything to have mine back.’

  ‘Yes.’

  We remain in silence for a moment or two. I cannot read my sister’s expression, but my own thoughts are wholly entangled in memories: Eliza and Annie playing with a toy horse, fingers sticky with marzipan, eyes sparkling with laughter, frail little bodies I will never hold again. For the hundredth time, I wish damnation upon all who give their condolences at the birth of a baby girl and then proceed to leave the child entirely to her nursemaid and governess for the next ten or fifteen years.

  Anne’s belly grows rapidly, and by Advent, she already wears specially tailored gowns to accommodate the babe. I rarely see her, though. These past five years, she has made scattered appearances at court, but now her presence fades further until she has practically cupped herself up in her and Howard’s nest, and I fear she might not return. Indeed, only Elizabeth and I are left as occupants of the royal palaces, Kate having moved to her new London house with William Courtenay and their three children, and Bridget as always at Dartford Priory. Still, it is not to Elizabeth I turn when I receive Anne’s tear-splotched letter, but to Thomas, who agrees to walk with me as I rant.

  ‘She writes she “crossed the boundaries”, and had a “fright”. The child was born much too early. They christened her, but after that there was nothing to be done but bury her. Look at her handwriting, all jagged and sullied with ink blotches and tears. She’s such a terrible actress, Thomas, she thinks she can keep up appearances, she so dearly wants to fool herself and everyone else that she’s happy!’ I draw a deep breath. ‘What does boundaries mean, regardless? And fright? He must have done something. She insists I do not try to come and visit her, says it would vex her husband.’

  Thomas speaks through a clenched jaw. ‘I’ve seen the bastard, the way he whips and spurs his horses. He may be of slight build, but he does not mind violence.’

  ‘I know. But what can I do with such an accusation?’

  ‘Nothing. It is his right.’

  Coming from anyone else, those words would have put me ablaze with fury, but I know Thomas well enough to see how it grudges him to speak this abhorrent truth. Yes, Howard may lash his horses bloody and keep his wife as a virtual prisoner, all the while bowing and scraping at court, and hardly anyone would notice or care.

  The world around us does not stand still, either. On the south of the continent, the Italian wars rage on, and in the faraway north, the so-called Kalmar Union strains under the tensions b
etween Swedish and Danish noblemen. In the Spanish kingdoms, there are fresh surges of rebellion, and Tudor grits his teeth at the delayed departure of his daughter-in-law Catalina de Aragón. The preparations are in full bloom, the thorns of said blossoms stinging every courtier and administrator as far as I know, and little wonder, because never before have I seen the kind of extreme attention to detail that Tudor now exercises. Everything must be just so: the colour of a sleeve, the punctuation in the marriage contract, the exact number of shillings spent on the reception. He has returned England to the practice of benevolence, the forced loans Uncle Richard outlawed, bankrupting many a merchant and minor noble to finance the affair. The sole amusing part of the spectacle is to watch even Margaret Beaufort rub her temples at her son’s obsessive toiling. Most of the time, though, I spend playing cards with Elizabeth—who is accumulating quite the gambler’s debt—or stealing away with Thomas, and in this manner, the months pass until summer arrives once more.

  Anne writes to me again, this time to tell me that her beloved sister-in-law, Elizabeth Howard, who wed a man called Thomas Boleyn, has had her second daughter. They baptised her Anne, after my sister, who is delighted despite her own hardships.

  She has these arresting eyes, almost black. I do not think she will ever be ugly, although the poor child has a rather swarthy complexion. I shall call her Annie to avoid confusion—I pray you do not mind.

  I sincerely hope little Anne Boleyn’s fortune will be greater than Anne Welles’ was.

  I am teaching Thomas French to the best of my ability, a language which he has surprisingly scant knowledge of.

  ‘A man will have greater success in love if he can call a girl cheri and ma belle,’ I tell him, and he gives me a soft shove, lingering just a tad too long to be prudent. If either of us dared utter it…

  It is during one of those summertime French lessons that we catch a few startling words wafting up from below the open window.

  I slam it shut with a gust of warm air so as to speak freely. ‘Suffolk taken flight? Another time?’

  Thomas abandons his sketching in the margins of the glossary I wrote for him and leans over to crack the window open again. This time, we are both on our toes, listening intently to the fragments of conversation below. Some words are swept away by the August breeze before reaching our ears, yet the message is clear enough. My cousin Edmund de la Pole has fled England to the court of the Holy Roman Emperor, and taken his younger brother Dick with him for good measure. Emperor Maximilian is a fickle man, and might well aid the Yorkist rebels despite his recent negotiations with Tudor.

  ‘Do they pose a genuine threat, d’you reckon?’ Thomas asks.

  ‘Well, no. Not yet at least. If I could, I would lavish fortune’s good graces upon them, but I do not think they have much in the way of resources.’

  ‘I see.’ Noting my sudden sombreness, he grins and tempts me to smile as well. ‘A toast, then, for your unlucky kinsmen.’ He reaches for the wine flagon on the table by the window seat.

  ‘A toast for those fighting for a lost cause.’

  The moment our cups meet, I realise the truth of my own words with a pang of forlorn dismay.

  Chapter XXVII

  BY THE END of that October, in the year of our Lord 1501, we receive word that Catalina de Aragón has landed in Plymouth after an allegedly stormy crossing.

  Tudor can barely contain himself, for here is his grand prize at last, the result of all his gritty negotiating with the Catholic Monarchs.

  Elizabeth and I watch him swing himself onto a horse with uncharacteristic vigour, then spur the animal and leave his freshly built Richmond Palace behind in a whiff of dust. He takes soldiers with him, naturally, suitably adorned with the Tudor Rose badge, as well as a wide-eyed Prince Arthur. The boy has turned fifteen but gives the impression of being both younger and far more seasoned at the same time, his tall stature contrasting oddly as he kisses his mother goodbye with the anxious devotion of a five-year old.

  Elizabeth hooks her arm through mine as we watch the figures getting smaller on the road. ‘Cecily, do you recall when he was born?’

  I nod. ‘If he had been a girl, things would have been very different.’

  ‘You mean Harry would have been the one to wed Catalina?’

  ‘That among other things.’

  To my relief, she makes no further inquiries, leaving me to join her other ladies. Truth is, if Arthur had been a girl, my sister would have had weaker bonds to the Tudor dynasty, and the child would not have posed such a deadly threat to anyone taking the throne. Under those circumstances, I would have been keener to support, say, Lincoln and Lambert Simnel in their insurgency. Things would have been very different indeed; the rebels might have had a better chance to succeed, but the likeliest outcome would have been my own downfall. I am grateful now that he was a boy, though I cursed it at the time.

  A few days later, when Elizabeth and I are sitting in her privy chambers with a clutch of other ladies, my sister reads us the laconic note her husband sent with the flustered messenger arriving that same morning.

  ‘“The Infanta is worn after her journey and was taking what the Spanish call a siesta when I arrived at the house where she and her retinue is staying. I demanded to see her presently and was pleased”,’ Elizabeth reads.

  I raise my eyebrows. ‘His Grace would not let the girl sleep awhile but burst into her bedchamber?’

  Aunt Catherine laughs, but Elizabeth purses her lips. ‘You cannot know that is what happened.’

  ‘I am merely assuming.’

  ‘Go on,’ Catherine says.

  ‘“Our son was most charmed to meet his bride. We are traveling to London and will proceed through Southwark and the Borough to London Bridge.”’

  The party is due to arrive in the capital on the twelfth day of November. London is vibrating with the final preparations for the lavish festivities, the display that is to show the wealth and grandeur of the Tudor state to the whole world. There are even men walking along the streets carrying sacks of sand to cover the cobblestone in order to soak up and conceal the filth. It would not do to expose the Infanta to the nasty reality that is English paving combined with a lack of public hygiene.

  When the twelfth day of November arrives, six pageants are placed along Catalina’s route from London Bridge to her lodgings at the Bishop of London’s palace. The shows are crafted from a swirl of history and myth, reality and propaganda. The actors stand on elevated platforms and perform passages from legends and Christian truth alike, meant to allude either at the legitimacy and glory of the Tudor dynasty or to sing the praise of Catalina herself. I wish I could watch them up-front, but I am not one of the English courtiers selected to be part of the procession together with the Spanish. The tens of thousands of commoners—poor and rich, old and young—however, are free to watch, forming a crowd as large as I ever saw, pressing up against the princess’s entourage. Fortunately, there are banisters in place to keep the lowliest lot at a proper distance.

  Elizabeth, Anne, Kate, and I are among the courtiers embarking from Richmond Palace in Surrey to Baynard Castle in London, where we are to greet our new family member the following day. The castle is a peculiar choice considering Tudor’s anxiety to convey his own line’s legitimacy, for it was the London stronghold of York during the early years of the civil war. My grandfather kept four hundred loyal men there during his pursuit of the throne, and my father was crowned in the great hall after the battle at Mortimer’s Cross. The building lies east of Blackfriars, the south range and turrets appearing to rise out of the Thames, fishing boats gliding past the stone. On the opposite side is Saint Paul’s Cathedral, a short walk away—perhaps that is the reason for Tudor’s choice.

  The next day, the triumphant Pretend-King receives the Spanish ambassadors at Baynard, after which he presents Catalina to his wife and the rest of us ladies closest to the crown.

  The fifteen-year-old Infanta might have bee
n English judging solely by her appearance: light hazel hair falling in soft waves down her back, twinkling blue eyes, skin the colour of fresh cream. She calls to mind a doll, with her petite build, round cheeks, and snub nose. I suppose she is beautiful—yes, very beautiful, but I am starting to become numb to beautiful women these days, having seen so many. I would rather see too much beauty than too much ugliness, though, as no doubt the common people do.

  What strikes me first about the Spanish retinue is the bell-shape of Catalina’s and her ladies’ gowns. Whereas our English skirts are full yet flow naturally from the waist to the feet, the Spanish model sticks out from the hips, as if held out by a rack of sorts. It looks terribly odd to me, but fashion is often progressive on the continent, and I have long since swallowed the dreary fact of being at an English disadvantage when new trends emerge.

  Once I have soaked up enough of Catalina’s clothes, I turn my attention to the four Spanish ladies flanking her at a respectful distance, a tiny part of the entourage she has brought. Two are of a slightly darker complexion than their mistress, while the other two women must be Moors, their skin glistening dark brown. Their hair is black like charcoal and curly in a way I have never seen before, the tiny ringlets gathered in cauls ready to burst for the volume they hold.

  I try not to stare, but it is near impossible. I have heard stories about this strange people before: they worship a heathen God and write with foreign letters. I do not know how common they are in Spain, or how civilised they are, yet Isabel de Castilla must hold these particular ladies in very high esteem if she chose them as her daughter’s chief companions.

  I assume all Catalina’s attendants speak Spanish alone, perhaps Latin also, and I cannot make myself understood in either tongue. Unless Tudor sends them back to Isabel and Ferdinand after the wedding, they shall have to learn English so I can converse with them and find out more about all the lands overseas. Surely, any worldly Spaniard or Moor must have a repertoire of thrilling stories to tell, as well as exotic customs to share. Nothing as piqued my curiosity as much since, well, I cannot even recall.