She makes a little face. “I am glad you are here to eat it,” she confides. “For I disappoint her all the time by not being a hearty eater. And I observe all the fast days. She says I am too rigorous.”
“No, you are right,” he says quickly. “The fast days are for our observation, both for the good of man and the glory of God.”
“You mean for our good? That it is good to go hungry?”
“For those who go fishing,” he explains. “If everyone in Christendom ate nothing but fish on Friday, then the fishermen and their children would eat well the rest of the week. God’s will is always for the greater good of men. His laws are the glory both of heaven and earth. I am a great believer in deeds and faith working together.”
Princess Mary shoots a naughty little smile at me as if to score the point. “That’s what I think,” she says.
“And let us talk about filial obedience?” I suggest.
Reginald throws up his hands in joking protest. “Lady Mother, I shall obediently come to dinner and you shall command what I eat and what I say.”
It is a talkative and merry meal. Reginald says grace in Greek for the court and listens to the musicians who play as we eat. He talks with the princess’s tutor Richard Fetherston, and they share their enthusiasm for the new learning and their belief that Lutheranism is nothing but heresy. Reginald admires the dancing, and Princess Mary takes Constance’s hand and dances with her ladies before him, as if he were a great visitor. After dinner, I see Mary to her prayers and as she climbs into the big four-poster bed she beams at me.
“Your son is very handsome,” she says. “And very learned.”
“He is,” I say.
“Do you think my father will appoint him to be my tutor when Dr. Fetherston leaves us?”
“He might.”
“Don’t you wish that he would? Don’t you think he would be such a good tutor, so wise and thoughtful?”
“I think he would make you study very hard. He is teaching himself Hebrew right now.”
“I don’t mind study,” she assures me. “It would be an honor to work with a tutor like him.”
“Well, time to go to sleep, anyway,” I say. I am not going to encourage any girlish dreams about Reginald from a young woman who is going to have to marry whoever her father appoints, and who, at the moment, seems to have no prospects at all.
She raises her face for my kiss, and I am moved to deep tenderness by her dainty prettiness and her shy smile.
“God bless you, my little princess,” I say.
Reginald and I go alone to my privy chamber and I tell the servants to set the chairs before the fireside and leave us with a glass of wine, some nuts, and dried fruits to talk alone.
“She’s delightful,” he says.
“I love her as if she were my own.”
“Tell me the family news, my brothers and sister.”
I smile. “All well, thank God, though I miss Arthur more than I thought possible.”
“And how is Montague’s boy?” he asks with a smile, identifying at once the child who will be my favorite as he will carry our name forward.
“He’s well,” I say with a gleam. “Chattering, running around, strong as any Plantagenet prince. Willful, cheeky.” I stop myself from listing his latest sayings. “He’s funny,” I tell him. “He’s the image of Geoffrey at his age.”
Reginald nods. “Well, he has sent for me,” he says without preamble, knowing that I will understand at once that he means the king. “It is time for my expensive education and long learning to be of use.”
“It is of use,” I reply instantly. “He consults your thinking on what is and is not heretical, and I know that you advise Thomas More, and the king relies upon him.”
“You don’t need to encourage me,” he says with a small smile. “I am past the age when I need your approval. I’m not Montague’s heir, hopping up to win your favor. I know that I’ve served the king well at the universities, in my writing to the Pope, and in Padua. But he wants me to come home now. He needs advisors and councillors at court who know the world, who have friends at Rome, who can argue with any of them.”
I draw my shawl around me as if there is a draft in the room to make me shiver, though the logs are banked high and glowing red, and the tapestries are still and warm on the walls. “You won’t advise him to put the queen aside,” I say flatly.
“As far as I know, there are no possible grounds,” he says simply. “But he can command me to study the books that he has assembled to answer this question—you would be surprised at the size of the library he has collected on this. The Lady too brings him books, and it will be my duty to answer them. Some of them are quite heretical. He allows her to read books that More and I would have banned. Some that are banned. She even brings them to him. I shall explain their errors to him, and defend the Church against these dangerous new ideas. I hope to serve both Church and the king in England. He can request me to consult with other theologians, there can be no harm in that. I should read what authorities he has, and advise him if they make a case. He paid for me to be educated so that I can think for him. I will do that.”
“It harms the queen and the princess to have the marriage questioned at all!” I say angrily. “The books that question the queen or those that question the Church should be banned, without discussion.”
He bows his head. “Yes, Lady Mother, I know it is a great harm to a great lady who deserves nothing but respect.”
“She took us out of poverty,” I remind him.
“I know.”
“And I have known her and loved her since she was a girl of sixteen.”
He bows his head. “I shall study and tell the king my opinion, without fear or favor,” he says. “But I will do that. It is my duty to do that.”
“And will you live here?” It is a joy to me to see my son, but we have not lived under the same roof since he was a boy of six years old. I don’t know if I want the daily company of this independent young man who thinks as he pleases, and has no habit of obedience to his mother.
He smiles, as if he knows this very well. “I shall go to the Carthusian Brothers at Sheen,” he says. “I shall live in silence again. And I can visit you. Just as I used to do.”
I make a little gesture with my hand as if to push away the memories of those days. “It’s not like it was,” I say. “We have a good king on the throne now and we are prosperous. You can stay there by choice—not because you have nowhere else to go, not because I can’t afford to house you. These are different times.”
“I know,” he says mildly. “And I thank God that we live in such different times.”
“But don’t listen to gossip there,” I warn him. “It was said that they hold a document with an old prophecy about the family, about us. I suppose it’s been destroyed; but don’t listen to anything about it.”
He smiles and shakes his head at me as if I am an old foolish woman, fretting over shadows. “I need not listen, but the whole country is talking about the Holy Maid of Kent who prophesies the future and warns the king against leaving his wife.”
“It doesn’t matter what she says.” I deny the truth—there are thousands flocking to hear what she says. I am only determined that Reginald shall not be among them. “Don’t listen to gossip.”
“Lady Mother,” he reminds me, “they are a silent order. There are no gossips there. You are not allowed to say one word.”
I think of the duke, my cousin, beheaded for listening to talk of the end of the Tudors in this very monastery. “Something must have been said there, something dangerous.”
He shakes his head. “That must be a lie.”
“It cost your kinsman his life,” I remark.
“A wicked lie then,” he says.
RICHMOND PALACE, WEST OF LONDON, SPRING 1529