The King's Curse Read online

  “The king is loyal to his friends,” she observes.

  “Of course,” I agree. “He was always a most sweet-tempered boy. He never bears a grudge.”

  The wedding feast is a joyous one. Mary is a favorite of everyone at court and we are glad to have her back with us, though we are all anxious as to the health and safety of her sister Margaret in Scotland. Since Margaret was widowed, and remarried a man whom the Scots lords cannot accept, we all wish that she too would come home to safety.

  My son Arthur comes to find me during the dancing, kisses me on both cheeks, and kneels for my blessing.

  “Not dancing?” I ask.

  “No, for I have someone to meet you.”

  I turn to him. “No trouble?” I say quickly.

  “Merely a visitor to court who wants to see you.”

  He winds his way through the dancers with a smile to one and the touch of an arm to another, through an arched door and into an inner room. I go through, and there is the last person I would have expected to see: my boy Reginald, lanky as a colt, his wrists showing at the cuffs of his jacket, his boots scuffed and his shy smile. “Lady Mother,” he says, and I put my hand on his warm head and then hold him as he springs up. “My boy!” I say in delight. “Ah, Reginald!”

  I hold him in my arms but I feel the tension in his shoulders. He never embraces me as my two older boys do, he never clings to me like his younger brother, Geoffrey. He was taught to be a diffident child; now, at fifteen years old, he is a young man made by a monastery.

  “Lady Mother,” he repeats, as if he is testing the words for meaning.

  “Why are you not at Oxford?” I release him. “Does the king know you are here? Do you have permission to be away?”

  “He’s graduated, Lady Mother!” Arthur reassures me. “He need not go back to Oxford ever again! He’s done very well. He’s completed his studies. He’s triumphant. He’s regarded as a very promising scholar.”

  “Are you?” I ask him doubtfully.

  Shyly, he ducks his head. “I am the best Latinist in my college,” he says quietly. “They say the best in the town.”

  “That’s the best in England!” Arthur declares exuberantly.

  The door behind us opens, and a gust of music comes in with Montague, Geoffrey at his side. Ten-year-old Geoffrey bounds towards his older brother like an excited child, and Reginald fends him off and embraces Montague.

  “He debated for three days on the nature of God,” Arthur tells me. “He’s much admired. Turns out our brother is a great scholar.”

  I laugh. “Well, I am glad of it,” I say. “And so what now, Reginald? Has the king commanded you? Are you to join the Church? What does he want you to do?”

  Reginald looks at me anxiously. “I have no calling for the Church,” he says quietly. “So I hope you will allow me—Lady Mother . . .”

  “No calling?” I repeat. “You have lived behind the walls of an abbey since you were six years old! You have spent almost all your life as a churchman. You have been educated as a churchman. Why would you not take orders?”

  “I have no vocation,” he repeats.

  I turn to Montague. “What does he mean?” I demand. “Since when did a churchman have to be called by God? Every bishop in the land is there for the convenience of his family. Obviously, he has been educated for the Church. Arthur tells me that he is well regarded. The king himself could not have done more for him. If he takes holy orders, he can be given the livings that come with our great estates and he will, no doubt, be made a bishop. And he could rise, perhaps even become an archbishop.”

  “It’s a matter of conscience.” Arthur interrupts his brother’s answer. “Really, Lady Mother . . .”

  I go to the chair at the head of the table, seat myself, and look down the long polished surface at my boys. Geoffrey follows me, and stands behind my chair looking gravely at his older brothers, as if he is my page boy, my little squire, and they are supplicants to the two of us. “Everyone in this family serves the king,” I say flatly. “That’s the only way to wealth and power. That is safety as well as success. Arthur, you are a courtier, one of the best jousters in the court, an ornament to the court. Montague, you have won your place as a server of the body, the best position at court, and you are rising in favor; you will be a senior advisor, I know. Geoffrey will go into the king’s rooms when he is a little older and will serve the king as well as any one of you. Ursula will marry a nobleman, link us to the greatest family we can obtain, and continue our line. Reginald here will be a churchman and serve the king and God. What else is possible? What else can he do?”

  “I love and admire the king,” Reginald says quietly. “And I am grateful to him. He has offered me the deanship of Wimborne Minster, a valuable place. But I don’t have to take holy orders to get it, I can be a dean without being ordained. And he says he will pay for me to study abroad.”

  “He does not insist you take your vows?”

  “He does not.”

  I am surprised. “This is a sign of great favor,” I say. “I would have thought he would have demanded it of you, after all he has done for you.”

  “The king has read one of Reginald’s essays,” Arthur explains. “Reginald says that the Church should be served by no one but men who have heard the call of God, not men that hope to rise in the world by using the Church as their ladder. The king was very impressed. He admires Reginald’s logic, his judgment. He thinks he is both inspired and educated.”

  I try to conceal my surprise at this son of mine who seems to have become a theologian rather than a priest. I cannot force him to take his vows at this stage in his life, especially if the king is willing to patronize him as a lay scholar. “Well, so be it,” I agree. “Very well for now. Later on, you will have to take holy orders to rise through the Church, Reginald. Don’t think that you can avoid that. But for the time being you can take the deanship and study as you wish, since His Grace approves.” I glance at Montague. “We’ll collect the fees for him,” I say. “We’ll pay him an allowance.”

  “I don’t want to go abroad,” Reginald says very quietly. “If you will allow me, Lady Mother, I would like to stay in England.”

  I am so shocked, that for a moment I say nothing, and Arthur speaks into the silence. “He has never lived with us since he was a child, Lady Mother. Let him study at Oxford and live at L’Erber, and spend his summers with us. He can join us when we are on progress, and when we go to Warblington or Bisham, he can come with us. I am sure the king would allow it. Montague and I could ask it for Reginald. Now that he has completed his degree surely he can come home?”

  Reginald, the boy I could not afford to feed or house, looks directly at me. “I want to come home,” he says. “I want to live with my family. It’s time. It’s my turn. Let me come home. I have been away from all of you for so long.”

  I hesitate. To gather my family together again would be the greatest triumph of my return to wealth and favor. To have all my sons under my roof and see them working for the power and strength of our family is my dream. “It’s what I want,” I tell him. “I have never told you, I never will tell you how much I missed you. Of course. But I shall have to ask the king,” I say. “None of you will ask him. I shall ask the king, and if he agrees, then that would be my dearest wish.”

  Reginald flushes like a girl and I see his eyes grow suddenly dark with tears. I realize that though he may be a scholar of brilliance and promise he is still only fifteen—a boy who never had a childhood. Of course he wants to live with us all. He wants to be my beloved son once more. We have found our home again, he wants to be with us. It is right that he should be with us.

  RICHMOND PALACE, WEST OF LONDON, JUNE 1515

  The return of our Princess Mary as Dowager Queen of France brings an energy and beauty to a court where joy had been wearing thin. She runs in and out of the queen’s rooms to show her the swirl of a new gown, or to bring a book of the new scholarship. She teaches the queen’s ladies the d