The worst thing about this autumn is that I cannot get news, and if I had any, I could not repeat one word of it to the princess. She knows, of course she knows, that her mother and father are all but estranged, and she probably knows that her father is madly, dangerously in love with another woman—he does nothing to conceal it—and she a woman of such ordinary birth that she was lucky to be a maid-in-waiting at court, never mind domineering over everyone as an acknowledged favorite. I remember Anne Boleyn, thrilled as a child to serve the Princess Mary in France, and her father’s pride when she managed to move into the queen’s service. It’s almost impossible for me to imagine her as a consort, giving orders to the court, complaining of the great cardinal himself, almost an unofficial queen.
Princess Mary is twelve now, and bright and intelligent as any clever girl, but with a grace and dignity which comes from her breeding and training. I am sure that I judge her rightly. I taught her myself and raised her to know all that a princess should know, to read the minds of subjects and enemies, to think ahead, to plan strategically, to be wise far beyond her years. But how can I prepare her to see the father she adores turn away from the mother she so deeply loves? How can anyone suggest to her that her father truly believes he was not married to her mother, that they have been living in a state of mortal sin for all these years? How can anyone tell her that there is a God in heaven who, observing this, decided to punish a young married couple with the deaths of four baby brothers and sisters? I could not say such a thing to a girl of twelve, not a girl whom I love as I love this one, and I make sure that no one else does either.
It’s not hard to keep her ignorant, for we rarely go to dine at court, and nobody now visits us. It takes me a little while to realize that this is another sign of the troubled times. The court of the heir to the throne, however young, is always a bustling, busy, popular place. Even a child like Mary attracts people to her service who know that one day she will be Queen of England, and that her favor should be won now.
But not this autumn. This autumn it grows colder and darker and it seems that every morning there is a dull gray light but no sunshine, there are no riders coming out from London, there are no barges coming quickly up the river, catching the inflowing tide. This autumn we are not popular, not with courtiers, nor advisors. We don’t even attract people with petitions and begging letters. I think to myself that we must have sunk very low in the public estimation if we are not even visited by people wanting to borrow money.
Princess Mary does not know why; but I do. There can be only one reason that we live so quietly at Richmond, as if we were in a private house and not a palace. The king must be giving people to understand that she is not the heir to his throne. He must be letting people know, in all the subtle, wordless ways that a king can deploy, that there is good reason that Princess Mary is no longer at her castle in Ludlow ruling Wales, that Princess Mary is no longer betrothed to marry the King of France, nor the King of Spain, that Princess Mary is living at Richmond like a daughter of the House of Tudor, served, supported, and respected but no more important than her bastard half brother, Bessie Blount’s boy.
The courtiers are fluttering around a new attraction like midges around a sweaty face. I learn that much from my dressmaker, who comes to Richmond Palace to fit me with a velvet gown in dark red for the winter feasts, telling me proudly that she can barely find the time to make it, as she is fully engaged by all the ladies at Suffolk House in Southwark. I stand on the stool and the dressmaker’s assistant is pinning the hem, as the dressmaker tightens the bodice.
“The ladies at Suffolk House?” I repeat. This is the home of the Dowager Queen of France, Mary, and her utterly worthless husband, Charles Brandon. While she has always been dearly loved by the court, I can’t imagine why they should be so busy and popular all of a sudden.
“Mademoiselle Boleyn is staying there!” she says delightedly. “Holding court, and everyone visits, the king daily, and they dance every night.”
“At Suffolk House?” This can only be Charles Brandon’s doing. The Dowager Queen Mary would never have allowed the Boleyn girl to hold court in her own house.
“Yes, she has quite taken it over.”
“And the queen?” I ask.
“She lives very quietly.”
“And the plans for the Christmas feast?”
The dressmaker notes in silence that I have not received an invitation. Her arched eyebrows rise a little higher and she tweaks a fold at my waist, as if it is hardly worth making an expensive gown that will never be worn before the king. “Well,” she remarks, preparing to share scandal, “I am told that the Lady will have her own set of rooms, right next door to the king, and she will hold court there, to her many, many well-wishers. It will be like two courts in the same palace. But the king and queen will celebrate Christmas together, as always.”
I nod. We exchange one long look and I know that the dressmaker’s expression—a sort of grim smile, the natural expression of a woman who knows that her own best years are past—is mirrored on my face.
“Perfect,” she says, and helps me down from the stool. “You know, there’s not a woman in England over thirty who does not feel the queen’s pain.”
“But the women over thirty will not be asked for their opinions,” I say. “Who cares what we think?”
I am sitting with my ladies listening to Princess Mary practice on the lute and singing. She has composed the song, which is a reworking of an old reapers’ ballad about a merry lad going sowing. I am glad to hear her sing with a lilt in her voice and a smile on her face, and she is looking well; the regular trial of her monthly pains has passed and she has color in her cheeks and an appetite for her dinner. I watch her, bent over the strings, looking up to sing, and I think what a blessedly pretty girl she is and that the king should go down on his knees and thank God for her, and raise her as a princess who will some day rule England, secure in her position, and confident of her future. He owes that to her, he owes that to England. How can it be that Henry, the boy who was the darling of the nursery, cannot see that here is another Tudor heir as precious and as valuable as he was?
The knock at the door startles all of us, and Princess Mary looks up, her fingers still pressed on the strings, as my steward bows, comes into the room, and says: “A gentleman at the gate, your ladyship. Says he is your son.”
“Geoffrey?” I get to my feet with a smile.
“No, I would know the master, of course. He says he is your son from Italy.”
“Reginald?” I ask.
Princess Mary rises and says quietly: “Oh, Lady Margaret!”
“Admit him,” I say.
The steward nods and steps aside and Reginald, tall, handsome, dark-eyed, and dark-haired, comes into the room, takes in everyone in one swift glance, and kneels at my feet for my blessing.
I put my hand on his thick dark hair and whisper the words, and then he stands taller than me and bends down to kiss me on both cheeks.
At once I present him to the princess and he sweeps her a deep bow. The color flushes into her cheeks as she puts out both hands to him. “I have heard so much about you, and your learning,” she says. “I have read much of what you have written with such admiration. Your mother will be so happy you are home.”
He throws me a smile over his shoulder, and I see at once the darling little boy whom I had to give to the Church, and the tall, composed, independent young man that he has become through years of study and exile.
“You will stay here?” I ask him. “We are about to go in to dinner.”
“I was counting on it!” he says easily. To the princess he says: “When I miss England I miss my childhood dinners. Does my mother still order a lamb pie with a thick pastry crust?”