The Constant Princess ttc-1 Read online

  The ambassador shrugged. “In a court there are no friends, only courtiers.”

  “My father will defend me from this…cruelty!” she burst out. “They should have thought of that before they treated me so! There will be no treaties for England with Spain when he hears about this. He will take revenge for this abuse of me.”

  He could say nothing, and in the still, silent face that he turned to her she saw the worst truth.

  “No,” she said simply. “Not him. Not him as well. Not my father. He did not know. He loves me. He would never injure me. He would never abandon me here.”

  Still he could not tell her. He saw her take a deep breath.

  “Oh. Oh. I see. I see from your silence. Of course. He knows, of course he knows, doesn’t he? My father? The dowry money is just another trick. He knows of the proposal to marry Prince Harry to Princess Eleanor. He has been leading the king on to think that he can marry Juana. He ordered me to encourage the king to marry Juana. He will have agreed to this new proposal for Prince Harry. And so he knows that the prince has broken his oath to me? And is free to marry?”

  “Princess, he has told me nothing. But I think he must know. But perhaps he plans…”

  Her gesture stopped him. “He has given up on me. I see. I have failed him and he has cast me aside. I am indeed alone.”

  “So shall I try to get us home now?” Fuensalida asked quietly. Truly, he thought, it had become the very pinnacle of his ambitions. If he could get this doomed princess home to her unhappy father and her increasingly deranged sister, the new Queen of Castile, he would have done the best he could in a desperate situation. Nobody would marry Catalina of Spain now she was the daughter of a divided kingdom. Everyone could see that the madness in her blood was coming out in her sister. Not even Henry of England could pretend that Juana was fit to marry when she was on a crazed progress across Spain with her dead husband’s coffin. Ferdinand’s tricky diplomacy had rebounded on him and now everyone in Europe was his enemy, with two of the most powerful men in Europe allied to make war against him. Ferdinand was lost and going down. The best that this unlucky princess could expect was a scratch marriage to some Spanish grandee and retirement to the countryside, with a chance to escape the war that must come. The worst was to remain trapped and in poverty in England, a forgotten hostage that no one would ransom. A prisoner who would be soon forgotten, even by her jailers.

  “What shall I do?” Finally she accepted danger. He saw her take it in. Finally, she understood that she had lost. He saw her, a queen in every inch, learn the depth of her defeat. “I must know what I should do. Or I shall be hostage, in an enemy country, with no one to speak for me.”

  He did not say that he had thought her just that, ever since he had arrived.

  “We shall leave,” he said decisively. “If war comes they will keep you as a hostage and they will seize your dowry. God forbid that now the money is finally coming, it should be used to make war against Spain.”

  “I cannot leave,” she said flatly. “If I go, I will never get back here.”

  “It is over!” he cried in sudden passion. “You see it yourself, at last. We have lost. We are defeated. It is over for you and England. You have held on and faced humiliation and poverty; you have faced it like a princess, like a queen, like a saint. Your mother herself could not have shown more courage. But we are defeated, Infanta. You have lost. We have to get home as best we can. We have to run, before they catch us.”

  “Catch us?”

  “They could imprison us both as enemy spies and hold us to ransom,” he told her. “They could impound whatever remains of your dowry goods and impound the rest when it arrives. God knows, they can make up a charge and execute you, if they want to enough.”

  “They dare not touch me! I am a princess of royal blood,” she flared up. “Whatever else they can take from me, they can never take that! I am Infanta of Spain even if I am nothing else! Even if I am never Queen of England, at least I will always be Infanta of Spain.”

  “Princes of royal blood have gone into the Tower of London before and not come out again,” the ambassador said bleakly. “Princes of the royal blood of England have had those gates shut behind them and never seen daylight again. He could call you a pretender. You know what happens in England to pretenders. We have to go.”

  Catalina curtseyed to My Lady the King’s Mother and received not even a nod of the head in return. She stiffened. The two retinues had met on their way to Mass; behind the old lady was her granddaughter the Princess Mary and half a dozen ladies. All of them showed frosty faces to the young woman who was supposed to be betrothed to the Prince of Wales but who had been neglected for so long.

  “My lady.” Catalina stood in her path, waiting for an acknowledgment.

  The king’s mother looked at the young woman with open dislike. “I hear that there are difficulties over the betrothal of the Princess Mary,” she said.

  Catalina looked towards the Princess Mary, and the girl, hidden behind her grandmother, made an ugly grimace at her and broke off with a sudden snort of laughter.

  “I did not know,” Catalina said.

  “You may not know, but your father undoubtedly knows,” the old woman said irritably. “In one of your constant letters to him you might tell him that he does his cause and your cause no good by trying to disturb our plans for our family.”

  “I am very sure he does not—” Catalina started.

  “I am very sure that he does; and you had better warn him not to stand in our way,” the old woman interrupted her sharply, and swept on.

  “My own betrothal—” Catalina tried.

  “Your betrothal?” The king’s mother repeated the words as if she had never heard them before. “Your betrothal?” Suddenly she laughed, throwing her head back, her mouth wide. Behind her the princess laughed too, and then all the ladies were laughing out loud at the thought of the pauper princess pauper speaking of her betrothal to the most eligible prince in Christendom.

  “My father is sending my dowry!” Catalina cried out.

  “Too late! You are far too late!” the king’s mother wailed, clutching at the arm of her friend.

  Catalina, confronted by a dozen laughing faces reduced to helpless hysteria at the thought of this patched princess offering her bits of plate and gold, ducked her head down, pushed through them, and went away.

  That night the ambassador of Spain and an Italian merchant of some wealth and great discretion stood side by side on a shadowy quayside at a quiet corner of the London docks and watched the quiet loading of Spanish goods on to a ship bound for Bruges.

  “She has not authorized this?” the merchant whispered, his dark face lit by flickering torchlight. “We are all but stealing her dowry! What will happen if the English suddenly say that the marriage is to go ahead and we have emptied her treasure room? What if they see that the dowry has come from Spain at last, but it never reached her treasure room? They will call us thieves. We will be thieves!”

  “They will never say it is to go ahead,” the ambassador said simply. “They will impound her goods and imprison her the moment that they declare war on Spain, and they could do that any day now. I dare not let King Ferdinand’s money fall into the hands of the English. They are our enemies, not our allies.”

  “What will she do? We have emptied her treasury. There is nothing in her strong room but empty boxes. We have left her a pauper.”

  The ambassador shrugged. “She is ruined anyway. If she stays here when England is at war with Spain then she is an enemy hostage and they will imprison her. If she runs away with me she will have no kind welcome back at home. Her mother is dead and her family is ruined and she is ruined too. I would not be surprised if she did not throw herself into the Thames and drown. Her life is over. I cannot see what will become of her. I can save her money, if you will ship it out for me. But I cannot save her.”

  I know I have to leave England; Arthur would not want me to stay to face danger. I have