Catalina waited for the king to visit her as he had promised. He did not come the next day but Catalina was sure he would come the day after. When three days had elapsed she walked on her own by the river, chafing her hands in the shelter of her cloak. She had been so sure that he would come again that she had prepared herself to keep him interested but under her control. She planned to lead him on, to keep him dancing at arm’s length. When he did not come she realized that she was anxious to see him. Not for desire—she thought she would never feel desire again—but because he was her only way to the throne of England. When he did not come, she was mortally afraid that he had had second thoughts, and he would not come at all.
“Why is he not coming?” I demand of the little waves on the river, washing against the bank as a boatman rows by. “Why would he come so passionate and earnest one day, and then not come at all?”
I am so fearful of his mother. She has never liked me and if she turns her face from me, I don’t know that he will go ahead. But then I remember that he said that his mother had given her permission. Then I am afraid that the Spanish ambassador might have said something against the match—but I cannot believe that de Puebla would ever say anything to inconvenience the king, even if he failed to serve me.
“Then why is he not coming?” I ask myself. “If he was courting in the English way, all rush and informality, then surely he would come every day?”
Another day went past, and then another. Finally Catalina gave way to her anxiety and sent the king a message at his court, hoping that he was well.
Doña Elvira said nothing, but her stiff back as she supervised the brushing and powdering of Catalina’s gown that night spoke volumes.
“I know what you are thinking,” Catalina said as the duenna waved the maid of the wardrobe from the room and turned to brush Catalina’s hair. “But I cannot risk losing this chance.”
“I am thinking nothing,” the older woman said coldly. “These are English ways. As you tell me, we cannot now abide by decent Spanish ways. And so I am not qualified to speak. Clearly, my advice is not taken. I am an empty vessel.”
Catalina was too worried to soothe the older woman. “It doesn’t matter what you are,” she said distractedly. “Perhaps he will come tomorrow.”
Henry, seeing her ambition as the key to her, had given the girl a few days to consider her position. He thought she might compare the life she led at Durham House—in seclusion with her little Spanish court, her furniture becoming more shabby and no new gowns—with the life she might lead as a young queen at the head of one of the richest courts in Europe. He thought she had the sense to think that through on her own. When he received a note from her, inquiring as to his health, he knew that he had been right; and the next day he rode down the Strand to visit her.
Her porter who kept the gate said that the princess was in the garden, walking with her ladies by the river. Henry went through the back door of the palace to the terrace, and down the steps through the garden. He saw her by the river walking alone, ahead of her ladies, her head slightly bowed in thought, and he felt an old familiar sensation in his belly at the sight of a woman he desired. It made him feel young again, that deep pang of lust, and he smiled at himself for feeling a young man’s passion, for knowing again a young man’s folly.
His page, running ahead, announced him, and he saw her head jerk up at his name and she looked across the lawn and saw him. He smiled. He was waiting for that moment of recognition between a woman and a man who loves her—the moment when their eyes meet and they both know that intense moment of joy, that moment when the eyes say: “Ah, it is you,” and that is everything.
Instead, like a dull blow, he saw at once that there was no leap of her heart at the sight of him. He was smiling shyly, his face lit up with anticipation; but she, in the first moment of surprise, was nothing more than startled. Unprepared, she did not feign emotion, she did not look like a woman in love. She looked up, she saw him—and he could tell at once that she did not love him. There was no shock of delight. Instead, chillingly, he saw a swift expression of calculation cross her face. She was a girl in an unguarded moment, wondering if she could have her own way. It was the look of a huckster, pricing a fool ready for fleecing. Henry, the father of two selfish girls, recognized it in a moment and knew that whatever the princess might say, however sweetly she might say it, this would be a marriage of convenience to her, whatever it was to him. And more than that, he knew that she had made up her mind to accept him.
He walked across the close-scythed grass towards her and took her hand. “Good day, Princess.”
Catalina curtseyed. “Your Grace.”
She turned her head to her ladies. “You can go inside.” To Doña Elvira she said, “See that there are refreshments for His Grace when we come in.” Then she turned back to him. “Will you walk, sire?”
“You will make a very elegant queen,” he said with a smile. “You command very smoothly.”
He saw her hesitate in her stride and the tension leave her slim young body as she exhaled. “Ah, you mean it, then,” she breathed. “You mean to marry me.”
“I do,” he said. “You will be a most beautiful Queen of England.”
She glowed at the thought of it. “I still have many English ways to learn.”
“My mother will teach you,” he said easily. “You will live at court in her rooms and under her supervision.”
Catalina checked a little in her stride. “Surely I will have my own rooms, the queen’s rooms?”
“My mother is occupying the queen’s rooms,” he said. “She moved in after the death of the late queen, God bless her. And you will join her there. She thinks that you are too young as yet to have your own rooms and a separate court. You can live in my mother’s rooms with her ladies, and she can teach you how things are done.”
He could see that she was troubled, but trying hard not to show it.
“I should think I know how things are done in a royal palace,” Catalina said, trying to smile.
“An English palace,” he said firmly. “Fortunately, my mother has run all my palaces and castles and managed my fortune since I came to the throne. She shall teach you how it is done.”
Catalina closed her lips on her disagreement. “When do you think we will hear from the Pope?” she asked.
“I have sent an emissary to Rome to inquire,” Henry said. “We shall have to apply jointly, your parents and myself. But it should be resolved very quickly. If we are all agreed, there can be no real objection.”
“Yes,” she said.
“And we are completely agreed on marriage?” he confirmed.
“Yes,” she said again.
He took her hand and tucked it into his arm. Catalina walked a little closer and let her head brush against his shoulder. She was not wearing a headdress, only the hood of her cape covered her hair, and the movement pushed it back. He could smell the essence of roses on her hair, he could feel the warmth of her head against his shoulder. He had to stop himself from taking her in his arms. He paused and she stood close to him; he could feel the warmth of her, down the whole length of his body.
“Catalina,” he said, his voice very low and thick.
She stole a glance and saw desire in his face, and she did not step away. If anything, she came a little closer. “Yes, Your Grace?” she whispered.
Her eyes were downcast, but slowly, in the silence, she looked up at him. When her face was upturned to his, he could not resist the unstated invitation. He bent and kissed her on the lips.
There was no shrinking, she took his kiss, her mouth yielded under his, he could taste her. His arms came around her, he pressed her towards him, he could feel his desire for her rising in him so strongly that he had to let her go, that minute, or disgrace himself.
He released her and stood shaking with desire so strong that he could not believe its power as it washed through him. Catalina pulled her hood forwards as if she would be veiled from him, as if she wer
e a girl from a harem with a veil hiding her mouth, only dark, promising eyes showing above the mask. That gesture, so foreign, so secretive, made him long to push back her hood and kiss her again. He reached for her.
“We might be seen,” she said coolly, and stepped back from him. “We can be seen from the house, and anyone can go by on the river.”
Henry let her go. He could say nothing, for he knew his voice would tremble. Silently, he offered her his arm once more, and silently she took it. They fell into pace with each other, he tempering his longer stride to her steps. They walked in silence for a few moments.
“Our children will be your heirs?” she confirmed, her voice cool and steady, following a train of thought very far from his own whirl of sensations.
He cleared his throat. “Yes, yes, of course.”
“That is the English tradition?”
“Yes.”
“They will come before your other children?”
“Our son will inherit before the Princesses Margaret and Mary,” he said. “But our daughters would come after them.”
She frowned a little. “How so? Why would they not come before?”
“It is first on sex and then on age,” he said. “The firstborn boy inherits, then other boys, then girls according to age. Please God there is always a prince to inherit. England has no tradition of ruling queens.”
“A ruling queen can command as well as a king,” said the daughter of Isabella of Castile.
“Not in England,” said Henry Tudor.
She left it at that. “But our oldest son would be king when you died,” she pursued.
“Please God I have some years left,” he said wryly.
She was seventeen, she had no sensitivity about age. “Of course. But when you die, if we had a son, he would inherit?”
“No. The king after me will be Prince Harry, the Prince of Wales.”
She frowned. “I thought you could nominate an heir? Can you not make it our son?”
He shook his head. “Harry is Prince of Wales. He will be king after me.”
“I thought he was to go into the church?”
“Not now.”
“But if we have a son? Can you not make Harry king of your French dominions, or Ireland, and make our son King of England?”
Henry laughed shortly. “No. For that would be to destroy my kingdom, which I have had some trouble to win and to keep together. Harry will have it all by right.” He saw she was disturbed. “Catalina, you will be Queen of England, one of the finest kingdoms of Europe, the place your mother and father chose for you. Your sons and daughters will be princes and princesses of England. What more could you want?”
“I want my son to be king,” she answered him frankly.
He shrugged. “It cannot be.”
She turned away slightly, only his grip on her hand kept her close.
He tried to laugh it off. “Catalina, we are not even married yet. You might not even have a son. We need not spoil our betrothal for a child not yet conceived.”
“Then what would be the point of marriage?” she asked, direct in her self-absorption.
He could have said “desire.” “Destiny, so that you shall be queen.”
She would not let it go. “I had thought to be Queen of England and see my son on the throne,” she repeated. “I had thought to be a power in the court, like your mother is. I had thought that there are castles to build and a navy to plan and schools and colleges to found. I want to defend against the Scots on our northern borders and against the Moors on our coasts. I want to be a ruling queen in England, these are things I have planned and hoped for. I was named as the next Queen of England almost in my cradle, I have thought about the kingdom I would reign, I have made plans. There are many things that I want to do.”
He could not help himself—he laughed aloud at the thought of this girl, this child, presuming to make plans for the ruling of his kingdom. “You will find that I am before you,” he said bluntly. “This kingdom shall be run as the king commands. This kingdom is run as I command. I did not fight my way to the crown to hand it over to a girl young enough to be my daughter. Your task will be to fill the royal nurseries and your world will start and stop there.”
“But your mother…”
“You will find my mother guards her domains as I guard mine,” he said, still chuckling at the thought of this child planning her future at his court. “She will command you as a daughter and you will obey. Make no mistake about it, Catalina. You will come into my court and obey me, you will live in my mother’s rooms and obey her. You will be Queen of England and have the crown on your head. But you will be my wife, and I will have an obedient wife, as I have always done.”
He stopped—he did not want to frighten her—but his desire for her was not greater than his determination to hold this kingdom that he had fought so hard to win. “I am not a child like Arthur,” he said to her quietly, thinking that his son, a gentle boy, might have made all sorts of soft promises to a determined young wife. “You will not rule beside me. You will be a child bride to me. I shall love you and make you happy. I swear you will be glad that you married me. I shall be kind to you. I shall be generous to you. I shall give you anything you want. But I shall not make you a ruler. Even at my death you will not rule my country.”
That night I dreamed that I was a queen in a court with a scepter in one hand and wand in the other and a crown on my head. I raised the scepter and found it changed in my hand, it was a branch of a tree, the stem of a flower, it was valueless. My other hand was no longer filled with the heavy orb of the scepter but with rose petals. I could smell their scent. I put my hand up to touch the crown on my head and I felt a little circlet of flowers. The throne room melted away and I was in the sultana’s garden at the Alhambra, my sisters plaiting circlets of daisies for each other’s heads.
“Where is the Queen of England?” someone called from the terrace below the garden.
I rose from the lawn of chamomile flowers and smelled the bittersweet perfume of the herb as I tried to run past the fountain to the archway at the end of the garden. “I am here!” I tried to call, but I made no noise above the splashing of the water in the marble bowl.
“Where is the Queen of England?” I heard them call again.
“I am here!” I called out silently.
“Where is Queen Katherine of England?”
“Here! Here! Here!”
The ambassador, summoned at daybreak to come at once to Durham House, did not trouble himself to get there until nine o’clock. He found Catalina waiting for him in her privy chamber with only Doña Elvira in attendance.
“I sent for you hours ago,” the princess said crossly.
“I was undertaking business for your father and could not come earlier,” he said smoothly, ignoring the sulky look on her face. “Is there something wrong?”
“I spoke with the king yesterday and he repeated his proposal of marriage,” Catalina said, a little pride in her voice.
“Indeed.”
“But he told me that I would live at court in the rooms of his mother.”
“Oh.” The ambassador nodded.
“And he said that my sons would inherit only after Prince Harry.”
The ambassador nodded again.
“Can we not persuade him to overlook Prince Harry? Can we not draw up a marriage contract to set him aside in favor of my son?”
The ambassador shook his head. “It’s not possible.”
“Surely a man can choose his heir?”
“No. Not in the case of a king come so new to his throne. Not an English king. And even if he could, he would not.”
She leapt from her chair and paced to the window. “My son will be the grandson of the kings of Spain!” she exclaimed. “Royal for centuries. Prince Harry is nothing more than the son of Elizabeth of York and a successful pretender.”
De Puebla gave a little hiss of horror at her bluntness and glanced towards the door. “You would do bet
ter never to call him that. He is to be the King of England.”
She nodded, accepting the reprimand. “But he has not my breeding,” she pursued. “Prince Harry would not be the king that my boy would be.”
“That is not the question,” the ambassador observed. “The question is of time and practice. The king’s oldest son is always the Prince of Wales. He always inherits the throne. This king, of all the kings in the world, is not going to make a pretender of his own legitimate heir. He has been dogged with pretenders. He is not going to make another.”
As always, Catalina flinched at the thought of the last pretender, Edward of Warwick, beheaded to make way for her.
“Besides,” the ambassador continued, “any king would rather have a sturdy eleven-year-old son as his heir than a newborn in the cradle. These are dangerous times. A man wants to leave a man to inherit, not a child.”
“If my son is not to be king, then what is the point of me marrying a king?” Catalina demanded.
“You would be queen,” the ambassador pointed out.
“What sort of a queen would I be with My Lady the King’s Mother ruling everything? The king would not let me have my way in the kingdom, and she would not let me have my way in the court.”
“You are very young,” he started, trying to soothe her.
“I am old enough to know my own mind,” Catalina stated. “And I want to be queen in truth as well as in name. But he will never let me be that, will he?”
“No,” de Puebla admitted. “You will never command while he is alive.”
“And when he is dead?” she demanded, without shrinking.
“Then you would be the Dowager Queen,” de Puebla offered.
“And my parents might marry me once more to someone else, and I might leave England anyway!” she finished, quite exasperated.
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