The King's Curse Read online

  Her bravery is poorly rewarded. She is greeted without sympathy, for nobody is much interested in the return to court of a childless bride. Something far more intriguing is going on; the court is agog with scandal.

  It is William Compton, my former suitor, who seems to have comforted himself by flirting with my second cousin, Anne, one of the two beautiful sisters of the Duke of Buckingham, newly married to Sir George Hastings. I failed to see this foolish affair develop as I was absorbed in Katherine’s grief, and I am sorry to learn that matters have gone so far that my cousin Stafford has had high words with the king at the insult to his family, and taken her away from court.

  This is madness from the duke, but typical of his prickly sense of pride. There is no doubt in my mind that his sister will have been guilty of almost any indiscretion; she is the daughter of Katherine Woodville, and like most Woodville girls she is outstandingly beautiful and willful. She is unhappy with her new husband, and he will apparently allow any misdemeanor. But then, as the court continues to whisper of nothing else, I begin to think that there must be more to this than a courtier’s escapade, an episode of courtly lovemaking, playacting desire which went beyond the rules. Henry, who is normally pompous about the rules of courtly love, seems to side with Compton, who declares himself insulted by the duke. The young king flies into a rage, orders Buckingham to stay away from court, and goes everywhere arm in arm with Compton who looks both sheepish and rakish all at once, like a young tup in a lush field full of ewes.

  Whatever has been taking place here seems to be more troubling than William Compton playing fast and loose with the duke’s sister. There must be some reason that the king supports his friend and not the cuckolded husband; there must be some reason that the duke is disgraced but the seducer is in favor. Someone is lying, and someone is hiding something from the queen. The ladies of her household are no use, they are not going to tell tales. My cousin Elizabeth Stafford maintains an aristocratic discretion since it is her kinswoman who is the center of the scandal. Lady Maud Parr says she knows nothing more than common gossip.

  Katherine sends for the books of the household and sees that while she was confined, waiting for a baby that she knew was long gone, the court was making merry and it was Anne Hastings who was Queen of the May.

  “What is this?” she asks me, pointing at the payment for a choir to sing under Anne’s window on May Day morning. “What is this?”—the wardrobe accounts for Anne’s costume in a masque.

  I say I don’t know; but I can read the accounts as well as she can. What I see, what I know she sees, what anyone would see, is a small fortune from the royal treasury being spent for the amusement of Anne Hastings.

  “Why would the royal household pay for William Compton’s choir for Lady Anne?” she asks me. “Is this usual, in England?”

  Katherine is the daughter of a king whose philandering was well known. She knows that a king can take lovers as he wishes, that there can be no complaint, least of all from his wife. Queen Isabella of Spain broke her heart over the love affairs of her husband, and she was as royal as he was, no mere wife crowned as a favor, but a monarch in her own right. Even so, he never mended his ways. Isabella suffered hell’s own torments of jealousy and her daughter Katherine saw it, and resolved that she would never feel such pain. She did not know that this young prince who told her that he loved her, that he had waited for her for years, would turn out like this. She did not imagine that while she was in the dark loneliness of confinement, knowing that she had lost her baby and that nobody would let her grieve, her young husband was starting a flirtation with her own lady-in-waiting, a young woman in her service, in her rooms, a kinswoman of mine, a friend.

  “I’m afraid that it’s what you’re thinking,” I say bluntly to her, telling her the worst and getting it over with. “William Compton pretended to court Anne; everyone saw them together, everyone knew they were meeting. But he was a shield. All the time she was meeting with the king.”

  It is a hard blow for her, but she takes it like a queen.

  “And there’s worse than this,” I say. “I’m sorry to have to tell you of it.”

  She takes a breath. “Tell me. Tell me, Margaret, what can be worse than this?”

  “Anne Hastings told one of the other ladies-in-waiting that it was not a flirtation, not a May Day courting, over and forgotten in one day.” I look at her pale face, the folded resolute line of her mouth. “Anne Hastings said that the king had made promises.”

  “What? What could he promise?”

  I ignore protocol and sit beside her and put my arm around her shoulders as if she were still a homesick princess and we were back at Ludlow. “My dear . . .”

  For a moment she lets her head droop and rests it on my shoulder and I tighten my grip. “You’d better tell me, Margaret. I had better know everything.”

  “She says that he swore he was in love with her. She told him that her vows could be annulled and, more importantly, she said that his were invalid. They spoke of marriage.”

  There is a long, long silence. I think, please God she does not become queenly and leap to her feet and rage at me for bringing her such bad news. But then I feel her soften, her whole body yields, and she turns her hot face with her cheeks wet with tears to my neck, and I hold her while she cries like a hurt girl.

  We are silent for a long time, then she pulls back and rubs her eyes roughly with her hands. I give her a handkerchief and she wipes her face and blows her nose.

  “I knew it,” she sighs as if she is weary to her very bones.

  “You knew?”

  “He told me some of this last night, and I guessed the rest. God forgive him: he told me he was confused. He told me that when he bedded her she cried out in pain and said that she could not bear it. He had to take her gently. She told him that a virgin bleeds when it is her first time.” She makes a little face of disgust, of derision. “Apparently, she bled. Copiously. She showed him all that, and convinced him that I was no virgin on our wedding night, that my marriage to Arthur had been consummated.”

  She holds herself very still and then she gives a deep shudder. “She suggested to him that his marriage to me is invalid, because I was wedded and bedded by Arthur. That in the sight of God, I will always be Arthur’s wife, and not Henry’s. And God will never give us a child.”

  I am aghast. I look at her blankly. I have no words to defend our secret, I can only marvel at this nonchalant unraveling of our old plot.

  “She’s a married woman herself,” I say flatly. “She’s been married twice.”

  Katherine finds a mournful smile at my incredulity.

  “She’s put it into his head that our marriage is against the will of God and that is why we lost the baby. She told him that we will never have a child.”

  I am so appalled that I can only reach for her again. She takes my hand, pats it, and puts it aside.

  “Yes,” she says thoughtfully. “Cruel, isn’t she? Wicked, isn’t she?”

  And when I don’t reply, she says: “This is serious. She told him that my belly was swollen but since there was no child, it was a message from God that there will never be one. Because the marriage is against the word of God. That a man should not marry his brother’s widow, and if he does, their marriage will be without issue. It’s written in the Bible.” She smiles without humor. “She quoted Leviticus to him. ‘And if a man shall take his brother’s wife, it is an unclean thing: he hath uncovered his brother’s nakedness: they shall be childless.’ ”

  I am quite stunned at Anne Hastings’s sudden interest in theology. Someone has prepared her to whisper this poison into Henry’s ear. “The Pope himself gave a dispensation,” I insist. “Your mother arranged it! Your mother made sure that the dispensation provided, whether you had been bedded by Arthur or not. She made sure of it.”

  She nods. “She did. But Henry has been filled with fears by that old grandmother of his. She quoted Leviticus to him before we were married. His father l