I go into my room and I order them to close the shutters and bolt the doors. But it is too late. They have already brought me the worst news of my life; closing the door will not keep it out. I cannot bear the light. I cannot bear the sound of ordinary life going on. I hear a page boy laugh in the garden near my window and I cannot understand how there can be any joy or gladness left in the world, now that my baby has gone.
And now the courage I have held on to, for all my life, turns out to be a thread, a spiderweb, a nothing. My bright confidence that I am walking in the way of God and that He will protect me is nothing more than an illusion, a child’s fairy story. In the shadows of my room I plunge deep into the darkness that my mother knew when she lost her son, that Juana could not escape when she lost her husband, that was the curse of my grandmother, that runs through the women of my family like a dark vein. I am no different after all. I am not a woman who can survive love and loss, as I had thought. It has only been that, so far, I had never lost someone who was worth more than life itself to me. When Arthur died my heart was broken. But now that my baby is dead, I want nothing but that my heart should cease to beat.
I cannot think of any reason I should live and that innocent sinless babe be taken from me. I can see no reason for it. I cannot understand a God who can take him from me. I cannot understand a world that can be so cruel. In the moment that they told me, “Your Grace, be brave, we have bad news of the prince,” I lost my faith in God. I lost my desire to live. I lost even my ambition to rule England and keep my country safe.
He had blue eyes and the smallest, most perfect hands. He had fingernails like little shells. His little feet…his little feet…
Lady Margaret Pole, who had been in charge of the dead child’s nursery, came into the room without knocking, without invitation, and kneeled before Queen Katherine, who sat on her chair by the fire, among her ladies, seeing nothing and hearing nothing.
“I have come to beg your pardon, though I did nothing wrong,” she said steadily.
Katherine raised her head from her hand. “What?”
“Your baby died in my care. I have come to beg your pardon. I was not remiss, I swear it. But he is dead. Princess, I am sorry.”
“You are always here,” Katherine said with quiet dislike. “In my darkest moments, you are always at my side, like bad luck.”
The older woman flinched. “Indeed, but it is not my wish.”
“And don’t call me ‘Princess.’ ”
“I forgot.”
For the first time in weeks Katherine sat up and looked into the face of another person, saw her eyes, saw the new lines around her mouth, realized that the loss of her baby was not her grief alone. “Oh God, Margaret,” she said, and pitched forwards.
Margaret Pole caught her and held her. “Oh God, Katherine,” she said into the queen’s hair.
“How could we lose him?”
“God’s will. God’s will. We have to believe it. We have to bow beneath it.”
“But why?”
“Princess, no one knows why one is taken and another spared. D’you remember?”
She felt from the shudder that the woman remembered the loss of her husband in this, the loss of her son.
“I never forget. Every day. But why?”
“It is God’s will,” Lady Margaret repeated.
“I don’t think I can bear it.” Katherine breathed so softly that none of her ladies could hear. She raised her tearstained face from her friend’s shoulder. “To lose Arthur felt like torture, but to lose my baby is like death itself. I don’t think I can bear it, Margaret.”
The older woman’s smile was infinitely patient. “Oh, Katherine. You will learn to bear it. There is nothing that anyone can do but bear it. You can rage or you can weep, but in the end, you will learn to bear it.”
Slowly Katherine sat back on her chair; Margaret remained, with easy grace, kneeling on the floor at her feet, handclasped with her friend.
“You will have to teach me courage all over again,” Katherine whispered.
The older woman shook her head. “You only have to learn it once,” she said. “You know, you learned at Ludlow: you are not a woman to be destroyed by sorrow. You will grieve but you will live, you will come out into the world again. You will love. You will conceive another child, this child will live, you will learn again to be happy.”
“I cannot see it,” Katherine said desolately.
“It will come.”
The battle that Katherine had waited for, for so long, came while she was still overshadowed with grief for her baby. But nothing could penetrate her sadness.
“Great news, the best news in the world!” wrote her father. Wearily, Katherine translated from the code and then from Spanish to English. “I am to lead a crusade against the Moors in Africa. Their existence is a danger to Christendom, their raids terrify the whole of the Mediterranean and endanger shipping from Greece to the Atlantic. Send me the best of your knights—you who claim to be the new Camelot. Send me your most courageous leaders at the head of your most powerful men and I shall take them to Africa and we will destroy the infidel kingdoms as holy Christian kings.”
Wearily, Katherine took the translated letter to Henry. He was coming off the tennis court, a napkin twisted around his neck, his face flushed. He beamed when he saw her, then at once his look of joy was wiped from his face by a grimace of guilt, like a boy caught out in a forbidden pleasure. At that fleeting expression, at that brief, betraying moment, she knew he had forgotten that their son was dead. He was playing tennis with his friends, he had won, he saw the wife he still loved, he was happy. Joy came as easily to the men of his family as sorrow to the women of hers. She felt a wave of hatred wash over her, so powerful that she could almost taste it in her mouth. He could forget, even for a moment, that their little boy had died. She thought that she would never forget, never.
“I have a letter from my father,” she said, trying to put some interest into her harsh voice.
“Oh?” He was all concern. He came towards her and took her arm. She gritted her teeth so that she did not scream, “Don’t touch me!”
“Did he tell you to have courage? Did he write comforting words?”
The clumsiness of the young man was unbearable. She summoned her most tolerant smile. “No. It is not a personal letter. You know he rarely writes to me in that way. It is a letter about a crusade. He invites our noblemen and lords to raise regiments and go with him against the Moors.”
“Does he? Oh, does he? What a chance!”
“Not for you,” she said, quelling any idea Henry might have that he could go to war when they had no son. “It is just a little expedition. But my father would welcome Englishmen, and I think they should go.”
“I should think he would.” Henry turned and shouted for his friends, who were hanging back like guilty schoolboys caught having fun. They could not bear to see Katherine since she had become so pale and quiet. They liked her when she was the queen of the joust and Henry was Sir Loyal Heart. She made them uncomfortable when she came to dinner like a ghost, ate nothing, and left early.
“Hey! Anyone want to go to war against the Moors?”
A chorus of excited yells answered his holloa. Katherine thought that they were like nothing so much as a litter of excited puppies, Lord Thomas Darcy and Edward Howard at their head.
“I will go!”
“And I will go!”
“Show them how Englishmen fight!” Henry urged them. “I, myself, will pay the costs of the expedition.”
“I will write to my father that you have eager volunteers,” Katherine said quietly. “I will go and write to him now.” She turned away and walked quickly towards the doorway to the little stair that led to her rooms. She did not think she could bear to be with them for another moment. These were the men who would have taught her son to ride. These were the men who would have been his statesmen, his Privy Council. They would have sponsored him at his first Communion, they woul
d have stood proxy for him at his betrothal, they would have been godfathers to his sons. And here they were, laughing, clamoring for war, competing with each other for Henry’s shouted approval, as if her son had not been born, had not died. As if the world were the same as it had ever been; when Katherine knew that it was utterly changed.
He had blue eyes. And the tiniest most perfect feet.
In the event, the glorious crusade never happened. The English knights arrived at Cádiz but the crusade never set sail for the Holy Land, never faced a sharp scimitar wielded by a blackhearted infidel. Katherine translated letters between Henry and her father in which her father explained that he had not yet raised his troops, that he was not yet ready to leave, and then, one day she came to Henry with a letter in her hand and her face shocked out of its usual weariness.
“Father writes me the most terrible news.”
“What is happening?” Henry demanded, bewildered. “See, here, I have just received a letter from an English merchant in Italy, I cannot make any sense of it. He writes that the French and the Pope are at war.” Henry held out his letter to her. “How can this be? I don’t understand it at all.”
“It is true. This is from my father. He says the Pope has declared that the French armies must get out of Italy,” Katherine explained. “And the Holy Father has put his own papal troops into the field against the French. King Louis has declared that the Pope shall no longer be Pope.”
“How dare he?” Henry demanded, shocked to his core.
“Father says we must forget the crusade and go at once to the aid of the Pope. He will try to broker an alliance between us and the Holy Roman Emperor. We must form an alliance against France. King Louis cannot be allowed to take Rome. He must not advance into Italy.”
“He must be mad to think that I would allow it!” Henry exclaimed. “Would I let the French take Rome? Would I allow a French puppet Pope? Has he forgotten what an English army can do? Does he want another Agincourt?”
“Shall I tell my father we will unite with him against France?” Katherine asked. “I could write at once.”
He caught her hand and kissed it. For once she did not pull away and he drew her a little closer and put his arm around her waist. “I’ll come with you while you write and we can sign the letter from us both—your father should know that his Spanish daughter and his English son are absolutely as one in his support. Thank God that our troops are in Cádiz already,” Henry exclaimed as his good fortune struck him.
Katherine hesitated, a thought forming slowly in her mind. “It is…fortuitous.”
“Lucky,” Henry said buoyantly. “We are blessed by God.”
“My father will want some benefit for Spain from this.” Katherine introduced the suspicion carefully as they went to her rooms, Henry shortening his stride to match hers. “He never makes a move without planning far ahead.”
“Of course, but you will guard our interests as you always do,” he said confidently. “I trust you, my love, as I trust him. Is he not my only father now?”
SUMMER 1511
Slowly, as the days grow warmer, and the sun is more like a Spanish sun, I grow warm too and become more like the Spanish girl I once was. I cannot reconcile myself to the death of my son—I think I will never reconcile myself to his loss—but I can see that there is no one to blame for his death. There was no neglect or negligence, he died like a little bird in a warm nest and I have to see that I will never know why.
I know now that I was foolish to blame myself. I have committed no crime, no sin so bad that God, the merciful God of my childhood prayers, would punish me with such an awful grief as this. There could be no good God who would take away such a sweet baby, such a perfect baby with such blue eyes, as an exercise of His divine will. I know in my heart that such a thing cannot be, such a God cannot be. Even though, in the first, worst outpourings of my grief, I blamed myself and I blamed God, I know now that it was not a punishment for sin. I know that I kept my promise, Arthur’s promise, for the best reasons, and God has me in His keeping.
The awful, icy, dark fact of my baby’s loss seems to recede with the awful cold darkness of that English winter. One morning the fool came and told me some little jest and I laughed aloud. It was as if a door had opened that had long been locked tight. I realize that I can laugh, that it is possible to be happy, that laughter and hope can come back to me and perhaps I might even make another child and feel that overwhelming tenderness again.
I start to feel that I am alive again, that I am a woman with hope and prospects again, that I am the woman that the girl from Spain became. I can sense myself alive: poised halfway between my future and my past.
It is as if I am checking myself over as a rider does after a bad fall from a horse, patting my arms and legs, my vulnerable body, as if looking for permanent damage. My faith in God returns utterly unshaken, as firm as it has ever been. There seems to be only one great change: my belief in my mother and my father is damaged. For the first time in my life I truly think it possible that they can have been wrong.
I remember the Moorish physician’s kindness to me and I have to amend my view of his people. No one who could see his enemy brought as low as he saw me, and yet could look at her with such deep compassion, can be called a barbarian, a savage. He might be a heretic—steeped in error—but surely he must be allowed his own conclusions with his own reasons. And from what I know of the man, I am certain that he will have fine reasons.
I would like to send a good priest to wrestle for his soul, but I cannot say, as my mother would have said, that he is spiritually dead, fit for nothing but death. He held my hands to tell me hard news and I saw the tenderness of Our Lady in his eyes. I cannot dismiss the Moors as heretics and enemies anymore. I have to see that they are men and women, fallible as us, hopeful as us, faithful to their creed as we are to ours.
And this in turn leads me to doubt my mother’s wisdom. Once I would have sworn that she knew everything, that her writ must run everywhere. But now I have grown old enough to view her more thoughtfully. I was left in poverty in my widowhood because her contract was carelessly written. I was abandoned, all alone in a foreign country because—though she summoned me with apparent urgency—in truth it was just for show; she would not take me back to Spain at any price. She hardened her heart against me and cleaved to her plan for me and let me, her own daughter, go.
And finally, I was forced to find a doctor in secret and consult with him in hiding because she had done her part in driving from Christendom the best physicians, the best scientists, and the cleverest minds in the world. She had named their wisdom as sin, and the rest of Europe had followed her lead. She rid Spain of the Jews and their skills and courage, she rid Spain of the Moors and their scholarship and gifts. She, a woman who admired learning, banished those that they call the People of the Book. She who fought for justice had been unjust.
I cannot yet think what this estrangement might mean for me. My mother is dead; I cannot reproach her or argue with her now, except in my imagination. But I know these months have wrought a deep and lasting change in me. I have come to an understanding of my world that is not her understanding of hers. I do not support a crusade against the Moors, nor against anyone. I do not support persecution, nor cruelty to them for the color of their skin or the belief in their hearts. I know that my mother is not infallible, I no longer believe she and God think as one. Though I still love my mother, I don’t worship her anymore. I suppose, at last, I am growing up.
Slowly, the queen emerged from her grief and started to take an interest in the running of the court and country once more. London was buzzing with the news that Scottish privateers had attacked an English merchant ship. Everyone knew the name of the privateer: he was Andrew Barton, who sailed with letters of authority from King James of Scotland. Barton was merciless to English ships, and the general belief in the London docks was that James had deliberately licensed the pirate to prey on English shipping as if the two countries wer
e already at war.
“He has to be stopped,” Katherine said to Henry.
“He does not dare to challenge me!” Henry exclaimed. “James sends border raiders and pirates against me because he does not dare to face me himself. James is a coward and an oath breaker.”
“Yes,” Katherine agreed. “But the main thing about this pirate Barton is that he is not only a danger to our trade, he is a forerunner of worse to come. If we let the Scots rule the seas then we let them command us. This is an island: the seas must belong to us as much as the land or we have no safety.”
“My ships are ready and we sail at midday. I shall capture him alive,” Edward Howard, the admiral of the fleet, promised Katherine as he came to bid her farewell. She thought he looked very young, as boyish as Henry, but his flair and courage were unquestioned. He had inherited all his father’s tactical skill but brought it to the newly formed navy. The Howards traditionally held the post of lord admiral, but Edward was proving exceptional. “If I cannot capture him alive, I shall sink his ship and bring him back dead.”
“For shame on you! A Christian enemy!” she said teasingly, holding out her hand for his kiss.
He looked up, serious for once. “I promise you, Your Grace, that the Scots are a greater danger to the peace and wealth of this country than the Moors could ever be.”
He saw her wistful smile. “You are not the first Englishman to tell me that,” she said. “And I have seen it myself in these last years.”
“It has to be right,” he said. “In Spain your father and mother never rested until they could dislodge the Moors from the mountains. For us in England, our closest enemy is the Scots. It is they who are in our mountains, it is they who have to be suppressed and quelled if we are ever to be at peace. My father has spent his life defending the northern borders, and now I am fighting the same enemy but at sea.”
“Come home safely,” she urged.
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