It has not turned out like that. Harry has grown taller and more handsome, wealthier and more kingly than she could have hoped, and he casts a great shadow over her—over everyone. She is tired, she aches with mysterious pains. She fears that God does not favor their marriage, and she spends half the day on her knees asking Him what is His will. She has none of the radiant confidence of her mother, the crusader. Now she comes to befriend me but even here she brings guilt. She has blood on her hands: her army killed my husband, and I do not forget it.
“I hope that you can stay with us for a long time,” she says. “It would be such a pleasure to have both the king’s sisters at court.”
“Both of us? Is Mary here very much?” I ask. “I didn’t think she could afford to live at court.”
Katherine flushes. “She comes often,” she says with dignity. “As my guest. We have become very good friends. I know that she is longing to see you.”
“I don’t know how long I can stay, I will have to go home as soon as the Scots lords have agreed to my rule,” I say. “It is my duty. I cannot walk away from my husband’s country.”
“Yes, you have been called to a great office,” she says, “in a country that I know is not easy to rule. I was so sorry for the death of your husband the king.”
For a moment I cannot speak. I cannot even glare at her. I cannot imagine how she dares to talk of his death as if it were a distant event, beyond anyone’s control.
“The fortunes of war,” she says.
“An unusually cruel war,” I remark. “I have never heard before of English troops being ordered to take no prisoners.”
She has the decency to look abashed. “These border wars are always cruel,” she says. “As when neighbors fight. Lord Dacre tells me—”
“It was he who found my husband’s body.”
“So sad,” she whispers. “I am so sorry.” She turns her face and, hidden by the enormous headdress, wipes her eyes. “Forgive me. I have recently lost my father and I—”
“They told me that after Flodden you were triumphant,” I interrupt, suddenly finding the courage to speak out.
She bows her head but she does not shrink from the truth. “I was. Of course I was glad to keep England safe while the king was far away, and fighting himself. It was my duty as his queen. They said that the King of Scots was planning to march on London. You would not believe how afraid we all were of his coming. Of course I was glad that we won. But I was very sorry for you.”
“You sent his coat to Harry. His bloodstained coat.”
There is a long silence. Then she gets to her feet with a dignity I have never seen in her before. “I did,” she says quietly. Behind her, all her ladies rise too, and mine. They cannot be seated when the Queen of England stands, but nobody knows what to do. Awkwardly, I stand too. Are they leaving already? Is the queen offended? Have I dared to quarrel with the Queen of England while I perch in a house that she has loaned me, the first decent roof I have had over my head in months?
“I did,” she says quietly. “So that the King of England, fighting for his country, should know that his Northern border was safe. So that he should know that I had done my duty to him, my husband, even though it cost you your husband. So that he should know that English soldiers had triumphed. Because I was glad that we had triumphed. I am sorry for this, my dear sister, but this is the world that we live in. My first duty is always to my husband; God has put us together, no man can put us asunder. Even the love that I bear for you and yours cannot come between me and my husband the king.”
She is so dignified that I feel foolish and rude beside her poise. I never thought I would see Katherine rise to her queenship like this. I remember snubbing her when she was a poor hanger-on at court, I never knew that she had this righteous pride in her. Now I see that she is truly a queen, and has been a queen for seven years, while I have lost my throne and married a lord, who does not even live with me.
“I see,” I say weakly. “I understand.”
She hesitates, as if she sees herself for the first time, on her dignity, on her feet, ready to walk out of my chamber. “May I sit down again?” she asks with a little smile.
It is gracious of her, as she does not have to ask.
“Please.” We sit together.
“We buried him with honor,” she says quietly. “In the Church of the Observant Friars. You can visit his grave.”
“I didn’t know.” I choke on a sob. I am more embarrassed than anything else. “I didn’t even know that.”
“Of course,” she said. “And I had Masses said for him. I am sorry. It must have been a terrible time for you. And then you had worse times to follow your grief.”
“They say that it is not his body,” I whisper. “They say that he was seen after the battle. That the body you brought to England did not wear the cilice.”
“People always make up stories,” she replies, steady as a rock. “But we buried him as a king with honor, Your Grace.”
I cannot bully her, and I cannot shake her. “You can call me Margaret,” I say. “You always used to.”
“And you can call me Katherine,” she says. “And perhaps we can be friends as well as sisters. Perhaps you can forgive me.”
“I thank you for the gowns, and for everything,” I say awkwardly. “I was glad to get my inheritance.”
She puts her hand over my own. “All this is no more than you should have,” she says gently. “You should have your throne again, and the wealth of Scotland. My husband the king has sworn that you will have all that is yours again, and he will make sure that it is so, and I will speak in your favor.”
“I am grateful,” I say, though it costs me to say such a thing to her.
Her palm is warm, the rings are heavy on her little fingers. “We were not good sisters to each other before,” she says quietly. “I was very afraid that I would never be married to your brother, and I was homesick, and terribly poor. You don’t know what I went through in the years that I waited. I was never happy after your mother died. When she had gone it was as if I lost my only friend in the family.”
“My grandmother . . .” I begin.
She shrugs her shoulders. Rubies gleam at her throat. “My Lady the King’s Mother never cared for me,” she says shortly. “She would have sent me home if she could have done so. She tried to say—” She breaks off. “Oh! All sorts of things. She tried to prevent my marriage to the prince. She advised him against me. But when he came to the throne he took me, despite everything.”
“She was always ambitious for him,” I say quietly. And she was right, I think to myself—he could have done better than a widow who cannot bear a son.
“So I understand what it is to be far from home, and to think that no one cares for you, that you are in danger and no one will help you. I was very, very sorry when I learned that you were widowed and had lost the guardianship of your son. I swore then that I would do what I could to help you, and to be a good sister to you. We are both Tudors. We should help each other.”
“I always thought you looked down on me,” I confess. “You always seemed so very grand.”
Her ripple of laughter makes her ladies look up and smile. “I ate day-old fish that we bought cheap from the market,” she says. “I pawned my plate to pay my household. I was a princess in rags.”
I clasp her hand in my own. “I too have been a princess in rags,” I say quietly.
“I know,” she says. “That is why I have urged Harry to send an army to put you back on your throne.”
“Will he listen to you?” I ask curiously, thinking of how James would chuck me under the chin and go and fulfill his own plans, ignoring anything I said. “Does he take your advice?”
A shadow crosses her face. “He used to,” she says. “But Thomas Wolsey has grown very great recently. You know that he advises the king on everything? He is Lord Chancellor, he is very able, a very able man. But he thinks only of how to do what the king wishes. He doesn’t consider Go
d’s will as well as the king’s desire. Indeed, it has become very rare for anyone to advise the king against his desire.”
“He is the king,” I say flatly. Really, I don’t understand her at all; why should anyone advise him against his wishes?
“But not infallible,” she says with a ghost of a smile.
“Is Thomas Wolsey in favor of my return to Scotland? He must want the best for my daughter, as her godfather?”
She hesitates. “I think he has greater plans for you than just your return,” she says. “He knows that the Scots must accept you and that your boy must be in your keeping, but I think he hopes . . .”
“He hopes what?” I ask.
She bows her head for a moment as if in prayer, as if she has to think what she says next: “I believe that he hopes that your present marriage can be annulled and you shall marry the emperor.”
I am so shocked that I say nothing. I just look at her, my mouth agape.
“What?” I say, when I find my voice. “What?”
She nods. “I thought you did not know of this. Thomas Wolsey is playing for high stakes in Europe. He would be very pleased to have an ally bound by marriage to England, to hold against France. Especially now that he is trying to get the French out of Scotland.”
“But I am married already! What is he thinking of?”
“The Lord Chancellor thinks that your marriage could be annulled,” she says quietly. “And then Harry observed that your husband did not accompany you, though he had a safe conduct. Harry thought that you might be estranged. He thought that you might welcome a separation.”
“Archibald has duties in Scotland! I told the king myself. He is obliged, by his honor . . .”
“You would be empress,” she remarks.
That silences me again. As the wife of the Holy Roman Emperor I would be queen of enormous lands, half of Europe. I would outrank Katherine. Indeed I would be married to her kinsman. Mary, the wife of a nonentity like Charles Brandon, would be nothing beside me, she would have to serve me on bended knee. I would never see either of them again, and I would be wealthier than my brother Harry. This is the destiny that slipped away from me when I considered the emperor and the King of France as husbands, and then found that the King of France had jilted me for my little sister. When I married Archibald I lost my chance of being one of the great rulers of Europe. Now, once again, the possibility of greatness opens before me.
“How could it be done?”
Katherine is no longer smiling. She withdraws her hands from mine as if the touch of an unfaithful wife might contaminate her. “I am sure that if you consent, the Lord Chancellor will find a way,” she says coolly. “I have performed my task in asking you if you would consider it. The king says that Scotland was under excommunication when you married the Earl of Angus. The Lord Chancellor argues that no marriage during that time could be valid. And also, your husband was betrothed to marry another woman, was he not? The Lord Chancellor will argue that it was a full marriage, not merely a betrothal. That your husband was married to Janet Stewart, a marriage that took place before yours, and while Scotland was in communion with Rome. His marriage to her predates yours, and yours was not valid.”
“He was not. He never sees her!” I say fiercely. “He does not care for her. He married me. He was free to marry me. He is faithful to me.”
Katherine looks at me and I see that it is not just the loss of her four babies that has put the darkness in her gaze. She has been disappointed by Harry too.
“It doesn’t matter if a husband is faithful or not,” she says quietly. “It doesn’t matter if he loves you or another. What matters is that you swore to be together before God. The priest was a witness to your vows but you made them to God. A marriage cannot be dissolved because great men wish that a woman is free. A marriage cannot be dissolved because a husband has been so foolish and so weak as to fall in love with another woman. A genuine marriage, made before God, cannot be dissolved, ever.” Her gaze drifts from me to her companions, her ladies-in-waiting, chattering together, whiling away the time until they can go back to Greenwich Palace and dine with the men. One or more of them will have caught the eye of the king, one or more will already have been in his bed, one or more will be hoping.
“I know that,” I say. “I know that nothing matters more than the marriage vows. Archibald and I made those vows. He is my husband and will be until death.”
She bows her head. “That’s what I believe to be true,” she says quietly. “If Harry asks me for my opinion I will tell him that you are married in the sight of God and that neither the Lord Chancellor nor the Holy Roman Emperor nor the King of England himself can change that.”
GREENWICH PALACE, ENGLAND, MAY 1516
The joust to celebrate my arrival in England is to take place at Greenwich, and I travel in the queen’s barge downriver to the most beautiful of all our London palaces. I so wish that Archibald was with me to hear how the people of Greenwich cheer as our barges go by, to hear the sound of the musicians playing and the roar of the cannons welcoming me home again.
The new Tudor baby, Princess Mary, is in the arms of her nurse, on our barge. Katherine keeps her close and watches her all the time. My little Margaret, just a few months older, is so much brighter and more alert; her color is rosy and she looks around her and smiles when she sees me or her nursemaid. But to see Katherine or Henry dote on their baby you would think that no other child had ever been born.
Privately, I swear to myself that my Margaret will be acknowledged as the prettier girl. I will see that she is dressed to perfection; I will ensure that she marries well. She may not be a princess, and her father could not give her a crown, but she is every inch royal and she is half a Tudor. Who knows what the future will be for these two babies? I swear that my child will never suffer for the comparison. Nobody is going to send her to a foreign country and then fail to support her. Nobody is going to praise Mary over her. Nobody is going to neglect her and praise the other to her little face.
I cannot say that I am neglected now. I am dressed beautifully from the royal wardrobe, in cloth-of-gold gowns, and though I follow the Queen of England, everyone else follows me. I am addressed as Queen Regent of Scotland, and Thomas Wolsey pays my debts from the royal treasury without hesitation or query. As I follow Katherine off the royal barge and smile at the royal household drawn up on either side of the carpet that leads us to the wide open doors of the royal palace, I have no complaints. I might wish that Archibald were here to see me, in the place of greatest honor, I might wish that everyone could see my handsome husband, that he might ride in the joust, but I myself am where I should be. It’s all that I’ve always wanted.
“We’ll go to the wardrobe rooms,” Katherine rules. She smiles at me. “I hope that Mary will be there already, choosing her gown.”
At last I am to see her again. Mary, my darling little sister, has come from her country house for my joust. Charles Brandon is to do what he does best—perhaps his only skill other than whoring and spending money; he and Harry will take on all comers.
“She’s here already?” I am so impatient to see her, and I also hope that we get there before she has chosen the best of the gowns for herself. I hope that Katherine has ordered the groom of the wardrobe to make sure that we three queens have gowns of equal quality. It would spoil everything if Mary’s is French cut or more richly embroidered, or more fashionable. She has become used to the very best; but she should not be allowed to outshine the queen. It is a disservice to all the royal ladies if Mary is encouraged to exceed her situation. She may be Dowager Queen of France but she is married to a commoner, not a nobleman like Archibald. I don’t want her to stand out, or put herself forward. I don’t want people to shout her name and throw flowers and encourage her to show off before everyone, just as she did when we were little girls.
The yeomen of the guard, standing either side of the door, salute us and swing the doors open to the shaded rooms where the royal gowns of s
tate hang in great linen pouches, lavender heads stuffed into sleeves to ward off moths, gorse prickles at the wainscoting to deter rats. In the half-light of the shuttered room I see the little elfin face under the elegant French hood and I have the illusion that my sister is unchanged from the girl that I left behind thirteen years ago, my little pet, my little sister, my little pretty doll.
At once I forget everything about her getting the best gown, everything about her being overdressed, everything about precedence. “Oh, Mary,” I say simply. I stretch out my arms and she falls into them and clings to me.
“Oh, Margaret! Oh, my dear! Oh, Maggie! And I was so sorry about your boy Alexander!”
I gasp at his name. Nobody has spoken of him since I left Morpeth. No one has even mentioned him. They have all offered me condolences for the death of the king, but no one has spoken of my child. It is as if Alexander never was. And all at once I am crying for him, my lost little boy; and Mary—a little girl no longer, but a woman who has known loneliness and heartbreak like me—embraces me, unpins my hood, pulls my head to her shoulder and rocks with me, whispering like a mother soothing a hurt child. “Hush,” she says. “Ah, Maggie. Hush. God bless him, God bless him in heaven.”
Katherine comes closer. “It’s her son,” Mary says over my shoulder. “She’s crying for Alexander.”
“God bless and keep him and take him to His own,” Katherine says instantly, and I feel her arm around my shoulder as she and Mary and I hold each other, our heads pressed together, and I remember that Katherine, too, has lost a boy, more than one. Katherine’s losses are never mentioned either. She too has buried little coffins and is required to forget them. Nothing in the world is worse than the death of a child, and we share that too, in a sisterhood of loss.
We three stand together, clinging to each other in silence in the darkened room, for a long time, and then the storm of grief passes me, and I glance up and say: “I must look a fright.” I know that my hair is all tumbled and my nose will be red. My face and neck will be flushed and blotchy and my eyelids swollen. Katherine looks ten years older, ugly from grief. Two tears balance like pearls on Mary’s thick eyelashes, her rosy lips tremble, and there is a flush like a sunrise in her cheeks. “Me too.” She smiles.