So I don’t fear for Henry, nor do I fear for my brother, who is safely at the king’s side. The only one of them, the only man in the whole army who makes me drop my head in desperate prayer, is Thomas Seymour. Now the king has appointed him to the navy and he is commanding the ships that supply the army, constantly at sea in the treacherous Narrow Seas while the French ships mount a blockade, and the Scottish ships harry our fleet, and pirates of every nation cruise under black flags, hopeful of easy pickings. Thomas is on these stormy waters, in these dangerous seas, with the ships of two nations against him, and nobody thinks to tell me – for why would they? – if he is safe, if he is in harbour, or if his ship is at sea. Once a week I insist that the Privy Council are shown on the great map exactly where our army is in France, where the king is camped, where Howard is established, and where our ships are. It’s the only way I can learn if he is safe. But the map is muddled, the king’s army never moves anywhere, nobody is very interested in the ships and the news is old. I have to pretend that I am interested in Boulogne when I am so fearful of the sea.
The king commands me to consult the royal astronomer as to when the stars are best aligned for his march on Paris. Nicholas Kratzer attends me in my new privy chamber with only my stepdaughter Margaret and Princess Mary and Princess Elizabeth at my side. He bows low to the three of us, and I wonder what he thinks when he sees me, little Kateryn Parr as Regent General of England flanked by two royal princesses.
‘You have the best date for an advance on Paris?’ I ask him.
He bows again and produces a roll of manuscript from his sleeve. ‘The stars suggest the first week in September,’ he says. ‘I have drawn the alignments for you to study. I know that you take an interest in such work.’
‘I do.’ He puts the papers on the table at my side. ‘And what do you think when you see these princesses?’ I ask him. ‘You see them here with their little coronels on their heads, as Tudor princesses.’
‘I think they can have nothing but glory ahead of them,’ he says tactfully. He smiles at Elizabeth’s dazzled face. ‘Who can doubt but that you will both reign over a great country?’
Mary smiles; of course she hopes for an alliance with Spain. But Elizabeth has ambitions in her own right. She watches me command the Privy Council, she watches me take reports from all around England. She is learning that a woman can educate herself, follow her own determination, command others. ‘Will I?’ she whispers.
I wonder what he really thinks, what he can really see. I nod to Elizabeth and Mary, and they withdraw from the table as Nicholas Kratzer produces another roll from his satchel.
‘I have drawn up your chart,’ he says. ‘I am honoured that you show such a gracious interest in my poor work.’
I rise from my chair as he spreads the document on the table and anchors it, as before, with the little gold models of the planets. ‘These are pretty things,’ I say, as if I am not longing to see what he has drawn for me.
‘They are paperweights,’ he says. ‘Not charms, of course. But they please me.’
‘And what do you see for me?’ I ask him quietly. ‘Between the two of us, and speaking to no other – what do you see for me?’
He points to the sign for my house, the feathered helmet. ‘I see you were married as a young woman to a young man.’ He shows me the markings that indicate the early years of my life. ‘The stars say you were a child, as innocent as they.’
I smile. ‘Yes, it was like that, perhaps.’
‘Then before you were much more than twenty years old, you were married again, to a man old enough to be your father, and you faced great danger.’
‘The Pilgrimage of Grace,’ I confirm. ‘The rebels came to our castle and put it under siege. They took me and his children hostage.’
‘You must have known they would never hurt you,’ he says.
I knew it then. But the king justified his cruelty to the North on the basis of wild reports of savagery. ‘They were treasonous,’ I say, rather than answering him honestly. ‘At any rate, they were hanged for treason.’
‘You were married for nearly ten years,’ he says, showing me the barred lines on the chart. ‘And no child ever born to you.’
I bow my head. ‘It was a sorrow,’ I say. ‘But my lord had his heir and his daughter; he never reproached me.’
‘And then His Majesty honoured you with his favour.’
It is such a bleak story told like this that I feel a sudden rush of self-pitying tears and I turn away from the table and the papers before I start to weep, which would be sheer folly.
‘And now we see that your spiritual life begins,’ the old astronomer says gently. ‘Here we see the sign of Pallas – wisdom, and scholarship. You are studying and writing?’
I hide a gasp. ‘I am studying,’ I admit.
‘You will write,’ he says. ‘And your words will be of value. A woman writer – a novelty indeed. Nurture your talent, Your Majesty. It is rare. It is precious. Where you lead other women will follow, and that is a great thing. Perhaps your books will be your children, your legacy, your descendants.’
I nod. ‘Perhaps.’
‘But it is not just study for you,’ he says. ‘Here –’ he points to the recognisable symbol of Venus – ‘here is love.’
I look in silence. I dare not ask him what I want to know.
‘I think the love of your life will come home to you,’ he says.
I grip my hands tightly, and I make sure that my face is blank. ‘The love of my life?’
He nods. ‘I can’t say more.’
Indeed, I dare not ask more. ‘He will be safe?’
‘I think you will marry again,’ he says very softly. With his ivory pointer, like a wand, he shows the later years, my fourth decade. ‘Venus,’ he remarks quietly. ‘Love, and fertility, and death.’
‘You can see my death?’ I ask boldly.
Quickly he shakes his head. ‘No, no. It is forbidden. See your chart, it is just like the king’s, it goes on and on, it never ends.’
‘But you see love?’
‘I think that you will live with the love of your life. He will come home to you.’
‘Of course, you mean the king, home from the war,’ I say quickly.
‘He will come home safe from the war,’ he repeats. He does not say who.
The astronomer is accurate at least in his predictions about my studies. Archbishop Cranmer attends on me every day to discuss the work of the Privy Council and how I should respond to any requests or reports from the country, but as soon as the work of the world is done we turn to the world of the spirit. He is a most inspirational scholar and each day he brings a sermon or a pamphlet, sometimes written by hand, sometimes newly published, for me to consider; and the following day we discuss it together. My ladies listen, and often make a contribution. Princess Mary tends always to defend the traditional church but even she acknowledges the archbishop’s logic and his spirituality. My rooms become a centre of debate, a little university for women, as the archbishop brings his chaplains and invites preachers from London to come and share their vision of the church and its future. They are all great students of the Bible in Latin, Greek, and in the modern translations. We often find ourselves turning from one version to another to reach the true meaning of a word, and while I revel in my increasing understanding of Latin I know that I am going to have to learn Greek.
One morning Thomas Cranmer comes into my rooms, bows to me and whispers: ‘May I have a word with you, Majesty?’
I step to one side and to my surprise he tucks my hand under his arm and leads me out of the room to the long gallery where we are out of earshot. ‘I wanted to show you this,’ he says, his dark eyes twinkling under his grey eyebrows.
From his sleeve he produces a book bound in leather. Inside is the title page with the one-word title: it says Psalms. With a little start I see that he has my book, my first published book. ‘There is no author,’ Cranmer says, ‘but I recognised the voice at once.’