The King's Curse Read online

  “But it’s obvious, isn’t it? It’s not just me saying it. Everyone knows.”

  “Everyone knows what?”

  “That she will never give him a child,” Bessie whispers.

  “Nobody can know that!” I exclaim. “Nobody can know what will happen! Perhaps this time she will give birth to a strong, bonny boy and he will be Henry, Duke of Cornwall, and grow to be Prince of Wales, and we will all be happy.”

  “Well, I hope so, I’m sure,” she replies obediently enough; but her eyes slide away from me, as if the words in her mouth mean nothing, and in a moment she slips through the arched doorway and is gone.

  As soon as the rooms are prepared, the queen goes into confinement, her lips folded in a grim line of determination. I go into the familiar shadowy rooms with her and, cravenly, I confess to myself that I don’t think I can bear to go through another death. If she has another son, I don’t think that I can find the courage to take him into my care. My fears have become so great that they have quite drowned out any hopes. I have become convinced that she will give birth to a dead child, or that any baby she has will die within days.

  I feel only more gloomy when the king calls me to his side after Prime one morning, and walks with me in the early morning darkness back to the shadowy confinement chamber. “The queen’s father, King Ferdinand, has died,” he says to me shortly. “I don’t think we should tell her while she’s in confinement. Do you?”

  “No,” I say instantly. There is an absolute rule that a queen in confinement should be kept from bad news. Katherine adored her father, though nobody can deny that he was a hard master to his little daughter. “You can tell her after the birth. She must not be distressed now.”

  “But my sister Margaret went into confinement in fear of her life from the rebels,” he complains. “She barely got over the border to take refuge. And yet she had a healthy girl.”

  “I know,” I say. “Her Grace the Queen of Scotland is a brave woman. But nobody could doubt the courage of our queen.”

  “And she is well?” he asks, as if I am a physician, as if my assurance counts for anything.

  “She is well,” I say stoutly. “I am confident.”

  “Are you?”

  There is only one answer that he wants to hear. Of course I say it: “Yes.”

  I try to act as if I am confident as I greet her brightly every morning and kneel beside her at the grille where the priest comes three times a day to pray. When he asks for God’s blessing on the fertility of the mother and the health of the baby, I say “Amen” with conviction, and sometimes I feel her hand creep into mine as if she seeks assurance from me. I always take her fingers in a firm grip. I never allow a shadow of doubt in my eyes, never a hesitant word from my mouth. Even when she whispers to me: “Sometimes, Margaret, I fear that there is something wrong.”

  I never say: “And you are right. What you fear is a terrible curse.” Instead, always I look her in the eye and declare: “Every wife in the world, every woman that I know has lost at least one baby and gone on to have more. You come from a fertile family and you are young and strong, and the king is a man among men. Nobody can doubt his vigor and his strength, nobody can doubt that you are fertile as your emblem, the pomegranate. This time, Katherine, this time I am certain.”

  She nods. I see her staunch little smile as she enforces confidence on herself. “Then I will be hopeful,” she says. “If you are. If you really are.”

  “I am,” I lie.

  It is an easier birth than the last one, and when the midwives cry out that they can see the little bloody crown of the head, and Katherine clutches at my arm, I have a moment when I think, perhaps this is a strong baby? Perhaps all will be well.

  I grip her hand and tell her to wait, and then the midwives exclaim that the baby is coming, and that she must push. Katherine grits her teeth and holds back a groan of pain. She believes—some devout fool has told her—that a queen does not cry out in childbirth, and her neck is straining like the bough of a twisted tree in the effort to hold herself regally silent, as hushed as the Virgin Mary.

  Then there is a cry, a loud complaining bawl, Katherine gives a hoarse sob, and everyone is exclaiming that the baby is here. Katherine turns a frightened face to me and says: “He lives?”

  There is another flurry of activity, her face contorts with pain, and the midwife says: “A girl. A girl, a live girl, Your Grace.”

  I am almost sick with disappointment for the queen, but then I hear the baby cry, a good loud shout, and I am overwhelmed at the thought that she lives, that there is a live child, a live child in this room that has seen so many deaths.

  “Let me see her!” Katherine says.

  They wrap her in scented linen and pass her to her mother, while the midwives busy themselves, and Katherine sniffs at the damp head as if she were a cat in a basket with a litter of kittens, and the baby stops crying and snuffles against her mother’s neck.

  Katherine freezes and looks down. “Is she breathing?”

  “Yes, yes, she’s just hungry,” one of the midwives pronounces, smiling. “Will you give her to the wet nurse, Your Grace?”

  Reluctantly, Katherine hands her over to the plump woman. She does not take her eyes off the little bundle for one moment.

  “Sit beside me,” she says. “Let me watch her feed.”

  The woman does as she is ordered. This is a new wet nurse; I couldn’t bear to have the same woman who had fed the previous baby. I wanted everything new: new linen, new swaddling bands; new cradle, new nurse. I wanted nothing to be the same, so I am dreading what happens now, as the queen turns to me and says gravely: “Dear Margaret, will you tell His Grace?”

  This is no honor anymore, I think, as I go slowly from the overheated room and step into the cold hall. Unbidden, my son Montague is waiting for me outside. I am so relieved to see him that I could weep. I take his arm.

  “I thought you might want someone to walk with?” he asks.

  “I do,” I say shortly.

  “The baby?”

  “Alive. A girl.”

  He purses his lips at the thought that we may have to tell the king disagreeable news, and we walk swiftly in silence, down the hall together to the king’s private rooms. He is waiting, Cardinal Wolsey at his side, his companions quiet and anxious. They do not wait with excitement and confidence anymore, cups filled in their hands ready for a toast. I see Arthur among them and he nods to me, his face pale with anxiety.

  “Your Grace, I am happy to tell you that you have a daughter,” I say to King Henry.

  There is no mistaking the joy that leaps into his face. Anything, as long as he has got a live child on his queen. “She is well?” he demands hopefully.

  “She is well and strong. I left her at the wet nurse’s breast and she is feeding.”

  “And Her Grace?”

  “She is well. Better than ever before.”

  He comes towards me and takes my arm to speak quietly to me, so that no one, not even the cardinal following behind, can hear. “Lady Margaret, you’ve had many children . . .”

  “Five,” I reply.

  “All live births?”

  “I lost one in the early months, once. It’s usual, Your Grace.”

  “I know. I know. But does this baby look strong? Can you tell? Will she live?”

  “She looks strong,” I say.

  “Are you sure? Lady Margaret, you would tell me if you had doubts, wouldn’t you?”

  I look at him with compassion. How will anyone ever find the courage to tell him anything that does not please him? How will this indulged boy ever learn wisdom in manhood if nobody ever dares to say no to him? How will he learn to judge a liar from a true man if everyone, even the truest, cannot speak a word to him that is not good news?

  “Your Grace, I am telling you the truth: she looks well and strong now. What will become of her only God can say. But the queen has been safely delivered of a bonny girl, and they are both doing well this after