He does not come out from darkness and solitude till the middle of spring, and then he is still wearing black for her. My Lady, his mother, commands that he end his solitary mourning, nurses him back to health, and Sir Richard and I are at court at her bidding, seated among the knights and their ladies in the great dining hall. To my surprise the king walks down the length of the room, and when I rise to curtsey to him, he leads me away from the ladies’ table to an alcove at the back of the great hall.
He takes both my hands in his own. “You loved her as I did, I know. I can’t believe that she is gone,” he says simply.
He looks like a man injured beyond recovery. His face is engraved with new lines of suffering; his gray complexion shows that he is exhausted by grief. The sagging skin under his eyes shows a man who has wept for night after night instead of sleeping, and he stands a little bent, as if to ease the pain in his chest. “I can’t believe it,” he repeats.
I have no words of comfort because I share his loss, and I am still bewildered at the suddenness of her going. All my life my cousin Elizabeth has been with me, a constant loving presence. I cannot understand that she is here no longer. “God is . . .”
“Why would God take her? She was the best queen that England could have had! She was the best wife that I could have had.”
I say nothing. Of course she was the best queen that England could have had; she was from England’s own royal family that ruled long before he stumbled ashore at Milford Haven. She did not come in with a diseased army and take her crown from a thornbush; she was our own, born and bred an English princess. “And my children!” he exclaims, looking over to them.
Harry was placed at his father’s side for dinner, and he sits now beside the empty throne, his face turned down to his plate, eating nothing. For him it has been the worst blow a child can suffer; I wonder if he will ever recover. His mother loved him with a steady calmness that his grandmother’s passionate favoritism could not overthrow. Elizabeth saw him for what he was—a highly talented and charming little boy—and yet kept before him a picture of what he must be: the master of himself. Just by walking into his nursery she showed him that it is not enough to be the center of attention; every prince has that from birth. Instead, she required that he be true to himself, that he curb his boastful vanity, that he learn to put himself in others’ shoes, that he practice compassion.
His sisters, Margaret and Mary, terribly lost without her, are seated beside their grandmother, My Lady the King’s Mother, and Katherine the Spanish princess is beside them. She feels my gaze on her and she looks up and gives me a swift, inscrutable smile.
“At least they had their childhood with her,” I say. “A mother who truly loved them. At least Harry had his childhood safe in his mother’s love.”
He nods. “At least they had that,” he says. “At least I had my years with her.”
“It’s a grave loss for the dowager princess too,” I observe carefully. “The queen was very tender towards her.”
He follows my gaze. Katherine is seated in a place of honor, but the young princesses are not talking to her as sisters should. Thirteen-year-old Margaret has turned her shoulder and is whispering with her little sister, Mary, their heads close together. Katherine looks lonely at the high table, as if she is there on sufferance. As I look closely, I see that she is pale and anxious, occasionally glancing down the table to where Harry stares blindly at his plate, as if she would like to catch his eye.
“She’s more beautiful every time she comes to court,” he says quietly, his eyes on her, unaware that this grates on me as an insult on pain. “She’s growing into real beauty. She was always a pretty girl but now she is becoming a remarkable young woman.”
“Indeed,” I say stiffly. “And when is her marriage to Prince Harry to take place?”
The look that he slides sideways makes me shiver, as if a cold draft had suddenly blown into the room. He looks roguish, like Prince Harry does when he has been caught stealing pastries from the kitchen, excited and apologetic all at once, knowing that he is naughty, hoping that he can charm his way out of trouble, aware that no one can deny him anything.
“It’s too soon.” I see him decide not to tell me what has made him smile. “It’s too soon for me to say.”
My Lady the King’s Mother calls me to her private rooms before Sir Richard and I leave for Stourton. Her rooms are crowded with people seeking favors and help. The king has started to fine people heavily for small misdemeanors, and many people go to My Lady for mercy. Since she works with him on the royal account books and revels in the profit of fines, most petitioners come away unsatisfied, many of them poorer than before.
My Lady knows well enough that her son will hold England only if he can always put an army in the field, and that armies eat treasure. She and her son are at constant work on a war chest, saving funds against the rebellion that they fear will come.
She beckons me to her side with a quick gesture and her ladies tactfully rise up from their seats and move away, so that we can talk in private.
“You were at Ludlow Castle with the young couple, the prince and princess?” My Lady remarks without preamble.
“Yes.”
“You dined with them every day?”
“Almost every day. I was not there when they arrived, but after that, I lived there with them.”
“You saw them together, as husband and wife.”
I have a chilly realization that I do not know where this line of questioning is going, and that My Lady always talks for a purpose.
“Of course.”
“And you never saw anything that would suggest to you that they were not married in thought and word and deed.”
I hesitate. “I dined with them every night in the great hall. I saw them in public. They were a devoted young couple in public,” I say.
She pauses, her gaze as hard as a fist at my face. “They were wedded and bedded,” she states flatly. “There can be no doubt.”
I think of Arthur wresting the promise from the princess, his deathbed promise, that she would marry again and be Queen of England. I think that this was his plan and his wish. I remember that I would have done anything for Arthur; I think I would still do anything for him.
“Of course I cannot know what occurred in Her Grace’s bedchamber,” I say. “But she told me, and others, that the marriage had not been consummated.”
“Oh, you say that, do you?” My Lady remarks as if it is a matter of cold interest.
I take a breath. “I do.”
“Why?” she asks. “Why say such a thing?”
I try to shrug, although my shoulders are too stiff to move. “It’s just what I observed. Just what I heard.” I try to speak casually, but I am breathless.
She rounds on me so fiercely that I flinch from her furious face. “What you observed! What you heard! It is what you have made up, between the three of you—her duenna, the Spanish Infanta, and you—you three wicked women, for the downfall of my house and the destruction of my son! I know it! I know you! I wish she had never come to this country! She has brought us nothing but grief!”
A silence falls; everyone is staring at me in horrified speculation at what I have done to upset My Lady. I drop to my knees, my heart hammering in my ears. “Forgive me, Your Grace. I have done nothing, I would never do anything against you or your son. I don’t understand.”
“Tell me one thing,” she spits. “You know for a fact, don’t you, that Prince Arthur and the dowager princess were lovers? You saw the unmistakable signs of their bedding. Under your roof he was conducted to her room once a week, was he not? I had ordered it, and it was done? Or are you telling me that you disobeyed me and they were not put together every week?”