Spring 1510

Katherine did not tell her young husband of the visit of the Moorish doctor, nor of the bad opinion that he had so honestly given her. She did not mention his visit to anyone, not even Lady Margaret Pole. She drew on her sense of destiny, on her pride, and on her faith that she was still especially favoured by God, and she continued with the pregnancy, not even allowing herself to doubt.

She had good reason. The English physician, Dr Fielding, remained confident, the midwives did not contradict him, the court behaved as if Katherine would be brought to bed of a child in March or April, and so she went through the spring weather, the greening gardens, the bursting trees, with a serene smile and her hand clasped gently against her rounded belly.

Henry was excited by the imminent birth of his child; he was planning a great tournament to be held at Greenwich once the baby was born. The loss of the girl had taught him no caution, he bragged all round the court that a healthy baby would soon come. He was forewarned only not to predict a boy. He told everyone that he did not mind if this first child was a prince or princess – he would love this baby for being the first-born, for coming to himself and the queen in the first flush of their happiness.

Katherine stifled her doubts, and never even said to Maria de Salinas that she had not felt her baby kick, that she felt a little colder, a little more distant from everything every day. She spent longer and longer on her knees in her chapel; but God did not speak to her, and even the voice of her mother seemed to have grown silent. She found that she missed Arthur – not with the passionate longing of a young widow, but because he had been her dearest friend in England, and the only one she could have trusted now with her doubts.

In February she attended the great Shrove Tuesday feast and shone before the court and laughed. They saw the broad curve of her belly, they saw her confidence as they celebrated the start of Lent. They moved to Greenwich, certain that the baby would be born just after Easter.

We are going to Greenwich for the birth of my child, the rooms are prepared for me as laid down in My Lady the King’s Mother’s Royal Book – hung with tapestries with pleasing and encouraging scenes, carpeted with rugs and strewn with fresh herbs. I hesitate at the doorway, behind me my friends raise their glasses of spiced wine. This is where I shall do my greatest work for England, this is my moment of destiny. This is what I was born and bred to do. I take a deep breath and go inside. The door closes behind me. I will not see my friends, the Duke of Buckingham, my dear knight Edward Howard, my confessor, the Spanish ambassador, until my baby is born.

My women come in with me. Lady Elizabeth Boleyn places a sweet-smelling pomander on my bedside table, Lady Elizabeth and Lady Anne, sisters to the Duke of Buckingham, straighten a tapestry, one at each corner, laughing over whether it leans to one side or the other. Maria de Salinas is smiling, standing by the great bed that is new-hung with dark curtains. Lady Margaret Pole is arranging the cradle for the baby at the foot of the bed. She looks up and smiles at me as I come in and I remember that she is a mother, she will know what is to be done.

‘I shall want you to take charge of the royal nurseries,’ I suddenly blurt out to her, my affection for her and my sense of needing the advice and comfort of an older woman is too much for me.

There is a little ripple of amusement among my women. They know that I am normally very formal, such an appointment should come through the head of my household after consultation with dozens of people.

Lady Margaret smiles at me. ‘I knew you would,’ she says, speaking in reply as intimate as myself. ‘I have been counting on it.’

‘Without royal invitation?’ Lady Elizabeth Boleyn teases. ‘For shame, Lady Margaret! Thrusting yourself forwards!’

That makes us all laugh at the thought of Lady Margaret, that most dignified of women, as someone craving patronage.

‘I know you will care for him as if he were your own son,’ I whisper to her.

She takes my hand and helps me to the bed. I am heavy and ungainly, I have this constant pain in my belly that I try to hide.

‘God willing,’ she says quietly.

Henry comes in to bid me farewell. His face is flushed with emotion and his mouth is working, he looks more like a boy than a king. I take his hands and I kiss him tenderly on the mouth. ‘My love,’ I say. ‘Pray for me, I am sure everything will go well for us.’

‘I shall go to Our Lady of Walsingham to give thanks,’ he tells me again. ‘I have written to the nunnery there and promised them great rewards if they will intercede with Our Lady for you. They are praying for you now, my love. They assure me that they are praying all the time.’

‘God is good,’ I say. I think briefly of the Moorish doctor who told me that I was not with child and I push his pagan folly from my mind. ‘This is my destiny and it is my mother’s wish and God’s will,’ I say.

‘I so wish your mother could be here,’ Henry says clumsily. I do not let him see me flinch.

‘Of course,’ I say quietly. ‘And I am sure she is watching me from al-Yan –’ I cut off the words before I can say them. ‘From paradise,’ I say smoothly. ‘From heaven.’

‘Can I get you anything?’ he asks. ‘Before I leave, can I fetch you anything?’

I do not laugh at the thought of Henry – who never knows where anything is – running errands for me at this late stage. ‘I have everything I need,’ I assure him. ‘And my women will care for me.’

He straightens up, very kingly, and he looks around at them. ‘Serve your mistress well,’ he says firmly. To Lady Margaret he says, ‘Please send for me at once if there is any news, at any time, day or night.’ Then he kisses me farewell very tenderly, and when he goes out they close the door behind him and I am alone with my ladies, in the seclusion of my confinement.

I am glad to be confined. The shady, peaceful bedroom will be my haven, I can rest for a while in the familiar company of women. I can stop play-acting the part of a fertile and confident queen, and be myself. I put aside all doubts. I will not think and I will not worry. I will wait patiently until my baby comes, and then I will bring him into the world without fear, without screaming. I am determined to be confident that this child, who has survived the loss of his twin, will be a strong baby. And I, who have survived the loss of my first child, will be a brave mother. Perhaps it might be true that we have surmounted grief and loss together: this baby and I.

I wait. All through March I wait, and I ask them to pin back the tapestry that covers the window so I can smell the scent of spring on the air and hear the seagulls as they call over the high tides on the river.

Nothing seems to be happening; not for my baby nor for me. The midwives ask me if I feel any pain, and I do not. Nothing more than the dull ache I have had for a long time. They ask if the baby has quickened, if I feel him kick me, but, to tell truth, I do not understand what they mean. They glance at one another and say over-loudly, over-emphatically, that it is a very good sign, a quiet baby is a strong baby; he must be resting.

The unease that I have felt right from the start of this second pregnancy, I put right away from me. I will not think of the warning from the Moorish doctor, nor of the compassion in his face. I am determined not to seek out fear, not to run towards disaster. But April comes and I can hear the patter of rain on the window, and then feel the heat of the sunshine, and still nothing happens.

My gowns that strained so tight across my belly through the winter feel looser in April, and then looser yet. I send out all the women but Maria, and I unlace my gown and show her my belly and ask if she thinks I am losing my girth.

‘I don’t know,’ she says; but I can tell by her aghast face that my belly is smaller, that it is obvious that there is no baby in there, ready to be born.

In another week it is obvious to everyone that my belly is going down, I am growing slim again. The midwives try to tell me that sometimes a woman’s belly diminishes just before her baby is born, as her baby drops down to be born, or some such arcane knowledge. I look at them coldly, and I wish I could send for a decent physician who would tell me the truth.

‘My belly is smaller and my course has come this very day,’ I say to them flatly. ‘I am bleeding. As you know, I have bled every month since I lost the girl. How can I be with child?’

They flutter their hands, and cannot say. They don’t know. They tell me that these are questions for my husband’s respected physician. It was he who had said that I was still with child in the first place, not them. They had never said that I was with child, they had merely been called in to assist with a delivery. It was not them who had said that I was carrying a baby.

‘But what did you think, when he said there was a twin?’ I demand. ‘Did you not agree when he said that I had lost a child and yet kept one?’

They shake their heads. They did not know.

‘You must have thought something,’ I say impatiently. ‘You saw me lose my baby. You saw my belly stay big. What could cause that if not another child?’

‘God’s will,’ says one of them helplessly.

‘Amen,’ I say, and it costs me a good deal to say it.

‘I want to see that physician again,’ Katherine said quietly to Maria de Salinas.

‘Your Grace, it may be that he is not in London. He travels in the household of a French count. It may be that he has gone.’

‘Find out if he is still in London, or when they expect him to return,’ the queen said. ‘Don’t tell anyone that it is I who have asked for him.’

Maria de Salinas looked at her mistress with sympathy. ‘You want him to advise you how to have a son?’ she asked in a low voice.

‘There is not a university in England that studies medicine,’ Katherine said bitterly. ‘There is not one that teaches languages. There is not one that teaches astronomy, or mathematics, geometry, geography, cosmography, or even the study of animals, or plants. The universities of England are about as much use as a monastery full of monks colouring-in the margins of sacred texts.’

Maria de Salinas gave a little gasp of shock at Katherine’s bluntness. ‘The church says…’

‘The church does not need decent physicians. The church does not need to know how sons are conceived,’ Katherine snapped. ‘The church can continue with the revelations of the saints. It needs nothing more than scripture. The church is composed of men who are not troubled by the illnesses and difficulties of women. But for those of us on our pilgrimage today, those of us in the world, especially those of us who are women: we need a little more.’

‘But you said that you did not want pagan knowledge. You said to the doctor himself. Your said your mother was right to close the universities of the infidel.’

‘My mother had half a dozen children,’ Katherine replied crossly. ‘But I tell you, if she could have found a doctor to save my brother she would have had him even if he had been trained in hell itself. She was wrong to turn her back on the learning of the Moors. She was mistaken. I have never thought that she was perfect, but I think the less of her now. She made a great mistake when she drove away their wise scholars along with their heretics.’

‘The church itself said that their scholarship is heresy,’ Maria observed. ‘How could you have one without the other?’

‘I am sure that you know nothing about it,’ said Isabella’s daughter, driven into a corner. ‘It is not a fit subject for you to discuss and besides, I have told you what I want you to do.’

The Moor, Yusuf, is away from London but the people at his lodging house say that he has reserved his rooms to return within the week. I shall have to be patient. I shall wait in my confinement and try to be patient.

They know him well, Maria’s servant tells her. His comings and goings are something of an event in their street. Africans are so rare in England as to be a spectacle – and he is a handsome man and generous with small coins for little services. They told Maria’s servant that he insisted on having fresh water for washing in his room and he washes every day, several times a day, and that – wonder of wonders – he bathes three or four times a week, using soap and towels, and throwing water all over the floor to the great inconvenience of the housemaids, and to great danger of his health.

I cannot help but laugh at the thought of the tall, fastidious Moor folding himself up into a washing tub, desperate for a steam, a tepid soak, a massage, a cold shower, and then a long, thoughtful rest while smoking a hookah and sipping a strong, sweet peppermint tea. It reminds me of my horror when I first came to England and discovered that they bathe only infrequently, and wash only the tips of their fingers before eating. I think that he has done better than me – he has carried his love of his home with him, he has re-made his home wherever he goes. But in my determination to be Queen Katherine of England I have given up being Catalina of Spain.

They brought the Moor to Katherine under cover of darkness, to the chamber where she was confined. She sent the women from the room at the appointed hour and told them that she wanted to be alone. She sat in her chair by the window, where the tapestries were drawn back for air, and the first thing he saw, as she rose when he came in, was her slim candlelit profile against the darkness of the window. She saw his little grimace of sympathy.

‘No child.’

‘No,’ she said shortly. ‘I shall come out of my confinement tomorrow.’

‘You are in pain?’

‘Nothing.’

‘Well, I am glad of that. You are bleeding?’

‘I had my normal course last week.’

He nodded. ‘Then you may have had a disease which has passed,’ he said. ‘You may be fit to conceive a child. There is no need to despair.’

‘I do not despair,’ she said flatly. ‘I never despair. That is why I have sent for you.’

‘You will want to conceive a child as soon as possible,’ he guessed.

‘Yes.’

He thought for a moment. ‘Well, Infanta, since you have had one child, even if you did not bear it to full term, we know that you and your husband are fertile. That is good.’

‘Yes,’ she said, surprised by the thought. She had been so distressed by the miscarriage she had not thought that her fertility had been proven. ‘But why do you speak of my husband’s fertility?’

The Moor smiled. ‘It takes both a man and a woman to conceive a child.’

‘Here in England they think that it is only the woman.’

‘Yes. But in this, as in so many other things, they are wrong. There are two parts to every baby: the man’s breath of life and the woman’s gift of the flesh.’

‘They say that if a baby is lost, then the woman is at fault, perhaps she has committed a great sin.’

He frowned. ‘It is possible,’ he conceded. ‘But not very likely. Otherwise how would murderesses ever give birth? Why would innocent animals miscarry their young? I think we will learn in time that there are humours and infections which cause miscarriage. I do not blame the woman, it makes no sense to me.’

‘They say that if a woman is barren it is because the marriage is not blessed by God.’

‘He is your God,’ he remarked reasonably. ‘Would he persecute an unhappy woman in order to make a point?’

Katherine did not reply. ‘They will blame me if I do not have a live child,’ she observed very quietly.

‘I know,’ he said. ‘But the truth of the matter is: having had one child and lost it, there is every reason to think that you might have another. And there should be no reason why you should not conceive again.’

‘I must bear the next child to full term.’

‘If I could examine you, I might know more.’

She shook her head. ‘It is not possible.’

His glance at her was merry. ‘Oh, you savages,’ he said softly.

She gave a little gasp of amused shock. ‘You forget yourself!’

‘Then send me away.’

That stopped her. ‘You can stay,’ she said. ‘But of course, you cannot examine me.’

‘Then let us consider what might help you conceive and carry a child,’ he said. ‘Your body needs to be strong. Do you ride horses?’

‘Yes.’

‘Ride astride before you conceive and then take a litter thereafter. Walk every day, swim if you can. You will conceive a child about two weeks after the end of your course. Rest at those times, and make sure that you lie with your husband at those times. Try to eat moderately at every meal and drink as little of their accursed small ale as you can.’

Katherine smiled at the reflection of her own prejudices. ‘Do you know Spain?’

‘I was born there. My parents fled from Malaga when your mother brought in the Inquisition and they realised that they would be tormented to death.’

‘I am sorry,’ she said awkwardly.

‘We will go back, it is written,’ he said with nonchalant confidence.

‘I should warn you that you will not.’

‘I know that we will. I have seen the prophecy myself.’

At once they fell silent again.

‘Shall I tell you what I advise? Or shall I just leave now?’ he asked, as if he did not much mind which it was to be.

‘Tell me,’ she said. ‘And then I can pay you, and you can go. We were born to be enemies. I should not have summoned you.’

‘We are both Spanish, we both love our country. We both serve our God. Perhaps we were born to be friends.’

She had to stop herself giving him her hand. ‘Perhaps,’ she said gruffly, turning her head away. ‘But I was brought up to hate your people and hate your faith.’

‘I was brought up to hate no-one,’ he said gently. ‘Perhaps that is what I should be teaching you before anything else.’

‘Just teach me how to have a son,’ she repeated.

‘Very well. Drink water that has been boiled, eat as much fruit and fresh vegetables as you can get. Do you have salad vegetables here?’

For a moment I am back in the garden at Ludlow with his bright eyes on me.

‘Acetaria?’

‘Yes, salad.’

‘What is it, exactly?’

He saw the queen’s face glow.

‘What are you thinking of?’

‘Of my first husband. He told me that I could send for gardeners to grow salad vegetables, but I never did.’

‘I have seeds,’ the Moor said surprisingly. ‘I can give you some seeds and you can grow the vegetables you will need.’

‘You have?’

‘Yes.’

‘You would give me…you would sell them to me?’

‘Yes. I would give them to you.’

For a moment she was silenced by his generosity. ‘You are very kind,’ she said.

He smiled. ‘We are both Spanish and a long way from our homes. Doesn’t that matter more than the fact that I am black and you are white? That I worship my God facing Mecca and you worship yours facing west?’

‘I am a child of the true religion and you are an infidel,’ she said, but with less conviction than she had ever felt before.

‘We are both people of faith,’ he said quietly. ‘Our enemies should be the people who have no faith, neither in their God, nor in others, nor in themselves. The people who should face our crusade should be those who bring cruelty into the world for no reason but their own power. There is enough sin and wickedness to fight, without taking up arms against people who believe in a forgiving God and who try to lead a good life.’

Katherine found that she could not reply. On the one hand was her mother’s teaching, on the other was the simple goodness that radiated from this man. ‘I don’t know,’ she said finally, and it was as if the very words set her free. ‘I don’t know. I would have to take the question to God. I would have to pray for guidance. I don’t pretend to know.’

‘Now, that is the very beginning of wisdom,’ he said gently. ‘I am sure of that, at least. Knowing that you do not know is to ask humbly, instead of tell arrogantly. That is the beginning of wisdom. Now, more importantly, I will go home and write you a list of things that you must not eat, and I will send you some medicine to strengthen your humours. Don’t let them cup you, don’t let them put leeches on you, and don’t let them persuade you to take any poisons or potions. You are a young woman with a young husband. A baby will come.’

It was like a blessing. ‘You are sure?’ she said.

‘I am sure,’ he replied. ‘And very soon.’

Greenwich Palace, May 1510

I send for Henry, he should hear it first from me. He comes unwillingly. He has been filled with a terror of women’s secrets and women’s doings and he does not like to come into a room which has been prepared for a confinement. Also, there is something else: a lack of warmth, I see it in his face, turned away from me. The way he does not meet my eyes. But I cannot challenge him about coolness towards me when I first have to tell him such hard news. Lady Margaret leaves us alone, closing the door behind her. I know she will ensure no-one outside eavesdrops. They will all know soon enough.

‘Husband, I am sorry, I have sad news for us,’ I say.

The face he turns to me is sulky. ‘I knew it could not be good when Lady Margaret came for me.’

There is no point in my feeling a flash of irritation. I shall have to manage us both. ‘I am not with child,’ I say, plunging in. ‘The doctor must have made a mistake. There was only one child and I lost it. This confinement has been a mistake. I shall return to court tomorrow.’

‘How can he have mistaken such a thing?’

I give a little shrug of the shoulders. I want to say: because he is a pompous fool and your man, and you surround yourself with people who only ever tell you the good news and are afraid to tell you bad. But instead I say neutrally: ‘He must have been mistaken.’

‘I shall look a fool!’ he bursts out. ‘You have been away for nearly three months and nothing to show for it.’

I say nothing for a moment. Pointless to wish that I were married to a man who might think beyond his appearance. Pointless to wish that I were married to a man whose first thought might be of me.

‘No-one will think anything at all,’ I say firmly. ‘If anything, they will say that it is I who am a fool to not know whether I am with child, or no. But at least we had a baby and that means we can have another.’

‘It does?’ he asks, immediately hopeful. ‘But why should we lose her? Is God displeased with us? Have we committed some sin? Is it a sign of God’s displeasure?’

I nip my lower lip to stop the Moor’s question: is God so vindictive that He would kill an innocent child to punish the parents for a sin so venial that they do not even know that they have committed it?

‘My conscience is clear,’ I say firmly.

‘Mine too,’ he says quickly, too quickly.

But my conscience is not clear. That night I go on my knees to the image of the crucified lord and for once I truly pray, I do not dream of Arthur, or consult my memory of my mother. I close my eyes and I pray.

‘Lord, it was a deathbed promise,’ I say slowly. ‘He demanded it of me. It was for the good of England. It was to guide the kingdom and the new king in the paths of the church. It was to protect England from the Moor and from sin. I know that it has brought me wealth, and the throne, but I did not do it for gain. If it is sin, Lord, then show me now. If I should not be his wife, then tell me now. Because I believe that I did the right thing, and that I am doing the right thing. And I believe that You would not take my son from me in order to punish me for this. I believe that You are a merciful God. And I believe that I did the right thing for Arthur, for Henry, for England and for me.’

I sit back on my heels and wait for a long time, for an hour, perhaps more, in case my God, the God of my mother, chooses to speak to me in His anger.

He does not.

So I will go on assuming that I am in the right. Arthur was right to call on my promise, I was right to tell the lie, my mother was right to call it God’s will that I should be Queen of England, and that whatever happens – nothing will change that.

Lady Margaret Pole comes to sit with me this evening, my last evening in confinement, and she takes the stool on the opposite side of the fire, close enough so that we cannot easily be overheard. ‘I have something to tell you,’ she says.

I look at her face, she is so calm that I know at once something bad has happened.

‘Tell me,’ I say instantly.

She makes a little moue of distaste. ‘I am sorry to bring you the tittle-tattle of the court.’

‘Very well. Tell me.’

‘It is the Duke of Buckingham’s sister.’

‘Elizabeth?’ I ask, thinking of the pretty young woman who had come to me the moment she knew I would be queen and asked if she could be my lady-in-waiting.

‘No, Anne.’

I nod, this is Elizabeth’s younger sister, a dark-eyed girl with a roguish twinkle and a love of male company. She is popular at court among the young men but – at least as long as I am present – she behaves with all the demure grace of a young matron of the highest family in the land, in service to the queen.

‘What of her?’

‘She has been seeing William Compton, without telling anyone. They have had assignations. Her brother is very upset. He has told her husband, and he is furious at her risking her reputation and his good name in a flirtation with the king’s friend.’

I think for a moment. William Compton is one of Henry’s wilder companions, the two of them are inseparable.

‘William will only have been amusing himself,’ I say. ‘He is a heart-breaker.’

‘It turns out that she has gone missing from a masque, once during dinner and once all day when the court was hunting.’

I nod. This is much more serious. ‘There is no suggestion that they are lovers?’

She shrugs. ‘Certainly her brother, Edward Stafford, is furious. He has complained to Compton and there has been a quarrel. The King has defended Compton.’

I press my lips together to prevent myself snapping out a criticism in my irritation. The Duke of Buckingham is one of the oldest friends of the Tudor family, with massive lands and many retainers. He greeted me with Prince Harry all those years ago, he is now honoured by the king, the greatest man in the land. He has been a good friend to me since then. Even when I was in disgrace I always had a smile and a kind word from him. Every summer he sent me a gift of game, and there were some weeks when that was the only meat we saw. Henry cannot quarrel with him as if he were a tradesman and Henry a surly farmer. This is the king and the greatest man of the state of England. The old king Henry could not even have won his throne without Buckingham’s support. A disagreement between them is not a private matter, it is a national disaster. If Henry had any sense he would not have involved himself in this petty courtiers’ quarrel. Lady Margaret nods at me, I need say nothing, she understands my disapproval.

‘Can I not leave the court for a moment without my ladies climbing out of their bedroom windows to run after young men?’

She leans forwards and pats my hand. ‘It seems not. It is a foolish young court, Your Grace, and they need you to keep them steady. The king has spoken very high words to the duke and the duke is much offended. William Compton says he will say nothing of the matter to anyone, so everyone thinks the worst. Anne has been all but imprisoned by her husband, Sir George, we none of us have seen her today. I am afraid that when you come out of your confinement he will not allow her to wait on you, and then your honour is involved.’ She pauses. ‘I thought you should know now rather than be surprised by it all tomorrow morning. Though it goes against the grain to be a tale-bearer of such folly.’

‘It is ridiculous,’ I say. ‘I shall deal with it tomorrow, when I come out of confinement. But really, what are they all thinking of? This is like a schoolyard! William should be ashamed of himself and I am surprised that Anne should so far forget herself as to chase after him. And what does her husband think he is? Some knight at Camelot to imprison her in a tower?’

Queen Katherine came out of her confinement, without announcement, and returned to her usual rooms at Greenwich Palace. There could be no churching ceremony to mark her return to normal life, since there had been no birth. There could be no christening since there was no child. She came out of the shadowy room without comment, as if she had suffered some secret, shameful illness, and everyone pretended that she had been gone for hours rather than nearly three months.

Her ladies-in-waiting, who had become accustomed to an idle pace of life with the queen in her confinement, assembled at some speed in the queen’s chambers, and the housemaids hurried in with fresh strewing herbs and new candles.

Katherine caught several furtive glances among the ladies and assumed that they too had guilty consciences over misbehaviour in her absence; but then she realised that there was a whispered buzz of conversation that ceased whenever she raised her head. Clearly, something had happened that was more serious than Anne’s disgrace; and, equally clearly, no-one was telling her.

She beckoned one of her ladies, Lady Madge, to come to her side.

‘Is Lady Elizabeth not joining us this morning?’ she asked, as she could see no sign of the older Stafford sister.

The girl flushed scarlet to her ears. ‘I don’t know,’ she stammered. ‘I don’t think so.’

‘Where is she?’ Katherine asked.

The girl looked desperately round for help but all the other ladies in the room were suddenly taking an intense interest in their sewing, in their embroidery, or in their books. Elizabeth Boleyn dealt a hand of cards with as much attention as if she had a fortune staked on it.

‘I don’t know where she is,’ the girl confessed.

‘In the ladies’ room?’ Katherine suggested. ‘In the Duke of Buckingham’s rooms?’

‘I think she has gone,’ the girl said baldly. At once someone gasped, and then there was silence.

‘Gone?’ Katherine looked around. ‘Will someone tell me what is happening?’ she asked, her tone reasonable enough. ‘Where has Lady Elizabeth gone? And how can she have gone without my permission?’

The girl took a step back. At that moment, Lady Margaret Pole came into the room.

‘Lady Margaret,’ Katherine said pleasantly. ‘Here is Madge telling me that Lady Elizabeth has left court without my permission and without bidding me farewell. What is happening?’

Katherine felt her amused smile freeze on her face when her old friend shook her head slightly, and Madge, relieved, dropped back to her seat. ‘What is it?’ Katherine asked more quietly.

Without seeming to move, all the ladies craned forwards to hear how Lady Margaret would explain the latest development.

‘I believe the king and the Duke of Buckingham have had hard words,’ Lady Margaret said smoothly. ‘The duke has left court and taken both his sisters with him.’

‘But they are my ladies-in-waiting. In service to me. They cannot leave without my permission.’

‘It is very wrong of them, indeed,’ Margaret said. Something in the way she folded her hands in her lap and looked so steadily and calmly warned Katherine not to probe.

‘So what have you been doing in my absence?’ Katherine turned to the ladies, trying to lighten the mood of the room.

At once they all looked sheepish. ‘Have you learned any new songs? Have you danced in any masques?’ Katherine asked.

‘I know a new song,’ one of the girls volunteered. ‘Shall I sing it?’

Katherine nodded, at once one of the other women picked up a lute. It was as if everyone was quick to divert her. Katherine smiled and beat the time with her hand on the arm of her chair. She knew, as a woman who had been born and raised in a court of conspirators, that something was very wrong indeed.

There was the sound of company approaching and Katherine’s guards threw open the door to the king and his court. The ladies stood up, shook out their skirts, bit their lips to make them pink, and sparkled in anticipation. Someone laughed gaily at nothing. Henry strode in, still in his riding clothes, his friends around him, William Compton’s arm in his.

Katherine was again alert to some difference in her husband. He did not come in, take her in his arms, and kiss her cheeks. He did not stride into the very centre of the room and bow to her either. He came in, twinned with his best friend, the two almost hiding behind each other, like boys caught out in a petty crime: part-shamefaced, part-braggart. At Katherine’s sharp look Compton awkwardly disengaged himself, Henry greeted his wife without enthusiasm, his eyes downcast, he took her hand and then kissed her cheek, not her mouth.

‘Are you well now?’ he asked.

‘Yes,’ she said calmly. ‘I am quite well now. And how are you, sire?’

‘Oh,’ he said carelessly. ‘I am well. We had such a chase this morning. I wish you had been with us. We were half way to Sussex, I do believe.’

‘I shall come out tomorrow,’ Katherine promised him.

‘Will you be well enough?’

‘I am quite well,’ she repeated.

He looked relieved. ‘I thought you would be ill for months,’ he blurted out.

Smiling, she shook her head, wondering who had told him that.

‘Let’s break our fast,’ he said. ‘I am starving.’

He took her hand and led her to the great hall. The court fell in informally behind them. Katherine could hear the over-excited buzz of whispers. She leaned her head towards Henry so that no-one could catch her words. ‘I hear there have been some quarrels in court.’

‘Oh! You have heard of our little storm already, have you?’ he said. He was far too loud, he was far too jovial. He was acting the part of a man with nothing to trouble his conscience. He threw a laugh over his shoulder and looked for someone to join in his forced amusement. Half a dozen men and women smiled, anxious to share his good humour. ‘It is something and nothing. I have had a quarrel with your great friend, the Duke of Buckingham. He has left the court in a temper!’ He laughed again, even more heartily, glancing at her sideways to see if she was smiling, trying to judge if she already knew all about it.

‘Indeed?’ Katherine said coolly.

‘He was insulting,’ Henry said, gathering his sense of offence. ‘He can stay away until he is ready to apologise. He is such a pompous man, you know. Always thinks he knows everything. And his sour sister Elizabeth can go too.’

‘She is a good lady-in-waiting and a kind companion to me,’ Katherine observed. ‘I expected her to greet me this day. I have no quarrel with her, nor with her sister Anne. I take it you have no quarrel with them either?’

‘Nonetheless I am most displeased with their brother,’ Henry said. ‘They can all go.’

Katherine paused, took a breath. ‘She and her sister are in my household,’ she observed. ‘I have the right to choose and dismiss my own ladies.’

She saw the quick flush of his childish temper. ‘You will oblige me by sending them away from your household! Whatever your rights! I don’t expect to hear talk of rights between us!’

The court behind them fell silent at once. Everyone wanted to hear the first royal quarrel.

Katherine released his hand and went around the high table to take her place. It gave her a moment to remind herself to be calm. When he came to his seat beside hers she took a breath and smiled at him. ‘As you wish,’ she said evenly. ‘I have no great preference in the matter. But how am I to run a well-ordered court if I send away young women of good family who have done nothing wrong?’

‘You were not here, so you have no idea what she did or didn’t do!’ Henry sought for another complaint and found one. He waved the court to sit and dropped into his own chair. ‘You locked yourself away for months. What am I supposed to do without you? How are things supposed to be run if you just go away and leave everything?’

Katherine nodded, keeping her face absolutely serene. She was very well aware that the attention of the entire court was focused on her like a burning glass on fine paper. ‘I hardly left for my own amusement,’ she observed.

‘It has been most awkward for me,’ he said, taking her words at face value. ‘Most awkward. It is all very well for you, taking to your bed for weeks at a time, but how is the court to run without a queen? Your ladies were without discipline, nobody knew how things were to go on, I couldn’t see you, I had to sleep alone…’ He broke off.

Katherine realised, belatedly, that his bluster was hiding a genuine sense of hurt. In his selfishness, he had transformed her long endurance of pain and fear into his own difficulty. He had managed to see her fruitless confinement as her wilfully deserting him, leaving him alone to rule over a lopsided court; in his eyes, she had let him down.

‘I think at the very least you should do as I ask,’ he said pettishly. ‘I have had trouble enough these last months. All this reflects very badly on me, I have been made to look a fool. And no help from you at all.’

‘Very well,’ Katherine said peaceably. ‘I shall send Elizabeth away and her sister Anne too, since you ask it of me. Of course.’

Henry found his smile, as if the sun was coming out from behind clouds. ‘Yes. And now you are back we can get everything back to normal.’

Not a word for me, not one word of comfort, not one thought of understanding. I could have died trying to bring his child into the world, without his child I have to face sorrow, grief and a haunting fear of sin. But he does not think of me at all.

I find a smile to reply to his. I knew when I married him that he was a selfish boy and I knew he would grow into a selfish man. I have set myself the task of guiding him and helping him to be a better man, the best man that he can be. There are bound to be times when I think he has failed to be the man he should be. And when those times come, as now, I must see it as my failure to guide him. I must forgive him.

Without my forgiveness, without me extending my patience further than I thought possible, our marriage will be a poorer one. He is always ready to resent a woman who cares for him – he learned that from his grandmother. And I, God forgive me, am too quick to think of the husband that I lost, and not of the husband that I won. He is not the man that Arthur was, and he will never be the king that Arthur would have been. But he is my husband and my king and I should respect him.

Indeed: I will respect him, whether he deserves it or not.

The court was subdued over breakfast, few of them could drag their eyes from the high table where, under the gold canopy of state, seated on their thrones, the king and queen exchanged conversation and seemed to be quite reconciled.

‘But does she know?’ one courtier whispered to one of Katherine’s ladies.

‘Who would tell her?’ she replied. ‘If Maria de Salinas and Lady Margaret have not told her already then she doesn’t know. I would put my earrings on it.’

‘Done,’ he said. ‘Ten shillings that she finds out.’

‘By when?’

‘Tomorrow,’ he said.

I had another piece of the jigsaw when I came to look at the accounts for the weeks while I had been in confinement. In the first days that I had been away from court there had been no extraordinary expenses. But then the bill for amusements began to grow. There were bills from singers and actors to rehearse their celebration for the expected baby, bills from the organist, the choristers, from drapers for the material for pennants and standards, extra maids for polishing the gold christening bowl. Then there were payments for costumes of Lincoln green for disguising, singers to perform under the window of Lady Anne, a clerk to copy out the words of the king’s new song, rehearsals for a new May Day masque with a dance, and costumes for three ladies with Lady Anne to play the part of Unattainable Beauty.

I rose from the table where I had been turning over the papers and went to the window to look down at the garden. They had set up a wrestling ring and the young men of the court were stripped to their shirtsleeves. Henry and Charles Brandon were gripped in each other’s arms like blacksmiths at a fair. As I watched, Henry tripped his friend and threw him to the ground and then dropped his weight on him to hold him down. Princess Mary applauded, the court cheered.

I turned from the window. I began to wonder if Lady Anne had proved to be unattainable indeed. I wondered how merry they had been on May Day morning when I had woken on my own, in sadness, to silence, with no-one singing beneath my window. And why should the court pay for singers, hired by Compton, to seduce his newest mistress?

The king summoned the queen to his rooms in the afternoon. Some messages had come from the Pope and he wanted her advice. Katherine sat beside him, listened to the report of the messenger and stretched up to whisper in her husband’s ear.

He nodded. ‘The queen reminds me of our well-known alliance with Venice,’ he said pompously. ‘And indeed, she has no need to remind me. I am not likely to forget it. You can depend on our determination to protect Venice and indeed all Italy against the ambitions of the French king.’

The ambassadors nodded respectfully. ‘I shall send you a letter about this,’ Henry said grandly. They bowed and withdrew.

‘Will you write to them?’ he asked Katherine.

She nodded. ‘Of course,’ she said. ‘I thought that you handled that quite rightly.’

He smiled at her approval. ‘It is so much better when you are here,’ he said. ‘Nothing goes on right when you are away.’

‘Well, I am back now,’ she said, putting a hand on his shoulder. She could feel the power of the muscle under her hand. Henry was a man now, with the strength of a man. ‘Dearest, I am so sorry about your quarrel with the Duke of Buckingham.’

Under her hand she felt his shoulder hunch, he shrugged away her touch. ‘It is nothing,’ he said. ‘He shall beg my pardon and it will be forgotten.’

‘But perhaps he could just come back to court,’ she said. ‘Without his sisters if you don’t want to see them…’

Inexplicably he barked out a laugh. ‘Oh, bring them all back by all means,’ he said. ‘If that is your true wish, if you think it will bring you happiness. You should never have gone into confinement, there was no child, anyone could have seen that there would be no child.’

She was so taken aback that she could hardly speak. ‘This is about my confinement?’

‘It would hardly have happened without. But everyone could see there would be no child. It was wasted time.’

‘Your own doctor…’

‘What did he know? He only knows what you tell him.’

‘He assured me…’

‘Doctors know nothing!’ he suddenly burst out. ‘They are always guided by the woman; everyone knows that. And a woman can say anything. Is there a baby, isn’t there a baby? Is she a virgin, isn’t she a virgin? Only the woman knows and the rest of us are fooled.’

Katherine felt her mind racing, trying to trace what had offended him, what she could say. ‘I trusted your doctor,’ she said. ‘He was very certain. He assured me I was with child and so I went into confinement. Another time I will know better. I am truly sorry, my love. It has been a very great grief to me.’

‘It just makes me look such a fool!’ he said plaintively. ‘It’s no wonder that I…’

‘That you? What?’

‘Nothing,’ said Henry, sulkily.

‘It is such a lovely afternoon, let us go for a walk,’ I say pleasantly to my ladies. ‘Lady Margaret will accompany me.’

We go outside, my cape is brought and put over my shoulders and my gloves. The path down to the river is wet and slippery and Lady Margaret takes my arm and we go down the steps together. The primroses are thick as churned butter in the hedgerows and the sun is out. There are white swans on the river but when the barges and wherries go by the birds drift out of the way as if by magic. I breathe deeply, it is so good to be out of that small room and to feel the sun on my face again that I hardly want to open the subject of Lady Anne.

‘You must know what took place?’ I say to her shortly.

‘I know some gossip,’ she says levelly. ‘Nothing for certain.’

‘What has angered the king so much?’ I ask. ‘He is upset about my confinement, he is angry with me. What is troubling him? Surely not the Stafford girl’s flirtation with Compton?’

Lady Margaret’s face is grave. ‘The king is very attached to William Compton,’ she said. ‘He would not have him insulted.’

‘It sounds as if all the insult is the other way,’ I say. ‘It is Lady Anne and her husband who are dishonoured. I would have thought the king would have been angry with William. Lady Anne is not a girl to tumble behind a wall. There is her family to consider and her husband’s family. Surely the king should have told Compton to behave himself?’

Lady Margaret shrugs. ‘I don’t know,’ she says. ‘None of the girls will even talk to me. They are as silent as if it were a grave matter.’

‘But why, if it was nothing more than a foolish affair? Youth calls to youth in springtime?’

She shakes her head. ‘Truly, I don’t know. You would think so. But if it is a flirtation, why would the duke be so very offended? Why quarrel with the king? Why would the girls not be laughing at Anne for getting caught?’

‘And another thing…’ I say.

She waits.

‘Why should the king pay for Compton’s courtship? The fee for the singers is in the court accounts.’

She frowned. ‘Why would he encourage it? The king must have known that the duke would be greatly offended.’

‘And Compton remains in high favour?’

‘They are inseparable.’

I speak the thought that is sitting cold in my heart. ‘So do you think that Compton is the shield and the love affair is between the king, my husband, and Lady Anne?’

Lady Margaret’s grave face tells me that my guess is her own fear. ‘I don’t know,’ she says, honest as ever. ‘As I say, the girls tell me nothing, and I have not asked anyone that question.’

‘Because you think you will not like the answer?’

She nods. Slowly, I turn, and we walk back along the river in silence.

Katherine and Henry led the company into dinner in the grand hall and sat side by side under the gold canopy of state as they always did. There was a band of special singers that had come to England from the French court and they sang without instruments, very true to the note with a dozen different parts. It was complicated and beautiful and Henry was entranced by the music. When the singers paused, he applauded and asked them to repeat the song. They smiled at his enthusiasm, and sang again. He asked for it once more, and then sang the tenor line back to them: note perfect.

It was their turn to applaud him and they invited him to sing with them the part that he had learned so rapidly. Katherine, on her throne, leaned forwards and smiled as her handsome young husband sang in his clear young voice, and the ladies of the court clapped in appreciation.

When the musicians struck up and the court danced, Katherine came down from the raised platform of the high table and danced with Henry, her face bright with happiness and her smile warm. Henry, encouraged by her, danced like an Italian, with fast, dainty footwork and high leaps. Katherine clapped her hands in delight and called for another dance as if she had never had a moment’s worry in her life. One of her ladies leaned towards the courtier who had taken the bet that Katherine would find out. ‘I think I shall keep my earrings,’ she said. ‘He has fooled her. He has played her for a fool, and now he is fair game to any one of us. She has lost her hold on him.’

I wait till we are alone, and then I wait until he beds me with his eager joy, and then I slip from the bed and bring him a cup of small ale.

‘So tell me the truth, Henry,’ I say to him simply. ‘What is the truth of the quarrel between you and the Duke of Buckingham, and what were your dealings with his sister?’

His swift sideways glance tells me more than any words. He is about to lie to me. I hear the words he says: a story about a disguising and all of them in masks and the ladies dancing with them and Compton and Anne dancing together, and I know that he is lying.

It is an experience more painful than I thought I could have with him. We have been married for nearly a year, a year next month, and always he has looked at me directly, with all his youth and honesty in his gaze. I have never heard anything but truth in his voice: boastful-ness, certainly, the arrogance of a young man, but never this uncertain deceitful quaver. He is lying to me, and I would almost rather have a bare-faced confession of infidelity than to see him look at me, blue-eyed and sweet as a boy, with a parcel of lies in his mouth.

I stop him, I truly cannot bear to hear it. ‘Enough,’ I say. ‘I know enough at least to realise that this is not true. She was your lover, wasn’t she? And Compton was your friend and shield?’

His face is aghast. ‘Katherine…’

‘Just tell me the truth.’

His mouth is trembling. He cannot bear to admit what he has done. ‘I didn’t mean to…’

‘I know that you did not,’ I say. ‘I am sure you were sorely tempted.’

‘You were away for so long…’

‘I know.’

A dreadful silence falls. I had thought that he would lie to me and I would track him down and then confront him with his lies and with his adultery and I would be a warrior queen in my righteous anger. But this is sadness and a taste of defeat. If Henry cannot remain faithful when I am in confinement with our child, our dearly needed child, then how shall he be faithful till death? How shall he obey his vow to forsake all others when he can be distracted so easily? What am I to do, what can any woman do, when her husband is such a fool as to desire a woman for a moment, rather than the woman he is pledged to for eternity?

‘Dear husband, this is very wrong,’ I say sadly.

‘It was because I had such doubts. I thought for a moment that we were not married,’ he confesses.

‘You forgot we were married?’ I ask incredulously.

‘No!’ His head comes up, his blue eyes are filled with unshed tears. His face shines with contrition. ‘I thought that since our marriage was not valid, I need not abide by it.’

I am quite amazed by him. ‘Our marriage? Why would it not be valid?’

He shakes his head. He is too ashamed to speak. I press him. ‘Why not?’

He kneels beside my bed and hides his face in the sheets. ‘I liked her and I desired her and she said some things which made me feel…’

‘Feel what?’

‘Made me think…’

‘Think what?’

‘What if you were not a virgin when I married you?’

At once I am alert, like a villain near the scene of a crime, like a murderer when the corpse bleeds at the sight of him. ‘What do you mean?’

‘She was a virgin…’

‘Anne?’

‘Yes. Sir George is impotent. Everyone knows that.’

‘Do they?’

‘Yes. So she was a virgin. And she was not…’ He rubs his face against the sheet of our bed. ‘She was not like you. She…’ He stumbles for words. ‘She cried out in pain. She bled, I was afraid when I saw how much blood, really a lot…’ He breaks off again. ‘She could not go on, the first time. I had to stop. She cried, I held her. She was a virgin. That is what it is like to lie with a virgin, the first time. I was her first love. I could tell. Her first love.’

There is a long, cold silence.

‘She fooled you,’ I say cruelly, throwing away her reputation, and his tenderness for her, with one sweep, making her a whore and him a fool, for the greater good.

He looks up, shocked. ‘She did?’

‘She was not that badly hurt, she was pretending.’ I shake my head at the sinfulness of young women. ‘It is an old trick. She will have had a bladder of blood in her hand and broke it to give you a show of blood. She will have cried out. I expect she whimpered and said she could not bear the pain from the very beginning.’

Henry is amazed. ‘She did.’

‘She thought to make you feel sorry for her.’

‘But I was!’

‘Of course. She thought to make you feel that you had taken her virginity, her maidenhead, and that you owe her your protection.’

‘That is what she said!’

‘She tried to entrap you,’ I say. ‘She was not a virgin, she was acting the part of one. I was a virgin when I came to your bed and the first night that we were lovers was very simple and sweet. Do you remember?’

‘Yes,’ he says.

‘There was no crying and wailing like players on a stage. It was quiet and loving. Take that as your benchmark,’ I say. ‘I was a true virgin. You and I were each other’s first love. We had no need for play-acting and exaggeration. Hold to that truth of our love, Henry. You have been fooled by a counterfeit.’

‘She said…’ he begins.

‘She said what?’ I am not afraid. I am filled with utter determination that Anne Stafford will not put asunder what God and my mother have joined together.

‘She said that you must have been Arthur’s lover.’ He stumbles before the white fierceness of my face. ‘That you had lain with him, and that…’

‘Not true.’

‘I didn’t know.’

‘It is not true.’

‘Oh, yes.’

‘My marriage with Arthur was not consummated. I came to you a virgin. You were my first love. Does anyone dare say different to me?’

‘No,’ he says rapidly. ‘No. No-one shall say different to you.’

‘Nor to you.’

‘Nor to me.’

‘Would anyone dare to say to my face that I am not your first love, a virgin untouched, your true wedded wife, and Queen of England?’

‘No,’ he says again.

‘Not even you.’

‘No.’

‘It is to dishonour me,’ I say furiously. ‘And where will scandal stop? Shall they suggest that you have no claim to the throne because your mother was no virgin on her wedding day?’

He is stunned with shock. ‘My mother? What of my mother?’

‘They say that she lay with her uncle, Richard the usurper,’ I say flatly. ‘Think of that! And they say that she lay with your father before they were married, before they were even betrothed. They say that she was far from a virgin on her wedding day when she wore her hair loose and went in white. They say she was dishonoured twice over, little more than a harlot for the throne. Do we allow people to say such things of a queen? Are you to be disinherited by such gossip? Am I? Is our son?’

Henry is gasping with shock. He loved his mother and he had never thought of her as a sexual being before. ‘She would never have…she was a most…how can…’

‘You see? This is what happens if we allow people to gossip about their betters.’ I lay down the law which will protect me. ‘If you allow someone to dishonour me, there is no stopping the scandal. It insults me, but it threatens you. Who knows where scandal will stop once it takes hold? Scandal against the queen rocks the throne itself. Be warned, Henry.’

‘She said it!’ he exclaims. ‘Anne said that it was no sin for me to lie with her because I was not truly married!’

‘She lied to you,’ I say. ‘She pretended to her virgin state and she traduced me.’

His face flushes red with anger. It is a relief to him to turn to rage. ‘What a whore!’ he exclaims crudely. ‘What a whore to trick me into thinking…what a jade’s trick!’

‘You cannot trust young women,’ I say quietly. ‘Now that you are King of England you will have to be on your guard, my love. They will run after you and they will try to charm you and seduce you, but you have to be faithful to me. I was your virgin bride, I was your first love. I am your wife. Do not forsake me.’

He takes me into his arms. ‘Forgive me,’ he whispers brokenly.

‘We will never ever speak of this again,’ I say solemnly. ‘I will not have it, and I will not allow anyone to dishonour either me or your mother.’

‘No,’ he says fervently. ‘Before God. We will never speak of this nor allow any other to speak of it again.’

Next morning Henry and Katherine rose up together and went quietly to Mass in the king’s chapel. Katherine met with her confessor and kneeled to confess her sins. She did not take very long, Henry observed, she must have no great sins to confess. It made him feel even worse to see her go to her priest for a brief confession and come away with her face so serene. He knew that she was a woman of holy purity, just like his mother. Penitently, his face in his hands, he thought that not only had Katherine never been unfaithful to her given word, she had probably never even told a lie in her life.

I go out with the court to hunt dressed in a red velvet gown, determined to show that I am well, that I am returned to the court, that everything will be as it was before. We have a long, hard run after a fine stag who takes a looping route around the great park and the hounds bring him down in the stream and Henry himself goes into the water, laughing, to cut his throat. The stream blooms red around him and stains his clothes, and his hands. I laugh with the court but the sight of the blood makes me feel sick to my very belly.

We ride home slowly, I keep my face locked in a smile to hide my weariness and the pain in my thighs, in my belly, in my back. Lady Margaret brings her horse beside mine, and glances at me. ‘You had better rest this afternoon.’

‘I cannot,’ I say shortly.

She does not need to ask why. She has been a princess, she knows that a queen has to be on show, whatever her own feelings. ‘I have the story, if you want to trouble yourself to hear such a thing.’

‘You are a good friend,’ I say. ‘Tell me briefly. I think I know the worst that it can be already.’

‘After we had gone in for your confinement the king and the young men started to go into the City in the evenings.’

‘With guards?’

‘No, alone and disguised.’

I stifle a sigh. ‘Did no-one try to stop him?’

‘The Earl of Surrey, God bless him. But his own sons were of the party and it was light-hearted fun, and you know that the king will not be denied his pastimes.’

I nod.

‘One evening they came into court in their disguises and pretended to be London merchants. The ladies danced with them, it was all very amusing. I was not there that evening, I was with you in confinement; someone told me about it the next day. I took no notice. But apparently one of the merchants singled out Lady Anne and danced with her all night.’

‘Henry,’ I say, and I can hear the bitterness in my own whisper.

‘Yes, but everyone thought it was William Compton. They are about the same height, and they were all wearing false beards and hats. You know how they do.’

‘Yes,’ I say. ‘I know how they do.’

‘Apparently they made an assignation and when the duke thought that his sister was sitting with you in the evenings she was slipping away and meeting the king. When she went missing all night, it was too much for her sister. Elizabeth went to her brother and warned him of what Anne was doing. They told her husband and all of them confronted Anne and demanded to know who she was seeing, and she said it was Compton. But when she was missing, and they thought she was with her lover, they met Compton. So then they knew, it was not Compton, it was the king.’

I shake my head.

‘I am sorry, my dear,’ Lady Margaret says to me gently. ‘He is a young man. I am sure it is no more than vanity and thoughtlessness.’

I nod and say nothing. I check my horse, who is tossing his head against my hands, which are too heavy on the reins. I am thinking of Anne crying out in pain as her hymen was broken.

‘And is her husband, Sir George, unmanned?’ I ask. ‘Was she a virgin until now?’

‘So they say,’ Lady Margaret replies drily. ‘Who knows what goes on in a bedroom?’

‘I think we know what goes on in the king’s bedroom,’ I say bitterly. ‘They have hardly been discreet.’

‘It is the way of the world,’ she says quietly. ‘When you are confined it is only natural that he will take a lover.’

I nod again. This is nothing but the truth. What is surprising to me is that I should feel such hurt.

‘The duke must have been much aggrieved,’ I say, thinking of the dignity of the man, and how it was he who put the Tudors on the throne in the first place.

‘Yes,’ she says. She hesitates. Something about her voice warns me that there is something she is not sure if she should say.

‘What is it, Margaret?’ I ask. ‘I know you well enough to know that there is something more.’

‘It is something that Elizabeth said to one of the girls before she left,’ she says.

‘Oh?’

‘Elizabeth says that her sister did not think it was a light love affair that would last while you were in confinement and then be forgotten.’

‘What else could it be?’

‘She thought that her sister had ambitions.’

‘Ambitions for what?’

‘She thought that she might take the king’s fancy and hold him.’

‘For a season,’ I say disparagingly.

‘No, for longer,’ she says. ‘He spoke of love. He is a romantic young man. He spoke of being hers till death.’ She sees the look on my face and breaks off. ‘Forgive me, I should have said none of this.’

I think of Anne Stafford crying out in pain and telling him that she was a virgin, a true virgin, in too much pain to go on. That he was her first love, her only love. I know how much he would like that.

I check my horse again, he frets against the bit. ‘What do you mean, she was ambitious?’

‘I think she thought that given her family position, and the liking that was between her and the king, that she could become the great mistress of the English court.’

I blink. ‘And what about me?’

‘I think she thought that, in time, he might turn from you to her. I think she hoped to supplant you in his love.’

I nod. ‘And if I died bearing his child, I suppose she thought she would have her empty marriage annulled and marry him?’

‘That would be the very cusp of her ambition,’ Lady Margaret says. ‘And stranger things have happened. Elizabeth Woodville got to the throne of England on looks alone.’

‘Anne Stafford was my lady-in-waiting,’ I say. ‘I chose her for the honour over many others. What about her duty to me? What about her friendship with me? Did she never think of me? If she had served me in Spain we would have lived night and day together…’ I break off, there is no way to explain the safety and affection of the harem to a woman who has always lived her life alert to the gaze of men.

Lady Margaret shakes her head. ‘Women are always rivals,’ she says simply. ‘But until now everyone has thought that the king only had eyes for you. Now everyone knows different. There is not a pretty girl in the land who does not now think that the crown is for taking.’

‘It is still my crown,’ I point out.

‘But girls will hope for it,’ she says. ‘It is the way of the world.’

‘They will have to wait for my death,’ I say bleakly. ‘That could be a long wait even for the most ambitious girl.’

Lady Margaret nods. I indicate behind me and she looks back. The ladies-in-waiting are scattered among the huntsmen and courtiers, riding and laughing and flirting. Henry has Princess Mary on one side of him and one of her ladies-in-waiting on another. She is a new girl to court, young and pretty. A virgin, without doubt, another pretty virgin.

‘And which of these will be next?’ I ask bitterly. ‘When I next go in for my confinement and cannot watch them like a fierce hawk? Will it be a Percy girl? Or a Seymour? Or a Howard? Or a Neville? Which girl will step up to the king next and try to charm her way into his bed and into my place?’

‘Some of your ladies love you dearly,’ she says.

‘And some of them will use their position at my side to get close to the king,’ I say. ‘Now they have seen it done they will be waiting for their chance. They will know that the easiest route to the king is to come into my rooms, to pretend to be my friend, to offer me service. First she will pretend friendship and loyalty to me and all the time she will watch for her chance. I can know that one will do it, but I cannot know which one she is.’

Lady Margaret leans forward, and strokes her horse’s neck, her face grave. ‘Yes,’ she agrees.

‘And one of them, one of the many, will be clever enough to turn the king’s head,’ I say bitterly. ‘He is young and vain and easily misled. Sooner or later, one of them will turn him against me and want my place.’

Lady Margaret straightens up and looks directly at me, her grey eyes as honest as ever. ‘This may all be true; but I think you can do nothing to prevent it.’

‘I know,’ I say grimly.

‘I have good news for you,’ Katherine said to Henry. They had thrown open the windows of her bedroom to let in the cooler night air. It was a warm night in late May and for once, Henry had chosen to come to bed early.

‘Tell me some good news,’ he said. ‘My horse went lame today, and I cannot ride him tomorrow. I would welcome some good news.’

‘I think I am with child.’

He bounced up in the bed. ‘You are?’

‘I think so,’ she said, smiling.

‘Praise God! You are?’

‘I am certain of it.’

‘God be praised. I shall go to Walsingham the minute you give birth to our son. I shall go on my knees to Walsingham! I shall crawl along the road! I shall wear a suit of pure white. I shall give Our Lady pearls.’

‘Our Lady has been gracious to us indeed.’

‘And how potent they will all know that I am now! Out of confinement in the first week of May and pregnant by the end of the month. That will show them! That will prove that I am a husband indeed.’

‘Indeed it will,’ she said levelly.

‘It is not too early to be sure?’

‘I have missed my course, and I am sick in the morning. They tell me it is a certain sign.’

‘And you are certain?’ He had no tact to phrase his anxiety in gentle words. ‘You are certain this time? You know that there can be no mistake?’

She nodded. ‘I am certain. I have all the signs.’

‘God be praised. I knew it would come. I knew that a marriage made in heaven would be blessed.’

Katherine nodded. Smiling.

‘We shall go slowly on our progress, you shall not hunt. We shall go by boat for some of the way, barges.’

‘I think I will not travel at all, if you will allow it,’ she said. ‘I want to stay quietly in one place this summer, I don’t even want to ride in a litter.’

‘Well, I shall go on progress with the court and then come home to you,’ he said. ‘And what a celebration we shall have when our baby is born. When will it be?’

‘After Christmas,’ Katherine said. ‘In the New Year.’