1501
Souvent me souviens.
I remember often.
She wears the severest of widow's weeds and hair shirts beneath, but she must have pomp and grandeur wherever she goes.
The pillars of the her private closet are richly painted and gilded and topped by fantastic beasts - the dragons of Wales, unicorns of the Scots, Plantagenet griffins, Mortimer's white lions and the yales of Beaufort. They writhe in pain like so many sinners on the fiery racks of hell, tortured and twisted, grim and gaunt and grotesque. They are stone and marble but their faces are strikingly, disorientingly human in their pain. Beautiful, yes, but monstrous, perverted.
All beauty is so - perverse. Grotesque. Sinful. Best that you see it for what it is now, Arthur, least you come to pain later.
Apricot-coloured light filters through the leaded panes of the lancet windows. Coloured leather lozenges pattern the walls. They are stamped with the white roses of York, the red roses of Lancaster and the great red-and-white rose that is the symbol of the Tudors. A nimbus of pale light shines about her bowed head as she kneels in prayer. The Queen of England bows only to the King of Heaven.
"Arthur," she says, when she is done. She rises and shuts her illuminated Book of Hours. Something like a smile, but not quite so warm, nor so welcoming, flits over her face. "My prince." Fifteen-year-old Arthur, the Duke of Cornwall, kneels before her to receive her blessing.
"Sit, child," she says and he sits on a cushioned footstool while she takes the only chair in the room - the high-backed chair of carved ebony under the royal canopy. Being the eldest, he is her favourite grandchild - the rest of the children follow in her prayers in order of their age. Margaret, who bears her face, her name and something of her nature, is second. Wilful, high-spirited Henry is third and little Mary last of all. She does not favour the younger two much - Henry's wild ways are not to her taste and she has already decided that he will need a thorough breaking in at the hands of the Church. Mary is little more than a babe out of the nursery, too young to be wedded and bedded. And then, besides that, she is a pretty child, as pretty as her mother.
Beware the fair face, Arthur. It will tempt you to sin and undo you.
Sometimes Arthur thinks that she despises all pretty women on principle - because she herself was born hatchet-faced and with the hooded eyes and temper of a dragoness.
"Your young bride shall be brought to us today," she says, watching him closely. "Taken a long time about this coming, haven't they?"
He nods. The original contract had been that Catalina should be sent to England after she had reached womanhood, to be bred at the Tudor court. Yet the King of Aragon and the Queen of Castile had dithered and dallied for five years and it was only now that they were sending the Infanta. Their reason had been that they could not bear to part with Catalina, their youngest and loveliest, but the truth had been that they were open to other options. Shows what they think of us, Arthur thought dryly. They might call my lady grandmother a saint on earth but they cannot forget that she is only a woman and our dynasty new-come. Hardly a bargain to wed a daughter of Castile and Aragon to us.
"Is the thought of marriage pleasing to you?"
He blushes.
"They are," she says, with a grimace. "No matter. You are young yet and... pleasure when found in lawful and holy matrimony cannot be a sin." Her voice is acrid. "Though I never found it a pleasure."
He pours forth the compliments that he knows will please her. "You are too virtuous for that, Lady Grandmother," he says. "Marital pleasures sate only lesser beings, common swine - you could find your pleasure only in prayer and fasting. Is not that as it should be?" She was so frigid and formidable - he wondered how his grandfather had ever dared bed her. Only cold stone and starvation could bring such a woman any pleasure.
Perhaps that is the beginning of virtue.
The same ghost of a smile flits over her face. "You were always a good boy, Arthur," she says. "Your wits are as fair as your face, though I always did say you were lacking in piety... well, no matter. Men sin worse than women. It is their birthright and why should I complain if Elizabeth of York's son has something of her father in him?" She purses her lips but continues, "No matter. You will make a fair king, perhaps nothing miraculous... but fair enough. Much like your noble father. Your Spanish bride ought to thank Our Lord on her knees for giving her such a husband. I had saints' knees by the time I was nine, did I ever tell you?"
Yes, you told me when I was nine and then chastised me in front of the whole court for my lascivious and unprincely ways since I had no worn-out knees to show you. "I believe so, My Lady Grandmother," he says pleasantly.
"Blue eyes and red-gold hair," she continues. "She is more English than Spanish. Pretty enough. The people will love her." Her voice is flinty and her eyes narrow as she looks at him, "More than pretty, I should say. A little beauty, is she not? We saw her portrait. You seemed quite taken with her, as I recollect."
"Portraits lie," he replies indifferently. "What is it to whiten the skin or to will away a few sorry pockmarks? Blue eyes are fine enough, but not even the bonniest of eyes can make a foul face fair."
The Queen smiles, contented.
Good boy, Arthur. Good dog, Arthur.
"You are wise beyond your years," she says. "I had feared that you would turn out... licentious. Or worse, passionate." Like your grandfather who was led astray by that Woodville witch. "There are some sad stories of men who felt most ungovernable passions for women. To their undoing."
Does it rankle in your heart that my mother's mother was a woman like that, and you were not? Your court was once hers. Did you fear that she would steal it from you a second time, when you condemned her to that bleak abbey?
"Repulsive, really. But you have a good head on your shoulders. Yet still, you ought to be wary. Of enchantments."
"Enchantments?" he repeats, blinking. "Isabella of Castile's daughter a witch? But the Pope calls her Isabel la Católica!" Isabel, our most beloved daughter. Margaret, our most beloved daughter. Does it rankle that the Queen of Castile is moulded of the same fire and metal as yourself? Queens, both of you, who forged their way where men and angels dared not tread.
"I did not term her a witch," she says coldly.
Though you wanted to, no doubt, and you would do so at the slightest provocation.
"But she is a young maid, and fair - she will be full of a maiden's tricks. They raised her in a Moorish palace - she will be full of vile, heathen wiles and her father is a fox, if ever there was one... he will have had a hand in raising her." She scowls. "You will have to break her in. Thoroughly. Teach her to mind, teach her where her place is. Give her an inch and she will take a mile."
He hesitates, before voicing an objection. His grandmother does not take kindly to objections. "Her letters-"
"Were dictated to her by her tutor, as were yours to her," the Queen snorted.
He blushes and looks away. For eight years they had been forced to write to eachother once a month. At first it had been a chore - writing the letters was actually an exercise in Latin and penmanship -, then a duty and in the last few months a pleasure. "She has a gentle face." He noticed her frown and quickly added, "The face of a flower. The heart of a serpent."
She nodded and continued. "You will get her with child soon. You are young and lusty, I presume, and if they have sent us barren stock-" Her face twisted. "If they have sent us barren stock, we will shame them before Christendom and send the girl back to them, neither virgin nor wife."
"We are young yet," Arthur said. "Why must we have a child so soon?"
"Our dynasty is young yet," she answered. "Your mother has given your father only two sons. Henry and you are our only heirs, our roses. The only hope that England has."
Arthur thought about his little brother scratching his hair and picking at his nose as he often did at private suppers, when their parents and their lady grandmother was not present. Our only hope for England indeed, he thought dryly.
"You are the Duke of Cornwall and when your first son is born he will be made the Duke of Richmond."
"That's Harry," Arthur objected. "Harry's the Duke of Richmond."
"For now," his grandmother replied. "When your son is born, we will send your brother to the Church - he sadly needs the discipline."
And of course you promised God one of your grandsons. I suppose we'll have to make Harry Archbishop of Canterbury. A cardinal, perhaps. You want to make him Pope too, don't you? The first English Pope since Nicholas Breakspeare. How grand. His first order as Pope will be to authorize jousting in place of Mass.
"I was toying with idea of sending you back to Wales - but no. It is bitter cold now and your Spanish bride is but new to a harsh clime."
He was surprised at her consideration.
"If you get her with child, she might lose the babe due to the inclemency of the elements. And miscarrying her first child might harm the others to come."
Oh.
"Besides, I will need you under my eye - see how you take to the girl." There is a gleam in her eyes - a jealous gleam.
"I will take to her as a man takes to a new filly," he answers. "Sugar lumps if she will let herself be gentled, the whip and spur if she will not." He wonders whether his grandfather had ever thought of doing the same to his grandmother. She had been only twelve when she had been wed to Edmund Tudor but even as a child she must have been more frightening than most grown women - or men, come to think of that.
"Good. So your father and your fair mother will hie themselves to Wales. Perhaps they might make a new brother for you. There's little else to do but make babes during a Welsh winter - the nights are so long and bedwarmers so welcome." Perhaps she might die. Childbed or the cold. We might broker a new marriage for Henry. And in any case I have let that woman corrupt the children for too long. They will be better watched when she is away. "And your father will do well to see to the North."
Scotsmen and raiders, outlaws and barons with their own little armies, he thinks and is grateful that it is not him being sent away to watch Wales.
"I expect that she will be carrying your child by summer - midsummer at latest. When we know for certain, you will go to Wales."
"The Infanta?"
"What about her?"
"Will she not go with me?"
His grandmother's eyes widen in horror. "Whatever for?"
He hesitates. "We are to be man and wife..."
"Do you ever listen to anything I say?" she says irritably. "She will be with child when you are sent to Wales - what possible use could you have for her then? If the babe is a girl, we will send her to you as soon as she is churched. If it is a boy you will see her again in a few years, I suppose, though if the child proves sickly we might need to send her to you before that."
A brood mare, this and nothing more. He smiles. "So she will be under your eye?"
The Queen nods grimly. "Certainly. I do not trust to the breaking in you will give her, Arthur - you are too gentle. Much like your namesake." She frowns. "If he had been a proper man he would have burnt his queen at the stake. Fair Guinevere indeed!"
"All fair women are so," he says. "Vain, presumptuous, ignorant, devious, unchristian. Witches."
She smiles. "It pleases me that we are of one mind."
From the roof of the palace he could see all of London, spread out like a fool's motley in gay greens and blues and golds at his feet. The wind whipped at his hair and clothes and brought a smile to his lips. Idly, he toyed with the idea of getting a painter to paint a portrait of London herself.
She wears a fairer face than that of any woman, he thought. What vanity to paint simpering women who will wither away in a few short years. This woman, my woman, will never fade.
His closest friend, Gruffydd ap Rhys ap Thomas, spoke. "She is at Lambeth Palace?"
It took him a moment to realize that Gruff was talking about Catalina of Aragon. His lovely bride. Of course. "Yes," he said absently.
"A lusty bridegroom to be sure," Gruff said dryly.
He smiled. "A very timid bridegroom," he confessed. "I scarcely know what to do."
Gruff's eyebrows rose but loyal friend that he was, he only said, "Well we could fix that up at Haresfield tonight."
He laughed. "Would you have me whore after I have danced at tonight's banquet with my bride?" The thought struck him as absurd - to laugh with a lady and then to dawdle a whore in one night. "No, I think I know enough about a woman to-to-" He blushed as Gruff grinned.
"Mayhap I might coach the Spanish Princess in the ways of love in your place," he teased. "Stafford met her at Dogmersfield and by God, he says she's a very Helen, ripe to be stolen and ravished."
He'd know, that one, Arthur thought. He's a connoisseur of horseflesh and woman's flesh.
"They've bred her in the Moorish arts," he continued.
Oh? Arthur thought, deeply interested. He waited patiently, hoping to hear something interesting.
"She wore a veil of silk like they do in the East, but she whipped it off, half-coy, half-bold, when he came before her. And then she blushed prettily and said she thought it was her prince come to carry her off. Stafford says he never saw anything more enchanting - beauty can be bought, he said, but not so charm." Gruff grinned. "Mayhap I won't need to coach the Princess in the ways of love - perhaps she is skilled enough to do it for me."
Arthur laughed politely but misgivings stirred in him. Bold and coy at once, he thought. Isabella of Castile's daughter trained in Moorish arts? As charming as she is beautiful? Dear God, what is this girl made of?
Gilded were the walls and gilded the floors of the Infanta's chamber. Gold were the roses carved on the woodwork, gilt the roses sculpted on the airy columns, glass were the roses painted on the stained glass. Silver were the pomegranates broidered on the rich tapestries, silk the pomegranates stitched on the soft carpets, steel the pomegranates engraved on her hairbrushes and jewellery chests.
Gold and silver, gilt and silk, glass and steel was the girl they called a woman as she stood before the looking glass. She wore velvet, black because it was Queen Margaret's favourite colour. A constellation of glass shards glittered on the wide skirt and the narrow bodice. The sleeves were slashed to reveal the cloth-of-silver chemise underneath. Her long hair had been left in a child's plait for the moment because they had not come to an agreement about the choice of headdress.
Dona Elvira would tell her that she saw no girl. She would tell her that she saw a proud daughter of the House of Trastámara, a princess as beautiful as Guinevere of Camelot but more chaste. She would say that she saw Isabella of Castile's daughter. A princess, a bride, an alliance, an empire - everything but the frightened girl who still peeped out from behind those blue eyes lined by black and gold.
Catalina steeled herself and turned to her ladies.
"I look well," she said coolly, secretly hoping that they would reassure her that she looked more than well, that she looked magnificent. But she must not appear to be vain. That was a sin. "I hope the Queen will be pleased."
"Don't hope for it," sour Dona Elvira warned her. "She's prickly and finicky and nothing ever suits her - or if it does, she won't mention it. If she were anyone else she would- but there. You look well, Infanta."
Maria de Salinas, Catalina's dearest friend, laughed. "Just well, Dona Elvira? You are ravishing, Catalina."
"Luminous," plump, little Margarita de Enriquez said.
"A feast to the senses-"
"A bouquet to fan the passions-"
"Let us hope the prince's lust is as red as the roses that he wears-" said Alita de Castillo, the lowest-born of the maids of honor, who fancied herself very clever.
"Ladies," Dona Elvira said sharply. "Such talk is not seemly, not maidenly. There is nothing more becoming on young maids than silence."
"I would say," Alita said reflectively. "That nothing is most becoming on a young maid."
Catalina giggled. "Not so, Alita," she said reprovingly. "That would leave nothing to the imagination and that'd be a pity, I'd say."
Alita flashed her an impish smile. "Let's see what your prince has to say. Would he prefer anything left to his imagination? I would not if I were the merry bridegroom in his place."
Dona Elvira was sorting through Catalina's headdresses for a suitable one for her presentation to the Queen. Tonight, she would be officially presented before the whole court and after that there would be a state banquet, open to the public. All of London, nay, all of England was curious to see the Duke of Cornwall's Spanish bride. It would be just like an exhibition and Catalina would be the quaint and curious beast exposed to the general gaze.
"No," Catalina said immediately, as Dona Elvira emerged with a fluffy mass of white lace. "Not a mantilla. Not tonight."
Dona Elvira looked stern. "What will you have, Infanta?"
"A gable hood such as the Princess of Wales wears. Perhaps a round hood such as the younger ladies of the court wear," she said. "Or no - I think it would be best if I wore the barbet and fillet that the Queen wears. I think we have one - I had it specially ordered." She pictured herself in the severe headdress the Queen of England wore. To be sure, it was not becoming but perhaps the Queen would approve. Perhaps she would see that Catalina was not a frivolous young girl at all, that she was made of sterner stuff.
"Infanta, you cannot be serious!" Dona Elvira was openly glowering at her. Under other circumstances, Catalina would have backed down but tonight she stood firm. She was a Princess of Spain and England and she would not cower in front of a mere lady-in-waiting.
"I can be serious, Dona Elvira," she said, drawing herself up to her full height. Alas, it was not very much - Catalina had always been tiny and at sixteen, she stood only five feet tall. Her only consolation was that the Queen was even smaller than her. And besides - there were things called heels too. Lovely things, them.
Dona Elvira sniffed as though she doubted it. "You are an Infanta of Aragon and Castile," she hissed. "You are not yet an Englishwoman, Infanta, though you pretend it."
"I will be in a week's time!"
"Oh aye," the woman agreed. "A week is a long time, yet, and things happen, Infanta, things happen..."
Maria raised an eyebrow. "What kind of things?" she asked.
Dona Elvira scowled at her. "Never you mind, girl," she snapped. "The Infanta is a daughter of Spain, not a wife of England yet, and so she must dress." She thrust the mantilla at Catalina.
Catalina thrust it back at her. "I will not appear to the court like a Spaniard," she said stubbornly. "It would be so rude, so disrespectful."
"No," Dona Elvira snapped. "It would appear dignified. If you turn up at court as an Englishwoman, with your tail between your legs, they will laugh and wonder if this can be Isabella of Castile's daughter and-"
"You dare?" Catalina hissed, stepping forwards. Automatically Dona Elvira backed down. "You dare question that I am my mother's daughter? I will have you shipped back to Spain and into a dungeon!"
Redheads and their tempers. Princesses and their tempers, Alita thought, smoothing her dark hair and wondering again why she had been born only a knight's daughter. Spoiled brat, she thought, I'd like to ship her back to Spain and into a dungeon!
"Your Grace," she said politely, stepping between the white-faced Dona Elvira and the red-faced Catalina. "Perhaps I can offer a compromise?"
Catalina turned towards her sulkily. "I will not wear a mantilla or a net or a snood or a-"
"You might leave your hair open," Alita suggested.
Catalina and Dona Elvira and all the maids turned to stare at her. In Spain they had seldom covered their hair but in England it was mandatory.
Dona Elvira was the first to recover. "It would not be seemly," she parroted. "Not seemly at all."
"Just this one time," Alita said smoothly. "At your first public appearance, what could be more right or proper? To leave your hair open and uncovered would show you to be the maiden you are. And it is a maiden they want, don't they?"
Catalina nodded slowly.
"Perhaps with your jewelled chaplet," Alita continued. She was impressed with herself. Perhaps my gentle princess will make me Mistress of her Wardrobe in time to come. "The one enamelled with orange blossoms?"
If Dona Elvira had been the whistling-type of woman she would have whistled. "What a clever idea, child! As virginal as the orange blossoms of a bride's bouquet."
Maria had already began to untangle Catalina's hair from the tight plait, Margarita and another Maria to rummage through her boxes for the required chaplet.
"Help me put it on, Alita," Catalina said gaily. She was just like a little girl, sunshine one moment, storm the other. Fierce and sweet and blisteringly unbearable.
Alita smiled sweetly and began to arrange the chaplet in her princess's hair. "You have beautiful hair," she said sincerely, for it was true. It reached to her knees, thick and soft and auburn. But then, everything about Catalina was beautiful - except for her character, of course. "Margarita," she called, "Hand me-"
"The orange-blossom fragrance," Margarita said, beaming. "Of course."
"Of course not," Alita said. "We have dressed her for the Queen. Now we must dress her for the grandson - the rose one. It will be more sensuous."
Catalina looked uncertain. "Is that entirely-"
Don't say seemly, Alita prayed.
"-Seemly?"
Dona Elvira was rubbing off on her.
"It is, Your Grace," she said. "You must remember that you are not to be wed to Queen Margaret, but to Prince Arthur. It is his pleasure, his desires that you must think of." She felt rather like she was tutoring a courtesan.
"How clever of you, Alita," Dona Elvira said acidly. "Pray where did you learn such clever tricks?"
"You would not like the answer, My Lady," Alita said as she gave Catalina's hair a final brushing. "There - you are lust personified, Infanta."
"Or Vanity," Catalina murmured. "Thank you, Alita. Come. It is time." Slim and stately, she rose and Alita backed away and fell into line with the other ladies. She was back in her place - a dutiful lady-in-waiting - while Catalina assumed her place as Princess.
"Catalina de Aragón de Trastámara y Trastámara, Infanta of Aragon and Castile!" the herald called out.
She walked towards the throne, head held high and chin thrust out. Be proud, she told herself, proud. Her hair fanned out behind her, auburn and gold, copper and bronze and a thousand rich tints of fire and sunset under the torchlight. Remember who you are, her mother's voice whispered to her. She walked slowly, deliberately, looking neither to the right, nor to the left, but only straight ahead. She saw nothing, singlemindedly she put one small, slippered foot in front of the other and focussed on not tripping.
And finally the journey, the long, long journey that had begun so many years ago and so many miles away was over. She knelt before the throne of England and before the formidable woman who had shaped the world to suit herself.
"Your Majesty," she said and then she felt two hands on her shoulders, raising her up. She felt a papery kiss on her cheek and two dark eyes burning into her own.
"Be welcome to our court, Catalina of Aragon," the Queen said. "Be welcome as our fair daughter."
A cheer went up and then it was all noise and more noise and perhaps words too... she felt herself asking for permission to present her ladies. It was granted graciously - she seems so tall, but she is shorter than even me, she thought for a moment that blurred into another - and then there were her ladies, as bright as a flock of peacocks, pretty and preening, names and faces that blurred together and smiles too...
Elizabeth of York with her face as lovely and empty as cool, sculpted marble... the Prince of Wales who was his mother all over again... the three red-haired children - my sons will all have red hair...
She had just begun to recover her dazed wits when the Queen said, "And last of all, your betrothed - our beloved Prince Arthur."
She sank into a deep curtsey and bowed and when they rose, his lips brushed her fingers. He winked at her when they were close but after he'd drawn away, his face became like his mother's - cool and inscrutable. She had not had time to see what colour his eyes were or whether he was handsome at all. Maria will be cross with me, she thought vaguely. She hoped his eyes would be blue.
"We will dine now," the Queen said imperiously and took Catalina's arm. Arthur covered his confusion quickly and dropped back in the line. He took his sister Margaret's arm while Harry gallantly offered little Mary his own arm. His father was with his mother, of course.
How well we are paired, Arthur thought dryly. I wonder how my lady grandmother will pair us when Catalina bears a child. Perhaps I shall be permitted to take my bride's arm when that happy occassion arises and my lady grandmother will offer her arm to the newest addition to our family. They began to walk.
"She's pretty," Margaret whispered, looking up at him.
"Jealous?" he whispered back at her.
Margaret grimaced. "No, but our lady grandmother is."
"She received the Infanta most graciously," he said.
"That's how I can tell she's jealous," Margaret said. "If she liked her, she'd be rude."
He laughed quietly. "D'you like her too?" He'd scarcely had time to look at her - but Margaret was quicker at this type of thing. She read people as he read books. Bold and coy at once, he remembered. "Did she seem..." he hesitated and then said. "Bold?"
Margaret looked puzzled. "She seemed rather shy," she said. "Frightened-like. Of course," she said, judiciously. "If I were in her place, I'd be too."
"You'll be in her place before long, little sister," he said sagely. "You're twelve now and they'll make a marriage for you soon. Then they'll send you away to make sons with a fat, ugly, old man with a crown on his head."
"Might be I'll be lucky," she said cheerfully. "You were lucky. Father was lucky."
"Ah, but we're men," Arthur said lazily. "Princes get pretty wives but princesses have to be content with whatever they get - and grateful that it's no worse. Like our lady grandmother."
Margaret said nothing but her face said, Our Lady Grandmother probably enjoyed it. She must have considered it a penance. They both knew how much their grandmother loved penances.