Philippa Gregory - The Constant Princess

The king summoned the queen to his rooms in the afternoon. Some messages had come from the Pope and he wanted her advice. Katherine sat beside him, listened to the report of the messenger and stretched up to whisper in her husband’s ear.

He nodded. “The queen reminds me of our well-known alliance with Venice,” he said pompously. “And indeed, she has no need to remind me. I am not likely to forget it. You can depend on our determination to protect Venice and indeed all Italy against the ambitions of the French king.”

The ambassadors nodded respectfully. “I shall send you a letter about this,” Henry said grandly. They bowed and withdrew.

“Will you write to them?” he asked Katherine.

She nodded. “Of course,” she said. “I thought that you handled that quite rightly.”

He smiled at her approval. “It is so much better when you are here,” he said. “Nothing goes on right when you are away.”

“Well, I am back now,” she said, putting a hand on his shoulder. She could feel the power of the muscle under her hand. Henry was a man now, with the strength of a man. “Dearest, I am so sorry about your quarrel with the Duke of Buckingham.”

Under her hand she felt his shoulder hunch; he shrugged away her touch. “It is nothing,” he said. “He shall beg my pardon and it will be forgotten.”

“But perhaps he could just come back to court,” she said. “Without his sisters if you don’t want to see them—”

Inexplicably he barked out a laugh. “Oh, bring them all back by all means,” he said. “If that is your true wish, if you think it will bring you happiness. You should never have gone into confinement. There was no child, anyone could have seen that there would be no child.”

She was so taken aback that she could hardly speak. “This is about my confinement?”

“It would hardly have happened without. But everyone could see there would be no child. It was wasted time.”

“Your own doctor—”

“What did he know? He only knows what you tell him.”

“He assured me—”

“Doctors know nothing!” he burst out. “They are always guided by the woman; everyone knows that. And a woman can say anything. Is there a baby, isn’t there a baby? Is she a virgin, isn’t she a virgin? Only the woman knows and the rest of us are fooled.”

Katherine felt her mind racing, trying to trace what had offended him, what she could say. “I trusted your doctor,” she said. “He was very certain. He assured me I was with child and so I went into confinement. Another time I will know better. I am truly sorry, my love. It has been a very great grief to me.”

“It just makes me look such a fool!” he said plaintively. “It’s no wonder that I…”

“That you? What?”

“Nothing,” said Henry, sulkily.

“It is such a lovely afternoon, let us go for a walk,” I say pleasantly to my ladies. “Lady Margaret will accompany me.”

We go outside. My cape is brought and put over my shoulders and my gloves. The path down to the river is wet and slippery and Lady Margaret takes my arm and we go down the steps together. The primroses are thick as churned butter in the hedgerows and the sun is out. There are white swans on the river, but when the barges and wherries go by the birds drift out of the way as if by magic. I breathe deeply. It is so good to be out of that small room and to feel the sun on my face again that I hardly want to open the subject of Lady Anne.

“You must know what took place?” I say to her shortly.

“I know some gossip,” she says levelly. “Nothing for certain.”

“What has angered the king so much?” I ask. “He is upset about my confinement, he is angry with me. What is troubling him? Surely not the Stafford girl’s flirtation with Compton?”

Lady Margaret’s face is grave. “The king is very attached to William Compton,” she said. “He would not have him insulted.”

“It sounds as if all the insult is the other way,” I say. “It is Lady Anne and her husband who are dishonored. I would have thought the king would have been angry with William. Lady Anne is not a girl to tumble behind a wall. There is her family to consider and her husband’s family. Surely the king should have told Compton to behave himself?”

Lady Margaret shrugs. “I don’t know,” she says. “None of the girls will even talk to me. They are as silent as if it were a grave matter.”

“But why, if it was nothing more than a foolish affair? Youth calls to youth in springtime?”

She shakes her head. “Truly, I don’t know. You would think so. But if it is a flirtation why would the duke be so very offended? Why quarrel with the king? Why would the girls not be laughing at Anne for getting caught?”

“And another thing…” I say.

She waits.

“Why should the king pay for Compton’s courtship? The fee for the singers is in the court accounts.”

She frowned. “Why would he encourage it? The king must have known that the duke would be greatly offended.”

“And Compton remains in high favor?”

“They are inseparable.”

I speak the thought that is sitting cold in my heart. “So do you think that Compton is the shield and the love affair is between the king, my husband, and Lady Anne?”

Lady Margaret’s grave face tells me that my guess is her own fear. “I don’t know,” she says, honest as ever. “As I say, the girls tell me nothing, and I have not asked anyone that question.”

“Because you think you will not like the answer?”

She nods. Slowly, I turn, and we walk back along the river in silence.

Katherine and Henry led the company into dinner in the grand hall and sat side by side under the gold canopy of state as they always did. There was a band of special singers that had come to England from the French court and they sang without instruments, very true to the note, with a dozen different parts. It was complicated and beautiful and Henry was entranced by the music. When the singers paused, he applauded and asked them to repeat the song. They smiled at his enthusiasm, and sang again. He asked for it once more, and then sang the tenor line back to them: note perfect.

It was their turn to applaud him and they invited him to sing with them the part that he had learned so rapidly. Katherine, on her throne, leaned forwards and smiled as her handsome young husband sang in his clear young voice, and the ladies of the court clapped in appreciation.

When the musicians struck up and the court danced, Katherine came down from the raised platform of the high table and danced with Henry, her face bright with happiness and her smile warm. Henry, encouraged by her, danced like an Italian, with fast, dainty footwork and high leaps. Katherine clapped her hands in delight and called for another dance as if she had never had a moment’s worry in her life. One of her ladies leaned towards the courtier who had taken the bet that Katherine would find out. “I think I shall keep my earrings,” she said. “He has fooled her. He has played her for a fool, and now he is fair game to any one of us. She has lost her hold on him.”

I wait till we are alone, and then I wait until he beds me with his eager joy, and then I slip from the bed and bring him a cup of small ale.

“So tell me the truth, Henry,” I say to him simply. “What is the truth of the quarrel between you and the Duke of Buckingham, and what were your dealings with his sister?”

His swift sideways glance tells me more than any words. He is about to lie to me. I hear the words he says: a story about a disguising and all of them in masks and the ladies dancing with them and Compton and Anne dancing together, and I know that he is lying.