“I have a plan.” A sparkle came into Cecily’s eyes.
“Tell me—I promise not to tell a soul.”
Cecily laughed. “Silly monkey—you have no one to tell even if you wanted to!”
“I have Henry,” Catherine retorted.
Cecily burst into a flood of laughter. Then her voice sank to a whisper. “As I’ve said, I hope to get my lands restored to me—at least some of them. ’Tis one of the reasons I’m back.”
“Good fortune to you. Once the king has his hands on money, he will move Heaven and Hell to keep it.” Katherine of Aragon had come to England with great wealth, and now darned her clothes like the queen.
“You forget. The king has a mother.”
“Who sues poor men for the small debts they owe and takes away their ploughs if they cannot pay. She even pursued a debt owed her great-grandfather a hundred years ago. What can you hope to squeeze out of her?”
“I know a secret!” she whispered coyly. “She loves love! She approves of what I did and would have done the same had she been in my place!”
“Fascinating! Do tell—”
“You know how she came to wed Edmund Tudor, don’t you?”
“Something about a vision. I never paid attention.”
“She was eleven years old and was told she had to wed the dull son of the Duke of Suffolk, but she wished to wed handsome Tudor instead. One night she had a vision. Saint Nicholas came to her and told her she had to wed Tudor.” She smiled knowingly. “So she said.”
“How very—blessed.” Catherine was going to say convenient, but best to guard the tongue. Punishments often followed careless words, and a man who had called Margaret Beaufort “that strong whore” had paid for it with all his worldly goods. She doubted Cecily would have much fortune with the king’s mother, but maybe the old cat wouldn’t be able to resist her charms once she turned them on full force. “When is the babe due?”
“April.”
“The queen’s child is due in February.”
Cecily’s face grew somber. “I had not expected to find her so ill, Catherine. I fear Arthur’s death will kill her. It takes great resolve to keep going in the face of such grief.” Then she reached for Catherine’s hand and gave her a squeeze, for no one had known more grief, or shown more resolve, than Catherine.
Chapter 17
A Rose in Winter
Elizabeth the queen died in 1503, on her thirty-seventh birthday, the eleventh day of February, giving birth to a daughter. Some said that death was God’s loving gift to her, for her life had been naught but a chain of sorrows and heartbreak. Henry christened the babe Katherine, and she followed her mother to the grave three days later. Then he locked himself up to grieve, leaving instructions not to be disturbed for any reason.
Not only did Henry stagger beneath a stunned sense of loss, but also with the crush of remorse that comes from a suddenly awakened conscience. For the first time in his life he was regretting things he had done and things he had not done. To this was added a heavy superstitious fear. I’ve killed her, he thought, overcome with agony. I never cared if she lived or died after she gave me my sons, and I wished her dead when I met Catherine. And God heard me, for now she is dead.
Dead!
The silent room pressed in on him heavily as he mulled his wine. With a quivering hand, he poured himself a full cup from the flask on the table, and drained it. Ah . . . that was better.
He had wronged Elizabeth dreadfully. He had married her coldly and used her coldly, and now he had killed her as surely as if he had thrust a dagger into her belly, for she had died giving birth to his eighth child. God would punish him for that, he was certain of it. Why had he not been kinder to her? She had always done what he wanted without argument, and she had never asked for much money but had made do with what little he had given her, even though it meant tin buckles on her shoes and wearing the same gown until it was too threadbare to be mended any longer.
He remembered how desperately she had pleaded for the life of two Stafford brothers she had known whom he had condemned to death at Tyburn for treason after Bosworth. He had granted half her wish, making her choose which one would live, and which would die. Yet she had never begrudged him the comfort of her companionship and the warmth of her bed—except when he executed her brother, Richard, and her cousin, Edward. How hard that had to be for her—both relatives dying in the same week! He ran a hand through his hair miserably. Trembling, he filled his cup again and emptied it once more, spilling more than he swallowed.
Even so, he could tell her anything and she would quiet his fears with her harp and her lute, and her beautiful voice. She’d always banished his cares, his fury, and his heartache with her compassion. She soothed him when the evil dreams came to poison his sleep, and cradled his head in her lap, murmuring gentle words that banished his sweat of terror. Now she was gone, and the calm with her. Now there was no one to turn to. Oh, there were flatterers aplenty at court to fan him, and there was still his mother to rely on, but she was as hard as he was, and he could not go to her in pain. Without Elizabeth, where was comfort in this cold, cruel world?
Oh, Elizabeth, forgive me . . . forgive me!
And then he looked out at the winter landscape, as desolate as his heart, and saw Catherine seated by the river.
Henry sent Catherine an elaborate new black gown with a fashionable plunging collar, flared sleeves, and cuffs trimmed with fur for his queen’s funeral. On the final day of the ceremonies at the Abbey, Catherine performed the last act she would ever do for Elizabeth and laid the fourth of thirty-seven palls on her coffin, one for each year of her life. She received the long velvet cloth from Strangeways at the choir door, and as she took it from him, their eyes met, and something she couldn’t explain passed between them. For an instant, she forgot the solemnity of the occasion and it was as if they were the only two in the world. She took the cloth from him, walked to the foot of the coffin, and made an obeisance. She kissed the pall and laid it over the coffin. As the words of the mass filled the chapel, Catherine bowed her head in prayer. Forgive me, Elizabeth, for resenting you, she entreated silently. Forgive me for blaming you for not helping Richard. I know now that they kept you captive and nearly as helpless as he. Thank you for the sketch of him that you stole for me, and for the many kindnesses you did me in life. I shall cherish your memory always. May the peace that eluded you on earth find you now, and may you be reunited with all who you love . . . Bless you, Elizabeth, my dear sister.
As she rose, her teary gaze fell on Henry’s stiff, grieving figure standing erect, his face white and pinched in the gloomy light of Windsor Chapel. He held a dazed look, as if he didn’t know where he was, or what was happening to him. For an instant, pity stirred her heart. In the space of a year, he had lost two pillars of his life: his favorite son and his queen, and soon his daughter, Margaret, too, would leave to wed King James, and never would they meet again.
He shifted in his chair and his gaze fell on her. Life flickered back into the empty eyes.
The day after the funeral a melancholy silence enfolded the castle. No one came or went, and no one made a sound. If they spoke, it was in whispers, and if they moved, it was on tiptoe. Deliveries stopped; there was no music, no proclamations, no bugles. Even children mysteriously disappeared from the palace, and hounds lay silent in the halls, their chins on their paws, their eyes mournful.
Catherine sat in a window seat in the empty great hall, listening to the cold wind that blew outside, and thinking how brief was life. She wanted to believe it was all for some purpose, that life mattered and God cared, but a deep apathy weighed her down, and the question seemed too burdensome for her weary mind.
A voice came at her shoulder. “My lady.”
She turned from the window. Sir Charles Somerset, captain of the king’s guard, gave her a bow; he whom Richard had called villain to his face in Brabant. Somerset stood courteously before her, awaiting permission to speak, and she inclined her
head. “My lady, the king requests, if you are able, and willing, to favor him with the honor of your presence.”
Never had Catherine heard a royal summons worded so meekly. Still, she knew she could not refuse, and in any case, what did she have to do now that the queen was gone? Sit and wonder if life meant anything, or made any difference to anyone other than the one who lived it? Anything was better than this, even, perhaps, spending time with Henry. She rose to her feet. “Of course.”
As Somerset escorted her to the royal privy suite, sympathy engulfed him for the pale, touching figure beside him who bore herself so nobly. In the six years he had known her, she had surprised him in many ways. Any other woman would long ago have abandoned her widow’s weeds for bright taffetas and gems, and acknowledged the heads she turned and the adulation she inspired in the male sex, but not Catherine Gordon. She had even won the admiration of his wife and the other women of the queen, setting for them all an example of grace under duress. The Gordon motto was Animo non Astutia. By Courage, Not by Craft, and this she embodied in full measure. She had stood by her husband every step of the way, her head held high, and met each of her griefs with a courage that Somerset, a warrior, could only envy. She was a remarkable woman, as unforgettable as she was beautiful. He nodded to the guard, and the man thrust open the door to King Henry’s chamber. Somerset bowed. “Lady Catherine Gordon, Sire.”
Catherine entered. Henry was seated at a table, a jeweled flask and two golden wine cups set before him. He gave her a wan smile. “Here, my dear, come and sit—” He pushed a chair out with his foot. “Shut the door, Somerset.”
Catherine advanced carefully and took a seat, folding her hands in her lap.
“We are both alone now, you and I,” he said.
She did not reply. What was there to say?
“You loved her, too, didn’t you?”
“Everyone loved the queen,” Catherine said.
“They are calling her Elizabeth the Good. The people are not usually so generous with their rulers, Catherine.” He gave an audible sigh and threw a glance at the window. “It makes me wonder what they’ll call me when I’m gone. Henry the Crafty. Henry the Cold. Henry the Miser?” His mouth quirked into a bitter smile as he looked at her. “How do you see me, Catherine?”
He was dropping his mask, clearly grieving, and not himself. She felt as if she were back in her nightmare, the ground perilous beneath her feet, emitting smoke from invisible fires in its belly, like a dangerous beast that would rise up and devour her if she took a wrong step. She decided to hold herself inscrutable so as not to make a mistake that might prove fatal. She had to think of Dickon. “Sire, how do you see yourself?” she asked gently.
“As a great ruler . . . one who has brought peace to a divided land roiling in blood. But I know ’tis not how they’ll remember me.” He waved a hand. “I wish I could pretend it didn’t matter—that I didn’t care, but I do. I care what they think . . . I care what you think.”
Catherine’s eyes went to his half-empty cup. He’s drunk, she thought, wishing suddenly that she’d found some excuse to stay away, that she could excuse herself now and leave.
“Perhaps I’ve had too much wine, but it doesn’t happen often,” he said, following her gaze. “Here, have some with me. ’Tis not good to drink alone.”
She watched him pour. He lifted his cup in a toast. “To Elizabeth—”
“To Elizabeth,” she whispered, lifting hers.
“She was the only truly kind person I ever knew,” he murmured, a faraway look in his eyes.
“That she was, my lord.”
“And I was not kind to her.”
She tensed. He shouldn’t be talking about such intimate matters with her. “Sire, I pray you—”
He leaned forward urgently and seized her hand. His grip was hard, and he hurt her, but she dared not remove her hand from his.
“I want you to know how it was between us. We married one another for reasons of state, and for many years I cared nothing for her. In time, affection came, but not love. Never love. I gave my love to you, the day I saw you.”
“My lord, I pray you—speak not these things!” she exclaimed, withdrawing her hand and blushing wildly.
“Why not? Why should you not know, now that we are both free? I wish you to know. After she died, I realized that I did love her—but not the way I love you. We must speak of these things, Catherine. I want you to know what it takes to survive in the world I live in!”
“’Tis not meet, my lord.”
“Meet, meet! What do I care about meet? Do you think I know not that I am held in hatred? I have no friends, except my monkey, and my mother—”
Catherine almost burst out laughing. This is a farce, she thought. But it wasn’t. It was more like a dangerous game, one she had no wish to play. She bowed her head quickly and wiped from her mind any thoughts of laughter.
“Elizabeth was my only friend, and now she is gone. I could talk to her freely about my troubles, and she did not judge me. There is no one now who doesn’t judge me. Do you think I enjoy being friendless, Catherine? Do you think I enjoy being alone on the summit of the world, in this empty place where I sit?”
“The air is always thin at the top, yet the wind is fierce. So they say.”
“True! I am held in hatred and I must fear everyone and everything. Conspiracies abound against me, and I must be constantly on watch, like a hunted animal who sleeps with one eye open. It has always been that way for me. When the Yorkists held the throne, I was a boy, and my childhood was spent in imprisonments and flight.”
Catherine lifted her gaze to his face. He may have been a hunted animal once, desperate and fearful, but his eyes were hard now, his smile wintry, and his face had the look of the predator, not the prey. She wondered for a moment if this was what would have happened to Richard had he won the throne, but she dismissed the thought. Different people were changed in different ways by the same experience, and Richard had been very different from Henry.
He took her hand again. He must have read something in her expression, for he said, “Everyone wants peace and security for his land, and for himself. I do not relish sending men to the Tower, Catherine, but it is a necessary evil.”
Catherine felt that this was as close as he would ever come to making her an apology for what he had done to Richard. But what good does it do me, even if he grovels at my feet? Richard is lost to me, because of him.
“When his country is at war, a man is no longer bound to respect the sanctity of life. When his country is in danger, it becomes his duty to defend it. I am at war with war, Catherine. Without my hand on the rudder, and without the Tower to enforce my will, England would sink back into civil strife. When a body is sick, we give it medicine to cure the malady, do we not? But sometimes, the malady cannot be cured and will claim more lives if not halted. Then a king must have the courage to prescribe poison. That is what the Tower is for. To purge those who think differently, who do not agree with me, who challenge me. For they are the disease.”
His words raged like a storm over Catherine’s head and fell on her ears with the strength of blows. That he could turn evil into good, and justify what could never be justified!
He must have guessed something of her thoughts, for he said, “You think your husband would have made a better king than I, Catherine?”
She dropped her lids. “That question is for God, not for me.”
“I know what you think! You think he would have been a gentle king over a gentle land. Let me tell you the kind of king he would have made—a weak king—a disastrous king! Every man would see an opportunity for himself, and strife would be without end. Whether you realize it or not, we live in a world that has gone mad! Every man is enemy to every man, and there is a war of all against all! He had poor judgment as a general, and he would have had poor judgment as a king.” He took a moment to compose himself before he went on. “You see, Catherine, a king must deal with men as they are, not as they ough
t to be. Take my predecessor, Richard III. His mistake was to treat men as they ought to be, and look at him now—one of the shortest and most useless reigns in history. He made a profession of goodness in everything and came to grief because so many were not good around him. He died fighting valiantly, but to what avail was all his honor, his valor, his idealism? Those times are dead with him.”
And you bought peace for yourself with my Richard’s torment and inhuman suffering, she thought. Aloud, she said, “And you brought peace to England.”
“Precisely. God put me here to rule, and He protects me, Catherine. What chance had I to be king—my great-grandsire a man wanted for debt and murder, fleeing for his life, pursued by the king’s men? My grandsire a groom of the wardrobe? My lineage on both sides stained by bastardy? ’Tis a miracle worked by Divine Will no less! God Himself has smitten down my enemies. It has to be so; no other explanation suffices. Dei Gratia Rex. By grace of God. I know the reason God put me here. To save England. I have done so. I have saved her from herself and ended the great civil strife that rent her into two for so long. The land has peace, and it prospers.” He heaved a long breath. “What I have done, I did for the good of the realm. Sometimes you have to do the wrong thing for the right reason, Catherine.”
He toyed with his cup. Abruptly, he looked up. “I have decided on the date for Margaret’s proxy marriage to James. It shall be a summer affair on the eighth of August. Then she will leave for Scotland.” He had given his promise to Elizabeth that he would not send Margaret to James until she turned fourteen. That would not happen until November, but it was close enough, and he did not wish to wait. Besides, Elizabeth was dead and would never know.
“You will miss her.”
“Catherine, it would please me immensely if you would supervise her wardrobe. I wish her to have magnificent attire, as befits a future queen of Scotland.”
“I will attend to it, my lord.”
“And Catherine . . . thank you for supervising Margaret’s training. She is proficient in the lute and clavichord, in dance, in Latin and French, and is skilled in archery. Much of what she knows has come from you. I know she will be a gracious queen to King James, and shall make England proud.” He kept his eyes on her face, and they were strangely alert and expectant, as if he waited for something.
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