The Constant Princess Read online

  It made absolute sense to secure Catalina; he tried to focus on the political advantage and not think of the line of her neck nor the curve of her waist. He tried to steady his mind by thinking of the small fortune that would be saved by not having to provide her with a jointure nor with her keep, by not having to send a ship, several ships probably, to escort her home. But all he could think was that she had touched her soft mouth with her finger and told him that she did not like the lingering taste of ale. At the thought of the tip of her tongue against her lips, he groaned aloud and the groom holding the horse for him to dismount looked up and said: “Sire?”

  “Bile,” the king said sourly.

  It did feel like too rich a fare that was sickening him, he decided as he strode to his private apartments, courtiers eddying out of his way with sycophantic smiles. He felt that he must remember that she was little more than a child, she was his own daughter-in-law. If he listened to the good sense that had carried him so far, he should simply promise to pay her jointure, send her back to her parents, and then delay the payment till they had her married to some other kingly fool elsewhere and he could get away with paying nothing.

  But at the mere thought of her married to another man he had to stop and put his hand out to the oak paneling for support.

  “Your Grace?” someone asked him. “Are you ill?”

  “Bile,” the king repeated. “Something I have eaten.”

  His chief groom of the body came to him. “Shall I send for your physician, Your Grace?”

  “No,” the king said. “But send a couple of barrels of the best wine to the Dowager Princess. She has nothing in her cellar, and when I have to visit her I should like to drink wine and not ale.”

  “Yes, Your Grace,” the man said, bowed, and went away. Henry straightened up and went to his rooms. They were crowded with people as usual: petitioners, courtiers, favor seekers, fortune hunters, some friends, some gentry, some noblemen attending on him for love or calculation. Henry regarded them all sourly. When he had been Henry Tudor on the run in Brittany, he had not been blessed with so many friends.

  “Where is my mother?” he asked one of them.

  “In her rooms, Your Grace,” the man replied.

  “I shall visit her,” he said. “Let her know.”

  He gave her a few moments to ready herself, and then he went to her chambers. On her daughter-in-law’s death she had moved into the apartment traditionally given to the queen. She had ordered new tapestries and new furniture and now the place was more grandly furnished than any queen had ever had before.

  “I’ll announce myself,” the king said to the guard at her door and stepped in without ceremony.

  Lady Margaret was seated at a table in the window, the household accounts spread before her, inspecting the costs of the royal court as if it were a well-run farm. There was very little waste and no extravagance allowed in the court run by Lady Margaret, and royal servants who had thought that some of the payments which passed through their hands might leave a little gold on the side were soon disappointed.

  Henry nodded his approval at the sight of his mother’s supervision of the royal business. He had never rid himself of his own anxiety that the ostentatious wealth of the throne of England might prove to be hollow show. He had financed a campaign for the throne on debt and favors; he never wanted to be cap in hand again.

  She looked up as he came in. “My son.”

  He kneeled for her blessing, as he always did when he first greeted her every day, and felt her fingers gently touch the top of his head.

  “You look troubled,” she remarked.

  “I am,” he said. “I went to see the Dowager Princess.”

  “Yes?” A faint expression of disdain crossed her face. “What are they asking for now?”

  “We—” He broke off and then started again. “We have to decide what is to become of her. She spoke of going home to Spain.”

  “When they pay us what they owe,” she said at once. “They know they have to pay the rest of her dowry before she can leave.”

  “Yes, she knows that.”

  There was a brief silence.

  “She asked if there could not be another agreement,” he said. “Some resolution.”

  “Ah, I’ve been waiting for this,” Lady Margaret said exultantly. “I knew they would be after this. I am only surprised they have waited so long. I suppose they thought they should wait until she was out of mourning.”

  “After what?”

  “They will want her to stay,” she said.

  Henry could feel himself beginning to smile and deliberately he set his face still. “You think so?”

  “I have been waiting for them to show their hand. I knew that they were waiting for us to make the first move. Ha! That we have made them declare first!”

  He raised his eyebrows, longing for her to spell out his desire. “For what?”

  “A proposal from us, of course,” she said. “They knew that we would never let such a chance go. She was the right match then, and she is the right match now. We had a good bargain with her then, and it is still good. Especially if they pay in full. And now she is more profitable than ever.”

  His color flushed as he beamed at her. “You think so?”

  “Of course. She is here, half her dowry already paid, the rest we have only to collect. We have already rid ourselves of her escort. The alliance is already working to our benefit—we would never have the respect of the French if they did not fear her parents; the Scots fear us too—she is still the best match in Christendom for us.”

  His sense of relief was overwhelming. If his mother did not oppose the plan, then he felt he could push on with it. She had been his best and safest advisor for so long that he could not have gone against her will.

  “And the difference in age?”

  She shrugged. “It is…what? Five, nearly six years? That is nothing for a prince.”

  He recoiled as if she had slapped him in the face. “Six years?” he repeated.

  “And Harry is tall for his age and strong. They will not look mismatched,” she said.

  “No,” he said flatly. “No. Not Harry. I did not mean Harry. I was not speaking of Harry!”

  The anger in his voice alerted her. “What?”

  “No. No. Not Harry. Damn it! Not Harry!”

  “What? Whatever can you mean?”

  “It is obvious! Surely it is obvious!”

  Her gaze flashed across his face, reading him rapidly, as only she could. “Not Harry?”

  “I thought you were speaking of me.”

  “Of you?” She quickly reconsidered the conversation. “Of you for the Infanta?” she asked incredulously.

  He felt himself flush again. “Yes.”

  “Arthur’s widow? Your own daughter-in-law?”

  “Yes! Why not?”

  Lady Margaret stared at him in alarm. She did not even have to list the obstacles.

  “He was too young. It was not consummated,” he said, repeating the words that the Spanish ambassador had learned from Doña Elvira, which had been spread throughout Christendom.

  She looked skeptical.

  “She says so herself. Her duenna says so. The Spanish say so. Everybody says so.”

  “And you believe them?” she asked coldly.

  “He was impotent.”

  “Well…” It was typical of her that she said nothing while she considered it. She looked at him, noting the color in his cheeks and the trouble in his face. “They are probably lying. We saw them wedded and bedded and there was no suggestion then that it had not been done.”

  “That is their business. If they all tell the same lie and stick to it, then it is the same as the truth.”

  “Only if we accept it.”

  “We do,” he ruled.

  She raised her eyebrows. “It is your desire?”

  “It is not a question of desire. I need a wife,” Henry said coolly, as though it could be anyone. “And she is convenien