We are ready. My son Arthur, who knows the king’s tastes better than any of us, has ordered musicians and rehearsed them; they will play after dinner for dancing. He has arranged the loan of good horses for hunting from all our neighbors, to supplement the full stable of hunters that will come with the court. Arthur has warned our tenants that the king will ride all over their fields and woodland and any damage to crops will be settled up when the visit is over. They are strictly forbidden to complain before then. The tenants have been primed to cheer the king and shout blessings whenever they see him; they may not present complaints or requests. I have sent my steward to every local market to buy up delicacies and cheeses, while Montague sends his own man to London to raid the cellar at L’Erber for the best wines.
Ursula and I set the groom of the ewery to bring out the very best of linen for the two best bedrooms, the king’s room on the west side of the building and the queen’s at the east. Geoffrey runs errands from one room to another, from one tower to another, but even he, in his boyish glee, is not more excited than I that the King of England will sleep under my roof, that everyone will see that I am restored to my place, in the home of my forefathers, and that the King of England is a visiting friend.
It is odd that the best part of it, the best moment—after all the work of preparation and the boastful joy—is when Geoffrey stands by my side as I help Katherine out of her litter and see her face radiant, and she clings to me as if she were my little sister and not my queen, and whispers in my ear: “Margaret! Guess why I am in a litter and not riding?”
And when I hesitate, afraid to say what I am suddenly, wildly hoping, she laughs aloud and hugs me again. “Yes! Yes! It’s true. I am with child.”
It is clear they have been happy together, away from the court, the place servers and flatterers banned from the king’s presence. She has been attended by only a few of her ladies—no flirtatious girls. For a full year they have lived like a private couple with only a handful of friends and companions. Henry has been starved of the constant flood of attention and praise, and it has done him good. In the absence of others they have enjoyed each other’s company. Whenever Henry pays attention to Katherine, she blooms under the warmth of his affection, and he discovers again the steady wisdom and the genuine learning of the charming woman whom he married for love.
“Except I am afraid the king is neglecting his rule,” she says.
“Neglecting?”
Nobody could be a better judge of monarchy than Katherine of Aragon; she was raised to believe that ruling a kingdom is a holy duty to pray for last thing at night, and think of as you wake. When Henry was a little boy, he felt the same, but he has grown to be casual with the work of kingship. When the queen was regent for England, she met with her councillors every day, consulted the experts, took advice from the great lords, and read and signed every single document that was released from the court. When Henry came home, he devoted himself to hunting.
“He leaves all the work to the cardinal,” she says. “And I am afraid that some of the lords may feel that they have been ignored.”
“They have been ignored,” I say bluntly.
She lowers her eyes. “Yes, I know,” she concedes. “And the cardinal is well rewarded for his work.”
“What is he getting now?” I demand. I can hear the irritation in my own voice. I smile, and touch her sleeve. “Forgive me, I too think that the cardinal rules too widely and is paid too much.”
“Favorites are always expensive,” she smiles. “But this new honor will cost the king little. It is from the Holy Father. The cardinal is to be made a papal legate.”
I gasp. “A papal legate? Thomas Wolsey is to rule the Church?”
She raises her eyebrows and nods.
“No one above him but the Pope?”
“No one,” she observes. “At least he is a peacemaker. I suppose we should be glad of that. He is proposing a peace between us and France and the marriage of my daughter to the dauphin.”
With quick sympathy I put my hand on hers. “She’s only two,” I say. “That’s a long way off. It might never happen; there is certain to be a quarrel with France before she has to go.”
“Yes,” she concedes. “But the cardinal—forgive me, His Lordship the Papal Legate—always seems to get what he wants.”
Everything goes smoothly on the royal visit. The king admires the house, enjoys the hunting, gambles with Montague, rides with Arthur. The queen walks around the grounds with me, smilingly praises my presence chamber, my privy chamber, my bedroom. She recognizes the joy that I take in my house, and in the knowledge that I have all my other houses returned to me. She admires my treasure room and my records room and understands that the running of this, my kingdom, is my pride and my joy.
“You were born for a great place,” she says. “You must have had a wonderful year, organizing a wedding and getting everything just as you want it here.”
When the court moves on, they will take Arthur with them. The king swears that no one can keep up with him in the hunting field like Arthur.
“He is to make me a gentleman of the privy chamber.” Arthur comes to my room on the last night.
“A what?”
“It’s a new order of the household that the king is making. All his best friends, just as we are now, but we are to be attached to the privy chamber—just like the King of France has his gentlemen. Henry wants to do whatever the King of France does. He wants to rival him. So we are to have a privy chamber and I am to be one of the very, very few gentlemen.”
“And what will your duties be?”
He laughs. “As now, I think. To be merry.”
“And drink too much,” I supplement.
“To be merry and drink too much, and flirt with ladies.”
“And lead the king into bad ways?”
“Alas, Lady Mother, the king is a young man, and every day he seems younger. He can lead himself into bad ways, he doesn’t need me as his waymarker.”
“Arthur, my boy, I know you can’t stop him, but there are some young ladies who would be happy to break the heart of his wife. If you could steer him away from them . . .”
He nods. “I know. And I know how dear she is to you, and God knows that England could not have a better queen. He would never do anything disrespectful; he loves her truly, it is just . . .”
“If you can keep the king to light pleasures, with women who remember that courtly love is a game, and that it should be played lightly, you would be doing the queen and the country a service.”
“I would always want to serve the queen. But not even William Compton, not even Charles Brandon can lead the king.” Arthur’s face lightens with laughter. “And, Mother, nothing can stop him from falling in love. It is quite ridiculous! He is the oddest mixture of lust and primness. He will see a pretty girl, a laundress in a dye shop, and he could have her for a penny. But instead he has to write a poem to her and speak words of love before he can do an act that most of us would finish and be done with in minutes on the drying green, hidden by the wet sheets.”
“Yes, and it’s this that troubles the queen,” I say. “The words of love, not the penny, not the business of minutes.”
“That’s the king for you.” Arthur shrugs. “He doesn’t want the momentary pleasure, he wants words of love.”
“From a laundress in a dye shop?”
“From anyone.” Arthur says. “He is chivalric.”