Three Sisters, Three Queens

WINDSOR CASTLE, ENGLAND, SUMMER 1502

We do get used to it. That’s the difference between being royal and being a commoner of no importance. We can grieve and pray and break our hearts on the inside, but on the outside we still have to make the court the center of beauty and fashion and art, my father still has to pass laws and meet with the Privy Council and guard against rebels and the constant threat of the French, and we still have to have a Prince of Wales, even though the true prince, the beloved Prince Arthur, will never take his seat next to the throne again. Harry is the Prince of Wales now and, as he predicted, I get used to it.

But they won’t send him to Ludlow. This makes me angrier than anything; but since we are royal I can say nothing. Darling Arthur had to go to Ludlow to rule his principality, to learn the business of being king, to prepare him for the greatness that was to be his; but now that they have lost him they won’t let Harry out of their sight. My mother wants her last surviving son at home. My father is fearful that he might lose his only heir. And my grandmother advises my father that between the two of them they can teach Harry everything he needs to know to be a king, and that they had better keep him at court. Precious Harry does not have to go far away, nor marry a strange princess. No veiled beauty is going to be brought in to lord it over all of us. Harry can be under his grandmother’s eye, under her wing, under her thumb as if they would keep him a spoiled baby forever.

Katherine of Arrogant—not arrogant at all now, but white-faced and thin and pale—comes back from Ludlow in a closed litter. My lady mother is absurdly indulgent to her, though she has done nothing for our family at all but steal Arthur away from us for the last months of his life. Mother weeps over her, and holds her hand, walks with her and they pray together. She invites her to visit, so we have her black silks and velvets, her incredibly rich black mantilla, her stupid silent Spanish presence, sweeping up and down the galleries all the time, and my lady mother orders that we all say nothing that might upset her.

But really, whatever would upset her? She pretends to understand neither English nor French as I speak it; and I am not going to attempt a conversation in Latin. Even if I wanted to pour out my grief and jealousy, I would not be able to find words that she would understand. When I speak to her in French, she looks completely blank; and when I am sitting next to her at dinner I turn my shoulder to show that I have nothing to say to her. She went to Ludlow with the most beautiful, kind, loving prince the world has ever known and she failed to keep him, so now he is dead and she is marooned in England—and I am supposed not to upset her? Should not my lady mother consider that perhaps she upsets me?

She is living, at enormous expense, at Durham House in the Strand. I suppose they will send her home to Spain, but my father is unwilling to pay her jointure as a widow when he still has not received her full dowry as a bride. The wasted wedding alone cost thousands: the castle with the dancers, the peach silk sails of the masquing boat! The treasure house of England is always empty. We live very grandly, as a royal family should do, but my father pays out a fortune on spies and couriers to watch the courts of Europe for fear of our Plantagenet cousins in exile plotting to return and seize our throne. Guarding the kingdom by bribing friends and spying on enemies is terribly costly; my father and lady grandmother invent fees and taxes all the time to raise the money they need. I don’t believe that my father can find the money to send Katherine home to the land of Arrogance, so he keeps her here, saying that she will be comforted by her late husband’s family, while he deals with her tight-fisted father to make an agreement to send her home to Spain and turn a profit.

She is supposed to be in mourning, living in seclusion, but she is always here. I come into the nursery one afternoon to find the room in uproar, and she is at the very center of it, playing at jousting with my sister Mary. They have lined up cushions to serve as the tilt rail that divides one horse from the other, and they are running either side of the tilt and hitting each other with cushions as they pass. Mary, who has developed little unconvincing sobs every time that Arthur is named in our memorial prayers in chapel, is now romping and laughing, and her cap has fallen off, her mass of golden curls is tumbled down, and her gown is tucked into her waistband so that she can run as if she were a milkmaid chasing cows. Katherine, no longer the silent, dark-gowned widow, has her black dress bunched in one hand so that she can paw the ground with her expensive black leather shoe, and canter down her side of the list and bump my little sister on her head with a cushion. The ladies of the nursery, far from calling for decorum, are placing bets and laughing and cheering them on.

I march in and I snap as if I were my lady grandmother: “What is this?”

It’s all I say; but I swear that Katherine understands. The laughter dies in her eyes and she turns to face me, a little shrug suggesting that there is nothing very serious here, just playing in the nursery with my sister. “Nothing. This is nothing,” she says in English, her Spanish accent strong.

I see that she understands English perfectly, just as I had always thought.

“These are not the days for silly games,” I say slowly and loudly.

Again that little foreign roll of the shoulders. I think with a pang of pain that perhaps Arthur found that little gesture charming. “We are in mourning,” I say sternly, letting myself look around the room, resting my eyes on every downcast face, just as my lady grandmother does when she scolds the entire court. “We are not playing silly games like idiots on the village green.”

I doubt that she understands “idiots on the village green,” but no one could misunderstand my tone of contempt. Her color rises as she pulls herself up to her greatest height. She is not tall; but now she seems to be above me. Her dark blue eyes look into mine and I stare back at her, daring her to argue with me.

“I was playing with your sister,” she says in her low voice. “She needs a happy time. Arthur did not want . . .”

I can’t bear her to say his name, this girl who came from Spain and took him away from court and watched him die. How dare she so casually say “Arthur” to me—who cannot speak his name for grief?

“His Grace would want his sister to behave as a Princess of England,” I spit out, more like my grandmother than ever. Mary lets out a wail and runs to one of the ladies to cry in her lap. I ignore her completely. “The court is in full mourning, there are to be no loud games, or dances, or heathen pursuits.” I look Katherine up and down with disdain. “I am surprised at you, Dowager Princess. I shall be sorry to tell my lady grandmother that you were forgetful of your place.”

I think I have shamed her in front of everyone, and I turn to the door glowing with triumph. But just as I am about to go out she says quietly and simply, “No, it is you who are wrong, Sister. Prince Arthur asked me to play with Princess Mary, and to walk and talk with you. He knew that he was dying, and he asked me to comfort you all.”

I spin round and I fly at her and pull her arm, drawing her away from the others, so that no one else can hear. “He knew? Did he give you a message for me?”

In that moment I am certain he has sent me words of farewell. Arthur loved me, I loved him, we were everything to each other. He would have sent a private good-bye just for me. “What did he tell you to tell me? What did he say?”

Her eyes slide away from mine and I think: there is something here that she is not telling me. I don’t trust her. I press her close to me as if I were embracing her.

“I am sorry, Margaret. I am so sorry,” she says, detaching herself from my hard grip. “He said nothing more than that he hoped no one would grieve for him and that I would comfort his sisters.”

“And you?” I say. “Did he command you not to grieve for him?”

Her eyelids lower; now I know there is some secret here. “We spoke privately before he died,” is all she says.

“About what?” I ask rudely.

She looks up suddenly and her eyes are blazing dark blue with passion. “I gave him my word,” she flares out. “He asked for a promise and I gave it.”

“What did you promise?”

The fair eyelashes shield her eyes again; once more she looks down, keeping her secret, keeping my brother’s last words from me.

“Non possum dicere,” she says.

“What?” I give her arm a little shake as if she were Mary and I might slap her. “Speak in English, stupid!”

Again she gives me that burning look. “I may not say,” she says. “But I assure you that I am guided by his last wishes. I will always be guided by his wishes. I have sworn.”

I feel completely blocked by her determination. I can’t persuade her and I can’t bully her. “Anyway, you shouldn’t be running about and making a noise,” I say spitefully. “My lady grandmother won’t like it, and my lady mother is resting. You have probably disturbed her already.”

“She is with child?” the young woman asks me quietly. Really, it is none of her business. And besides, my mother would not have had to conceive another child if Arthur had not died. It is practically Katherine’s fault that my mother is exhausted and facing another confinement.

“Yes,” I say pompously. “As you should be. We sent a litter to Ludlow to bring you home so you did not have to ride because we thought that you would be with child. We were being considerate to you, but it seems that there was no need for our courtesy.”

“Alas, it never happened for us,” she says sadly, and I am so furious that I go out of the room slamming the door, before I have time to wonder just what she means by that. “Alas, it never happened for us”?

What never happened?