Philippa Gregory - The Constant Princess

The ambassador nodded; her face was so stark and shocked that he could hardly find his voice.

“This is…a betrayal,” she said. “A most terrible betrayal.” She choked on the words. “This is the worst betrayal of all.”

He nodded again.

There was a long, painful silence. “I am lost,” she said simply. “Now I know it. I have been lost for years and I did not know. I have been fighting a battle with no army, with no support. Actually—with no cause. You tell me that I have been defending a cause that was gone long ago. I was fighting for my betrothal but I was not betrothed. I have been all alone, all this long time. And now I know it.”

Still she did not weep, though her blue eyes were horrified.

“I made a promise,” she said, her voice harsh. “I made a solemn and binding promise.”

“Your betrothal?”

She made a little gesture with her hand. “Not that. I swore a promise. A deathbed promise. Now you tell me it has all been for nothing.”

“Princess, you have stayed at your post, as your mother would have wanted you to do.”

“I have been made a fool!” burst out of her, from the depth of her shock. “I have been fighting for the fulfillment of a vow, not knowing that the vow was long broken.”

He could say nothing; her pain was too raw for any soothing words.

After a few moments, she raised her head. “Does everyone know but me?” she asked bleakly.

He shook his head. “I am sure it was kept most secret.”

“My Lady the King’s Mother,” she predicted bitterly. “She will have known. It will have been her decision. And the king, the prince himself, and if he knew, then the Princess Mary will know—he would have told her. And his closest companions…” She raised her head. “The king’s mother’s ladies, the princess’s ladies. The bishop that he swore to, a witness or two. Half the court, I suppose.” She paused. “I thought that at least some of them were my friends,” she said.

The ambassador shrugged. “In a court there are no friends, only courtiers.”

“My father will defend me from this…cruelty!” she burst out. “They should have thought of that before they treated me so! There will be no treaties for England with Spain when he hears about this. He will take revenge for this abuse of me.”

He could say nothing, and in the still, silent face that he turned to her she saw the worst truth.

“No,” she said simply. “Not him. Not him as well. Not my father. He did not know. He loves me. He would never injure me. He would never abandon me here.”

Still he could not tell her. He saw her take a deep breath.

“Oh. Oh. I see. I see from your silence. Of course. He knows, of course he knows, doesn’t he? My father? The dowry money is just another trick. He knows of the proposal to marry Prince Harry to Princess Eleanor. He has been leading the king on to think that he can marry Juana. He ordered me to encourage the king to marry Juana. He will have agreed to this new proposal for Prince Harry. And so he knows that the prince has broken his oath to me? And is free to marry?”

“Princess, he has told me nothing. But I think he must know. But perhaps he plans…”

Her gesture stopped him. “He has given up on me. I see. I have failed him and he has cast me aside. I am indeed alone.”

“So shall I try to get us home now?” Fuensalida asked quietly. Truly, he thought, it had become the very pinnacle of his ambitions. If he could get this doomed princess home to her unhappy father and her increasingly deranged sister, the new Queen of Castile, he would have done the best he could in a desperate situation. Nobody would marry Catalina of Spain now she was the daughter of a divided kingdom. Everyone could see that the madness in her blood was coming out in her sister. Not even Henry of England could pretend that Juana was fit to marry when she was on a crazed progress across Spain with her dead husband’s coffin. Ferdinand’s tricky diplomacy had rebounded on him and now everyone in Europe was his enemy, with two of the most powerful men in Europe allied to make war against him. Ferdinand was lost and going down. The best that this unlucky princess could expect was a scratch marriage to some Spanish grandee and retirement to the countryside, with a chance to escape the war that must come. The worst was to remain trapped and in poverty in England, a forgotten hostage that no one would ransom. A prisoner who would be soon forgotten, even by her jailers.

“What shall I do?” Finally she accepted danger. He saw her take it in. Finally, she understood that she had lost. He saw her, a queen in every inch, learn the depth of her defeat. “I must know what I should do. Or I shall be hostage, in an enemy country, with no one to speak for me.”

He did not say that he had thought her just that, ever since he had arrived.

“We shall leave,” he said decisively. “If war comes they will keep you as a hostage and they will seize your dowry. God forbid that now the money is finally coming, it should be used to make war against Spain.”

“I cannot leave,” she said flatly. “If I go, I will never get back here.”

“It is over!” he cried in sudden passion. “You see it yourself, at last. We have lost. We are defeated. It is over for you and England. You have held on and faced humiliation and poverty; you have faced it like a princess, like a queen, like a saint. Your mother herself could not have shown more courage. But we are defeated, Infanta. You have lost. We have to get home as best we can. We have to run, before they catch us.”

“Catch us?”

“They could imprison us both as enemy spies and hold us to ransom,” he told her. “They could impound whatever remains of your dowry goods and impound the rest when it arrives. God knows, they can make up a charge and execute you, if they want to enough.”

“They dare not touch me! I am a princess of royal blood,” she flared up. “Whatever else they can take from me, they can never take that! I am Infanta of Spain even if I am nothing else! Even if I am never Queen of England, at least I will always be Infanta of Spain.”

“Princes of royal blood have gone into the Tower of London before and not come out again,” the ambassador said bleakly. “Princes of the royal blood of England have had those gates shut behind them and never seen daylight again. He could call you a pretender. You know what happens in England to pretenders. We have to go.”

Catalina curtseyed to My Lady the King’s Mother and received not even a nod of the head in return. She stiffened. The two retinues had met on their way to Mass; behind the old lady was her granddaughter the Princess Mary and half a dozen ladies. All of them showed frosty faces to the young woman who was supposed to be betrothed to the Prince of Wales but who had been neglected for so long.

“My lady.” Catalina stood in her path, waiting for an acknowledgment.

The king’s mother looked at the young woman with open dislike. “I hear that there are difficulties over the betrothal of the Princess Mary,” she said.

Catalina looked towards the Princess Mary, and the girl, hidden behind her grandmother, made an ugly grimace at her and broke off with a sudden snort of laughter.

“I did not know,” Catalina said.

“You may not know, but your father undoubtedly knows,” the old woman said irritably. “In one of your constant letters to him you might tell him that he does his cause and your cause no good by trying to disturb our plans for our family.”

“I am very sure he does not—” Catalina started.

“I am very sure that he does; and you had better warn him not to stand in our way,” the old woman interrupted her sharply, and swept on.

“My own betrothal—” Catalina tried.