CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Early 1531
Arthur Tudor had been put to death, on the orders of his own brother and king.
When Mary heard the news, her mind went blank for a full minute, and when she regained her senses, her hands were shaking. She was hot all over, then cold, then hot again.
She hadn't expected to grieve Arthur like this.
She had expected to cry for her mother, who had lost her husband once more, and this time for good; for her father, who had had to execute his own brother; for little Owen, who would never know his father; but not for Arthur himself, and certainly not for her own sake.
It seemed she had misjudged her own heart.
She thought of him as a young man her age, suffering from panic attacks and a despair so deep that he staged his own death. He had found comfort in obscurity for ages, before returning to the very palace that made him so ill, to a place where everyone despised him. Against all odds, he had worked to find himself some happiness, but he could not escape the ghosts of his past. And now, thanks to the ambitions of others, he had actually died this time.
Her parents, Anne, and all her aunts and uncles remained in London, meaning Mary was still the interim Lady of the More. As often as not, though, Lady Stafford had to take over Mary's duties as she was out of sorts. She was shaken to remember that she had once wished Arthur dead.
Halfheartedly she registered the other bits of news coming in from London. Ursula Pole and Jane Seymour had both been stripped of their titles and banished to nunneries, Ursula out of deference to her mother's lifetime of service and Jane for the unwitting nature of her complicity. Eliza Barton, the false prophet, had been hanged, and Edward Bocking had been banished to Ireland rather than executed - a stroke of mercy Mary would not have expected.
Winter held England in an icy grip as much as grief did, and it was late February before the weather improved enough that her mother finally returned to the More. With her arrival, it was as though something was unlocked inside Mary, and although she had turned fifteen a fortnight ago, she found herself sobbing in her arms like a child.
Dimly, she remembered how her mother had been when Arthur first came back, how lost she had been. How Mary had had to be the one to hold her up. How Katherine of Aragon had seemed as though she would never find direction or joy again. She regarded her mother, hoping she would not go down that same path again. But although pain was writ all over her countenance, and she was dressed in widow's reeds, there was no trace of the previous melancholy that had afflicted her. Mary was glad of that much.
Mother went straight to the nursery, to be reunited with her son. Owen cooed delightfully when Mary picked him up, but began protesting when she tried to pass him to his mother. Reluctantly she took him back.
"You have been more his mother these months than I have," Mother said ruefully, watching her two children together. "No wonder he is more comfortable in your arms. He must think me a pitiful excuse for a mother, leaving him behind when he was only three weeks old."
The words were meant in jest, but Mary twisted immediately to face her mother. "No," she said with quiet fierceness. "Few mothers could have ridden out for battle barely a month after giving birth, but you did. You waited twenty years for him, and when his life was threatened, you went to war for him. He is blessed to have been born to such a queen as you."
Mother's eyes become overbright.
Eventually, Owen warmed up enough to her that he allowed Mother to take his little hands into hers, while seated on his sister's lap. "He knows his mother," Mary said.
Mother smiled faintly. "Perhaps he would know me even better if I could nurse him. But I'm afraid my milk has dried up with all the stress of this last half-year, and I'm not sure if it will return."
She became quiet again as she watched Owen grabbing at her finger, and in the silence, Mary reflected that Owen had been the only child her mother was able to nurse, and the last one.
Owen grew drowsy, and they bore him back to his cradle. Side by side they stood, watching him sleep.
"Your father has made me the Duchess of Clarence in my own right, so I have all of Arthur's lands, titles, and possessions. And also so that Owen may inherit," Mother whispered.
"That's good, if it means Owen will be secured," Mary replied. "But suppose his noble title should also make him a target for treason, as it did for - for his father?"
She managed to say the word without stumbling.
"For now a tentative marriage contract has been drawn up between Owen and the Princess Elizabeth, to unite the opposing claims," Mother said.
Mary tried not to think that if such a betrothal had been made earlier, Arthur might have been saved. The upstarts would have found some pretext or another. Rebellion was like water seeping through rock, and the only sure safeguard was a healthy son from the King's marriage.
"The Queen is pregnant once more," Mother continued, unknowingly echoing Mary's thoughts.
"I hope it is a son," she said fervently, "so that Owen might be spared.
"And also," Mary turned to face her mother, a half-smile tugging at her lips, "so that I do not have two siblings who are married to each other."
Mother chuckled, although it was muted by grief and Owen's slumber. "Stranger things have come about," she murmured.
She dropped a kiss on her sleeping boy's forehead, and then mother and daughter left the room. Outside the nursery, her mother turned to her. "Your father has summoned you to court. I will be staying here, as I must get to know Owen again, and I must wrap up affairs. I do not want to stay in the More anymore."
Mary felt a pang at leaving this place behind, where she had been mistress of the household for the first time, but she could understand why her mother wished to leave this castle that was now only a cruel reminder of happier times.
"Where will we be moving?" Mary asked, as her ladies moved to begin packing her trunks.
"Ludlow," her mother said absently, as she examined their work. "Pack only the simplest of necessities — I shall have the majority of your belongings conveyed behind you. It is best if you reach court as soon as possible. Your father wants you to meet Queen Anne and your half-sister — and he also wants your presence by him in a time like this."
Something like relief coursed through Mary at those words. Although she was secure in her father's love, it always reassured her to be reminded of it.
Anne Boleyn was not as ugly as her worst detractors made her out to be, but nor was she a great beauty. She was rather plain-faced, her eyes her only bewitching feature. She was polite enough to Mary, but she was standoffish, and a part of Mary that was still childishly loyal to her mother thought that Anne did not hold herself at all like a queen.
But she shook those thoughts off and instead focused on her little sister, Elizabeth, whom she was finally allowed to meet, and the clear love between mother and daughter. Elizabeth clung tightly to her mother, even when Anne whispered coaxing words to her, and Mary remembered that they had been trapped inside the palace during the siege. Anne had held her own during that battle, Mary recalled, while Katherine put down the rebels in the North.
They settled down on the nursery floor, Elizabeth nestled in Anne's lap and Mary seated across from them, as Bessie played with her toys. Her favorite was her wooden horse. She ran around the room pretending to ride her filly, to great encouragement from both her mother and her sister. Mary was as enchanted by Elizabeth's delight as by the pride Anne obviously had in her little girl. As they played together, Bessie became more comfortable with Mary holding her, and grabbed at her red tresses, the Tudor hair they both shared. When the toddler grew tired, Anne could not carry her - she was newly pregnant, and still weakened by her miscarriage - and Elizabeth allowed Mary to bear her away to bed. She and Anne tucked her in together, and Mary reflected that the silence was not uncomfortable, just as it had not been with Arthur. She felt a fresh wave of grief at the thought.
She had made her peace with her stepfather before he died; she knew she could do the same with her stepmother.