Philippa Gregory - The Constant Princess

“I shall go back now,” Catalina insisted. “I shall watch over his sleep.”

Margaret glanced at Doña Elvira. “You should stay away from his rooms in case he does have a fever,” she said, speaking slowly and clearly in French, so that the duenna could understand her. “Your health is most important, Princess. I would not forgive myself if anything happened to either of you.”

Doña Elvira stepped forwards and narrowed her lips. Lady Margaret knew she could be relied on to keep the princess from danger.

“But you said he only had a slight fever. I can go to him?”

“Let us wait to see what the doctor has to say.” Lady Margaret lowered her voice. “If you should be with child, dear Princess, we would not want you to take his fever.”

“But I will dine with him.”

“If he is well enough.”

“But he will want to see me!”

“Depend upon it.” Lady Margaret smiled. “When his fever has broken and he is better this evening and sitting up and eating his dinner, he will want to see you. You have to be patient.”

Catalina nodded. “If I go now, do you swear that you will stay with him all the time?”

“I will go back now, if you will walk outside and then go to your room and read or study or sew.”

“I’ll go!” said Catalina, instantly obedient. “I’ll go to my rooms if you will stay with him.”

“At once,” Lady Margaret promised.

This small garden is like a prison yard. I walk round and round in the herb garden, and the rain drizzles over everything like tears. My rooms are no better, my privy chamber is like a cell, I cannot bear to have anyone with me, and yet I cannot bear to be alone. I have made the ladies sit in the presence chamber, their unending chatter makes me want to scream with irritation. But when I am alone in my room I long for company. I want someone to hold my hand and tell me that everything will be all right.

I go down the narrow stone stairs and across the cobbles to the round chapel. A cross and a stone altar are set in the rounded wall, a light burning before it. It is a place of perfect peace; but I can find no peace. I fold my cold hands inside my sleeves and hug myself and I walk around the circular wall—it is thirty-six steps to the door—and then I walk the circle again, like a donkey on a treadmill. I am praying; but I have no faith that I am heard.

“I am Catalina, Princess of Spain and of Wales,” I remind myself. “I am Catalina, beloved of God, especially favored by God. Nothing can go wrong for me. Nothing as bad as this could ever go wrong for me. It is God’s will that I should marry Arthur and unite the kingdoms of Spain and England. God will not let anything happen to Arthur nor to me. I know that He favors my mother and me above all others. This fear must be sent to try me. But I will not be afraid, because I know that nothing will ever go wrong for me.”

Catalina waited in her rooms, sending her women every hour to ask how her husband did. The first few hours they said he was still sleeping, the doctor had made his draft and was standing by his bed, waiting for him to wake. Then, at three in the afternoon, they said that he had wakened but was very hot and feverish. He had taken the draft and they were waiting to see his fever cool. At four he was worse, not better, and the doctor was making up a different prescription.

He would take no dinner. He would just drink some cool ale and the doctor’s cures for fever.

“Go and ask him if he will see me?” Catalina ordered one of her Englishwomen. “Make sure you speak to Lady Margaret. She promised me that I should dine with him. Remind her.”

The woman went and came back with a grave face. “Princess, they are all very anxious,” she said. “They have sent for a physician from London. Dr. Bereworth, who has been watching over him, does not know why the fever does not cool down. Lady Margaret is there and Sir Richard Pole, Sir William Thomas, Sir Henry Vernon, Sir Richard Croft—they are all waiting outside his chamber and you cannot be admitted to see him. They say he is wandering in his mind.”

“I must go to the chapel. I must pray,” Catalina said instantly.

She threw a veil over her head and went back to the round chapel. To her dismay, Prince Arthur’s confessor was at the altar, his head bowed low in supplication. Some of the greatest men of the town and castle were seated around the wall, their heads bowed. Catalina slipped into the room and fell to her knees. She rested her chin on her hands and scrutinized the hunched shoulders of the priest for any sign that his prayers were being heard. There was no way of telling. She closed her eyes.

Dearest God, spare Arthur, spare my darling husband, Arthur. He is only a boy, I am only a girl, we have had no time together, no time at all. You know what a kingdom we will make if he is spared. You know what plans we have for this country, what a holy castle we will make from this land, how we shall hammer the Moors, how we shall defend this kingdom from the Scots. Dear God, in Your mercy spare Arthur and let him come back to me. We want to have our children: Mary, who is to be the rose of the rose, and our son Arthur, who will be the third Holy Roman Catholic Tudor king for England. Let us do as we have promised. Oh, dear Lord, be merciful and spare him. Dear Lady, intercede for us and spare him. Sweet Jesus, spare him. It is I, Catalina, who asks this, and I ask in the name of my mother, Queen Isabella, who has worked all her life in your service, who is the most Christian queen, who has served on your crusades. She is beloved of You, I am beloved of You. Do not, I beg You, disappoint me.

It grew dark as Catalina prayed but she did not notice. It was late when Doña Elvira touched her gently on the shoulder and said, “Infanta, you should have some dinner and go to bed.”

Catalina turned a white face to her duenna. “What word?” she asked.

“They say he is worse.”

Sweet Jesus, spare him, sweet Jesus, spare me, sweet Jesus, spare England. Say that Arthur is no worse.

In the morning they said that he had passed a good night, but the gossip among the servers of the body was that he was sinking. The fever had reached such a height that he was wandering in his mind, sometimes he thought he was in his nursery with his sisters and his brother, sometimes he thought he was at his wedding, dressed in brilliant white satin, and sometimes, most oddly, he thought he was in a fantastic palace. He spoke of a courtyard of myrtles, a rectangle of water like a mirror reflecting a building of gold, and a circular sweep of flocks of swifts who went round and round all the sunny day long.

“I shall see him,” Catalina announced to Lady Margaret at noon.

“Princess, it may be the Sweat,” her ladyship said bluntly. “I cannot allow you to go close to him. I cannot allow you to take any infection. I should be failing in my duty if I let you go too close to him.”

“Your duty is to me!” Catalina snapped.

The woman, a princess herself, never wavered. “My duty is to England,” she said. “And if you are carrying a Tudor heir then my duty is to that child, as well as to you. Do not quarrel with me, please, Princess. I cannot allow you to go closer than the foot of his bed.”

“Let me go there, then,” Catalina said, like a little girl. “Please just let me see him.”

Lady Margaret bowed her head and led the way to the royal chambers. The crowds in the presence chamber had swollen in numbers as the word had gone around the town that their prince was fighting for his life; but they were silent, silent as a crowd in mourning. They were waiting and praying for the rose of England. A few men saw Catalina, her face veiled in her lace mantilla, and called out a blessing on her, then one man stepped forwards and dropped to his knee. “God bless you, Princess of Wales,” he said. “And may the prince rise from his bed and be merry with you again.”