Three Sisters, Three Queens

STIRLING CASTLE, SCOTLAND, CHRISTMAS 1513

We have a quiet Christmas. I have no money to spend on feasting and dances, and no one is in the mood for a celebration. The court is in mourning, still shocked by the loss of so many men. There is no handsome king to call for music or wine, and there is no money to pay for either.

The old advisor, the Earl of Angus, retires to his castle, perched on a cliff at Tantallon, and dies at Whithorn to the sound of calling gulls. The title goes to his grandson, a young man in my household who serves as my carver, and I have lost another experienced man. My council is divided between those who would like to make peace with England, our dangerous neighbor, and those who will never forgive the English for our losses and long to take French money to make war on them for our revenge.

But we have one visitor who makes the arduous journey north from London, traveling slowly through the mud and the ice, struggling through the snowdrifts, rising late in the dark mornings, having to find shelter in the dark afternoons. Friar Bonaventure Langley brings me the condolences of my sister-in-law, as if all my troubles were not made by her. Incredibly, Katherine, knowing that I am widowed, knowing that I am with child, knowing that I am alone in a dangerous kingdom with a little boy in my keeping, knowing that I am penniless and heartbroken, thinks that the most helpful thing she can do is to send me a confessor.

Gently, he takes my hands; kindly, he signs the cross over my bowed head. I kiss the crucifix he offers me as he helps me to rise, and then he says: “Can you assure me, daughter, that he really is dead? There is a fearsome rumor in England and abroad that the King of Scots is alive. The queen must know—she has promised her husband that she will discover the truth.”

I feel a wave of nausea and bile rises into my mouth. I put my hand to my face and swallow it down like grief. “She sent you all this way to ask me this? In the steps of the army who killed him?”

“She promised the King of England that it was done. She has a body. She has to know for sure that it is the right body.”

What a ghoul this woman is.

“He’s dead,” I say bitterly. “Oh, reassure her. Set her loving heart at rest. She has not boasted to her husband without reason. She didn’t steal the wrong corpse. She killed my husband and half the nobility of Scotland. He’s dead all right. She can set her tender heart at peace. Make sure you thank her for her kind inquiry.”