Three Sisters, Three Queens

JEDBURGH, SCOTLAND, AUTUMN 1532

I ride south to the borders, to join James. He is holding courts, executing sheep stealers and cattle rustlers, regardless of whether they come from the south or the north of the border, promising war with England.

“I will have peace in the borderlands,” he says tersely. “I will not stop till I get the English out of our sheepfolds and our towers.”

“This isn’t the way to do it,” I say gently. “You cannot frighten people into peace.”

“That was the Douglas way,” he observes.

“It was.”

“Do you ever think of him?”

I smile and shake my head, as if I am deeply uninterested in Ard: “Hardly ever.”

“You know I have to make the borders safe.”

“I do, and I think you are the king that will do it. But don’t threaten Harry with war. He will only bluster back. He has more troubles in his life than he can solve. If he continues to declare against the Pope, to insult the aunt of the emperor, he will find himself named a heretic king and all the Catholic kings will be authorized to make war on him. That is when you should declare against him. Not before. And now, while he is getting a reputation so terrible that kings will shrink from him—this is the time that you should negotiate with him for whatever you want.”

“I thought you were an English princess and the Tudors would always come first,” James remarks. “You’ve changed your tune.”

“I came here to bring peace between England and Scotland, but Harry has made it impossible,” I say frankly. “Again and again I have been loyal to him, but he has not been loyal to me, nor to my sister, nor to my sister-in-law, his wife. I think he has become a man that no one can trust.”

“That’s true,” James nods.

“He has moved my sister-in-law to a little house at Bishop’s Hatfield and forbidden her daughter from seeing her. He has put a whore in my mother’s rooms. He has gone too far. I cannot support my brother, I have to cleave to my sisters. I cannot be on his side.”

James looks at me, measuring my intent. “Yet when he calls for you, you’ll go running to him.”

“Not this time,” I say. “Not ever again.”