Three Sisters Three Queens Read online

  “He was my enemy too,” I say stoutly. “Our kinsman and our enemy, both. Thank God he will trouble us no more.”

  “Amen to that,” says the archdeacon as if he would prefer to be the one invoking God. “And so, you will see—a princess of your wit will quickly see—that you have no powerful friends any more but the English, that the French are destroyed and will remain destroyed for a generation, their king is in captivity, his rule broken. He was your ally but now he is a prisoner of the Habsburg Empire. Your brother’s kingdom is safe from attack from the French, your own friend the Duke of Albany is humiliated and defeated.”

  “I am glad of anything that makes England safe,” I reply at random, hardly knowing what I am saying. If the French are defeated and the duke humbled, then he cannot speak for me at the Vatican; he can be no help to me in Scotland. The archdeacon is right: I have lost a friend and an ally. I will be dependent on Harry and in Archibald’s power forever.

  “This is a shock for you,” the archdeacon says, with unconvincing sympathy. “It is the end of France as a force. All of the Scots lords in the pay of France will find their wages stopped.” He pauses; he knows that the French send money to me. He knows that I am dependent upon them for a pension and for their guards, that half the lords are paid for their support.

  “I rejoice for my brother,” I say numbly. “I am so glad for England.”

  “And for your sister the Spanish infanta who now sees her nephew rule all of Europe,” the archdeacon prompts.

  “Her too,” I say through my teeth.

  “They have written to you.” He offers me the package, heavy with royal seals.

  I nod to one of my ladies. “Tell the musicians to play out here, I will go to the privy chamber to read the news from London.”

  “Good news, I hope,” she says.

  I nod with a confidence that I don’t feel, and I let the guards close the door behind me before I go to the abbot’s great chair, set on a dais overlooking the silent empty room, and sit and cut the seal.

  I have never read such a letter in my life. I have known Harry to be intemperate, but never anything like this. I have known him to be angry but this is worse than anything. He writes like a man who cannot be crossed, he writes like a man who would kill someone who argued with him. He is wild with rage, his pen spills blots and spatters of ink across the page as if he was spitting with fury. He is mad with rage, quite mad with rage. He says that he knows that I was hand in glove with Albany but I should know that Albany is a broken man, utterly defeated. He says that he has captured my letter that shows that while I was pretending to be publicly reconciled with Archibald I was all along pleading for Albany to hurry my divorce through the Vatican. He says that he read with horror that I said I will do “anything, anything” to be free. He says that he understands very well what I mean—that I was offering myself to Albany to shame myself and my family. He knows that I have been bought by the French, that I was pleading with the French duke to use his influence to set me free. He says I am false, through and through, and that he should never have listened to his wife who swore that I was a good woman and could be trusted. He says that she has no judgment, for she said that I would be reconciled with my husband. He says I have proved her to be a liar and a poor advisor, and that he will never waste his time in listening to her again, and this is my fault. He says that I am a liar and she is a fool.

  He says that Katherine’s nephew is the victor of Europe and that the kingdom of France is ended as swiftly as it began. He says that Princess Mary will never marry my son James, but is to be betrothed at once to the emperor and she will be the greatest empress the world has ever known. He says that when he is ready he will personally lead an army to conquer Scotland, and James will be under the throne of England, as Scotland has always been. He says that I need not think that James will inherit the throne of England, for Harry has a son, a hearty strong son, a Tudor through and through, who will be made legitimate and will take the throne as Henry IX, and I need not think that James will ever see the inside of Westminster Abbey. Indeed, I need not think that he will ever see London, except perhaps to pay tribute, and nor will I ever see London again. Harry says that he warned me of this, that Katherine—the stupid woman—warned me of this. Infidelity to my husband will be met with disgrace, disloyalty to England will be met with destruction. I was warned of doom, and now I am lost.

  I hold the letter before me and then I realize there is a repeated rustling sound. It is my hands trembling as I hold the letter. I drop the scrawled papers to the floor and I realize that I am shaking all over, as if I have an ague, as if I were some madwoman in a village about to fall down in a fit. I find I cannot breathe and I am so cold, as if I am shivering in an icy wind. I try to stand, but I find that my legs won’t support me. I sink back onto the abbot’s throne and call for help but I have no breath, I have no voice. Now there is a rattling sound of my rings clattering against the gold-inlaid wood of the throne. I clench my hands over the arms of the chair to keep them still; but my knuckles go white and still I am trembling. I think that I will have to endure this fit, this descent into madness, as I have endured other terrible shocks, other terrible losses. My brother has turned against me, my friend has been defeated, the French are destroyed, and the world is too much for me. My husband has won. I am lost.

  It is growing dark before I am able to open the letter from Katherine. She writes very briefly. She sounds as if she is filled with sorrow, but I know this is Katherine triumphant.

  My husband and I are agreed that if you are determined on divorce then you are unfit to be the guardian of your son or a queen. You will have to go into exile in the keeping of your new lover—we have heard that you favor Henry Stewart. Margaret, if you deny your marriage vows, you are a nobody bound for eternal damnation, and no sister to me nor to my husband.

  Katherine

  Nothing can end a true marriage. You will see what I have to accept as God’s will and the king’s wish. But it does not end my marriage. Nothing does that. Nothing will ever do that. K.

  I have to talk with James. He is a boy of only twelve years old but he is king. He has to know that I have made such a terrible error putting him in alliance with France whose power is defeated, his betrothal has been canceled, and I am publicly shamed. I go to his bedroom as he is saying his prayers with Davy Lyndsay, who looks curiously at my white strained face, and I know myself to be a failure as a mother, a guardian, and a queen.

  James kneels for my blessing and I curtsey and kiss him. Then he jumps into bed and looks at me as brightly as if he were still a little boy and I had come to tell him a bedtime story. Davy Lyndsay bows and turns as if to go, but I say:

  “You can stay. This will be all over the court tomorrow. You might as well hear it from me.”

  James exchanges a surprised glance with Davy and the older man steps back quietly and stands with his back to the door, as if on guard. I turn to my son. “You will have heard of the news from Pavia? Of the decisive defeat of the French?”

  James nods. “Archdeacon Magnus told me, but I was not sure what it means to us.”

  “He won’t have failed to tell you that it means our ally France is weakened for years, almost destroyed. They don’t even have a king any more. He has been captured and will not be returned.”

  “The French will ransom him,” James asserts. “They will buy him back.”

  “If they can. But the emperor will get all he can in the way of land and cities and fees before he restores the King of France to his kingdom. He will rewrite the borders of Europe. We have lost an ally, we are without a friend. We have no choice but to make a full peace with England. If they ever choose to make war on us, we have no defender.”

  James nods. “My uncle the king was seeking peace with us anyway.”

  “He was. He was seeking peace with a little country in alliance with a very great and dangerous power. But now he has nothing to fear from us.” I hesitate. “And he is very, very a