The King's Curse Read online

  “The more pity for us,” I say, thinking of Montague at court, Ursula struggling with the Stafford name, and Geoffrey, always at odds with his neighbors, trying to lead Parliament where they are more frightened and troubled than they have ever been. “It would have been better if we had gone unnoticed for a little while.”

  “He had to report,” Montague says firmly. “And it took great courage to say the truth. But he’s better out of the country. Then at least we’ll know that he can’t upset the king again.”

  WINDSOR CASTLE, BERKSHIRE, SUMMER 1531

  Princess Mary and I, with our ladies, travel to Windsor to visit her mother while the king is on progress with his riding court. Once again the court is divided; once again the king and his mistress rattle around the great houses of England, hunting all day and dancing all night and assuring each other that they are wonderfully happy. I wonder how long Henry will tolerate this. I wonder when the emptiness of this life will drive him home to his wife.

  The queen meets us at the castle gate, the great door behind her, the portcullis hanging above her, and even at a distance, as we ride up the hill to the great gray walls, I can see there is something about the straightness of her bearing and the turn of her head that tells me she has gripped tight onto her courage and that is all that is sustaining her.

  We dismount from our horses and I drop into a curtsey, while the queen and her daughter cling to each other wordlessly, as if Katherine of Aragon, the doubly royal queen, does not care for formality anymore but wants to hold her daughter in her arms and never let her go.

  She and I cannot talk privately until after dinner when Princess Mary has been sent to say her prayers and to bed; then Katherine calls me into her bedroom as if to pray together, and we draw up two stools to the fireside, close the door, and are quite alone.

  “He sent the young Duke of Norfolk to reason with me,” she says. I see the humor in her face, and for a moment, forgetting the horror of her situation, we both smile, and then we laugh outright.

  “And was he very very brilliant?” I ask.

  She holds my hand and laughs aloud. “Lord, how I miss his father!” she says, heartfelt. “He was a man with no learning and much heart. But this duke, his son, has neither!” She breaks off. “He kept saying: ‘Highest theological authorities, highest theological authorities,’ and when I asked him what he meant, he said: ‘Levitiaticus, Levitiaticus.’ ”

  I gasp with laughter.

  “And when I said that I thought it was generally accepted that the passage from Deuteronomy indicated that a man should marry his deceased brother’s wife, he said: “What? Deuteronomous? What, Suffolk? Do you mean Deuteronomous? Don’t talk to me about scripture, I’ve never damn well read them. I have a priest to do that. I have a priest to do that for me.”

  “The Duke of Suffolk, Charles Brandon, was here too?” I ask, sobering quickly.

  “Of course. Charles would do anything for the king,” she says. “He always has done. He has no judgment at all. He’s torn, of course. His wife the dowager queen remains my friend, I know.”

  “Half the country is your friend,” I say. “All the women.”

  “But it makes no difference,” she says steadily. “Whether the country thinks I am right or wrong can make no difference. I have to live my life in the position that God appointed. I have no choice. My mother said I should be Queen of England when I was a little girl of no more than four, Prince Arthur himself chose this destiny for me from his deathbed, God placed me here at my coronation. Only the Holy Father can command me differently and he has yet to speak. But how d’you think Mary is taking this?”

  “Badly,” I say truthfully. “She bleeds heavily with her courses, and they give her much pain. I have consulted with wise women and even spoken to a physician, but nothing they suggest seems to make any difference. And when she knows that there is trouble between you and her father, she can’t eat. She is sick with distress. If I force her to eat anything, she vomits it up again. She knows something of what is happening, Our Lady alone knows what she imagines. The king himself spoke of it to her as you failing in your duty. It’s terrible to see. She loves her father, she adores him, and she is loyal to him as the King of England. And she cannot live without you, she cannot be happy knowing that you are fighting for your name and your honor. This is destroying her health.” I pause, looking at her downturned face. “And it goes on and on and on, and I cannot tell her that there will be an end to it.”

  “I can do nothing but serve God,” she says stubbornly. “Whatever it costs, I can do nothing but follow His laws. It blights my life too, and the king’s. Everyone says he is like a man possessed. This isn’t love, we’ve seen him in love. This is like a sickness. She does not call to his heart, to his true, loving heart. She calls to his vanity and she feeds it as if it were a monster. She calls to his scholarship and tricks him with words. I pray every day that the Holy Father writes simply and clearly to the king to tell him to put that woman aside. For Henry’s sake now, not even for mine. For his own dear sake, for she is destroying him.”

  “Has he gone on progress with her?”

  “Gone on progress leaving Thomas More to chase heretics through London and burn them for questioning the Church. The London tradesmen are persecuted, but she is allowed to read forbidden books.”

  For a moment I don’t see the weariness in her face, the lines around her eyes, or the paleness of her cheeks. I see the princess who lost the young man she loved, her first love, and the girl who kept her promise to him. “Ah, Katherine,” I say tenderly. “How have we come to this? However did this come about?”

  “D’you know, he left without saying good-bye?” she says wonderingly. “He has never done that before. Never in all his life. Not even these last few years. However angry he was, however troubled, he would never go to bed without saying good night to me, and he would never leave without saying good-bye. But this time he rode away, and when I sent after him to say that I wished him well, he replied . . .” She breaks off, her voice weakened. “He said that he did not want my good wishes.”

  We are silent. I think that it is not like Henry to be rude. His mother taught him the perfect manners of royalty. He prizes himself on his courtesy, on his chivalry. That he should be discourteous—publicly and crudely discourteous to his wife, the queen—is another distinct line of paint in the portrait of this new king that is emerging: a king who will draw a blade on an unarmed younger man, who will allow his court to hound an old friend to his death, who watched his favorite and her brother and sister miming the act of dragging a cardinal of the Church down to hell.

  I shake my head at the folly of men, at their cruelty, the pointless, bullying cruelty of a stupid man. “He’s showing off,” I say certainly. “In some ways he’s still the little prince I knew. He’s showing off to please her.”

  “He was cold,” the queen says. She draws her shawl around her shoulders as if she feels his coldness in her chamber even now. “My messenger said that when the king turned away, his eyes were bright and cold.”

  Only a few weeks later, just as we are about to go out riding, we get a message from the king. Katherine sees the royal seal and tears it open in the stable yard, her face alight with hope. For a moment I think that the king is commanding us to join him on progress, he has recovered from his ill temper and wants to see his wife and daughter.

  Slowly, as she reads the letter, her face falls. “It’s not good news,” is all she says.

  I see Mary put her hand to her belly as if she is suddenly queasy, and she turns from her horse as if she cannot bear the thought of sitting in a saddle. The queen hands me the letter and walks from the stable yard and into the palace without another word.

  I read. It is a terse command from one of the king’s secretaries: the queen is to pack up and leave Greenwich Palace at once and go to the More, one of the houses of the late cardinal. But Mary and I are not to go with her. We are to return to Richmond Palace, where the king w