Philippa Gregory - The Constant Princess

“Because?” the king inquired.

“Because she wants to see her daughter, her youngest, sweetest daughter, matched to a prince of her own age. It is a woman’s whim—” The diplomat made a little diffident gesture. “Only a woman’s whim. But we have to recognize a mother’s wishes, don’t we? Your Grace?”

“Not necessarily,” the king said unhelpfully. “But what does the Dowager Princess say? I thought that she and I had an understanding. She can tell her mother of her preference.” The king’s eyes were on the Arab stallion, walking proud-headed around the yard, his ears flickering backwards and forwards, his tail held high, his neck arched like a bow. “I imagine she can speak for herself.”

“She says that she will obey you, as ever, Your Grace,” de Puebla said tactfully.

“And?”

“But she has to obey her mother.” He fell back at the sudden hard glance that the king threw at him. “She is a good daughter, Your Grace. She is an obedient daughter to her mother.”

“I have proposed marriage to her and she has indicated that she would accept.”

“She would never refuse a king such as you. How could she? But if her parents do not consent, they will not apply for dispensation. Without dispensation from the Pope, there can be no marriage.”

“I understand that her marriage was not consummated. We barely need a dispensation. It is a courtesy, a formality.”

“We all know that it was not consummated,” de Puebla hastily confirmed. “The princess is a maid still, fit for marriage. But all the same, the Pope would have to grant a dispensation. If Their Majesties of Spain do not apply for such a dispensation, then what can anyone do?”

The king turned a dark, hard gaze on the Spanish ambassador. “I don’t know now. I thought I knew what we would do. But now I am misled. You tell me. What can anyone do?”

The ambassador drew on the enduring courage of his race, his secret Jewishness which he held to his heart in the worst moments of his life. He knew that he and his people would always, somehow, survive.

“Nothing can be done,” he said. He attempted a sympathetic smile and felt that he was smirking. He rearranged his face into the gravest expression. “If the Queen of Spain will not apply for dispensation there is nothing that can be done. And she is inveterate.”

“I am not one of Spain’s neighbors to be overrun in a spring campaign,” the king said shortly. “I am no Granada. I am no Navarre. I do not fear her displeasure.”

“Which is why they long for your alliance,” de Puebla said smoothly.

“An alliance how?” the king asked coldly. “I thought they were refusing me?”

“Perhaps we could avoid all this difficulty by celebrating another marriage,” the diplomat said carefully, watching Henry’s dark face. “A new marriage. To create the alliance we all want.”

“To whom?”

At the banked-down anger in the king’s face, the ambassador lost his words.

“Sire…I…”

“Who do they want for her now? Now that my son, the rose, is dead and buried? Now she is a poor widow with only half her dowry paid, living on my charity?”

“The prince,” de Puebla plunged in. “She was brought to the kingdom to be Princess of Wales. She was brought here to be wife to the prince, and later—much later, please God—to be queen. Perhaps that is her destiny, Your Grace. She thinks so, certainly.”

“She thinks!” the king exclaimed. “She thinks like that filly thinks! Nothing beyond the next minute.”

“She is young,” the ambassador said. “But she will learn. And the prince is young—they will learn together.”

“And we old men have to stand back, do we? She has told you of no preference, no particular liking for me? Though she gave me clearly to understand that she would marry me? She shows no regret at this turnaround? She is not tempted to defy her parents and keep her freely given word to me?”

The ambassador heard the bitterness in the old man’s voice. “She is allowed no choice,” he reminded the king. “She has to do as she is bidden by her parents. I think, for herself, there was an attraction, perhaps even a powerful attraction. But she knows she has to go where she is bid.”

“I thought to marry her! I would have made her queen! She would have been Queen of England.” He almost choked on the title. All his life he had thought it the greatest honor that a woman could think of, just as his title was the greatest in his own imagination.

The ambassador paused for a moment to let the king recover.

“You know, there are other, equally beautiful young ladies in her family,” he suggested carefully. “The young Queen of Naples is a widow now. As King Ferdinand’s niece, she would bring a good dowry, and she has the family likeness.” He hesitated. “She is said to be very lovely, and—” he paused “—amorous.”

“She gave me to understand that she loved me. Am I now to think her a pretender?”

The ambassador felt a cold sweat which seeped from every pore of his body at that dreadful word. “No pretender,” he said, his smile quite ghastly. “A loving daughter-in-law, an affectionate girl…”

There was an icy silence.

“You know how pretenders fare in this country,” the king said stiffly.

“Yes! But…”

“She will regret it, if she plays with me.”

“No play! No pretense! Nothing!”

The king let the ambassador stand, slightly shaking with anxiety.

“I thought to finish this whole difficulty with the dowry and the jointure,” Henry remarked, at length.

“And so it can be. Once the princess is betrothed to the prince, then Spain will pay the second half of the dowry and the widow’s jointure is no more,” de Puebla assured him. He noticed he was talking too rapidly, took a breath, and went slower. “All difficulties are finished. Their Majesties of Spain would be glad to apply for dispensation for their daughter to marry Prince Harry. It would be a good match for her and she will do as she is ordered. It leaves you free to look around for your wife, Your Grace, and it frees the revenues of Cornwall and Wales and Chester to your own disposal once more.”

King Henry shrugged his shoulders and turned from the schooling ring and the horse. “So it is over?” he asked coldly. “She does not desire me, as I thought she did. I mistook her attention to me. She meant to be nothing but filial?” He laughed harshly at the thought of her kiss by the river. “I must forget my desire for her?”

“She has to obey her parents as a princess of Spain,” de Puebla reminded him. “On her own account, I know there was a preference. She told me so herself.” He thought that Catalina’s double-dealing could be covered by this. “She is disappointed, to tell you the truth. But her mother is adamant. I cannot deny the Queen of Castile. She is utterly determined to have her daughter returned to Spain or married to Prince Harry. She will brook no other suggestion.”

“So be it,” said the king, his voice like ice. “I had a foolish dream, a desire. It can finish here.”

He turned and walked away from the stable yard, his pleasure in his horses soured.

“I hope that there is no ill feeling?” the ambassador asked, hobbling briskly behind him.

“None at all,” the king threw over his shoulder. “None in the world.”

“And the betrothal with Prince Harry? May I assure Their Catholic Majesties that it will go ahead?”

“Oh, at once. I shall make it my first and foremost office.”

“I do hope there is no offense?” de Puebla called to the king’s retreating back.

The king turned on his heel and faced the Spanish ambassador, his clenched fists on his hips, his shoulders square. “She has tried to play me like a fool,” he said through thin lips. “I don’t thank her for it. Her parents have tried to lead me by the nose. I think they will find that they have a dragon, not one of their baited bulls. I won’t forget this. You Spaniards, you will not forget it either. And she will regret the day she tried to lead me on as if I were a lovesick boy, as I regret it now.”