The Constant Princess ttc-1

by Philippa Gregory

  Lady Margaret stepped forwards and gently took Catalina’s hands. “Be patient, Princess,” she counseled. “Dr. Bereworth is a very good doctor, and he has known the prince from childhood. The prince is a strong young man and his health is good. It is probably nothing to worry about at all. If Dr. Bereworth is concerned we will send for the king’s own physician from London. We will soon have him well again.”

  Catalina nodded, and turned to sit by the window and look out. The sky had clouded over, the sun was quite gone. It was raining again, the raindrops chasing down the small panes of glass. Catalina watched them. She tried to keep her mind from the death of her brother who had loved his wife so much, who had been looking forward to the birth of their son. Juan had died within days of taking sick, and no one had ever known what was wrong with him.

  “I shan’t think of him, not of poor Juan,” Catalina whispered to herself. “The cases are not alike at all. Juan was always slight, little; but Arthur is strong.”

  The physician seemed to take a long time and when he came out of the bedchamber, Arthur was not with him. Catalina who had risen from her seat as soon as the door opened, peeped around him to see Arthur lying on the bed, half undressed, half asleep.

  “I think his grooms of the body should prepare him for bed,” the doctor said. “He is very weary. He would be better for rest. If they take care, they can get him into bed without waking him.”

  “Is he ill?” Catalina demanded, speaking slowly in Latin. “Aegrotat? Is he very ill?”

  The doctor spread his hands. “He has a fever,” he said cautiously in slow French. “I can give him a draft to bring down his fever.”

  “Do you know what it is?” Lady Margaret asked, her voice very low. “It’s not the Sweat, is it?”

  “Please God it is not. And there are no other cases in the town, as far as I know. But he should be kept quiet and allowed to rest. I shall go and make up this draft and I will come back.”

  The low-voiced English was incomprehensible to Catalina. “What does he say? What did he say?” she demanded of Lady Margaret.

  “Nothing more than you heard,” the older woman assured her. “He has a fever and needs rest. Let me get his men to undress him and put him properly to bed. If he is better tonight, you can dine with him. I know he would like that.”

  “Where is he going?” Catalina cried out as the doctor bowed and went to the door. “He must stay and watch the prince!”

  “He is going to make a draft to bring down his fever. He will be back at once. The prince will have the best of care, Your Grace. We love him as you do. We will not neglect him.”

  “I know you would not…it is only…Will the doctor be long?”

  “He will be as quick as he can. And see, the prince is asleep. Sleep will be his best medicine. He can rest and grow strong and dine with you tonight.”

  “You think he will be better tonight?”

  “If it is just a little fever and fatigue, then he will be better in a few days,” Lady Margaret said firmly.

  “I will watch over his sleep,” Catalina said.

  Lady Margaret opened the door and beckoned to the prince’s chief gentlemen. She gave them their orders and then she drew the princess through the crowd to her own rooms. “Come, Your Grace,” she said. “Come for a walk in the inner bailey with me and then I shall go back to his rooms and see that everything is comfortable for him.”

  “I shall go back now,” Catalina insisted. “I shall watch over his sleep.”

  Margaret glanced at Doña Elvira. “You should stay away from his rooms in case he does have a fever,” she said, speaking slowly and clearly in French, so that the duenna could understand her. “Your health is most important, Princess. I would not forgive myself if anything happened to either of you.”

  Doña Elvira stepped forwards and narrowed her lips. Lady Margaret knew she could be relied on to keep the princess from danger.

  “But you said he only had a slight fever. I can go to him?”

  “Let us wait to see what the doctor has to say.” Lady Margaret lowered her voice. “If you should be with child, dear Princess, we would not want you to take his fever.”

  “But I will dine with him.”

  “If he is well enough.”

  “But he will want to see me!”

  “Depend upon it.” Lady Margaret smiled. “When his fever has broken and he is better this evening and sitting up and eating his dinner, he will want to see you. You have to be patient.”

  Catalina nodded. “If I go now, do you swear that you will stay with him all the time?”

  “I will go back now, if you will walk outside and then go to your room and read or study or sew.”

  “I’ll go!” said Catalina, instantly obedient. “I’ll go to my rooms if you will stay with him.”

  “At once,” Lady Margaret promised.

  This small garden is like a prison yard. I walk round and round in the herb garden, and the rain drizzles over everything like tears. My rooms are no better, my privy chamber is like a cell, I cannot bear to have anyone with me, and yet I cannot bear to be alone. I have made the ladies sit in the presence chamber, their unending chatter makes me want to scream with irritation. But when I am alone in my room I long for company. I want someone to hold my hand and tell me that everything will be all right.

  I go down the narrow stone stairs and across the cobbles to the round chapel. A cross and a stone altar are set in the rounded wall, a light burning before it. It is a place of perfect peace; but I can find no peace. I fold my cold hands inside my sleeves and hug myself and I walk around the circular wall—it is thirty-six steps to the door—and then I walk the circle again, like a donkey on a treadmill. I am praying; but I have no faith that I am heard.

  “I am Catalina, Princess of Spain and of Wales,” I remind myself. “I am Catalina, beloved of God, especially favored by God. Nothing can go wrong for me. Nothing as bad as this could ever go wrong for me. It is God’s will that I should marry Arthur and unite the kingdoms of Spain and England. God will not let anything happen to Arthur nor to me. I know that He favors my mother and me above all others. This fear must be sent to try me. But I will not be afraid, because I know that nothing will ever go wrong for me.”

  Catalina waited in her rooms, sending her women every hour to ask how her husband did. The first few hours they said he was still sleeping, the doctor had made his draft and was standing by his bed, waiting for him to wake. Then, at three in the afternoon, they said that he had wakened but was very hot and feverish. He had taken the draft and they were waiting to see his fever cool. At four he was worse, not better, and the doctor was making up a different prescription.

  He would take no dinner. He would just drink some cool ale and the doctor’s cures for fever.

  “Go and ask him if he will see me?” Catalina ordered one of her Englishwomen. “Make sure you speak to Lady Margaret. She promised me that I should dine with him. Remind her.”

  The woman went and came back with a grave face. “Princess, they are all very anxious,” she said. “They have sent for a physician from London. Dr. Bereworth, who has been watching over him, does not know why the fever does not cool down. Lady Margaret is there and Sir Richard Pole, Sir William Thomas, Sir Henry Vernon, Sir Richard Croft—they are all waiting outside his chamber and you cannot be admitted to see him. They say he is wandering in his mind.”

  “I must go to the chapel. I must pray,” Catalina said instantly.

  She threw a veil over her head and went back to the round chapel. To her dismay, Prince Arthur’s confessor was at the altar, his head bowed low in supplication. Some of the greatest men of the town and castle were seated around the wall, their heads bowed. Catalina slipped into the room and fell to her knees. She rested her chin on her hands and scrutinized the hunched shoulders of the priest for any sign that his prayers were being heard. There was no way of telling. She closed her eyes.

  Dearest God, spare Arthur, spare my darling husband, A
rthur. He is only a boy, I am only a girl, we have had no time together, no time at all. You know what a kingdom we will make if he is spared. You know what plans we have for this country, what a holy castle we will make from this land, how we shall hammer the Moors, how we shall defend this kingdom from the Scots. Dear God, in Your mercy spare Arthur and let him come back to me. We want to have our children: Mary, who is to be the rose of the rose, and our son Arthur, who will be the third Holy Roman Catholic Tudor king for England. Let us do as we have promised. Oh, dear Lord, be merciful and spare him. Dear Lady, intercede for us and spare him. Sweet Jesus, spare him. It is I, Catalina, who asks this, and I ask in the name of my mother, Queen Isabella, who has worked all her life in your service, who is the most Christian queen, who has served on your crusades. She is beloved of You, I am beloved of You. Do not, I beg You, disappoint me.

  It grew dark as Catalina prayed but she did not notice. It was late when Doña Elvira touched her gently on the shoulder and said, “Infanta, you should have some dinner and go to bed.”

  Catalina turned a white face to her duenna. “What word?” she asked.

  “They say he is worse.”

  Sweet Jesus, spare him, sweet Jesus, spare me, sweet Jesus, spare England. Say that Arthur is no worse.

  In the morning they said that he had passed a good night, but the gossip among the servers of the body was that he was sinking. The fever had reached such a height that he was wandering in his mind, sometimes he thought he was in his nursery with his sisters and his brother, sometimes he thought he was at his wedding, dressed in brilliant white satin, and sometimes, most oddly, he thought he was in a fantastic palace. He spoke of a courtyard of myrtles, a rectangle of water like a mirror reflecting a building of gold, and a circular sweep of flocks of swifts who went round and round all the sunny day long.

  “I shall see him,” Catalina announced to Lady Margaret at noon.

  “Princess, it may be the Sweat,” her ladyship said bluntly. “I cannot allow you to go close to him. I cannot allow you to take any infection. I should be failing in my duty if I let you go too close to him.”

  “Your duty is to me!” Catalina snapped.

  The woman, a princess herself, never wavered. “My duty is to England,” she said. “And if you are carrying a Tudor heir then my duty is to that child, as well as to you. Do not quarrel with me, please, Princess. I cannot allow you to go closer than the foot of his bed.”

  “Let me go there, then,” Catalina said, like a little girl. “Please just let me see him.”

  Lady Margaret bowed her head and led the way to the royal chambers. The crowds in the presence chamber had swollen in numbers as the word had gone around the town that their prince was fighting for his life; but they were silent, silent as a crowd in mourning. They were waiting and praying for the rose of England. A few men saw Catalina, her face veiled in her lace mantilla, and called out a blessing on her, then one man stepped forwards and dropped to his knee. “God bless you, Princess of Wales,” he said. “And may the prince rise from his bed and be merry with you again.”

  “Amen,” Catalina said through cold lips, and went on.

  The double doors to the inner chamber were thrown open and Catalina went in. A makeshift apothecary’s room had been set up in the prince’s privy chamber—a trestle table with large glass jars of ingredients, a pestle and mortar, a chopping board—and half a dozen men in the gabardine gowns of physicians were gathered together. Catalina paused, looking for Dr. Bereworth.

  “Doctor?”

  He came towards her at once and dropped to his knee. His face was grave. “Princess.”

  “What news of my husband?” she said, speaking slowly and clearly for him in French.

  “I am sorry, he is no better.”

  “But he is not worse,” she suggested. “He is getting better.”

  He shook his head. “Il est très malade,” he said simply.

  Catalina heard the words but it was as if she had forgotten the language. She could not translate them. She turned to Lady Margaret. “He says that he is better?” she asked.

  Lady Margaret shook her head. “He says that he is worse,” she said honestly.

  “But they will have something to give him?” She turned to the doctor. “Vous avez un médicament?”

  He gestured at the table behind him, at the apothecary.

  “Oh, if only we had a Moorish doctor!” Catalina cried out. “They have the greatest skill, there is no one like them. They had the best universities for medicines before…Ifonly I had brought a doctor with me! Arab medicine is the finest in the world!”

  “We are doing everything we can,” the doctor said stiffly.

  Catalina tried to smile. “I am sure,” she said. “I just so wish…Well! Can I see him?”

  A quick glance between Lady Margaret and the doctor showed that this had been a matter of some anxious discussion.

  “I will see if he is awake,” he said, and went through the door.

  Catalina waited. She could not believe that only yesterday morning Arthur had slipped from her bed complaining that she had not woken him early enough to make love. Now he was so ill that she could not even touch his hand.

  The doctor opened the door. “You can come to the threshold, Princess,” he said. “But for the sake of your own health, and for the health of any child you could be carrying, you should come no closer.”

  Catalina stepped up quickly to the door. Lady Margaret pressed a pomander stuffed with cloves and herbs in her hand. Catalina held it to her nose. The acrid smell made her eyes water as she peered into the darkened room.

  Arthur was sprawled on the bed, his nightgown pulled down for modesty, his face flushed with fever. His blond hair was dark with sweat, his face gaunt. He looked much older than his fifteen years. His eyes were sunk deep into his face, the skin beneath his eyes stained brown.

  “Your wife is here,” the doctor said quietly to him.

  Arthur’s eyes fluttered open and she saw them narrow as he tried to focus on the bright doorway and Catalina, standing before him, her face white with shock.

  “My love,” he said. “Amo te.”

  “Amo te,” she whispered. “They say I cannot come closer.”

  “Don’t come closer,” he said, his voice a thread. “I love you.”

  “I love you too!” She could hear that her voice was strained with tears. “You will be well?”

  He shook his head, too weary to speak.

  “Arthur?” she said demandingly. “You will get better?”

  He rested his head back on his hot pillow, gathering his strength. “I will try, beloved. I will try so hard. For you. For us.”

  “Is there anything you want?” she asked. “Anything I can get for you?” She glanced around. There was nothing that she could do for him. There was nothing that would help. If she had brought a Moorish doctor with her, if her parents had not destroyed the learning of the Arab universities, if the church had allowed the study of medicine, and not called knowledge heresy…

  “All I want is to live with you,” he said, his voice a thin thread.

  She gave a little sob. “And I you.”

  “The prince should rest now, and you should not linger here.” The doctor stepped forwards.

  “Please, let me stay!” she cried in a whisper. “Please allow me. I beg you. Please let me be with him.”

  Lady Margaret put a hand around her waist and drew her back. “You shall come again, if you leave now,” she promised. “The prince needs to rest.”

  “I shall come back,” Catalina called to him, and saw the little gesture of his hand which told her that he had heard her. “I shall not fail you.”

  Catalina went to the chapel to pray for him, but she could not pray. All she could do was think of him, his white face on the white pillows. All she could do was feel the throb of desire for him. They had been married only one hundred and forty days, they had been passionate lovers for only ninety-four nights. They had promised
that they would have a lifetime together, she could not believe that she was on her knees now, praying for his life.

  This cannot be happening, he was well only yesterday. This is some terrible dream and in a moment I will wake up and he will kiss me and call me foolish. Nobody can take sick so quickly, nobody can go from strength and beauty to being so desperately ill in such a short time. In a moment I will wake up. This cannot be happening. I cannot pray, but it does not matter that I cannot pray because it is not really happening. A dream prayer would mean nothing. A dream illness means nothing. I am not a superstitious heathen to fear dreams. I shall wake up in a moment and we will laugh at my fears.

  At dinnertime she rose up, dipped her finger in the holy water, crossed herself, and with the water still wet on her forehead went back to his chambers, with Doña Elvira following, close behind.

  The crowds in the halls outside the rooms and in the presence chamber were thicker than ever, women as well as men, silent with inarticulate grief. They made way for the princess without a word but a quiet murmur of blessings. Catalina went through them, looking neither to left nor right, through the presence chamber, past the apothecary bench, to the very door of his bedchamber.

  The guard stepped to one side. Catalina tapped lightly on the door and pushed it open.

  They were bending over him on the bed. Catalina heard him cough, a thick cough as though his throat were bubbling with water.

  “Madre de Dios,” she said softly. “Holy Mother of God, keep Arthur safe.”

  The doctor turned at her whisper. His face was pale. “Keep back!” he said urgently. “It is the Sweat.”

  At that most feared word Doña Elvira stepped back and laid hold of Catalina’s gown as if she would drag her from danger.

  “Loose me!” Catalina snapped and tugged her gown from the duenna’s hands. “I will come no closer, but I have to speak with him,” she said steadily.

  The doctor heard the resolution in her voice. “Princess, he is too weak.”