I think it is as grand as Arthur’s wedding. It’s not Saint Paul’s, of course, but I wear a gown as good as Katherine’s was on that day. The king at my side is a blaze of jewels, and he is a full king whereas Katherine married only a prince. And I am crowned. She was never crowned, of course, she was a mere princess, and is now even less than that. But I have a double ceremony: I am married and then I am crowned queen. It is so grand and it takes so long that I am in a daze. I have ridden so far, hundreds and hundreds of miles, all the way from Richmond, and been seen by so many people. I have been waiting for this day for years; my father had it planned for most of my life, it is my lady grandmother’s great triumph. I should feel wildly excited, but it is too thrilling to take in. I am only thirteen. I feel like my little sister Mary, when she is allowed to stay up too late at a feast. I am dazzled by my own glory and I pass through everything—the wedding Mass, the coronation and the loyal oaths, the feast, the masquing, the last service at the chapel, and then the procession to bed—as if I were dreaming. The king’s arm is around my waist all the day—if it were not for him I think I would fall. The day goes on forever, and then he goes to confess and pray in his rooms as my ladies take me and put me to bed.
Agnes Howard supervises them as they unlace my sleeves and put them away in lavender bags, untie my gown and help me out of the tight stomacher. I am to wear my finest linen robe, trimmed with French lace, and over it I have a satin gown for the night. They lie me on the bed, propped against the pillows, arrange my gown around my feet and pull and tweak at my sleeves as if I were a wax effigy, like my mother on her coffin. Agnes Howard twists my fair hair into curls and spreads it around my shoulders, pinching my cheeks to make them blush.
“How do I look?” I ask her. “Hand me a mirror.”
“You look well,” she says with a little smile. “A beautiful bride.”
“Like Katherine?”
“Yes,” she says.
“Like my mother?” I gaze at my round childish face in the looking glass.
She studies me with critical, measuring eyes. “No,” she says. “Not really. For she was the most beautiful of all the Queens of England.”
“More beautiful than my sister, then?” I say, trying to find some measure to give me confidence to face my husband this night.
Again, the level, judging look. “No,” she says reluctantly. “But you should never compare yourself with her. Mary is going to be exceptional.”
I give a little irritated exclamation and push the looking glass back at her.
“Be at peace,” she recommends. “You’re the most beautiful Queen of Scotland. Let that be enough for you. And your husband is clearly pleased with you.”
“I wonder he could see me through the beard,” I say crossly. “I wonder he can see anything.”
“He can see you,” she advises me. “There’s not much that he misses.”
The lords of his court escort him to the bedroom door, singing bawdy songs and making jokes, but he does not allow them into our chamber. When he enters he says good night to the ladies so that everyone leaves us and has to abandon the hope that they might watch the bedding. I realize that he does this not out of any shyness, because he has no shyness, but out of kindness to me. There is really no need. I am not a child, I am a princess; I have been born and bred for this. I have lived all my life in the glare of a court. I know that everyone always knows everything about me and constantly compares me to other princesses. I am never judged for myself, I was always viewed as one of four Tudor children, and now I am weighed as one of three royal sisters. It’s never fair.
James undresses himself, like a common man, throwing off his fine long gown so he stands before me in his nightshirt, and then pulls that over his head. I hear a chink like a heavy necklace as his nakedness is revealed to me inch by inch as the nightshirt is stripped off. Strong legs covered in thick, dark hair, a mass of dark hair at his crotch and his pizzle standing up awkwardly like a stallion’s, the dark line of hair over his flat belly, and then—
“What’s that?” I ask as I see a circlet of metal rings around his waist. It was this that made the little revealing chink.
“That’s my manhood,” he says, deliberately misunderstanding me. “I won’t hurt you, I will be gentle.”
“Not that,” I say. I was raised at court but I have been around stables and farm animals for all my life. “I know all about that. What is that around your waist?”
He touches the belt lightly with his finger. “Oh, this.”
I can see now that it has rubbed him raw. It is barbed and it grazes his skin every time he makes a move. The skin is rough and scarred around his waist; he must have worn this for years. He has been in constant irritating discomfort for years as every movement he makes scratches his skin.
“This is a cilice,” he says. “You must have seen one before. You who knows so much of the world that you see your husband’s cock on your wedding night, and already you know all about it?”
I giggle a little. “I didn’t mean that. But what is the cilice for?”
“It’s to remind me of my sin,” he says. “When I was young, about your age, I did something very stupid, something very wrong. I did something that will send me to hell. I wear it to remind me that I am stupid and that I am a sinner.”
“If you were my age then nobody can blame you,” I assure him. “You can just confess. Confess and be given a penance.”
“I can’t be forgiven just because I was young,” he says. “And don’t you think that either. You can’t be forgiven because you are young or because you are royal or in your case because you are a woman and your mind is less steady than a man’s. You are a queen; you have to hold yourself to the highest of standards. You have to be wise, you have to be faithful, your word has to be your bond, you have to answer to God, not to a priest who might absolve you. No one can absolve you for stupidity and sin if you are royal. You have to make sure that you never commit stupidity or sin.”
I look at him, a little aghast, as he towers above me in my bridal chamber, his pizzle standing up and ready, a great chain cutting into his waist, stern as a judge.
“Do you have to wear it now?” I ask. “I mean, now?”
He gives a little laugh. “No,” he says, and he bends his head, unlinks it and removes it. He comes to the bed and gets in beside me.
“It must be better to take it off,” I say, guiding him to the thought that he might lay it aside forever.
“There is no reason that you should be scratched for my sins,” he says gently. “I will take it off when I am with you. There is no reason that this should hurt you at all.”
It does not hurt because he is gentle and quick and he keeps his weight off me—he is not clumsy like a stallion in the field but deft and neat. There is something very pleasant about being stroked all over, like a cat on someone’s lap, and his hands go everywhere on me, behind my ears and in my hair and down my back and between my legs, as if there was nowhere that he could not turn my skin into silk and then into cream. It has been a long day and I feel dizzy and sleepy and there is no pain at all, more a rather surprising intrusion, and then a sort of warm stirring, and just when it starts to get heavy and pushing, and too much, it is finished and I am left feeling nothing but warm and petted.
“That’s it?” I ask, surprised, when he gives a sigh and then comes carefully away and lies back on the pillow.
“That’s it,” he says. “Or at any rate, that’s it for tonight.”
“I thought it hurt and there was blood,” I say.
“There is a little blood,” he says. “Enough to show on the bedsheets in the morning. Enough for Lady Agnes to report to your grandmother; but it should not hurt. It should be a pleasure, even for a woman. Some physicians think there has to be pleasure to make a child, but I doubt that myself.”