The King's Curse Read online

  He is uncertain, and pulls on the rein; the horse, sensing the change of his mood, flicks his ear, listening.

  “You are like a knight of Camelot,” I say hastily. “Nobody will have seen anything like it since the golden age.”

  He smiles at that, and it is almost as if the sun comes out and birds start to sing. “I am a new Arthur,” he agrees.

  I ignore the pang I feel at the casual use of the name of the prince we loved, whose little brother is still striving to better him. “You are the new Arthur of the new Camelot,” I repeat. “But where is your other horse, Your Grace? Your lovely black mare?”

  “She was disobedient,” he throws over his shoulder as he rides out of the ring. “She defied me. She would not learn from me.”

  He turns and gives me his most charming smile, all sunshine once again. I think that he is the most adorable young man as he says lightly: “I sent her for baiting. The hounds killed her. I can’t bear disloyalty.”

  It is the greatest joust that I have ever seen, that England has ever seen. The king is everywhere, no scene is complete without him in a new costume. He leads the procession of the Master of the Armory, the trumpeters, the courtiers, the heralds, the court assistants, the poets, the singers, and at last, the long line of jousters. Henry has announced a tournament in which he will take on all comers.

  He rides his great gray warhorse and he wears cloth of gold, interleaved with the richest blue velvet, gleaming in the bright spring sunshine as if he were a king newly minted. All over his jacket, his hat, his riding breeches, his trappings are sewn little gold K ’s as if he wants to show the world that he is hers, that she has set her initial all over him. Above his head is the standard he has chosen for this day: Loyall. His tournament name is Coeur Loyall, Henry is Sir Loyal Heart and as Katherine glows with pride he rides his horse around the ring and shows the tricks that he practiced before me, a perfect prince.

  We all share her joy, even the girls who would welcome the attentions of the perfect prince themselves. Katherine sits in a throne with the sunlight shining through the cloth of gold canopy making her skin rosy and golden, smiling on the young man whom she loves, knowing that their first child, their son, is safe in his golden cradle.

  But only ten days later, they go to pick him up and he is cold, and his little face is blue, and he is dead.

  It is as if the world has ended. Henry withdraws to his rooms; the queen’s rooms are stunned and silent. All of the words of comfort that can be given to a young woman who has lost her first child dissolve on the tongue in the face of Katherine’s bleak horror. For day after day no one says anything to her. There is nothing to say. Henry falls into silence, and won’t speak of his lost child; he does not attend the funeral or the Mass. They cannot comfort each other, they cannot bear to be together. This loss in their new marriage is so terrible that Henry cannot comprehend it, cannot try to comprehend it. A darkness spreads over the court.

  But even in grief, Katherine and I know that we have to be watchful, all the time. We have to wait for the next girl whom Henry takes to his bed, who will wind her arms around his neck and whisper in his ear that look! see! God does not bless his marriage. It has been only twenty months and yet there have been three tragedies: one miscarriage, one child vanished clear away from the womb, one baby dead in its cradle. Is this not proof, building, growing proof, that the marriage is against the will of God, but she—a virgin of healthy English stock—might give him a son?

  “And which of my ladies-in-waiting should I suspect?” Katherine asks me bitterly. “Who? Who should I watch? Lady Maud Parr? She’s a pretty woman. Mary Kingston? Lady Jane Guildford? Lady Elizabeth Boleyn? She’s married of course but why should that prevent her seducing the king? You?”

  I am not even offended by her outburst. “The queen has to be served by the most beautiful and wealthiest ladies of the kingdom,” I say simply. “It’s how a court works. You have to be surrounded by beautiful girls, they are here to find a husband, they are determined to shine, they are bound to catch the eye of the courtiers and the king.”

  “What can I do?” she asks me. “How can I make my marriage unassailable?”

  I shake my head. We both know that the only way she can prove that God has blessed her marriage is to give birth to a live son. Without him, without that little savior, we are all waiting for the moment that the king starts to interrogate God.

  WESTMINSTER PALACE, LONDON, SPRING 1512

  The king, as he emerges from his grief for his baby, is good to me, and I am advised that I should apply for the return of my brother’s fortune and lands. I should even ask for the return of my family title. Having spent my life pretending that my name was nothing and my fortune was lost, I am bidden to claim them both.

  It is a heady experience, like coming out of the cold nunnery to the springtime court once again, like coming out of darkness, blinking into light. I list the great fortune that my brother lost when this king’s father tore him from the schoolroom and bundled him into the Tower. I name the titles that I commanded when I walked away from them down the aisle to marry a lowly Tudor knight. Tentatively, at first, as if I am taking a great risk, I state my great name, estimate my great fortune, and say that it was my own, all my own, that the Tudors wrongly took it from me, and that I want it back.

  I think of my angry prayers in Syon Abbey, and I put my temper to one side and write a careful petition to the king, framing my request in such a way that it is no criticism of that grasping tyrant, his father, but a measured claim for what is my own. A claim for my sons that they should have what is ours. I want to be restored to my greatness, I want to be a Plantagenet again. Apparently, the time has come that I can be a Plantagenet. Apparently, at last, I can be myself.

  Amazingly, the king grants it. Freely, generously, sweetly, he grants me everything that I ask, and tells me that since I am by birth and by disposition one of the greatest ladies of the kingdom I should enjoy the greatest fortune. I am to be what I was born to be: Margaret Plantagenet, as wealthy as a princess of York.

  I ask the queen for permission to be away from court for the night. “You want to tell your children,” she smiles.

  “This changes everything for us,” I say.

  “Go,” she says. “Go to your new house and meet them there. I am glad that you have justice, at last. I am glad that you are Margaret Plantagenet once more.”

  “Countess of Salisbury,” I say, sweeping her a deep curtsey. “He has given me my family title, in my own right. I am Countess of Salisbury.”

  She laughs with pleasure and says: “Very grand. Very royal. My dear, I am glad for you.”

  I take Ursula, who is now a tall girl of thirteen years, and her younger brother, Geoffrey, in the royal barge down the river to L’Erber, the beautiful Plantagenet palace on the riverside, near to the Tower, that the king has returned to me. I make sure that the fire is lit in the grand hall and the flames are burning in the sconces so that when my boys come in, the place is warm and welcoming, and my new household can see, lit as brightly as players in a pageant, these York boys coming into their own.

  I wait for them, standing before the huge fire of wood in the great hall, Ursula at my side, seven-year-old Geoffrey’s hand in mine. Henry comes in first, as he should, kneels for my blessing, and kisses me on both cheeks then steps aside for his brother Arthur. Side by side they kneel before me, their height and their strength obscured by their deference. These are boys no longer, they are young men. I have missed five, nearly six years of their lives, and no one, not even a Tudor king, can restore that to me. This is a loss that can never be made up.

  I raise Henry to his feet and I smile at my pride as he goes up and up. He is a tall, well-built young man of nearly twenty. He overtops me by a head, and I can feel the strength in his arms. “My son,” I say, and I clear my throat so that my voice does not tremble. “My son, I have missed you, but we are returned to one another now, and to our place in the world.”