Kitabı oku: «The Constant Princess», sayfa 4

‘Sister!’ he said warmly, jumped down from his horse with a clatter of armour, and swept her a low bow.

‘Brother Henry,’ she said, curtseying back to him to precisely the right height, considering that he was only a second son of England, and she was an Infanta of Spain.

‘I am so pleased to see you,’ he said quickly, his Latin rapid, his English accent strong. ‘I was so hoping that His Majesty would let me come to meet you before I had to take you into London on your wedding day. I thought it would be so awkward to go marching down the aisle with you, and hand you over to Arthur, if we hadn’t even spoken. And call me Harry. Everyone calls me Harry.’

‘I too am pleased to meet you, Brother Harry,’ Catalina said politely, rather taken-aback at his enthusiasm.

‘Pleased! You should be dancing with joy!’ he exclaimed buoyantly. ‘Because Father said that I could bring you the horse which was to be one of your wedding-day presents and so we can ride together to Lambeth. Arthur said you should wait for your wedding day, but I said, why should she wait? She won’t be able to ride on her wedding day. She’ll be too busy getting married. But if I take it to her now we can ride at once.’

‘That was kind of you.’

‘Oh, I never take any notice of Arthur,’ Harry said cheerfully.

Catalina had to choke down a giggle. ‘You don’t?’

He made a face and shook his head. ‘Serious,’ he said. ‘You’ll be amazed how serious. And scholarly, of course, but not gifted. Everyone says I am very gifted, languages mostly, but music also. We can speak French together if you wish, I am extraordinarily fluent for my age. I am considered a pretty fair musician. And of course I am a sportsman. Do you hunt?’

‘No,’ Catalina said, a little overwhelmed. ‘At least, I only follow the hunt when we go after boar or wolves.’

‘Wolves? I should so like to hunt wolves. D’you really have bears?’

‘Yes, in the hills.’

‘I should so like to hunt a bear. Do you hunt wolves on foot like boar?’

‘No, on horseback,’ she said. ‘They’re very fast, you have to take very fast dogs to pull them down. It’s a horrid hunt.’

‘I shouldn’t mind that,’ he said. ‘I don’t mind anything like that. Everyone says I am terribly brave about things like that.’

‘I am sure they do,’ she said, smiling.

A handsome man in his mid-twenties came forwards and bowed. ‘Oh, this is Edward Stafford, the Duke of Buckingham,’ Harry said quickly. ‘May I present him?’

Catalina held out her hand and the man bowed again over it. His intelligent, handsome face was warm with a smile. ‘You are welcome to your own country,’ he said in faultless Castilian. ‘I hope everything has been to your liking on your journey? Is there anything I can provide for you?’

‘I have been well cared for indeed,’ Catalina said, blushing with pleasure at being greeted in her own language. ‘And the welcome I have had from people all along the way has been very kind.’

‘Look, here’s your new horse,’ Harry interrupted, as the groom led a beautiful black mare forwards. ‘You’ll be used to good horses, of course. D’you have Barbary horses all the time?’

‘My mother insists on them for the cavalry,’ she said.

‘Oh,’ he breathed. ‘Because they are so fast?’

‘They can be trained as fighting horses,’ she said, going forwards and holding out her hand, palm upwards, for the mare to sniff at and nibble at her fingers with a soft, gentle mouth.

‘Fighting horses?’ he pursued.

‘The Saracens have horses which can fight as their masters do, and the Barbary horses can be trained to do it too,’ she said. ‘They rear up and strike down a soldier with their front hooves, and they will kick out behind, too. The Turks have horses that will pick up a sword from the ground and hand it back to the rider. My mother says that one good horse is worth ten men in battle.’

‘I should so like to have a horse like that,’ Harry said longingly. ‘I wonder how I should ever get one?’

He paused, but she did not rise to the bait. ‘If only someone would give me a horse like that, I could learn how to ride it,’ he said transparently. ‘Perhaps for my birthday, or perhaps next week, since it is not me getting married, and I am not getting any wedding gifts. Since I am quite left out, and quite neglected.’

‘Perhaps,’ said Catalina, who had once seen her own brother get his way with exactly the same wheedling.

‘I should be trained to ride properly,’ he said. ‘Father has promised that though I am to go into the church I shall be allowed to ride at the quintain. But My Lady the King’s Mother says I may not joust. And it’s really unfair. I should be allowed to joust. If I had a proper horse I could joust, I am sure I would beat everyone.’

‘I am sure you would,’ she said.

‘Well, shall we go?’ he asked, seeing that she would not give him a horse for asking.

‘I cannot ride, I do not have my riding clothes unpacked.’

He hesitated. ‘Can’t you just go in that?’

Catalina laughed. ‘This is velvet and silk. I can’t ride in it. And besides, I can’t gallop around England looking like a mummer.’

‘Oh,’ he said. ‘Well, shall you go in your litter then? Won’t it make us very slow?’

‘I am sorry for that, but I am ordered to travel in a litter,’ she said. ‘With the curtains drawn. I can’t think that even your father would want me to charge around the country with my skirts tucked up.’

‘Of course the princess cannot ride today,’ the Duke of Buckingham ruled. ‘As I told you. She has to go in her litter.’

Harry shrugged. ‘Well, I didn’t know. Nobody told me what you were going to wear. Can I go ahead then? My horses will be so much faster than the mules.’

‘You can ride ahead but not out of sight,’ Catalina decided. ‘Since you are supposed to be escorting me you should be with me.’

‘As I said,’ the Duke of Buckingham observed quietly and exchanged a little smile with the princess.

‘I’ll wait at every crossroads,’ Harry promised. ‘I am escorting you, remember. And on your wedding day I shall be escorting you again. I have a white suit with gold slashing.’

‘How handsome you will look,’ she said, and saw him flush with pleasure.

‘Oh, I don’t know…’

‘I am sure everyone will remark what a handsome boy you are,’ she said, as he looked pleased.

‘Everyone always cheers most loudly for me,’ he confided. ‘And I like to know that the people love me. Father says that the only way to keep a throne is to be beloved by the people. That was King Richard’s mistake, Father says.’

‘My mother says that the way to keep the throne is to do God’s work.’

‘Oh,’ he said, clearly unimpressed. ‘Well, different countries, I suppose.’

‘So we shall travel together,’ she said. ‘I will tell my people that we are ready to move on.’

‘I will tell them,’ he insisted. ‘It is me who escorts you. I shall give the orders and you shall rest in your litter.’ He gave one quick sideways glance at her. ‘When we get to Lambeth Palace you shall stay in your litter till I come for you. I shall draw back the curtains and take you in, and you should hold my hand.’

‘I should like that very much,’ she assured him, and saw his ready rush of colour once again.

He bustled off and the duke bowed to her with a smile. ‘He is a very bright boy, very eager,’ he said. ‘You must forgive his enthusiasm. He has been much indulged.’

‘His mother’s favourite?’ she asked, thinking of her own mother’s adoration for her only son.

‘Worse still,’ the duke said with a smile. ‘His mother loves him as she should; but he is the absolute apple of his grandmother’s eye, and it is she who rules the court. Luckily he is a good boy, and well-mannered. He has too good a nature to be spoiled, and the king’s mother tempers her treats with lessons.’

‘She is an indulgent woman?’ she asked.

He gave a little gulp of laughter. ‘Only to her son,’ he said. ‘The rest of us find her – er – more majestic than motherly.’

‘May we talk again at Lambeth?’ Catalina asked, tempted to know more about this household that she was to join.

‘At Lambeth and London, I shall be proud to serve you,’ the young man said, his eyes warm with admiration. ‘You must command me as you wish. I shall be your friend in England, you can call on me.’

I must have courage, I am the daughter of a brave woman and I have prepared for this all my life. When the young duke spoke so kindly to me there was no need for me to feel like weeping, that was foolish. I must keep my head up and smile. My mother said to me that if I smile no-one will know that I am homesick or afraid, I shall smile and smile however odd things seem.

And though this England seems so strange now, I will become accustomed. I will learn their ways and feel at home here. Their odd ways will become my ways, and the worst things – the things that I utterly cannot bear – those I shall change when I am queen. And anyway, it will be better for me than it was for Isabel, my sister. She was only married a few months and then she had to come home, a widow. Better for me than for Maria, who had to follow in Isabel’s footsteps to Portugal, better for me than for Juana, who is sick with love for her husband Philip. It must be better for me than it was for Juan, my poor brother, who died so soon after finding happiness. And always better for me than for my mother, whose childhood was lived on a knife edge.

My story won’t be like hers, of course. I have been born to less exciting times. I shall hope to make terms with my husband Arthur and with his odd, loud father, and with his sweet little braggart brother. I shall hope that his mother and his grandmother will love me or at the very least teach me how to be a Princess of Wales, a Queen of England. I shall not have to ride in desperate dashes by night from one besieged fortress to another, as my mother did. I shall not have to pawn my own jewels to pay mercenary soldiers, as she did. I shall not have to ride out in my own armour to rally my troops. I shall not be threatened by the wicked French on one side and the heretic Moors on the other, as my mother was. I shall marry Arthur and when his father dies – which must be soon, for he is so very old and so very bad-tempered – then we shall be King and Queen of England and my mother will rule in Spain as I rule in England and she will see me keep England in alliance with Spain as I have promised her, she will see me hold my country in an unbreakable treaty with hers, she will see I shall be safe forever.

London, 14th November 1501

On the morning of her wedding day Catalina was called early; but she had been awake for hours, stirring as soon as the cold, wintry sun had started to light the pale sky. They had prepared a great bath – her ladies told her that the English were amazed that she was going to wash before her wedding day and that most of them thought that she was risking her life. Catalina, brought up in the Alhambra where the bath houses were the most beautiful suite of rooms in the palace, centres of gossip, laughter and scented water, was equally amazed to hear that the English thought it perfectly adequate to bathe only occasionally, and that the poor people would bathe only once a year. She had already realised that the scent of musk and ambergris which had wafted in with the king and Prince Arthur had underlying notes of sweat and horse, and that she would live for the rest of her life among people who did not change their underwear from one year to the next. She had seen it as another thing that she must learn to endure, as an angel from heaven endures the privations of earth. She had come from al Yanna – the garden, the paradise – to the ordinary world. She had come from the Alhambra Palace to England, she had anticipated some disagreeable changes.

‘I suppose it is always so cold that it does not matter,’ she said uncertainly to Dona Elvira.

‘It matters to us,’ the duenna said. ‘And you shall bathe like an Infanta of Spain though all the cooks in the kitchen have had to stop what they are doing to boil up water.’

Dona Elvira had commanded a great tureen from the flesh kitchen which was usually deployed to scald beast carcases, had it scoured by three scullions, lined it with linen sheets and filled it to the brim with hot water scattered with rose petals and scented with oil of roses brought from Spain. She lovingly supervised the washing of Catalina’s long white limbs, the manicuring of her toes, the filing of her fingernails, the brushing of her teeth and finally the three-rinse washing of her hair. Time after time the incredulous English maids toiled to the door to receive another ewer of hot water from exhausted page boys, and tipped it in the tub to keep the temperature of the bath hot.

‘If only we had a proper bath house,’ Dona Elvira mourned. ‘With steam and a tepidarium and a proper clean marble floor! Hot water on tap and somewhere for you to sit and be properly scrubbed.’

‘Don’t fuss,’ Catalina said dreamily as they helped her from the bath and patted her all over with scented towels. One maid took her hair, squeezed out the water and rubbed it gently with red silk soaked in oil to give it shine and colour.

‘Your mother would be so proud of you,’ Dona Elvira said as they led the Infanta towards her wardrobe and started to dress her in layer after layer of shifts and gowns. ‘Pull that lace tighter, girl, so that the skirt lies flat. This is her day, as well as yours, Catalina. She said that you would marry him whatever it cost her.’

Yes, but she did not pay the greatest price. I know they bought me this wedding with a king’s ransom for my dowry, and I know that they endured long and hard negotiations, and I survived the worst voyage anyone has ever taken, but there was another price paid that we never speak of – wasn’t there? And the thought of that price is in my mind today, as it has been on the journey, as it was on the voyage, as it has been ever since I first heard of it.

There was a man of only twenty-four years old, Edward Plantagenet, the Duke of Warwick and a son of the kings of England, with – truth be told – a better claim to the throne of England than that of my father-in-law. He was a prince, nephew to the king, and of blood royal. He committed no crime, he did nothing wrong, but he was arrested for my sake, taken to the Tower for my benefit, and finally killed, beheaded on the block, for my gain, so that my parents could be satisfied that there were no pretenders to the throne that they had bought for me.

My father himself told King Henry himself that he would not send me to England while the Duke of Warwick was alive, and so I am like Death himself, carrying the scythe. When they ordered the ship for me to come to England: Warwick was a dead man.

They say he was a simpleton. He did not really understand that he was under arrest, he thought that he was housed in the Tower as a way of giving him honour. He knew he was the last of the Plantagenet princes, and he knew that the Tower has always been royal lodgings as well as a prison. When they put a pretender, a cunning man who had tried to pass himself off as a royal prince, into the room next door to poor Warwick, he thought it was for company. When the other man invited him to escape, he thought it was a clever thing to do, and like the innocent he was, he whispered of their plans where his guards could hear. That gave them the excuse they needed for a charge of treason. They trapped him very easily, they beheaded him with little protest from anyone.

The country wants peace and the security of an unchallenged king. The country will wink at a dead claimant or two. I am expected to wink at it also. Especially as it is done for my benefit. It was done at my father’s request, for me. To make my way smooth.

When they told me that he was dead, I said nothing, for I am an Infanta of Spain. Before anything else, I am my mother’s daughter. I do not weep like a girl and tell all the world my every thought. But when I was alone in the gardens of the Alhambra in the evening with the sun going down and leaving the world cool and sweet, I walked beside a long canal of still water, hidden by the trees, and I thought that I would never walk in the shade of trees again and enjoy the flicker of hot sunshine through cool green leaves without thinking that Edward, Duke of Warwick, will see the sun no more, so that I might live my life in wealth and luxury. I prayed then that I might be forgiven for the death of an innocent man.

My mother and father have fought down the length of Castile and Aragon, have ridden the breadth of Spain to make justice run in every village, in the smallest of hamlets – so that no Spaniard can lose his life on the whim of another. Even the greatest lords cannot murder a peasant; they have to be ruled by the law. But when it came to England and to me, they forgot this. They forgot that we live in a palace where the walls are engraved with the promise: ‘Enter and ask. Do not be afraid to seek justice for here you will find it.’ They just wrote to King Henry and said that they would not send me until Warwick was dead, and in a moment, at their expressed wish, Warwick was killed.

And sometimes, when I do not remember to be Infanta of Spain nor Princess of Wales but just the Catalina who walked behind her mother through the great gate into the Alhambra Palace, and knew that her mother was the greatest power the world had ever known; sometimes I wonder childishly, if my mother has not made a great mistake? If she has not driven God’s will too far? Farther even than God would want? For this wedding is launched in blood, and sails in a sea of innocent blood. How can such a wedding ever be the start of a good marriage? Must it not – as night follows sunset – be tragic and bloody too? How can any happiness ever come to Prince Arthur and to me that has been bought at such a terrible price? And if we could be happy would it not be an utterly sinfully-selfish joy?

Prince Harry, the ten-year-old Duke of York, was so proud of his white taffeta suit that he scarcely glanced at Catalina until they were at the west doors of St Paul’s Cathedral and then he turned and stared, trying to see her face through the exquisite lace of the white mantilla. Ahead of them stretched a raised pathway, lined with red cloth, studded with golden nails, running at head height from the great doorway of the church where the citizens of London crowded to get a better view, up the long aisle to the altar where Prince Arthur stood, pale with nerves, six hundred slow ceremonial paces away.

Catalina smiled at the young boy at her side, and he beamed with delight. Her hand was steady on his proffered arm. He paused for a moment more, until everyone in the enormous church realised that the bride and prince were at the doorway, waiting to make their entrance, a hush fell, everyone craned to see the bride, and then, at the precise, most theatrical moment, he led her forwards.

Catalina felt the congregation murmur around her feet as she went past them, high on the stage that King Henry had ordered to be built so that everyone should see the flower of Spain meet the rosebush of England. The prince turned as she came towards him, but was blinded for a moment by irritation at the sight of his brother, leading the princess as if he himself were the bridegroom, glancing around as he walked, acknowledging the doffing of caps and the whispering of curtseys with his smug little smile, as if it were him that everyone had come to see.

Then they were both at Arthur’s side and Harry had to step back, however reluctantly, as the princess and prince faced the archbishop together and kneeled together on the specially embroidered white taffeta cushions.

‘Never has a couple been more married,’ King Henry thought sourly, standing in the royal pew with his wife and his mother. ‘Her parents trusted me no further than they would a snake, and my view of her father has always been that of a half-Moor huckster. Nine times they have been betrothed. This will be a marriage that nothing can break. Her father cannot wriggle from it, whatever second thoughts he has. He will protect me against France now; this is his daughter’s inheritance. The very thought of our alliance will frighten the French into peace with me, and we must have peace.’

He glanced at his wife at his side. Her eyes were filled with tears, watching her son and his bride as the archbishop raised their clasped hands and wrapped them in his holy stole. Her face, beautiful with emotion, did not stir him. Who ever knew what she was thinking behind that lovely mask? Of her own marriage, the union of York and Lancaster which put her as a wife on the throne that she could have claimed in her own right? Or was she thinking of the man she would have preferred as a husband? The king scowled. He was never sure of his wife, Elizabeth. In general, he preferred not to consider her.

Beyond her, his flint-faced mother, Margaret Beaufort, watched the young couple with a glimmer of a smile. This was England’s triumph, this was her son’s triumph, but far more than that, this was her triumph – to have dragged this base-born bastard family back from disaster, to challenge the power of York, to defeat a reigning king, to capture the very throne of England against all the odds. This was her making. It was her plan to bring her son back from France at the right moment to claim his throne. They were her alliances who gave him the soldiers for the battle. It was her battle plan which left the usurper Richard to despair on the field at Bosworth, and it was her victory that she celebrated every day of her life. And this was the marriage that was the culmination of that long struggle. This bride would give her a grandson, a Spanish-Tudor king for England, and a son after him, and after him: and so lay down a dynasty of Tudors that would be never-ending.

Catalina repeated the words of the marriage vow, felt the weight of a cold ring on her finger, turned her face to her new husband and felt his cool kiss, in a daze. When she walked back down that absurd walkway and saw the smiling faces stretching from her feet to the walls of the cathedral she started to realise that it was done. And when they went from the cool dark of the cathedral to the bright wintry sunlight outside and heard the roar of the crowd for Arthur and his bride, the Prince and Princess of Wales, she realised that she had done her duty finally and completely. She had been promised to Arthur from childhood, and now, at last, they were married. She had been named the Princess of Wales since she was three years old and now, at last, she had taken her name, and taken her place in the world. She looked up and smiled and the crowd, delighted with the free wine, with the prettiness of the young girl, with the promise of safety from civil war that could only come with a settled royal succession, roared their approval.

They were husband and wife; but they did not speak more than a few words to each other for the rest of the long day. There was a formal banquet, and though they were seated side by side, there were healths to be drunk and speeches to be attended to, and musicians playing. After the long dinner of many courses there was an entertainment with poetry and singers and a tableau. No-one had ever seen so much money flung at a single occasion. It was a greater celebration than the king’s own wedding, greater even than his own coronation. It was a redefinition of the English kingly state, and it told the world that this marriage of the Tudor rose to the Spanish princess was one of the greatest events of the new age. Two new dynasties were proclaiming themselves by this union: Ferdinand and Isabella of the new country that they were forging from al Andalus, and the Tudors who were making England their own.

The musicians played a dance from Spain and Queen Elizabeth, at a nod from her mother-in-law, leaned over and said quietly to Catalina, ‘It would be a great pleasure for us all if you would dance.’

Catalina, quite composed, rose from her chair and went to the centre of the great hall as her ladies gathered around her, formed a circle and held hands. They danced the pavane, the same dance that Henry had seen at Dogmersfield, and he watched his daughter-in-law through narrowed eyes. Undoubtedly, she was the most beddable young woman in the room. A pity that a cold fish like Arthur would be certain to fail to teach her the pleasures that could be had between sheets. If he let them both go to Ludlow Castle she would either die of boredom or slip into complete frigidity. On the other hand, if he kept her at his side she would delight his eyes, he could watch her dance, he could watch her brighten the court. He sighed. He thought he did not dare.

‘She is delightful,’ the queen remarked.

‘Let’s hope so,’ he said sourly.

‘My lord?’

He smiled at her look of surprised inquiry. ‘No, nothing. You are right, delightful indeed. And she looks healthy, doesn’t she? As far as you can tell?’

‘I am sure she is, and her mother assured me that she is most regular in her habits.’

He nodded. ‘That woman would say anything.’

‘But surely not; nothing that would mislead us? Not on a matter of such importance?’ she suggested.

He nodded and let it go. The sweetness of his wife’s nature and her faith in others was not something he could change. Since she had no influence on policy, her opinions did not matter. ‘And Arthur?’ he said. ‘He seems to be growing and strong? I would to God he had the spirits of his brother.’

They both looked at young Harry who was standing, watching the dancers, his face flushed with excitement, his eyes bright.

‘Oh, Harry,’ his mother said indulgently. ‘But there has never been a prince more handsome and more full of fun than Harry.’

The Spanish dance ended and the king clapped his hands. ‘Now Harry and his sister,’ he commanded. He did not want to force Arthur to dance in front of his new bride. The boy danced like a clerk, all gangling legs and concentration. But Harry was raring to go and was on the floor with his sister Princess Margaret in a moment. The musicians knew the young royals’ taste in music and struck up a lively galliard. Harry tossed his jacket to one side and threw himself into the dance, stripped down to his shirtsleeves like a peasant.

There was a gasp from the Spanish grandees at the young prince’s shocking behaviour, but the English court smiled with his parents at his energy and enthusiasm. When the two had romped their way through the final turns and gallop, everyone applauded, laughing. Everyone but Prince Arthur, who was staring into the middle distance, determined not to watch his brother dance. He came to with a start only when his mother put her hand on his arm.

‘Please God he’s daydreaming of his wedding night,’ his father remarked to Lady Margaret his mother. ‘Though I doubt it.’

She gave a sharp laugh. ‘I can’t say I think much of the bride,’ she said critically.

‘You don’t?’ he asked. ‘You saw the treaty yourself.’

‘I like the price but the goods are not to my taste,’ she said with her usual sharp wit. ‘She is a slight, pretty thing, isn’t she?’

‘Would you rather a strapping milkmaid?’

‘I’d like a girl with the hips to give us sons,’ she said bluntly. ‘A nursery-full of sons.’

‘She looks well enough to me,’ he ruled. He knew that he would never be able to say how well she looked to him. Even to himself he should never even think it.

Catalina was put into her wedding bed by her ladies, Maria de Salinas kissed her goodnight, and Dona Elvira gave her a mother’s blessing; but Arthur had to undergo a further round of backslapping ribaldry, before his friends and companions escorted him to her door. They put him into bed beside the princess, who lay still and silent as the strange men laughed and bade them goodnight, and then the archbishop came to sprinkle the sheets with holy water and pray over the young couple. It could not have been a more public bedding unless they had opened the doors for the citizens of London to see the young people side by side, awkward as bolsters, in their marital bed. It seemed like hours to both of them until the doors were finally closed on the smiling, curious faces and the two of them were quite alone, seated upright against the pillows, frozen like a pair of shy dolls.

There was silence.

‘Would you like a glass of ale?’ Arthur suggested in a voice thin with nerves.

‘I don’t like ale very much,’ Catalina said.

‘This is different. They call it wedding ale, it’s sweetened with mead and spices. It’s for courage.’

‘Do we need courage?’

He was emboldened by her smile and got out of bed to fetch her a cup. ‘I should think we do,’ he said. ‘You are a stranger in a new land, and I have never known any girls but my sisters. We both have much to learn.’

She took the cup of hot ale from him and sipped the heady drink. ‘Oh, that is nice.’

Arthur gulped down a cup and took another. Then he came back to the bed. Raising the cover and getting in beside her seemed an imposition; the idea of pulling up her night shift and mounting her was utterly beyond him.

‘I shall blow out the candle,’ he announced.

The sudden dark engulfed them, only the embers of the fire glowed red.