Philippa Gregory 3-Book Tudor Collection 1: The Constant Princess, The Other Boleyn Girl, The Boleyn Inheritance. Philippa Gregory
the litter she was not weeping for him, she was racking her brains how to fulfil his dream. She was wondering how to obey him, as he had demanded. She was thinking how she should fulfil her deathbed promise to the only young man she had ever loved.
I shall have to be clever. I shall have to be more cunning than King Henry Tudor, more determined than his mother. Faced with those two, I don’t know that I can get away with it. But I have to get away with it. I have given my promise, I will tell my lie. England shall be ruled as Arthur wanted. The rose will live again, I shall make the England that he wanted.
I wish I could have brought Lady Margaret with me to advise me, I miss her friendship, I miss her hard-won wisdom. I wish I could see her steady gaze and hear her counsel to be resigned, to bow to my destiny, to give myself to God’s will. I would not follow her advice – but I wish I could hear it.
Croydon, May 1502
The princess and her party arrived at Croydon Palace and Dona Elvira led Catalina to her private rooms. For once, the girl did not go to her bedchamber and close the door behind her, she stood in the sumptuous presence chamber, looking around her. ‘A chamber fit for a princess,’ she said.
‘But it is not your own,’ Dona Elvira said, anxious for her charge’s status. ‘It has not been given to you. It is just for your use.’
The young woman nodded. ‘It is fitting,’ she said.
‘The Spanish ambassador is in attendance,’ Dona Elvira told her. ‘Shall I tell him that you will not see him?’
‘I will see him,’ Catalina said quietly. ‘Tell him to come in.’
‘You don’t have to…’
‘He may have word from my mother,’ she said. ‘I should like her advice.’
The duenna bowed and went to find the ambassador. He was deep in conversation in the gallery outside the presence chamber with Father Alessandro Geraldini, the princess’s chaplain. Dona Elvira regarded them both with dislike. The chaplain was a tall, handsome man, his dark good looks in stark contrast to those of his companion. The ambassador, Dr de Puebla, was tiny beside him, leaning against a chair to support his misshaped spine, his damaged leg tucked behind the other, his bright little face alight with excitement.
‘She could be with child?’ the ambassador confirmed in a whisper. ‘You are certain?’
‘Pray God it is so. She is certainly in hopes of it,’ the confessor confirmed.
‘Dr de Puebla!’ the duenna snapped, disliking the confidential air between the two men. ‘I shall take you to the princess now.’
De Puebla turned and smiled at the irritable woman. ‘Certainly, Dona Elvira,’ he said equably. ‘At once.’
Dr de Puebla limped into the room, his richly trimmed black hat already in his hand, his small face wreathed in an unconvincing smile. He bowed low with a flourish, and came up to inspect the princess.
At once he was struck by how much she had changed in such a short time. She had come to England a girl, with a girl’s optimism. He had thought her a spoilt child, one who had been protected from the harshness of the real world. In the fairy-tale palace of the Alhambra this had been the petted youngest daughter of the most powerful monarchs in Christendom. Her journey to England had been the first real discomfort she had been forced to endure, and she had complained about it bitterly, as if he could help the weather. On her wedding day, standing beside Arthur and hearing the cheers for him, had been the first time she had taken second place to anyone but her heroic parents.
But before him now was a girl who had been hammered by unhappiness into a fine maturity. This Catalina was thinner, and paler, but with a new spiritual beauty, honed by hardship. He drew his breath. This Catalina was a young woman with a queenly presence. She had become through grief not only Arthur’s widow, but her mother’s daughter. This was a princess from the line that had defeated the most powerful enemy of Christendom. This was the very bone of the bone and blood of the blood of Isabella of Castile. She was cool, she was hard. He hoped very much that she was not going to be difficult.
De Puebla gave her a smile that he meant to be reassuring and saw her scrutinise him with no answering warmth in her face. She gave him her hand and then she sat in a straight-backed wooden chair before the fire. ‘You may sit,’ she said graciously, gesturing him to a lower chair, further away.
He bowed again, and sat.
‘Do you have any messages for me?’
‘Of sympathy, from the king and Queen Elizabeth and from My Lady the King’s Mother, and from myself of course. They will invite you to court when you have recovered from your journey and are out of mourning.’
‘How long am I to be in mourning?’ Catalina inquired.
‘My Lady the King’s Mother has said that you should be in seclusion for a month after the burial. But since you were not at court during that time, she has ruled that you will stay here until she commands you to return to London. She is concerned for your health…’
He paused, hoping that she would volunteer whether or not she was with child, but she let the silence stretch.
He thought he would ask her directly. ‘Infanta…’
‘You should call me princess,’ she interrupted. ‘I am the Princess of Wales.’
He hesitated, thrown off course. ‘Dowager Princess,’ he corrected her quietly.
Catalina nodded. ‘Of course. It is understood. Do you have any letters from Spain?’
He bowed and gave her the letter he was carrying in the hidden pocket in his sleeve. She did not snatch it from him like a child and open it, then and there. She nodded her head in thanks and held it.
‘Do you not want to open it now? Do you not want to reply?’
‘When I have written my reply, I will send for you,’ she said simply, asserting her power over him. ‘I shall send for you when I want you.’
‘Certainly, Your Grace.’ He smoothed the velvet nap of his black breeches to hide his irritation but inwardly he thought it an impertinence that the Infanta, now a widow, should command where before the Princess of Wales had politely requested. He thought he perhaps did not like this new, finer Catalina, after all.
‘And have you heard from Their Majesties in Spain?’ she asked. ‘Have they advised you as to their wishes?’
‘Yes,’ he said, wondering how much he should tell her. ‘Of course, Queen Isabella is anxious that you are not unwell. She asked me to inquire after your health and to report to her.’
A secretive shadow crossed Catalina’s face. ‘I shall write to the queen my mother and tell her my news,’ she said.
‘She was anxious to know…’ he began, probing for the answer to the greatest question: was there an heir? Was the princess with child?
‘I shall confide in no-one but my mother.’
‘We cannot proceed to the settlement of your jointure and your arrangements until we know,’ he said bluntly. ‘It makes a difference to everything.’
She did not flare up as he had thought she would do. She inclined her head, she had herself under tight control. ‘I shall write to my mother,’ she repeated, as if his advice did not much matter.
He saw he would get nothing more from her. But at least the chaplain