The Constant Princess Read online

“I think you could be the greatest king England has ever known since Arthur of Camelot,” she said.

  “Arthur it is, then,” he said, soothed as always by praise. “Arthur Henry.”

  “Yes.”

  They called to him from the butts that it was his turn and that he had a high score to beat, and he went with a kiss blown to her. Katherine made sure that she was watching as he drew his bow, and when he glanced over, as he always did, he could see that her attention was wholly on him. The muscles in his lean back rippled as he drew back the arrow, he was like a statue, beautifully poised, and then slowly, like a dancer, he released the string and the arrow flew—faster than sight—true to the very center of the target.

  “A hit!”

  “A winning hit!”

  “Victory to the king!”

  The prize was a golden arrow and Henry came bright-faced to his wife to kneel at her feet so that she could bend down and kiss him on both cheeks, and then, lovingly, on the mouth.

  “I won for you,” he said. “You alone. You bring me luck. I never miss when you are watching me. You shall keep the winning arrow.”

  “It is a Cupid’s arrow,” she responded. “I shall keep it to remind me of the one in my heart.”

  “She loves me.” He rose to his feet and turned to his court, and there was a ripple of applause and laughter. He shouted triumphantly, “She loves me!”

  “Who could help but love you?” Lady Elizabeth Boleyn, one of the ladies-in-waiting, called out boldly. Henry glanced at her and then looked down from his great height to his petite wife.

  “Who could help but love her?” he asked, smiling at her.

  That night I kneel before my prie-dieu and clasp my hands over my belly. It is the second month that I have not bled, I am almost certain that I am with child.

  “Arthur,” I whisper, my eyes closed. I can almost see him, as he was: naked in candlelight in our bedroom at Ludlow. “Arthur, my love. He says that I can call this boy Arthur Henry. So I will have fulfilled our hope—that I should give you a son called Arthur. And though I know you didn’t like your brother, I will show him the respect that I owe to him; he is a good boy and I pray that he will grow to a good man. I shall call my boy Arthur Henry for you both.”

  I feel no guilt for my growing affection for this boy Henry, though he can never take the place of his brother, Arthur. It is right that I should love my husband and Henry is an endearing boy. The knowledge that I have of him, from watching him for long years as closely as if he were an enemy, has brought me to a deep awareness of the sort of boy he is. He is selfish as a child, but he has a child’s generosity and easy tenderness. He is vain, he is ambitious, to tell truth, he is as conceited as a player in a troupe, but he is quick to laughter and quick to tears, quick to compassion, quick to alleviate hardship. He will make a good man if he has good guides, if he can be taught to rein in his desires and learn service to his country and to God. He has been spoiled by those who should have guided him; but it is not too late to make a good man from him. It is my task and my duty to keep him from selfishness. Like any young man, he is a tyrant in the making. A good mother would have disciplined him, perhaps a loving wife can curb him. If I can love him, and hold him to love me, I can make a great king of him. And England needs a great king.

  Perhaps this is one of the services I can do for England: guide him, gently and steadily, away from his spoiled childhood and towards a manhood which is responsible. His father and his grandmother kept him as a boy; perhaps it is my task to help him grow to be a man.

  “Arthur, my dearest Arthur,” I say quietly as I rise and go towards the bed, and this time I am speaking to them both: to the husband that I loved first, and to the child that is slowly, quietly growing inside me.

  AUTUMN 1509

  At nighttime in October, after Katherine had refused to dance after midnight for the previous three weeks and had insisted, instead, on watching Henry dance with her ladies, she told him that she was with child and made him swear to keep it secret.

  “I want to tell everyone!” he exclaimed. He had come to her room in his nightgown and they were seated either side of the warm fire, on their way to bed.

  “You can write to my father next month,” she specified. “But I don’t want everyone to know yet. They will all guess soon enough.”

  “You must rest,” he said instantly. “And should you have special things to eat? Do you have a desire for anything special to eat? I can send someone for it at once, they can wake the cooks. Tell me, love, what would you like?”

  “Nothing! Nothing!” she said, laughing. “See, we have biscuits and wine. What more do I ever eat this late at night?”

  “Oh usually, yes! But now everything is different.”

  “I shall ask the physicians in the morning,” she said. “But I need nothing now. Truly, my love.”

  “I want to get you something,” he said. “I want to look after you.”

  “You do look after me,” she reassured him. “And I am perfectly well fed, and I feel very well.”

  “Not sick? That is a sign of a boy, I am sure.”

  “I have been feeling a little sick in the mornings,” she said, and watched his beam of happiness. “I feel certain that it is a boy. I hope this is our Arthur Henry.”

  “Oh! You were thinking of him when you spoke to me at the archery contest.”

  “Yes, I was. But I was not sure then, and I did not want to tell you too early.”

  “And when do you think he will be born?”

  “In early summer, I think.”

  “It cannot take so long!” he exclaimed.

  “My love, I think it does take that long.”

  “I shall write to your father in the morning,” he said. “I shall tell him to expect great news in the summer. Perhaps we shall be home after a great campaign against the French then. Perhaps I shall bring you a victory and you shall give me a son.”

  Henry has sent his own physician, the most skilled man in London, to see me. The man stands at one side of the room while I sit on a chair at the other. He cannot examine me, of course—the body of the queen cannot be touched by anyone but the king. He cannot ask me if I am regular in my courses or in my bowels; they too are sacred. He is so paralyzed with embarrassment at being called to see me that he keeps his eyes on the floor and asks me short questions in a quiet, clipped voice. He speaks English, and I have to strain to hear and understand him.

  He asks me if I eat well and if I have any sickness. I answer that I eat well enough but that I am sick of the smell and sight of cooked meats. I miss the fruit and vegetables that were part of my daily diet in Spain, I am craving baklava sweetmeats made from honey or a tagine made with vegetables and rice. He says that it does not matter since there is no benefit to eating vegetables or fruit for humans, and, indeed, he would have advised me against eating any raw stuff for the duration of my pregnancy.

  He asks me if I know when I conceived. I say that I cannot say for certain, but that I know the date of my last course. He smiles as a learned man to a fool and tells me that this is little guide as to when a baby might be due. I have seen Moorish doctors calculate the date of a baby’s birth with a special abacus. He says he has never heard of such things and such heathen devices would be unnatural and not wanted at the treatment of a Christian child.

  He suggests that I rest. He asks me to send for him whenever I feel unwell and he will come to apply leeches. He says he is a great believer in bleeding women frequently to prevent them becoming overheated. Then he bows and leaves.

  I look blankly at María de Salinas, standing in the corner of the room for this mockery of a consultation. “This is the best doctor in England?” I ask her. “This is the best that they have?”

  She shakes her head in bewilderment.

  “I wonder if we can get someone from Spain,” I think aloud.

  “Your mother and father have all but cleared Spain of the learned men,” she says, and in that moment I feel almost ash