The Constant Princess Read online

  “You assured me of that on her word?”

  “The duenna said…”

  “Then it is nothing,” the king ruled. “They were little more than promised to one another. Hardly man and wife.”

  “I will have to put this to Their Majesties of Spain,” de Puebla said, desperately trying to assemble some order to his whirling thoughts, striving to keep his deep shock from his face. “Does the Privy Council agree?” he asked, playing for time. “The Archbishop of Canterbury?”

  “It is a matter between ourselves at the moment,” Henry said grandly. “It is early days for me as a widower. I want to be able to reassure Their Majesties that their daughter will be cared for. It has been a difficult year for her.”

  “If she could have gone home…”

  “Now there will be no need for her to go home. Her home is England. This is her country,” Henry said flatly. “She shall be queen here, as she was brought up to be.”

  De Puebla could hardly speak for shock at the suggestion that this old man, who had just buried his wife, should marry his dead son’s bride. “Of course. So, shall I tell Their Majesties that you are quite determined on this course? There is no other arrangement that we should consider?” De Puebla racked his brains as to how he could bring in the name of Prince Harry, who was surely Catalina’s most appropriate future husband. Finally, he plunged in. “Your son, for instance?”

  “My son is too young to be considered for marriage as yet.” Henry disposed of the suggestion with speed. “He is eleven and a strong, forward boy, but his grandmother insists that we plan nothing for him for another four years. And by then, the Princess Dowager would be twenty-one.”

  “Still young,” gasped de Puebla. “Still a young woman, and near him in age.”

  “I don’t think Their Majesties would want their daughter to stay in England for another four years without husband or household of her own,” Henry said with unconcealed threat. “They could hardly want her to wait for Harry’s majority. What would she do in those years? Where would she live? Are they proposing to buy her a palace and set up a household for her? Are they prepared to give her an income? A court, appropriate to her position? For four years?”

  “If she could return to Spain to wait?” de Puebla hazarded.

  “She can leave at once, if she will pay the full amount of her dowry and find her own fortune elsewhere. Do you really think she can get a better offer than Queen of England? Take her away if you do!”

  It was the sticking point that they had reached over and over again in the past year. De Puebla knew he was beaten. “I will write to Their Majesties tonight,” he said.

  I dreamed I was a swift, flying over the golden hills of the Sierra Nevada. But this time, I was flying north, the hot afternoon sun was on my left, ahead of me was a gathering of cool cloud. Then suddenly, the cloud took shape. It was Ludlow Castle, and my little bird heart fluttered at the sight of it and at the thought of the night that would come when he would take me in his arms and press down on me, and I would melt with desire for him.

  Then I saw it was not Ludlow but these great gray walls were those of Windsor Castle, and the curve of the river was the great gray glass of the river Thames, and all the traffic plying up and down and the great ships at anchor were the wealth and the bustle of the English. I knew I was far from my home, and yet I was at home. This would be my home. I would build a little nest against the gray stone of the towers here, just as I would have done in Spain. And here they would call me a swift; a bird which flies so fast that no one has ever seen it land, a bird that flies so high that they think it never touches the ground. I shall not be Catalina, the Infanta of Spain. I shall be Katherine of Aragon, Queen of England, just as Arthur named me: Katherine, Queen of England.

  “The king is here again,” Doña Elvira said, looking out of the window. “He has ridden here with just two men. Not even a standard-bearer or guards.” She sniffed. The widespread English informality was bad enough but this king had the manners of a stableboy.

  Catalina flew to the window and peered out. “What can he want?” she wondered. “Tell them to decant some of his wine.”

  Doña Elvira went out of the room in a hurry. In the next moment Henry strolled in, unannounced. “I thought I would call on you,” he said.

  Catalina sank into a deep curtsey. “Your Grace does me much honor,” she said. “And at least now I can offer you a glass of good wine.”

  Henry smiled and waited. The two of them stood while Doña Elvira returned to the room with a Spanish maid-in-waiting carrying a tray of Morisco brassware with two Venetian glasses of red wine. Henry noted the fineness of the workmanship and assumed correctly that it was part of the dowry that the Spanish had withheld.

  “Your health,” he said, holding up his glass to the princess.

  To his surprise she did not simply raise her glass in return, she raised her eyes and gave him a long, thoughtful look. He felt himself tingle, like a boy, as his eyes met hers. “Princess?” he said quietly.

  “Your Grace?”

  They both of them glanced towards Doña Elvira, who was standing uncomfortably close, quietly regarding the floorboards beneath her worn shoes.

  “You can leave us,” the king said.

  The woman looked at the princess for her orders and made no move to leave.

  “I shall talk in private with my daughter-in-law,” King Henry said firmly. “You may go.”

  Doña Elvira curtseyed and left, and the rest of the ladies swept out after her.

  Catalina smiled at the king. “As you command,” she said.

  He felt his pulse speed at her smile. “Indeed, I do need to speak to you privately. I have a proposal to put to you. I have spoken to the Spanish ambassador and he has written to your parents.”

  “At last. This is it. At last,” Catalina thought. “He has come to propose Harry for me. Thank God, who has brought me to this day. Arthur, beloved, this day you will see that I shall be faithful to my promise to you.”

  “I need to marry again,” Henry said. “I am still young—” He thought he would not say his age of forty-six. “It may be that I can have another child or two.”

  Catalina nodded politely, but she was barely listening. She was waiting for him to ask her to marry Prince Harry.

  “I have been thinking of all the princesses in Europe who would be suitable partners for me,” he said.

  Still the princess before him said nothing.

  “I can find no one I would choose.”

  She widened her eyes to indicate her attention.

  Henry plowed on. “My choice has fallen on you,” he said bluntly, “for these reasons. You are here in London already, you have become accustomed to living here. You were brought up to be Queen of England, and you will be queen as my wife. The difficulties with the dowry can be put aside. You will have the same allowance that I paid to Queen Elizabeth. My mother agrees with this.”

  At last his words penetrated her mind. She was so shocked that she could barely speak. She just stared at him. “Me?”

  “There is a slight objection on the grounds of affinity, but I shall ask the Pope to grant a dispensation,” he went on. “I understand that your marriage to Prince Arthur was never consummated. In that case, there is no real objection.”

  “It was not consummated.” Catalina repeated the words by rote, as if she no longer understood them. The great lie had been part of a plot to take her to the altar with Prince Harry, not with his father. She could not now retract it. Her mind was so dizzy that she could only cling to it. “It was not consummated.”

  “Then there should be no difficulty,” the king said. “I take it that you do not object?”

  He found that he could hardly breathe, waiting for her answer. Any thought that she had been leading him on, tempting him to this moment, had vanished when he looked into her bleached, shocked face.

  He took her hand. “Don’t look so afraid,” he said, his voice low with tenderness. “I won�