“It’s not for me, it is for the kingdom,” she says. “I take pain to turn aside the wrath of God from the king and his people.”
I hesitate. “This can’t be right,” I say. “Your confessor . . .”
“Dear Bishop Fisher wears a hair shirt himself for the sins of the world, and Thomas More does too,” she says. “Nothing but prayer, passionate prayer, is going to move God to speak to the king. I would do anything.”
That silences me for a moment.
“And you?” she asks me. “You are well, my dear? Your children are all well? Ursula had a little girl, didn’t she? And Arthur’s wife is with child, is she not?”
“Yes, Ursula has a daughter named Dorothy, and is with child again, and Jane has had a girl,” I say. “They have called her Margaret.”
“Margaret for you?”
I smile. “Arthur will inherit his wife’s great fortune when her father dies but they would like to see some of my fortune going to my namesake.”
“And they have a boy already,” she says wistfully, and this is the only acknowledgment she makes that her barren marriage with only our little princess has broken her heart, and now it is an old, old sorrow.
But as I go around court and greet my friends and my many cousins, I find that her ladies, indeed everyone at court, seem to know that her courses have stopped and that there will never be any more Tudor babies, girls or boys. Perhaps it will be, in the end, that there are no sons and the line will end with a girl.
The king says nothing about this slow, painful crushing of his hopes, but the favor shown to Bessie Blount’s bastard, little Henry Fitzroy, and the honors heaped on him remind everyone that the queen is past the age of childbearing and that, although we have a handsome young Tudor boy visiting court, running down the galleries and calling for his horse in the stables, it is not one that she has carried, and now no one hopes for anything more from her.
It is Maria de Salinas, now Countess Willoughby, the queen’s most loyal friend, who says quietly to me: “Don’t think she is too distressed at this French marriage. She feared far worse.”
“Why, what could be worse for her?” I ask.
We are walking together by the river, as the king has demanded a rowing regatta and the watermen are competing against the noblemen of the court. Everyone is disguised as soldiers or mermen, and it is a pretty scene. I can only tell which team is of noblemen and which watermen by the harsh fact that the watermen win every race and Henry’s laughing court collapse over their oars and confess that it is harder work than it looks.
“She fears that the king might order Princess Mary to marry Henry Fitzroy,” she says, and watches as the smile drains from my face. I turn to face her and grip her hand as I feel I am about to faint.
“What?” I think I must have misunderstood her.
She nods. “It’s true. There is a plan that Princess Mary will marry the Duke of Richmond, the bastard.”
“This is an ugly joke,” I say.
Her steady gaze tells me that it is no joke.
“Why would you say such a thing?”
“Because it is true.”
I look around. There is no one in earshot, but still I draw her hand into my arm and we walk away from the riverbank, where the ladies are cheering their favorites, into the quietness of the lush garden.
“The king would never have thought of such a ridiculous thing.”
“Of course not. The cardinal put it into his head. But now the king thinks of it too.”
I look at her, and I am dumb with horror at what she is saying. “This is madness.”
“It is the only way he can get his son on the throne of England, without disinheriting his daughter. It’s the only way the people would accept Henry Fitzroy as his father’s heir. Princess Mary becomes Queen of England, with a Tudor husband at her side.”
“They are half brother and sister, it is quite horrible.”
“That is what we think. That is what a normal father would think. But this is the king, thinking about who is going to inherit his throne. He would do anything to keep the Tudors on the throne. A princess cannot hold the throne of England. And he could get a dispensation for such a marriage.”
“The Pope would never agree.”
“Actually, the Pope would agree. The cardinal would arrange it.”
“The cardinal has that much influence?”
“Some say he will be the next pope.”
“The queen would never consent.”
“Yes,” Maria says gently, as if finally I have come to an understanding of what she has been trying to say all along. “Exactly. That is the worst thing. That is the worst thing that might happen. The queen would never consent to it. She would rather die than see her daughter shamed. The queen would fight it. And what do you think will happen if she sets herself against the will of the king? What do you think will happen to her, if she defends her daughter against the command of her husband? What do you think he will do? What is he like, these days, if anyone contradicts him?”
I look at her pale face and I think of my cousin the Duke of Buckingham, who put his head on the block for nothing more than boastful words in the secrecy of the confessional. “If she opposed him, would he call it treason?” I wonder.
“Yes,” she says. “Which is why I am glad that the king plans to marry his daughter to our worst enemy, France. Because there was something even worse planned for her.”
My son Arthur, Sir Arthur as I delightedly remind myself to call him, rows in the regatta and beats four other boats before coming in second to a brawny waterman with arms like legs of ham. My son Montague takes bets on the riverbank and wins a purse of gold from the king himself. The happy, noisy court ends the day with a battle of boats with the king’s barge leading the charge against a small flotilla of wherries. Anne Boleyn gets herself the part of a figurehead, at the front of the king’s boat, gazing out over the water, directing the fire of the bargemen wielding buckets. Everyone gets drenched and the laughing king helps Anne out of the boat and keeps her by him as we all walk back to the palace.
Princess Mary practices her part in the great masque planned to celebrate her betrothal. I go with her to the wardrobe rooms where they are fitting her gown. It is an extraordinarily costly dress, the bodice encrusted with rubies and pearls, the red and white of the Tudor rose, their stems of emeralds, their hearts of yellow diamonds. She staggers at first under the weight of it, but when she stands up she is the most glamorous princess the world has ever seen. She is still slight and small, but her pale skin is flushed with health, her auburn hair is thick and rich, and in this gown she looks like an icon in a valuable shrine.
“We should really be in the treasury for this dress fitting,” I say to her and I see her face light up with pleasure.
“It is more treasure than velvet,” she agrees. “But see my sleeves!”
They hold out the golden surcoat and she puts it on. The hanging sleeves of the gown are in the new fashion, so long that they almost reach the ground, and she is draped in golden light. They gather her thick hair in a garland of flowers, and capture the mass of flowers and auburn locks in a silver net.
“How do I look?” she asks me, knowing that the answer is “beautiful.”
“You look like a princess of England and a queen of France,” I tell her. “You are as beautiful as your mother when she first came to England, but even more richly dressed. You’re dazzling, my dear. No one will look at anyone but you.”
She sweeps me a curtsey. “Ah, merci, ma bonne mère,” she says.
At first I am proved right; no one takes their eyes from our princess. The masque is a great success and the princess and seven ladies emerge from the painted scenery to dance with eight costumed knights, and she is the center of all attention, dripping in jewels and faultlessly trained. When the masque is over, the French ambassador begs her to honor him with a dance. She takes her place at the head of the set, and on the other side of the room her father lines up with his partner. My friend the queen watches smiling at this official, most important occasion, as her husband dances hand in hand with the commoner Anne Boleyn, his head turned towards her, his eyes on her animated face.