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Chapter Fourteen: Christening.

Arthur watched as the Princess was plunged into the warmed holy water by the newly returned Archbishop of Canterbury. A gesture to which Elizabeth responded with a shrill shriek that echoed around the small chapel. At his side, King Henry looked on with pride as his new daughter was initiated into the flock of Christ. The sermon, he noted, read out in English, as well as the usual Latin.

Once that was over, it was time to withdraw to the Great Hall of Greenwich Palace for the feast that had been planned months in advance. Earlier, Arthur had been the first to present the infant Princess with a rich gift of a jewelled standing cup of gold. Behind him, the Courtenay's, Pole's, and other noble families had followed suit. Silver basins, gold plate, and a variety of salt cellars, bowls, and other items for which a newborn would have absolutely no use whatsoever, were all laid at the great cradle of England's latest Princess.

Once they were seated, in order of rank, Arthur found himself once more in the company of his sisters, and the duke of Suffolk. Their chatter drifted over his head as he ate ravenously after having been on his feet all day, performing ceremonies at the Christening. As he set down his knife, to pick up his glass of wine, Charles' voice boomed over the buzz of chatter, straight into his ear.

"No sign of the Duchess, then?"

"Charles!" gasped Mary, shooting her husband a reproving look from across the table. "Of course Catherine is not here."

"It's all right, Mary," replied Arthur, once the ringing in his ear had stopped. "She has been unwell, and couldn't make the journey, anyway."

"Don't blame her!" snorted Charles. "I would've been ill myself, but for the wife and the King."

"No, she really is sick," Arthur hastily added. "She's not faking it; not held a morsel down for days now."

Finally, however, Margaret stepped in. "I really don't think Catherine was ever expected to be here, Charles," she explained gently. "Not even herself would have the front to command her predecessor's presence here."

Charles seemed satisfied at the explanation, and after giving Mary a wink, he turned back to Arthur. "So, you and the Pole girl got on well, then?"

Arthur's heart gave a painful jolt, and Mary gasped again. Her face flushed red as Charles made a magnificent display of tactlessness for the second time running.

"Actually, Your Grace," stated Arthur. "The Duchess and I are reconciled. Out of respect for her feelings I sent Lady Ursula to the home of our friends, the Exeters."

Mary and Margaret exchanged a knowing glance. Arthur watched them, wondering what secrets and rumours they had telepathically transported into each other's heads through that look. Arthur always marvelled at how women could communicate with each other in complete silence. A tilt of the head, a secret smile, or a curl of the lip was all it often took. He was about to ask about it, when Margaret turned back to him and spoke as if she were speaking for both herself and for Mary.

"Look," she said, pointing her knife at him. "If you don't mind, I think I'll come back to the More with you when you return. It's time Catherine and I patched up our differences."

"You'll put that knife down before you come?" he asked, eyes fixed on the tip with still dripped with sauce.

Margaret lowered her knife, and tried to look innocent. Nobody was fooled. "I think it'll be good for us all!" she exclaimed.

"I agree," said Mary brightly, beaming around at Charles and then Arthur. "What say you husband, we can join them at the More? We must see to Frances and Henry first, of course."

Charles ceased jabbing at a mystery chunk of meat that was on his plate and looked back at the women as though he'd not heard a word of it.

"Oh yes," he blindly agreed. "So long as you're happy, my darling."

Mary rolled her eyes, but the smile that lit up her face betrayed the deep affection that she held for her husband.

"I was also thinking," said Margaret thoughtfully. "That perhaps the King and Queen, with the new Princess, could come and visit us there? And the Duke of Richmond."

The table lapsed into silence; all of them thinking the same thing. The Queen, and Catherine, in the same house.

"Well, that's a bit much for one house," said Charles in an undertone.

"So you are listening?" laughed Mary, trying to dispel some of the tension that had suddenly developed.

"Of course I am listening!" Charles retorted with a playful wink. "I'd love to see Catherine again, but as for Henry and Anne..."

"Well, I am going to ask anyway," stated Margaret resolutely. "Even if it is the last thing I ever do; this family will unite."

Arthur was unaware of the family being divided, but he didn't have long to ponder Margaret's fears. Just as he was about to finish his meal, a servant came down from the top table, where the King was seated beside the Archbishop of Canterbury. He came to a halt at Arthur's side, and whispered quietly in Arthur's ear so that only he could hear, before melting back into the crowd.

Suddenly nervous, Arthur quietly replaced his knife and fork, and took a sip of wine to wet his suddenly dry mouth.

"The King requests my presence," he said, acknowledging the questioning glances of his siblings.

They all turned in their seats and craned their necks to see Henry, still whispering in the ear of the archbishop. Arthur pushed back his chair, and bowed to the women as he excused himself. As he made his way, like a naughty child summoned to the front of the classroom, to the King's side, the eyes of various guests still followed him. They had never quite gotten over his sudden reappearance, and their unwanted attention made him flush with embarrassment. It made his journey to the dais seem twice as long as normal.

"Your Majesty," he greeted the King and dipped into a low bow.

"Arthur," replied Henry, beaming brightly as he raised his brother again. "Please, come and sit with me. It's lonely at these grand occasions without the Queen at my side."

Arthur decided that it was prudent to refrain from repeating the rumours he'd heard concerning one Madge Sheldon, and simply did as he was told.

"Forgive the Duchess not accompanying me," he said. "She has been unwell lately."

Henry waved his concerns away. "Really, Arthur, there's no need for that. No one expected her here, and it won't be held against her."

"It's not an excuse, by the way," he felt keen to point out at every opportunity. "She really is sick."

"Nothing serious, I hope?" replied Henry, his features darkening into a frown. "Anyway, Arthur, I want you to meet Thomas Cranmer, Archbishop of Canterbury. I think it's time you both got to know each other a little better."

Cranmer was still a young man, but pleasant and friendly. He smiled readily, and stretched out his hand to Arthur. Soon, the conversation was centred around Church reforms. Corrupt abbeys, pregnant abbesses, and fornicating priests seemed to occupy much of Cranmer's spare time. Arthur did listen, but at same time he knew he was being prepped for something. He just wasn't clear on what.

Anne shuffled the cards in her hand again, but her mind was elsewhere. Just beyond the door of her chamber, her daughter had been christened. She herself, still being Churched, had been absent from the ceremony. But now, Elizabeth lay fast asleep in her cradle that was being gently rocked by the woman hired especially for the task. But still her mind wandered over what was happening at the feast in her absence. It felt like an eternity since she was fully a part of life at Court.

"Who is the King in there with, do you think?" she asked Mary as she began to deal out the cards at last.

"Lady Howard has just returned, and she said that the King was talking to his brother," replied Mary with a smile. "You needn't worry, sister."

"Really?" asked Anne, looking up from her hand. "I hear that Arthur is getting very friendly with the Exeters and the Poles."

"Haven't you dealt me in?"

It was George. He eased himself around the door, flushed in the face from the wine he'd consumed at the Christening party. Anne groaned and took back the cards she'd dealt out, and prepared to do it all over again. George, meanwhile, pushed a gift over to Anne.

"For you," he said with a smile. "I translated it myself, and it's dedicated to you."

Anne placed the cards back down, and gave them up as a bad job. Instead, she turned her attention to the small book that George had given to her. Psalms. "Thank you, George," she beamed, and leaned over to kiss his cheek. "It's perfect."

"Sister, don't worry about Arthur," said George, having picked up a little of the conversation he'd walked in on. "Cranmer is working on him, and I'm sure we'll get his support for the reformation soon."

"He won't have any choice," Mary chipped in. "But still, it would be nice if he volunteered his support, rather than having it brow beaten out of him."

There was a companionable silence in the room while Lady Jane Seymour poured wine for Anne and her siblings. Mary leaned across the table, to peer into the Princess's cradle, but Elizabeth slept on. Anne, too, turned to look at her. She was barely out of the womb, but already she had a match in mind for her; that would wait, though. She was well aware that she still had problems; obstacles that needed circumventing.

"The word is that Catherine is sick," said George, giving Anne a knowing look.

"Diplomatically ill for the Christening, George," corrected Anne. "That's not a proper sickness."

"No, I mean really sick," insisted George. "One of my men overheard Arthur telling the duke of Suffolk. Why would he lie to Charles Brandon?"

"Does it matter if she is?" asked Anne. "She is no threat now."

"We're still better off without her, don't you see?" explained George. "Say the Emperor wanted to back Arthur as King instead of Henry – for she is still his aunt, and he is not happy about her being relegated to a mere Duchess – the incentive for such an interference would be removed."

Anne met his gaze, but made no reply otherwise. Her mind swirled too much, and she hadn't the energy to even think straight. She looked across the table, towards Mary, silently signalling for an intervention.

"Can we change the subject, George," said Mary, tuned to Anne's strained expression. "Let the Queen recoup her strength, get another heir in the belly, and then we can worry about Catherine."

"I'm sorry," George sighed, squeezing Anne's hand. "Mary is right."

"I am not being complacent," Anne assured him. "I know there is a lot to do, but for tonight, it can wait."

But, like Mary, Anne's thoughts had also turned to the next pregnancy. It was why she was still worried about his antics with a mistress. She needed to have him to herself, and while she was cooped up in confinement, it felt like a prison she couldn't break out of.

When he was young, before he married Catherine, Arthur used to sneak his father's best wine out of the cellar. He would smuggle it outside, and he and Margaret would hide in the back of a disused carriage; sharing the bottle between them as they talked and talked, often long into the night. Their servants helped aided and abetted in their late night escapades, but when they were caught, they always admitted full culpability to spare their staff a terrible punishment. The two of them would be separated and confined to their chambers, and reduced to communicating through smuggled letters via Prince Harry or Princess Mary.

Now, as they sat in the back of a carriage, drinking more strong wine, and heading towards the More with Margaret at his side, Arthur laughed aloud as he recalled those long gone days. The memory was tinged sepia, now. But he now that he was back, the memories came rushing back in floods. Now, so many decades on, he had to admit that it was not all bad.

"Grandmother Beaufort caught us once," he reminisced. "She boxed my ears until I saw stars. But you! You got the: 'there there, has that wicked boy led you astray?' treatment. You had her wrapped around your little finger!"

Margaret's howls of laughter could very well have startled the horses it was so loud. Once she had recovered some of her poise, she tried to reply, once she had flicked the spilt wine from her hand.

"I know!" she choked. "Oh! Poor old Grandmother Beaufort. She really did set herself up as a challenge to us restive children to over-come. It was almost an education in itself."

"I loved her rules," said Arthur. "Something else for us to break."

Margaret snorted with laughter again, trying not to choke on the wine she was gulping down.

"Jesus, we were little terrors back in the day," she said. She drew in a deep, steadying breath. "Those days are gone now, Arthur. And you've been breaking a whole new set of rules without even realising it."

The atmosphere changed in an instant. Arthur sat himself up in his seat, and averted his gaze out of the window. Outside, the open countryside trundled on by. He let his gaze slide out of focus, making it blur into a green and brown haze.

"What have I done, now?" he asked.

"You were over-heard at the Christening talking about Catherine, and your hunting parties with the Exeters," said Margaret, matter-of-factly. "That information has gotten back to the Queen, and courtesy of a friend in the Queen's household, it's gotten back to me."

The wash of good times was swept away by the crashing memories of the darker side of life at Court. Now he clearly remembered why he went to all the trouble of faking his own death.

"This is exactly why I left," he said with a deep sigh of exasperation. "You cannot sneeze in the morning without the whole world finding out that you're dying of flu by lunch time. You cannot move for getting tangled up in webs of intrigues and networks of spies, and spies amongst the spies, who're reporting back to other spies."

He was about to ask who the spy in the Queen's household was, but he thought better of it. Anyone could have over-heard him talking at the party, and he hadn't yet remembered just how dangerous a hunting meeting with friends could be, when you're at Court. The fact was, the Exeters had become his friends while everyone else was too scared to come near him.

"But you yourself have a spy in Ursula Pole," Margaret reminded him pointedly. "That's the implication, anyway."

"She isn't a spy," he corrected her. "She is just watching over some people for me. Some friends."

He could have kicked himself for slipping so easily back into the world of Court politics; it took for him to be on the receiving end of it to realise what he had done.

"Well, whatever she is," replied Margaret. "Just be careful of who's company you keep now. Until the Queen births a son, there could still be trouble ahead for you."

Arthur breathed more easily as the More finally came into view. He watched the vast, fortified walls grow larger, and more stark against the lush rural settings, the nearer they got. As soon as they were through the wrought iron gates, they gathered their belongings, eager to stretch their legs again.

"No more talk of this now, brother," said Margaret with a rueful smile. "I want to enjoy my break from Court."

Arthur looked at her, just as the carriage finally came to a halt. "I couldn't agree more," he said.

As he stepped down from the carriage, he didn't bother waiting around for the footmen to arrive and take their things. It was only now that he was back that he realised how much he had missed Catherine, and was eager to be back in her arms. He had been gone for just three weeks; it felt like an eternity. He linked his arm through Margaret's and walked her towards the doors, excited to be bringing her to his new home. But, as they entered, the grim faced physician left.

"Your Grace," he bowed to Arthur and Margaret as they almost passed him by unnoticed.

The two of them stopped, and the smiles froze on their faces as they realised who he was. It was the King's own physician, Dr William Butts. Arthur's heart hammered, and his mouth ran dry. He didn't summon a physician; Henry must have done it to check up on him. Then that left the question of just how serious the situation was.

"Doctor," stammered Arthur. "Is everything all right?"

He searched the doctor's face for answers, but his expression was unreadable. "Her Grace, the Duchess, is waiting for you in the Solar, Your Grace," Butts finally answered. "You had best speak to her yourself."

"Thank you, doctor," said Margaret, and squeezed Arthur closer to her for comfort. "She's a tough one, brother," she tried to assure him as they passed the physician. "I am sure all is well."

Ignoring the bows of the household staff, Arthur made straight for the solar with Margaret trailing after him. When they entered, they found Catherine at the window, with her back to them. She was perfectly still; as though turned to stone. Arthur paused at the doorway, and nodded to Margaret to remain outside while he went in.

"Cate," he softly said, as he approached her slowly. "Cate, how are you?"

Catherine turned from the window, and Arthur tried not to be shocked by the change in her appearance. Her skin was pale, and her features pinched. Her normally dazzling eyes were lined red; puffy from tears. Arthur began to prepare himself for the worst, and was about to try and coax more information from her, when she spoke.

"Arthur," she said, her voice cracked with emotion. "I am with child."