Philippa Gregory - The Constant Princess

“I should like that so much,” she said. “If I am still here, of course.”

“Still here?” He was startled. He had almost forgotten that she was his hostage, she was supposed to go home by summer. “I doubt your father and I will have agreed terms by then.”

“Why, how can it take so long?” she asked her blue eyes wide with assumed surprise. “Surely we can come to some agreement?” She hesitated. “Between friends? Surely if we cannot agree about the monies owed, there is some other way? Some other agreement that can be made? Since we have made an agreement before?”

It was so close to what he had been thinking that he rose to his feet, discomfited. At once she rose too. The top of her pretty blue hood only came to his shoulder. He thought he would have to bend his head to kiss her, and if she were under him in bed he would have to take care not to hurt her. He felt his face flush hot at the thought of it. “Come here,” he said thickly and led her to the window embrasure where her ladies could not overhear them.

“I have been thinking what sort of arrangement we might come to,” he said. “The easiest thing would be for you to stay here. I should certainly like you to stay here.”

Catalina did not look up at him. If she had done so then, he would have been sure of her. But she kept her eyes down, her face downcast. “Oh, certainly, if my parents agree,” she said, so softly that he could hardly hear.

He felt himself trapped. He felt he could not go forward while she held her head so delicately to one side and showed him only the curve of her cheek and her eyelashes, and yet he could hardly go back when she had asked him outright if there were not another way to resolve the conflict between him and her parents.

“You will think me very old,” he burst out.

Her blue eyes flashed up at him and were veiled again. “Not at all,” she said levelly.

“I am old enough to be your father,” he said, hoping she would disagree.

Instead she looked up at him. “I never think of you like that,” she said.

Henry was silent. He felt utterly baffled by this slim young woman who seemed at one moment so deliciously encouraging and yet at another moment quite opaque. “What would you like to do?” he demanded of her.

At last she raised her head and smiled up at him, her lips curving up but no warmth in her eyes. “Whatever you command,” she said. “I should like most of all to obey you, Your Grace.”

What does he mean? What is he doing? I thought he was offering me Harry and I was about to say yes when he said that I must think him very old, as old as my father. And of course he is; indeed, he looks far older than my father, that is why I never think of him like a father—a grandfather, perhaps, or an old priest. My father is handsome, a terrible womanizer, a brave soldier, a hero on the battlefield. This king has fought one halfhearted battle and put down a dozen unheroic uprisings of poor men too sickened with his rule to endure it anymore. So he is not like my father and I spoke only the truth when I said that I never see him like that.

But then he looked at me as if I had said something of great interest, and then he asked me what I wanted. I could not say to his face that I wanted him to overlook my marriage to his oldest son and marry me anew to his youngest. So I said that I wanted to obey him. There can be nothing wrong with that. But somehow it was not what he wanted. And it did not get me to where I wanted.

I have no idea what he wants. Nor how to turn it to my own advantage.

Henry went back to Whitehall Palace, his face burning and his heart pounding, hammered between frustration and calculation. If he could persuade Catalina’s parents to allow the wedding, he could claim the rest of her substantial dowry, be free of their claims for her jointure, reinforce the alliance with Spain at the very moment that he was looking to secure new alliances with Scotland and France, and perhaps, with such a young wife, get another son and heir on her. One daughter on the throne of Scotland, one daughter on the throne of France should lock both nations into peace for a lifetime. The Princess of Spain on the throne of England should keep the most Christian kings of Spain in alliance. He would have bolted the great powers of Christendom into peaceful alliance with England not just for a generation but for generations to come. They would have heirs in common; they would be safe. England would be safe. Better yet, England’s sons might inherit the kingdoms of France, of Scotland, of Spain. England might conceive its way into peace and greatness.

It made absolute sense to secure Catalina; he tried to focus on the political advantage and not think of the line of her neck nor the curve of her waist. He tried to steady his mind by thinking of the small fortune that would be saved by not having to provide her with a jointure nor with her keep, by not having to send a ship, several ships probably, to escort her home. But all he could think was that she had touched her soft mouth with her finger and told him that she did not like the lingering taste of ale. At the thought of the tip of her tongue against her lips, he groaned aloud and the groom holding the horse for him to dismount looked up and said: “Sire?”

“Bile,” the king said sourly.

It did feel like too rich a fare that was sickening him, he decided as he strode to his private apartments, courtiers eddying out of his way with sycophantic smiles. He felt that he must remember that she was little more than a child, she was his own daughter-in-law. If he listened to the good sense that had carried him so far, he should simply promise to pay her jointure, send her back to her parents, and then delay the payment till they had her married to some other kingly fool elsewhere and he could get away with paying nothing.

But at the mere thought of her married to another man he had to stop and put his hand out to the oak paneling for support.

“Your Grace?” someone asked him. “Are you ill?”

“Bile,” the king repeated. “Something I have eaten.”

His chief groom of the body came to him. “Shall I send for your physician, Your Grace?”

“No,” the king said. “But send a couple of barrels of the best wine to the Dowager Princess. She has nothing in her cellar, and when I have to visit her I should like to drink wine and not ale.”

“Yes, Your Grace,” the man said, bowed, and went away. Henry straightened up and went to his rooms. They were crowded with people as usual: petitioners, courtiers, favor seekers, fortune hunters, some friends, some gentry, some noblemen attending on him for love or calculation. Henry regarded them all sourly. When he had been Henry Tudor on the run in Brittany, he had not been blessed with so many friends.

“Where is my mother?” he asked one of them.

“In her rooms, Your Grace,” the man replied.

“I shall visit her,” he said. “Let her know.”

He gave her a few moments to ready herself, and then he went to her chambers. On her daughter-in-law’s death she had moved into the apartment traditionally given to the queen. She had ordered new tapestries and new furniture and now the place was more grandly furnished than any queen had ever had before.

“I’ll announce myself,” the king said to the guard at her door and stepped in without ceremony.

Lady Margaret was seated at a table in the window, the household accounts spread before her, inspecting the costs of the royal court as if it were a well-run farm. There was very little waste and no extravagance allowed in the court run by Lady Margaret, and royal servants who had thought that some of the payments which passed through their hands might leave a little gold on the side were soon disappointed.