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King Henry did not approach Catalina for one month for the sake of decency, but when he was out of his black jacket he made a formal visit to her at Durham House. Her household had been warned that he would come, and were dressed in their best. He saw the signs of wear and tear in the curtains and rugs and hangings and smiled to himself. If she had the good sense that he thought she had, she would be glad to see a resolution to this awkward position. He congratulated himself on not making it easier for her in this last year. She should know by now that she was utterly in his power and her parents could do nothing to free her.

His herald threw open the double doors to her presence chamber and shouted: ‘His Grace, King Henry of England…’

Henry waved aside the other titles and went in to his daughter-in-law.

She was wearing a dark-coloured gown with blue slashings on the sleeve, a richly embroidered stomacher and a dark blue hood. It brought out the amber in her hair and the blue in her eyes and he smiled in instinctive pleasure at the sight of her as she sank into a deep formal curtsey and rose up.

‘Your Grace,’ she said pleasantly. ‘This is an honour indeed.’

He had to force himself not to stare at the creamy line of her neck, at the smooth, unlined face that looked back up at him. He had lived all his life with a beautiful woman of his own age; now here was a girl young enough to be his daughter, with the rich-scented bloom of youth still on her, and breasts full and firm. She was ready for marriage, indeed, she was over-ready for marriage. This was a girl who should be bedded. He checked himself at once, and thought he was part lecher, part lover to look on his dead son’s child-bride with such desire.

‘Can I offer you some refreshment?’ she asked. There was a smile in the back of her eyes.

He thought if she had been an older, a more sophisticated woman he would have assumed she was playing him, as knowingly as a skilled angler can land a salmon.

‘Thank you. I will take a glass of wine.’

And so she caught him. ‘I am afraid I have nothing fit to offer you,’ she said smoothly. ‘I have nothing left in my cellars at all, and I cannot afford to buy good wine.’

Henry did not show by so much as a flicker that he knew she had trapped him into hearing of her financial difficulties. ‘I am sorry for that, I will have some barrels sent over,’ he said. ‘Your housekeeping must be very remiss.’

‘It is very thin,’ she said simply. ‘Will you take a cup of ale? We brew our own ale very cheaply.’

‘Thank you,’ he said, biting his lip to hide a smile. He had not dreamed that she had so much self-confidence. The year of widowhood had brought out her courage, he thought. Alone in a foreign land she had not collapsed as other girls might have collapsed, she had gathered her power and become stronger.

‘Is My Lady the King’s Mother in good health and the Princess Mary well?’ she asked, as confidently as if she were entertaining him in the gold room of the Alhambra.

‘Yes, thank God,’ he said. ‘And you?’

She smiled and bowed her head. ‘And no need to ask for your health,’ she remarked. ‘You never look any different.’

‘Do I not?’

‘Not since the very first time we met,’ she said. ‘When I had just landed in England and was coming to London and you rode to meet me.’ It cost Catalina a good deal not to think of Arthur as he was on that evening, mortified by his father’s rudeness, trying to talk to her in an undertone, stealing sideways looks at her.

Determinedly she put her young lover from her mind and smiled at his father and said: ‘I was so surprised by your coming, and so startled by you.’

He laughed. He saw that she had conjured the picture of when he first saw her, a virgin by her bed, in a white gown with a blue cape with her hair in a plait down her back, and how he thought then that he had come upon her like a ravisher, he had forced his way into her bedchamber, he could have forced himself on to her.

He turned and took a chair to cover his thoughts, gesturing that she should sit down too. Her duenna, the same sour-faced Spanish mule, he noticed irritably, stood at the back of the room with two other ladies.

Catalina sat perfectly composed, her white fingers interlaced in her lap, her back straight, her entire manner that of a young woman confident of her power to attract. Henry said nothing and looked at her for a moment. Surely she must know what she was doing to him when she reminded him of their first meeting? And yet surely the daughter of Isabella of Spain and the widow of his own son could not be wilfully tempting him to lust?

A servant came in with two cups of small ale. The king was served first and then Catalina took a cup. She took a tiny sip and set it down.

‘D’you still not like ale?’ He was startled at the intimacy in his own voice. Surely to God he could ask his daughter-in-law what she liked to drink?

‘I drink it only when I am very thirsty,’ she replied. ‘But I don’t like the taste it leaves in my mouth.’ She put her hand to her mouth and touched her lower lip. Fascinated, he watched her fingertip brush the tip of her tongue. She made a little face. ‘I think it will never be a favourite of mine,’ she said.

‘What did you drink in Spain?’ He found he could hardly speak. He was still watching her soft mouth, shiny where her tongue had licked her lips.

‘We could drink the water,’ she said. ‘In the Alhambra the Moors had piped clean water all the way from the mountains into the palace. We drank mountain spring water from the fountains, it was still cold. And juices from fruits of course, we had wonderful fruits in summer, and ices, and sherbets and wines as well.’

‘If you come on progress with me this summer we can go to places where you can drink the water,’ he said. He thought he was sounding like a stupid boy, promising her a drink of water as a treat. Stubbornly, he persisted. ‘If you come with me we can go hunting, we can go to Hampshire, beyond, to the New Forest. You remember the country around there? Near where we first met?’

‘I should like that so much,’ she said. ‘If I am still here, of course.’

‘Still here?’ He was startled, he had almost forgotten that she was his hostage, she was supposed to go home by summer. ‘I doubt your father and I will have agreed terms by then.’

‘Why, how can it take so long?’ she asked, her blue eyes wide with assumed surprise. ‘Surely we can come to some agreement?’ She hesitated. ‘Between friends? Surely if we cannot agree about the moneys owed, there is some other way? Some other agreement that can be made? Since we have made an agreement before?’

It was so close to what he had been thinking that he rose to his feet, discomfited. At once she rose too. The top of her pretty blue hood only came to his shoulder, he thought he would have to bend his head to kiss her, and if she were under him in bed he would have to take care not to hurt her. He felt his face flush hot at the thought of it. ‘Come here,’ he said thickly and led her to the window embrasure where her ladies could not overhear them.

‘I have been thinking what sort of arrangement we might come to,’ he said. ‘The easiest thing would be for you to stay here. I should certainly like you to stay here.’

Catalina did not look up at him. If she had done so then, he would have been sure of her. But she kept her eyes down, her face downcast. ‘Oh, certainly, if my parents agree,’ she said, so softly that he could hardly hear.

He felt himself trapped. He felt he could not go forwards while she held her head so delicately to one side and showed him only the curve of her cheek and her eyelashes, and yet he could hardly go back when she had asked him outright if there was not another way to resolve the conflict between him and her parents.

‘You will think me very old,’ he burst out.

Her blue eyes flashed up at him and were veiled again. ‘Not at all,’ she said levelly.

‘I am old enough to be your father,’ he said, hoping she would disagree.

Instead she looked up at him. ‘I never think of you like that,’ she said.

Henry was silent. He felt utterly baffled by this slim young woman who seemed at one moment so deliciously encouraging and yet at another moment, quite opaque. ‘What would you like to do?’ he demanded of her.

At last she raised her head and smiled up at him, her lips curving up but no warmth in her eyes. ‘Whatever you command,’ she said. ‘I should like most of all to obey you, Your Grace.’

What does he mean? What is he doing? I thought he was offering me Harry and I was about to say ‘yes’ when he said that I must think him very old, as old as my father. And of course he is, indeed, he looks far older than my father, that is why I never think of him like a father, a grandfather perhaps, or an old priest. My father is handsome; a terrible womaniser; a brave soldier; a hero on the battlefield. This king has fought one half-hearted battle and put down a dozen unheroic uprisings of poor men too sickened with his rule to endure it any more. So he is not like my father and I spoke only the truth when I said that I never see him like that.

But then he looked at me as if I had said something of great interest, and then he asked me what I wanted. I could not say to his face that I wanted him to overlook my marriage to his oldest son, and marry me anew to his youngest. So I said that I wanted to obey him. There can be nothing wrong with that. But somehow it was not what he wanted. And it did not get me to where I wanted.

I have no idea what he wants. Nor how to turn it to my own advantage.

Henry went back to Whitehall Palace, his face burning and his heart pounding, hammered between frustration and calculation. If he could persuade Catalina’s parents to allow the wedding, he could claim the rest of her substantial dowry, be free of their claims for her jointure, reinforce the alliance with Spain at the very moment that he was looking to secure new alliances with Scotland and France, and perhaps, with such a young wife, get another son and heir on her. One daughter on the throne of Scotland, one daughter on the throne of France should lock both nations into peace for a lifetime. The Princess of Spain on the throne of England should keep the most Christian kings of Spain in alliance. He would have bolted the great powers of Christendom into peaceful alliance with England not just for a generation, but for generations to come. They would have heirs in common; they would be safe. England would be safe. Better yet, England’s sons might inherit the kingdoms of France, of Scotland, of Spain. England might conceive its way into peace and greatness.

It made absolute sense to secure Catalina; he tried to focus on the political advantage and not think of the line of her neck nor the curve of her waist. He tried to steady his mind by thinking of the small fortune that would be saved by not having to provide her with a jointure nor with her keep, by not having to send a ship, several ships probably, to escort her home. But all he could think was that she had touched her soft mouth with her finger and told him that she did not like the lingering taste of ale. At the thought of the tip of her tongue against her lips he groaned aloud and the groom holding the horse for him to dismount looked up and said: ‘Sire?’

‘Bile,’ the king said sourly.

It did feel like too rich a fare that was sickening him, he decided as he strode to his private apartments, courtiers eddying out of his way with sycophantic smiles. He felt that he must remember that she was little more than a child, she was his own daughter-in-law. If he listened to the good sense that had carried him so far, he should simply promise to pay her jointure, send her back to her parents, and then delay the payment till they had her married to some other kingly fool elsewhere, and he could get away with paying nothing.

But at the mere thought of her married to another man he had to stop and put his hand out to the oak panelling for support.

‘Your Grace?’ someone asked him. ‘Are you ill?’

‘Bile,’ the king repeated. ‘Something I have eaten.’

His chief groom of the body came to him. ‘Shall I send for your physician, Your Grace?’

‘No,’ the king said. ‘But send a couple of barrels of the best wine to the Dowager Princess. She has nothing in her cellar, and when I have to visit her I should like to drink wine and not ale.’

‘Yes, Your Grace,’ the man said, bowed, and went away. Henry straightened up and went to his rooms. They were crowded with people as usual: petitioners, courtiers, favour-seekers, fortune-hunters, some friends, some gentry, some noblemen attending on him for love or calculation. Henry regarded them all sourly. When he had been Henry Tudor on the run in Brittany he had not been blessed with so many friends.

‘Where is my mother?’ he asked one of them.

‘In her rooms, Your Grace,’ the man replied.

‘I shall visit her,’ he said. ‘Let her know.’

He gave her a few moments to ready herself, and then he went to her chambers. On her daughter-in-law’s death she had moved into the apartment traditionally given to the queen. She had ordered new tapestries and new furniture and now the place was more grandly furnished than any queen had ever had before.

‘I’ll announce myself,’ the king said to the guard at her door, and stepped in without ceremony.

Lady Margaret was seated at a table in the window, the household accounts spread before her, inspecting the costs of the royal court as if it were a well-run farm. There was very little waste and no extravagance allowed in the court run by Lady Margaret, and royal servants who had thought that some of the payments which passed through their hands might leave a little gold on the side were soon disappointed.

Henry nodded his approval at the sight of his mother’s supervision of the royal business. He had never rid himself of his own anxiety that the ostentatious wealth of the throne of England might prove to be hollow show. He had financed a campaign for the throne on debt and favours; he never wanted to be cap in hand again.

She looked up as he came in. ‘My son.’

He kneeled for her blessing as he always did when he first greeted her every day, and felt her fingers gently touch the top of his head.

‘You look troubled,’ she remarked.

‘I am,’ he said. ‘I went to see the Dowager Princess.’

‘Yes?’ A faint expression of disdain crossed her face. ‘What are they asking for now?’

‘We –’ He broke off and then started again. ‘We have to decide what is to become of her. She spoke of going home to Spain.’

‘When they pay us what they owe,’ she said at once. ‘They know they have to pay the rest of her dowry before she can leave.’

‘Yes, she knows that.’

There was a brief silence.

‘She asked if there could not be another agreement,’ he said. ‘Some resolution.’

‘Ah, I’ve been waiting for this,’ Lady Margaret said exultantly. ‘I knew they would be after this. I am only surprised they have waited so long. I suppose they thought they should wait until she was out of mourning.’

‘After what?’

‘They will want her to stay,’ she said.

Henry could feel himself beginning to smile and deliberately he set his face still. ‘You think so?’

‘I have been waiting for them to show their hand. I knew that they were waiting for us to make the first move. Ha! That we have made them declare first!’

He raised his eyebrows, longing for her to spell out his desire. ‘For what?’

‘A proposal from us, of course,’ she said. ‘They knew that we would never let such a chance go. She was the right match then, and she is the right match now. We had a good bargain with her then, and it is still good. Especially if they pay in full. And now she is more profitable than ever.’

His colour flushed as he beamed at her. ‘You think so?’

‘Of course. She is here, half her dowry already paid, the rest we have only to collect, we have already rid ourselves of her escort, the alliance is already working to our benefit – we would never have the respect of the French if they did not fear her parents, the Scots fear us too – she is still the best match in Christendom for us.’

His sense of relief was overwhelming. If his mother did not oppose the plan then he felt he could push on with it. She had been his best and safest advisor for so long that he could not have gone against her will.

‘And the difference in age?’

She shrugged. ‘It is what? Five, nearly six years? That is nothing for a prince.’

He recoiled as if she had slapped him in the face. ‘Six years?’ he repeated.

‘And Harry is tall for his age and strong. They will not look mismatched,’ she said.

‘No,’ he said flatly. ‘No. Not Harry. I did not mean Harry. I was not speaking of Harry!’

The anger in his voice alerted her. ‘What?’

‘No. No. Not Harry. Damn it! Not Harry!’

‘What? Whatever can you mean?’

‘It is obvious! Surely it is obvious!’

Her gaze flashed across his face, reading him rapidly, as only she could. ‘Not Harry?’

‘I thought you were speaking of me.’

‘Of you?’ She quickly reconsidered the conversation. ‘Of you for the Infanta?’ she asked incredulously.

He felt himself flush again. ‘Yes.’

‘Arthur’s widow? Your own daughter-in-law?’

‘Yes! Why not?’

Lady Margaret stared at him in alarm. She did not even have to list the obstacles.

‘He was too young. It was not consummated,’ he said, repeating the words that the Spanish ambassador had learned from Dona Elvira, which had been spread throughout Christendom.

She looked sceptical.

‘She says so herself. Her duenna says so. The Spanish say so. Everybody says so.’

‘And you believe them?’ she asked coldly.

‘He was impotent.’

‘Well…’ It was typical of her that she said nothing while she considered it. She looked at him, noting the colour in his cheeks and the trouble in his face. ‘They are probably lying. We saw them wedded and bedded and there was no suggestion then that it had not been done.’

‘That is their business. If they all tell the same lie and stick to it, then it is the same as the truth.’

‘Only if we accept it.’

‘We do,’ he ruled.

She raised her eyebrows. ‘It is your desire?’

‘It is not a question of desire. I need a wife,’ Henry said coolly, as though it could be anyone. ‘And she is conveniently here, as you say.’

‘She would be suitable by birth,’ his mother conceded, ‘but for her relationship to you. She is your daughter-in-law even if it was not consummated. And she is very young.’

‘She is seventeen,’ he said. ‘A good age for a woman. And a widow. She is ready for a second marriage.’

‘She is either a virgin or she is not,’ Lady Margaret observed waspishly. ‘We had better agree.’

‘She is seventeen,’ he corrected himself. ‘A good age for marriage. She is ready for a full marriage.’

‘The people won’t like it,’ she observed. ‘They will remember her wedding to Arthur, we made such a show of it. They took to her. They took to the two of them. The pomegranate and the rose. She caught their fancy in her lace mantilla.’

‘Well, he is dead,’ he said harshly. ‘And she will have to marry someone.’

‘People will think it odd.’

He shrugged. ‘They will be glad enough if she gives me a son.’

‘Oh yes, if she can do that. But she was barren with Arthur.’

‘As we have agreed, Arthur was impotent. The marriage was not consummated.’

She pursed her lips but said nothing.

‘And it gains us the dowry and removes the cost of the jointure,’ he pointed out.

She nodded. She loved the thought of the fortune that Catalina would bring.

‘And she is here already.’

‘A most constant presence,’ she said sourly.

‘A constant princess,’ he smiled.

‘Do you really think her parents would agree? Their Majesties of Spain?’

‘It solves their dilemma as well as ours. And it maintains the alliance.’ He found he was smiling, and tried to make his face stern, as normal. ‘She herself would think it was her destiny. She believes herself born to be Queen of England.’

‘Well then, she is a fool,’ his mother remarked smartly.

‘She was raised to be queen since she was a child.’

‘But she will be a barren queen. No son of hers will be any good. He could never be king. If she has one at all, he will come after Harry,’ she reminded him. ‘He will even come after Harry’s sons. It’s a far poorer alliance for her than marriage to a Prince of Wales. The Spanish won’t like it.’

‘Oh, Harry is still a child. His sons are a long way ahead. Years.’

‘Even so. It would weigh on her parents. They will prefer Prince Harry for her. That way, she is queen and her son is king after her. Why would they agree to anything less?’

Henry hesitated. There was nothing he could say to fault her logic, except that he did not wish to follow it.

‘Oh. I see. You want her,’ she said flatly when the silence extended so long that she realised there was something he could not let himself say. ‘It is a matter of your desire.’

He took the plunge. ‘Yes,’ he confirmed.

Lady Margaret looked at him with calculation in her gaze. He had been taken from her as little more than a baby for safe-keeping. Since then she had always seen him as a prospect, as a potential heir to the throne, as her passport to grandeur. She had hardly known him as a baby, never loved him as a child. She had planned his future as a man, she had defended his rights as a king, she had mapped his campaign as a threat to the House of York – but she had never known tenderness for him. She could not learn to feel indulgent towards him this late in her life; she was hardly ever indulgent to anyone, not even to herself.

‘That’s very shocking,’ she said coolly. ‘I thought we were talking of a marriage of advantage. She stands as a daughter to you. This desire is a carnal sin.’

‘It is not and she is not,’ he said. ‘There is nothing wrong in honourable love. She is not my daughter. She is his widow. And it was not consummated.’

‘You will need a dispensation, it is a sin.’

‘He never even had her!’ he exclaimed.

‘The whole court put them to bed,’ she pointed out levelly.

‘He was too young. He was impotent. And he was dead, poor lad, within months.’

She nodded. ‘So she says now.’

‘But you do not advise me against it,’ he said.

‘It is a sin,’ she repeated. ‘But if you can get dispensation and her parents agree to it, then –’ She pulled a sour face. ‘Well, better her than many others, I suppose,’ she said begrudgingly. ‘And she can live at court under my care. I can watch over her and command her more easily than I could an older girl, and we know that she behaves herself well. She is obedient. She will learn her duties under me. And the people love her.’

‘I shall speak to the Spanish ambassador today.’

She thought she had never seen such a bright gladness in his face. ‘I suppose I can teach her.’ She gestured to the books before her. ‘She will have much to learn.’

‘I shall tell the ambassador to propose it to Their Majesties of Spain and I shall talk to her tomorrow.’

‘You will go again so soon?’ she asked curiously.

Henry nodded. He would not tell her that even to wait till tomorrow seemed too long. If he had been free to do so, he would have gone back straight away and asked her to marry him that very night, as if he were a humble squire and she a maid, and not King of England and Princess of Spain; father and daughter-in-law.

Henry saw that Dr de Puebla the Spanish ambassador was invited to Whitehall in time for dinner, given a seat at one of the top tables, and plied with the best wine. Some venison, hanged to perfection and cooked in a brandywine sauce, came to the king’s table, he helped himself to a small portion and sent the dish to the Spanish ambassador. De Puebla, who had not experienced such favours since first negotiating the Infanta’s marriage contract, loaded his plate with a heavy spoon and dipped the best manchet bread into the gravy, glad to eat well at court, wondering quietly behind his avid smile what it might mean.

The king’s mother nodded towards him, and de Puebla rose up from his seat to bow to her. ‘Most gracious,’ he remarked to himself as he sat down once more. ‘Extremely. Exceptionally.’

He was no fool, he knew that something would be required for all these public favours. But given the horror of the past year – when the hopes of Spain had been buried beneath the nave in Worcester Cathedral – at least these were straws in a good wind. Clearly, King Henry had a use for him again as something other than a whipping boy for the failure of the Spanish sovereigns to pay their debts.

De Puebla had tried to defend Their Majesties of Spain to an increasingly irritable English king. He had tried to explain to them in long, detailed letters that it was fruitless asking for Catalina’s widow’s jointure if they would not pay the remainder of the dowry. He tried to explain to Catalina that he could not make the English king pay a more generous allowance for the upkeep of her household, nor could he persuade the Spanish king to give his daughter financial support. Both kings were utterly stubborn, both quite determined to force the other into a weak position. Neither seemed to care that in the meantime Catalina, only seventeen, was forced to keep house with an extravagant entourage in a foreign land on next to no money. Neither king would take the first step and undertake to be responsible for her keep, fearing that this would commit him to keeping her and her household forever.

De Puebla smiled up at the king, seated on his throne under the canopy of state. He genuinely liked King Henry, he admired the courage with which he had seized and held the throne, he liked the man’s direct good sense. And more than that, de Puebla liked living in England, he was accustomed to his good house in London, to the importance conferred on him by representing the newest and most powerful ruling house in Europe. He liked the fact that his Jewish background and recent conversion were utterly ignored in England, since everyone at this court had come from nowhere and changed their name or their affiliation at least once. England suited de Puebla, and he would do his best to remain. If it meant serving the King of England better than the King of Spain, he thought it was a small compromise to make.

Henry rose from the throne and gave the signal that the servers could clear the plates. They swept the board and cleared the trestle tables, and Henry strolled among the diners, pausing for a word here and there, still very much the commander among his men. All the favourites at the Tudor court were the gamblers who had put their swords behind their words and marched into England with Henry. They knew their value to him, and he knew his to them. It was still a victors’ camp rather than a softened civilian court.

At length Henry completed his circuit and came to de Puebla’s table. ‘Ambassador,’ he greeted him.

De Puebla bowed low. ‘I thank you for your gift of the dish of venison,’ he said. ‘It was delicious.’

The king nodded. ‘I would have a word with you.’

‘Of course.’

‘Privately.’

The two men strolled to a quieter corner of the hall while the musicians in the gallery struck a note and began to play.

‘I have a proposal to resolve the issue of the Dowager Princess,’ Henry said as drily as possible.

‘Indeed?’

‘You may find my suggestion unusual, but I think it has much to recommend it.’

‘At last,’ de Puebla thought to himself. ‘He is going to propose Harry. I thought he was going to let her sink a lot lower before he did that. I thought he would bring her down so that he could charge us double for a second try at Wales. But, so be it. God is merciful.’

‘Ah yes?’ de Puebla said aloud.

‘I suggest that we forget the issue of the dowry,’ Henry started. ‘Her goods will be absorbed into my household. I shall pay her an appropriate allowance, as I did for the late Queen Elizabeth – God bless her. I shall marry the Infanta myself.’

De Puebla was almost too shocked to speak. ‘You?’

‘I. Is there any reason why not?’

The ambassador gulped, drew a breath, managed to say, ‘No, no, at least…I suppose there could be an objection on the grounds of affinity.’

‘I shall apply for a dispensation. I take it that you are certain that the marriage was not consummated?’

‘Certain,’ de Puebla gasped.

‘You assured me of that on her word?’

‘The duenna said…’

‘Then it is nothing,’ the king ruled. ‘They were little more than promised to one another. Hardly man and wife.’

‘I will have to put this to Their Majesties of Spain,’ de Puebla said, desperately trying to assemble some order to his whirling thoughts, striving to keep his deep shock from his face. ‘Does the Privy Council agree?’ he asked, playing for time. ‘The Archbishop of Canterbury?’

‘It is a matter between ourselves at the moment,’ Henry said grandly. ‘It is early days for me as a widower. I want to be able to reassure Their Majesties that their daughter will be cared for. It has been a difficult year for her.’

‘If she could have gone home…’

‘Now there will be no need for her to go home. Her home is England. This is her country,’ Henry said flatly. ‘She shall be queen here, as she was brought up to be.’

De Puebla could hardly speak for shock at the suggestion that this old man, who had just buried his wife, should marry his dead son’s bride. ‘Of course. So, shall I tell Their Majesties that you are quite determined on this course? There is no other arrangement that we should consider?’ De Puebla racked his brains as to how he could bring in the name of Prince Harry, who was surely Catalina’s most appropriate future husband. Finally, he plunged in. ‘Your son, for instance?’

‘My son is too young to be considered for marriage as yet,’ Henry disposed of the suggestion with speed. ‘He is eleven and a strong, forward boy but his grandmother insists that we plan nothing for him for another four years. And by then, the Princess Dowager would be twenty-one.’

‘Still young,’ gasped de Puebla. ‘Still a young woman, and near him in age.’

‘I don’t think Their Majesties would want their daughter to stay in England for another four years without husband or household of her own,’ Henry said with unconcealed threat. ‘They could hardly want her to wait for Harry’s majority. What would she do in those years? Where would she live? Are they proposing to buy her a palace and set up a household for her? Are they prepared to give her an income? A court, appropriate to her position? For four years?’

‘If she could return to Spain to wait?’ de Puebla hazarded.

‘She can leave at once, if she will pay the full amount of her dowry, and find her own fortune elsewhere. Do you really think she can get a better offer than Queen of England? Take her away if you do!’

It was the sticking point that they had reached over and over again in the past year. De Puebla knew he was beaten. ‘I will write to Their Majesties tonight,’ he said.

I dreamed I was a swift, flying over the golden hills of the Sierra Nevada. But this time, I was flying north, the hot afternoon sun was on my left, ahead of me was a gathering of cool cloud. Then suddenly, the cloud took shape, it was Ludlow Castle, and my little bird heart fluttered at the sight of it and at the thought of the night that would come when he would take me in his arms and press down on me, and I would melt with desire for him.

Then I saw it was not Ludlow but the great grey walls were those of Windsor Castle, and the curve of the river was the great grey glass of the river Thames, and all the traffic plying up and down and the great ships at anchor were the wealth and the bustle of the English. I knew I was far from my home, and yet I was at home. This would be my home, I would build a little nest against the grey stone of the towers here, just as I would have done in Spain. And here they would call me a swift; a bird which flies so fast that no-one has ever seen it land, a bird that flies so high that they think it never touches the ground. I shall not be Catalina, the Infanta of Spain. I shall be Katherine of Aragon, Queen of England, just as Arthur named me: Katherine, Queen of England.

‘The king is here again,’ Dona Elvira said, looking out of the window. ‘He has ridden here with just two men. Not even a standard bearer or guards.’ She sniffed. The widespread English informality was bad enough but this king had the manners of a stable boy.

Catalina flew to the window and peered out. ‘What can he want?’ she wondered. ‘Tell them to decant some of his wine.’

Dona Elvira went out of the room in a hurry. In the next moment Henry strolled in, unannounced. ‘I thought I would call on you,’ he said.

Catalina sank into a deep curtsey. ‘Your Grace does me much honour,’ she said. ‘And at least now I can offer you a glass of good wine.’

Henry smiled and waited. The two of them stood while Dona Elvira returned to the room with a Spanish maid-in-waiting carrying a tray of Morisco brassware with two Venetian glasses of red wine. Henry noted the fineness of the workmanship and assumed correctly that it was part of the dowry that the Spanish had withheld.

‘Your health,’ he said, holding up his glass to the princess.

To his surprise she did not simply raise her glass in return, she raised her eyes and gave him a long, thoughtful look. He felt himself tingle, like a boy, as his eyes met hers. ‘Princess?’ he said quietly.

‘Your Grace?’

They both of them glanced towards Dona Elvira, who was standing uncomfortably close, quietly regarding the floorboards beneath her worn shoes.

‘You can leave us,’ the king said.

The woman looked at the princess for her orders, and made no move to leave.

‘I shall talk in private with my daughter-in-law,’ King Henry said firmly. ‘You may go.’

Dona Elvira curtseyed and left, and the rest of the ladies swept out after her.

Catalina smiled at the king. ‘As you command,’ she said.

He felt his pulse speed at her smile. ‘Indeed, I do need to speak to you privately. I have a proposal to put to you. I have spoken to the Spanish ambassador and he has written to your parents.’

‘At last. This is it. At last,’ Catalina thought. ‘He has come to propose Harry for me. Thank God, who has brought me to this day. Arthur, beloved, this day you will see that I shall be faithful to my promise to you.’

‘I need to marry again,’ Henry said. ‘I am still young –’ He thought he would not say his age of forty-six. ‘It may be that I can have another child or two.’

Catalina nodded politely; but she was barely listening. She was waiting for him to ask her to marry Prince Harry.

‘I have been thinking of all the princesses in Europe who would be suitable partners for me,’ he said.

Still the princess before him said nothing.

‘I can find no-one I would choose.’

She widened her eyes to indicate her attention.

Henry ploughed on. ‘My choice has fallen on you,’ he said bluntly, ‘for these reasons. You are here in London already, you have become accustomed to living here. You were brought up to be Queen of England, and you will be queen as my wife. The difficulties with the dowry can be put aside. You will have the same allowance that I paid to Queen Elizabeth. My mother agrees with this.’

At last his words penetrated her mind. She was so shocked that she could barely speak. She just stared at him. ‘Me?’

‘There is a slight objection on the grounds of affinity but I shall ask the Pope to grant a dispensation,’ he went on. ‘I understand that your marriage to Prince Arthur was never consummated. In that case, there is no real objection.’

‘It was not consummated.’ Catalina repeated the words by rote, as if she no longer understood them. The great lie had been part of a plot to take her to the altar with Prince Harry, not with his father. She could not now retract it. Her mind was so dizzy that she could only cling to it. ‘It was not consummated.’

‘Then there should be no difficulty,’ the king said. ‘I take it that you do not object?’

He found that he could hardly breathe, waiting for her answer. Any thought that she had been leading him on, tempting him to this moment, had vanished when he looked into her bleached, shocked face.

He took her hand. ‘Don’t look so afraid,’ he said, his voice low with tenderness. ‘I won’t hurt you. This is to resolve all your problems. I will be a good husband to you. I will care for you.’ Desperately, he racked his brains for something that might please her. ‘I will buy you pretty things,’ he said. ‘Like those sapphires that you liked so much. You shall have a cupboard full of pretty things, Catalina.’

She knew she had to reply. ‘I am so surprised,’ she said.

‘Surely you must have known that I desired you?’

I stopped my cry of denial. I wanted to say that of course I had not known. But it was not true. I had known, as any young woman would have known, from the way he had looked at me, from the way that I had responded to him. From the very first moment that I met him there was this undercurrent between us. I ignored it. I pretended it was something easier than it was, I deployed it. I have been most at fault.

In my vanity, I thought that I was encouraging an old man to think of me kindly, that I could engage him, delight him, even flirt with him, first as a fond father-in-law and then to prevail upon him to marry me to Harry. I had meant to delight him as a daughter, I had wanted him to admire me, to pet me. I wanted him to dote on me.

This is a sin, a sin. This is a sin of vanity and a sin of pride. I have deployed his lust and covetousness. I have led him to sin through my folly. No wonder God has turned His face from me and my mother never writes to me. I am most wrong.

Dear God, I am a fool, and a childish, vain fool at that. I have not lured the king into a trap of my own satisfaction, but merely baited his trap for me. My vanity and pride in myself made me think that I could tempt him to do whatever I want. Instead, I have tempted him only to his own desires, and now he will do what he wants. And what he wants is me. And it is my own stupid fault.

‘You must have known.’ Henry smiled down at her confidently. ‘You must have known when I came to see you yesterday, and when I sent you the good wine?’

Catalina gave a little nod. She had known something – fool that she was – she had known something was happening; and praised her own diplomatic skills for being so clever as to lead the King of England by the nose. She had thought herself a woman of the world and thought her ambassador an idiot for not achieving this outcome from a king who was so easily manipulated. She had thought she had the King of England dancing to her bidding, when in fact he had his own tune in mind.

‘I desired you from the moment I first saw you,’ he told her, his voice very low.

She looked up. ‘You did?’

‘Truly. When I came into your bedchamber at Dogmersfield.’

She remembered an old man, travel-stained and lean, the father of the man she would marry. She remembered the sweaty male scent as he forced his way into her bedroom and she remembered standing before him and thinking: what a clown, what a rough soldier to push in where he is not wanted. And then Arthur arrived, his blond hair tousled, and with the brightness of his shy smile.

‘Oh yes,’ she said. From somewhere deep inside her own resolution, she found a smile. ‘I remember. I danced for you.’

Henry drew her a little closer and slid his arm around her waist. Catalina forced herself not to pull away. ‘I watched you,’ he said. ‘I longed for you.’

‘But you were married,’ Catalina said primly.

‘And now I am widowed and so are you,’ he said. He felt the stiffness of her body through the hard boning of the stomacher and let her go. He would have to court her slowly, he thought. She might have flirted with him, but now she was startled by the turn that things had taken. She had come from an absurdly sheltered upbringing and her innocent months with Arthur had hardly opened her eyes at all. He would have to take matters slowly with her. He would have to wait until she had permission from Spain, he would leave the ambassador to tell her of the wealth she might command, he would have to let her women urge the benefits of the match upon her. She was a young woman, by nature and experience she was bound to be a fool. He would have to give her time.

‘I will leave you now,’ he said. ‘I will come again tomorrow.’

She nodded, and walked with him to the door of her privy chamber. There she hesitated. ‘You mean it?’ she asked him, her blue eyes suddenly anxious. ‘You mean this as a proposal of marriage, not as a feint in a negotiation? You truly want to marry me? I will be queen?’

He nodded. ‘I mean it.’ The depth of her ambition began to dawn on him and he smiled as he slowly saw the way to her. ‘Do you want to be queen so very much?’

Catalina nodded. ‘I was brought up to it,’ she said. ‘I want nothing more.’ She hesitated, for a moment she almost thought to tell him that it had been the last thought of his son, but then her passion for Arthur was too great for her to share him with anyone, even his father. And besides, Arthur had planned that she should marry Harry.

The king was smiling. ‘So you don’t have desire, but you do have ambition,’ he observed a little coldly.

‘It is nothing more than my due,’ she said flatly. ‘I was born to be a queen.’

He took her hand and bent over it. He kissed her fingers; and he stopped himself from licking them. ‘Take it slowly,’ he warned himself. ‘This is a girl and possibly a virgin; certainly not a whore.’ He straightened up. ‘I shall make you Katherine of Aragon, Queen of England,’ he promised her, and saw her blue eyes darken with desire at the title. ‘We can marry as soon as we have the dispensation from the Pope.’

Think! Think! I urgently command myself. You were not raised by a fool to be a fool, you were raised by a queen to be a queen. If this is a feint you ought to be able to see it. If it is a true offer you ought to be able to turn it to your advantage.

It is not a true fulfilment of the promise I made to my beloved but it is close. He wanted me to be Queen of England and to have the children that he would have given me. So what if they will be his half-brother and half-sister rather than his niece and nephew? That makes no difference.

I shrink from the thought of marrying this old man, old enough to be my father. The skin at his neck is fine and loose, like that of a turtle. I cannot imagine being in bed with him. His breath is sour, an old man’s breath; and he is thin, and he will feel bony at the hips and shoulders. But I shrink from the thought of being in bed with that child Harry. His face is as smooth and as rounded as a little girl’s. In truth, I cannot bear the thought of being anyone’s wife but Arthur’s; and that part of my life has gone.

Think! Think! This might be the very right thing to do.

Oh God, beloved, I wish you were here to tell me. I wish I could just visit you in the garden for you to tell me what I should do. I am only seventeen, I cannot outwit a man old enough to be my father, a king with a nose for pretenders.

Think!

I will have no help from anyone. I have to think alone.

Dona Elvira waited until the princess’s bedtime and until all the maids-in-waiting, the ladies and the grooms of the bedchamber had withdrawn. She closed the door on them all and then turned to the princess, who was seated in her bed, her hair in a neat plait, her pillows plumped behind her.

‘What did the king want?’ she demanded without ceremony.

‘He proposed marriage to me,’ Catalina said bluntly in reply. ‘For himself.’

For a moment the duenna was too stunned to speak then she crossed herself, as a woman seeing something unclean. ‘God save us,’ was all she said. Then: ‘God forgive him for even thinking it.’

‘God forgive you,’ Catalina replied smartly. ‘I am considering it.’

‘He is your father-in-law, and old enough to be your father.’

‘His age doesn’t matter,’ Catalina said truly. ‘If I go back to Spain they won’t seek a young husband for me but an advantageous one.’

‘But he is the father of your husband.’

Catalina nipped her lips together. ‘My late husband,’ she said bleakly. ‘And the marriage was not consummated.’

Dona Elvira swallowed the lie; but her eyes flicked away, just once.

‘As you remember,’ Catalina said smoothly.

‘Even so! It is against nature!’

‘It is not against nature,’ Catalina asserted. ‘There was no consummation of the betrothal, there was no child. So there can be no sin against nature. And anyway, we can get a dispensation.’

Dona Elvira hesitated. ‘You can?’

‘He says so.’

‘Princess, you cannot want this?’

The princess’s little face was bleak. ‘He will not betroth me to Prince Harry,’ she said. ‘He says the boy is too young. I cannot wait four years until he is grown. So what can I do but marry the king? I was born to be Queen of England and mother of the next King of England. I have to fulfil my destiny, it is my God-given destiny. I thought I would have to force myself to take Prince Harry. Now it seems I shall have to force myself to take the king. Perhaps this is God testing me. But my will is strong. I will be Queen of England, and the mother of the king. I shall make this country a fortress against the Moors, as I promised my mother, I shall make it a country of justice and fairness defended against the Scots, as I promised Arthur.’

‘I don’t know what your mother will think,’ the duenna said. ‘I should not have left you alone with him, if I had known.’

Catalina nodded. ‘Don’t leave us alone again.’ She paused. ‘Unless I nod to you,’ she said. ‘I may nod for you to leave, and then you must go.’

The duenna was shocked. ‘He should not even see you before your wedding day. I shall tell the ambassador that he must tell the king that he cannot visit you at all now.’

Catalina shook her head. ‘We are not in Spain now,’ she said fiercely. ‘D’you still not see it? We cannot leave this to the ambassador, not even my mother can say what shall happen. I shall have to make this happen. I alone have brought it so far, and I alone will make it happen.’

I hoped to dream of you, but I dreamed of nothing. I feel as if you have gone far, far away. I have no letter from my mother so I don’t know what she will make of the king’s wish. I pray, but I hear nothing from God. I speak very bravely of my destiny and God’s will but they feel now quite intertwined. If God does not make me Queen of England then I do not know how I can believe in Him. If I am not Queen of England then I do not know what I am.

Catalina waited for the king to visit her as he had promised. He did not come the next day but Catalina was sure he would come the day after. When three days had elapsed she walked on her own by the river, chafing her hands in the shelter of her cloak. She had been so sure that he would come again that she had prepared herself to keep him interested, but under her control. She planned to lead him on, to keep him dancing at arm’s length. When he did not come she realised that she was anxious to see him. Not for desire – she thought she would never feel desire again – but because he was her only way to the throne of England. When he did not come, she was mortally afraid that he had had second thoughts, and he would not come at all.

‘Why is he not coming?’ I demand of the little waves on the river, washing against the bank as a boatman rows by. ‘Why would he come so passionate and earnest one day, and then not come at all?’

I am so fearful of his mother, she has never liked me and if she turns her face from me, I don’t know that he will go ahead. But then I remember that he said that his mother had given her permission. Then I am afraid that the Spanish ambassador might have said something against the match – but I cannot believe that de Puebla would ever say anything to inconvenience the king, even if he failed to serve me.

‘Then why is he not coming?’ I ask myself. ‘If he was courting in the English way, all rush and informality, then surely he would come every day?’

Another day went past, and then another. Finally, Catalina gave way to her anxiety and sent the king a message at his court, hoping that he was well.

Dona Elvira said nothing, but her stiff back as she supervised the brushing and powdering of Catalina’s gown that night spoke volumes.

‘I know what you are thinking,’ Catalina said, as the duenna waved the maid of the wardrobe from the room and turned to brush Catalina’s hair. ‘But I cannot risk losing this chance.’

‘I am thinking nothing,’ the older woman said coldly. ‘These are English ways. As you tell me, we cannot now abide by decent Spanish ways. And so, I am not qualified to speak. Clearly, my advice is not taken. I am an empty vessel.’

Catalina was too worried to soothe the older woman. ‘It doesn’t matter what you are,’ she said distractedly. ‘Perhaps he will come tomorrow.’

Henry, seeing her ambition as the key to her, had given the girl a few days to consider her position. He thought she might compare the life she led at Durham House, in seclusion with her little Spanish court, her furniture becoming more shabby and no new gowns, with the life she might lead as a young queen at the head of one of the richest courts in Europe. He thought she had the sense to think that through on her own. When he received a note from her, inquiring as to his health, he knew that he had been right; and the next day he rode down the Strand to visit her.

Her porter who kept the gate said that the princess was in the garden, walking with her ladies by the river. Henry went through the back door of the palace to the terrace, and down the steps through the garden. He saw her by the river, walking alone, ahead of her ladies, her head slightly bowed in thought, and he felt an old, familiar sensation in his belly at the sight of a woman he desired. It made him feel young again, that deep pang of lust, and he smiled at himself for feeling a young man’s passion, for knowing again a young man’s folly.

His page, running ahead, announced him and he saw her head jerk up at his name and she looked across the lawn and saw him. He smiled, he was waiting for that moment of recognition between a woman and a man who loves her – the moment when their eyes meet and they both know that intense moment of joy, that moment when the eyes say: ‘Ah, it is you,’ and that is everything.

Instead, like a dull blow, he saw at once that there was no leap of her heart at the sight of him. He was smiling shyly, his face lit up with anticipation; but she, in the first moment of surprise, was nothing more than startled. Unprepared, she did not feign emotion, she did not look like a woman in love. She looked up, she saw him – and he could tell at once that she did not love him. There was no shock of delight. Instead, chillingly, he saw a swift expression of calculation cross her face. She was a girl in an unguarded moment, wondering if she could have her own way. It was the look of a huckster, pricing a fool ready for fleecing. Henry, the father of two selfish girls, recognised it in a moment, and knew that whatever the princess might say, however sweetly she might say it, this would be a marriage of convenience to her, whatever it was to him. And more than that, he knew that she had made up her mind to accept him.

He walked across the close-scythed grass towards her and took her hand. ‘Good day, Princess.’

Catalina curtseyed. ‘Your Grace.’

She turned her head to her ladies. ‘You can go inside.’ To Dona Elvira she said, ‘See that there are refreshments for His Grace when we come in.’ Then she turned back to him. ‘Will you walk, sire?’

‘You will make a very elegant queen,’ he said with a smile. ‘You command very smoothly.’

He saw her hesitate in her stride and the tension leave her slim young body as she exhaled. ‘Ah, you mean it then,’ she breathed. ‘You mean to marry me.’

‘I do,’ he said. ‘You will be a most beautiful Queen of England.’

She glowed at the thought of it. ‘I still have many English ways to learn.’

‘My mother will teach you,’ he said easily. ‘You will live at court in her rooms and under her supervision.’

Catalina checked a little in her stride. ‘Surely I will have my own rooms, the queen’s rooms?’

‘My mother is occupying the queen’s rooms,’ he said. ‘She moved in after the death of the late queen, God bless her. And you will join her there. She thinks that you are too young as yet to have your own rooms and a separate court. You can live in my mother’s rooms with her ladies and she can teach you how things are done.’

He could see that she was troubled, but trying hard not to show it.

‘I should think I know how things are done in a royal palace,’ Catalina said, trying to smile.

‘An English palace,’ he said firmly. ‘Fortunately my mother has run all my palaces and castles and managed my fortune since I came to the throne. She shall teach you how it is done.’

Catalina closed her lips on her disagreement. ‘When do you think we will hear from the Pope?’ she asked.

‘I have sent an emissary to Rome to inquire,’ Henry said. ‘We shall have to apply jointly, your parents and myself. But it should be resolved very quickly. If we are all agreed, there can be no real objection.’

‘Yes,’ she said.

‘And we are completely agreed on marriage?’ he confirmed.

‘Yes,’ she said again.

He took her hand and tucked it into his arm. Catalina walked a little closer and let her head brush against his shoulder. She was not wearing a headdress, only the hood of her cape covered her hair, and the movement pushed it back. He could smell the essence of roses on her hair, he could feel the warmth of her head against his shoulder. He had to stop himself from taking her in his arms. He paused and she stood close to him; he could feel the warmth of her, down the whole length of his body.

‘Catalina,’ he said, his voice very low and thick.

She stole a glance and saw desire in his face, and she did not step away. If anything, she came a little closer. ‘Yes, Your Grace?’ she whispered.

Her eyes were downcast but slowly, in the silence, she looked up at him. When her face was upturned to his, he could not resist the unstated invitation, he bent and kissed her on the lips.

There was no shrinking, she took his kiss, her mouth yielded under his, he could taste her, his arms came around her, he pressed her towards him, he could feel his desire for her rising in him so strongly that he had to let her go, that minute, or disgrace himself.

He released her and stood shaking with desire so strong that he could not believe its power as it washed through him. Catalina pulled her hood forwards as if she would be veiled from him, as if she were a girl from a harem with a veil hiding her mouth, only dark, promising eyes showing above the mask. That gesture, so foreign, so secretive, made him long to push back her hood and kiss her again. He reached for her.

‘We might be seen,’ she said coolly, and stepped back from him. ‘We can be seen from the house, and anyone can go by on the river.’

Henry let her go. He could say nothing, for he knew his voice would tremble. Silently, he offered her his arm once more, and silently she took it. They fell into pace with each other, he tempering his longer stride to her steps. They walked in silence for a few moments.

‘Our children will be your heirs?’ she confirmed, her voice cool and steady, following a train of thought very far from his own whirl of sensations.

He cleared his throat. ‘Yes, yes, of course.’

‘That is the English tradition?’

‘Yes.’

‘They will come before your other children?’

‘Our son will inherit before the Princesses Margaret and Mary,’ he said. ‘But our daughters would come after them.’

She frowned a little. ‘How so? Why would they not come before?’

‘It is first on sex, and then on age,’ he said. ‘The first-born boy inherits, then other boys, then girls according to age. Please God there is always a prince to inherit. England has no tradition of ruling queens.’

‘A ruling queen can command as well as a king,’ said the daughter of Isabella of Castile.

‘Not in England,’ said Henry Tudor.

She left it at that. ‘But our oldest son would be king when you died,’ she pursued.

‘Please God I have some years left,’ he said wryly.

She was seventeen, she had no sensitivity about age. ‘Of course. But when you die, if we had a son, he would inherit?’

‘No. The king after me will be Prince Harry, the Prince of Wales.’

She frowned. ‘I thought you could nominate an heir? Can you not make it our son?’

He shook his head. ‘Harry is Prince of Wales. He will be king after me.’

‘I thought he was to go into the church?’

‘Not now.’

‘But if we have a son? Can you not make Harry king of your French dominions, or Ireland, and make our son King of England?’

Henry laughed shortly. ‘No. For that would be to destroy my kingdom, which I have had some trouble to win and to keep together. Harry will have it all by right.’ He saw she was disturbed. ‘Catalina, you will be Queen of England, one of the finest kingdoms of Europe, the place your mother and father chose for you. Your sons and daughters will be princes and princesses of England. What more could you want?’

‘I want my son to be king,’ she answered him frankly.

He shrugged. ‘It cannot be.’

She turned away slightly, only his grip on her hand kept her close.

He tried to laugh it off. ‘Catalina, we are not even married yet. You might not even have a son. We need not spoil our betrothal for a child not yet conceived.’

‘Then what would be the point of marriage?’ she asked, direct in her self-absorption.

He could have said ‘desire’. ‘Destiny, so that you shall be queen.’

She would not let it go. ‘I had thought to be Queen of England and see my son on the throne,’ she repeated. ‘I had thought to be a power in the court, like your mother is. I had thought that there are castles to build and a navy to plan and schools and colleges to found. I want to defend against the Scots on our northern borders and against the Moors on our coasts. I want to be a ruling queen in England, these are things I have planned and hoped for. I was named as the next Queen of England almost in my cradle, I have thought about the kingdom I would reign, I have made plans. There are many things that I want to do.’

He could not help himself, he laughed aloud at the thought of this girl, this child, presuming to make plans for the ruling of his kingdom. ‘You will find that I am before you,’ he said bluntly. ‘This kingdom shall be run as the king commands. This kingdom is run as I command. I did not fight my way to the crown to hand it over to a girl young enough to be my daughter. Your task will be to fill the royal nurseries and your world will start and stop there.’

‘But your mother…’

‘You will find my mother guards her domains as I guard mine,’ he said, still chuckling at the thought of this child planning her future at his court. ‘She will command you as a daughter and you will obey. Make no mistake about it, Catalina. You will come into my court and obey me, you will live in my mother’s rooms and obey her. You will be Queen of England and have the crown on your head. But you will be my wife, and I will have an obedient wife as I have always done.’

He stopped, he did not want to frighten her, but his desire for her was not greater than his determination to hold this kingdom that he had fought so hard to win. ‘I am not a child like Arthur,’ he said to her quietly, thinking that his son, a gentle boy, might have made all sorts of soft promises to a determined young wife. ‘You will not rule beside me. You will be a child-bride to me. I shall love you and make you happy. I swear you will be glad that you married me. I shall be kind to you. I shall be generous to you. I shall give you anything you want. But I shall not make you a ruler. Even at my death you will not rule my country.’

That night I dreamed that I was a queen in a court with a sceptre in one hand and wand in the other and a crown on my head. I raised the sceptre and found it changed in my hand, it was a branch of a tree, the stem of a flower, it was valueless. My other hand was no longer filled with the heavy orb of the sceptre, but with rose petals. I could smell their scent. I put my hand up to touch the crown on my head and I felt a little circlet of flowers. The throne room melted away and I was in the sultana’s garden at the Alhambra, my sisters plaiting circlets of daisies for each other’s heads.

‘Where is the Queen of England?’ someone called from the terrace below the garden.

I rose from the lawn of camomile flowers and smelled the bittersweet perfume of the herb as I tried to run past the fountain to the archway at the end of the garden. ‘I am here!’ I tried to call, but I made no noise above the splashing of the water in the marble bowl.

‘Where is the Queen of England?’ I heard them call again.

‘I am here!’ I called out silently.

‘Where is Queen Katherine of England?’

‘Here! Here! Here!’

The ambassador, summoned at daybreak to come at once to Durham House, did not trouble himself to get there until nine o’clock. He found Catalina waiting for him in her privy chamber with only Dona Elvira in attendance.

‘I sent for you hours ago,’ the princess said crossly.

‘I was undertaking business for your father and could not come earlier,’ he said smoothly, ignoring the sulky look on her face. ‘Is there something wrong?’

‘I spoke with the king yesterday and he repeated his proposal of marriage,’ Catalina said, a little pride in her voice.

‘Indeed.’

‘But he told me that I would live at court in the rooms of his mother.’

‘Oh.’ The ambassador nodded.

‘And he said that my sons would inherit only after Prince Harry.’

The ambassador nodded again.

‘Can we not persuade him to overlook Prince Harry? Can we not draw up a marriage contract to set him aside in favour of my son?’

The ambassador shook his head. ‘It’s not possible.’

‘Surely, a man can choose his heir?’

‘No. Not in the case of a king come so new to his throne. Not an English king. And even if he could, he would not.’

She leapt from her chair and paced to the window. ‘My son will be the grandson of the kings of Spain!’ she exclaimed. ‘Royal for centuries. Prince Harry is nothing more than the son of Elizabeth of York and a successful pretender.’

De Puebla gave a little hiss of horror at her bluntness and glanced towards the door. ‘You would do better never to call him that. He is the King of England.’

She nodded, accepting the reprimand. ‘But he has not my breeding,’ she pursued. ‘Prince Harry would not be the king that my boy would be.’

‘That is not the question,’ the ambassador observed. ‘The question is of time and practice. The king’s oldest son is always the Prince of Wales. He always inherits the throne. This king, of all the kings in the world, is not going to make a pretender of his own legitimate heir. He has been dogged with pretenders. He is not going to make another.’

As always, Catalina flinched at the thought of the last pretender, Edward of Warwick, beheaded to make way for her.

‘Besides,’ the ambassador continued, ‘any king would rather have a sturdy eleven-year-old son as his heir than a new-born in the cradle. These are dangerous times. A man wants to leave a man to inherit, not a child.’

‘If my son is not to be king, then what is the point of me marrying a king?’ Catalina demanded.

‘You would be queen,’ the ambassador pointed out.

‘What sort of a queen would I be with My Lady the King’s Mother ruling everything? The king would not let me have my way in the kingdom, and she would not let me have my way in the court.’

‘You are very young,’ he started, trying to soothe her.

‘I am old enough to know my own mind,’ Catalina stated. ‘And I want to be queen in truth as well as in name. But he will never let me be that, will he?’

‘No,’ de Puebla admitted. ‘You will never command while he is alive.’

‘And when he is dead?’ she demanded, without shrinking.

‘Then you would be the Dowager Queen,’ de Puebla offered.

‘And my parents might marry me once more to someone else, and I might leave England anyway!’ she finished, quite exasperated.

‘It is possible,’ he conceded.

‘And Harry’s wife would be Princess of Wales, and Harry’s wife would be the new queen. She would go before me, she would rule in my place, and all my sacrifice would be for nothing. And her sons would be Kings of England.’

‘That is true.’

Catalina threw herself into her chair. ‘Then I have to be Prince Harry’s wife,’ she said. ‘I have to be.’

De Puebla was quite horrified. ‘I understood you had agreed with the king to marry him! He gave me to believe that you were agreed.’

‘I had agreed to be queen,’ she said, white-faced with determination. ‘Not some cat’s-paw. D’you know what he called me? He said I would be his child-bride, and I would live in his mother’s rooms, as if I were one of her ladies-in-waiting!’

‘The former queen…’

‘The former queen was a saint to put up with a mother-in-law like that one. She stepped back all her life. I can’t do it. It is not what I want, it is not what my mother wants, and it is not what God wants.’

‘But if you have agreed…’

‘When has any agreement been honoured in this country?’ Catalina demanded fiercely. ‘We will break this agreement and make another. We will break this promise and make another. I shall not marry the king, I shall marry another.’

‘Who?’ he asked numbly.

‘Prince Harry, the Prince of Wales,’ she said. ‘So that when King Henry dies I shall be queen in deed as well as name.’

There was a short silence.

‘So you say,’ said de Puebla slowly. ‘Perhaps. But who is going to tell the king?’

God, if You are there, tell me that I am doing the right thing. If You are there, then help me. If it is Thy will that I am Queen of England, then I will need help to achieve it. It has all gone wrong now, and if this has been sent to try me, then see! I am on my knees and shaking with anxiety. If I am indeed blessed by You, destined by You, chosen by You, and favoured by You, then why do I feel so hopelessly alone?

Ambassador Dr de Puebla found himself in the uncomfortable position of having to bring bad news to one of the most powerful and irascible kings in Christendom. He had firm letters of refusal from Their Majesties of Spain in his hand, he had Catalina’s determination to be Princess of Wales, and he had his own shrinking courage, screwed up to the tightest point for this embarrassing meeting.

The king had chosen to see him in the stable yard of Whitehall Palace, he was there looking at a consignment of new Barbary horses, brought in to improve English stock. De Puebla thought of making a graceful reference to foreign blood refreshing native strains, breeding best done between young animals; but he saw Henry’s dark face and realised that there would be no easy way out of this dilemma.

‘Your Grace,’ he said, bowing low.

‘De Puebla,’ the king said shortly.

‘I have a reply from Their Majesties of Spain to your most flattering proposal; but perhaps I should see you at a more opportune time?’

‘Here is well enough. I can imagine from your tiptoeing in what they say.’

‘The truth is…’ de Puebla prepared to lie. ‘They want their daughter home, and they cannot contemplate her marriage to you. The queen is particularly vehement in her refusal.’

‘Because?’ the king inquired.

‘Because she wants to see her daughter, her youngest, sweetest daughter, matched to a prince of her own age. It is a woman’s whim –’ The diplomat made a little diffident gesture. ‘Only a woman’s whim. But we have to recognise a mother’s wishes, don’t we? Your Grace?’

‘Not necessarily,’ the king said unhelpfully. ‘But what does the Dowager Princess say? I thought that she and I had an understanding. She can tell her mother of her preference.’ The king’s eyes were on the Arab stallion, walking proud-headed around the yard, his ears flickering backwards and forwards, his tail held high, his neck arched like a bow. ‘I imagine she can speak for herself.’

‘She says that she will obey you, as ever, Your Grace,’ de Puebla said tactfully.

‘And?’

‘But she has to obey her mother.’ He fell back at the sudden hard glance that the king threw at him. ‘She is a good daughter, Your Grace. She is an obedient daughter to her mother.’

‘I have proposed marriage to her and she has indicated that she would accept.’

‘She would never refuse a king such as you. How could she? But if her parents do not consent, they will not apply for dispensation. Without dispensation from the Pope, there can be no marriage.’

‘I understand that her marriage was not consummated. We barely need a dispensation. It is a courtesy, a formality.’

‘We all know that it was not consummated,’ de Puebla hastily confirmed. ‘The princess is a maid still, fit for marriage. But all the same the Pope would have to grant a dispensation. If Their Majesties of Spain do not apply for such a dispensation, then what can anyone do?’

The king turned a dark, hard gaze on the Spanish ambassador. ‘I don’t know, now. I thought I knew what we would do. But now I am misled. You tell me. What can anyone do?’

The ambassador drew on the enduring courage of his race, his secret Jewishness which he held to his heart in the worst moments of his life. He knew that he and his people would always, somehow, survive.

‘Nothing can be done,’ he said. He attempted a sympathetic smile and felt that he was smirking. He rearranged his face into the gravest expression. ‘If the Queen of Spain will not apply for dispensation there is nothing that can be done. And she is inveterate.’

‘I am not one of Spain’s neighbours to be overrun in a spring campaign,’ the king said shortly. ‘I am no Granada. I am no Navarre. I do not fear her displeasure.’

‘Which is why they long for your alliance,’ de Puebla said smoothly.

‘An alliance how?’ the king asked coldly. ‘I thought they were refusing me?’

‘Perhaps we could avoid all this difficulty by celebrating another marriage,’ the diplomat said carefully, watching Henry’s dark face. ‘A new marriage. To create the alliance we all want.’

‘To whom?’

At the banked-down anger in the king’s face the ambassador lost his words.

‘Sire…I…’

‘Who do they want for her now? Now that my son, the rose, is dead and buried? Now she is a poor widow with only half her dowry paid, living on my charity?’

‘The prince,’ de Puebla plunged in. ‘She was brought to the kingdom to be Princess of Wales. She was brought here to be wife to the prince, and later – much later, please God – to be queen. Perhaps that is her destiny, Your Grace. She thinks so, certainly.’

‘She thinks!’ the king exclaimed. ‘She thinks like that filly thinks! Nothing beyond the next minute.’

‘She is young,’ the ambassador said. ‘But she will learn. And the prince is young, they will learn together.’

‘And we old men have to stand back, do we? She has told you of no preference, no particular liking for me? Though she gave me clearly to understand that she would marry me? She shows no regret at this turn around? She is not tempted to defy her parents and keep her freely given word to me?’

The ambassador heard the bitterness in the old man’s voice. ‘She is allowed no choice,’ he reminded the king. ‘She has to do as she is bidden by her parents. I think, for herself, there was an attraction, perhaps even a powerful attraction. But she knows she has to go where she is bid.’

‘I thought to marry her! I would have made her queen! She would have been Queen of England.’ He almost choked on the title, all his life he had thought it the greatest honour that a woman could think of, just as his title was the greatest in his own imagination.

The ambassador paused for a moment to let the king recover.

‘You know, there are other, equally beautiful young ladies in her family,’ he suggested carefully. ‘The young Queen of Naples is a widow now. As King Ferdinand’s niece, she would bring a good dowry, and she has the family likeness.’ He hesitated. ‘She is said to be very lovely, and –’ He paused. ‘Amorous.’

‘She gave me to understand that she loved me. Am I now to think her a pretender?’

The ambassador felt a cold sweat which seeped from every pore of his body at that dreadful word. ‘No pretender,’ he said, his smile quite ghastly. ‘A loving daughter-in-law, an affectionate girl…’

There was an icy silence.

‘You know how pretenders fare in this country,’ the king said stiffly.

‘Yes! But…’

‘She will regret it, if she plays with me.’

‘No play! No pretence! Nothing!’

The king let the ambassador stand, slightly shaking with anxiety.

‘I thought to finish this whole difficulty with the dowry and the jointure,’ Henry remarked, at length.

‘And so it can be. Once the princess is betrothed to the prince, then Spain will pay the second half of the dowry and the widow’s jointure is no more,’ de Puebla assured him. He noticed he was talking too rapidly, took a breath, and went slower. ‘All difficulties are finished. Their Majesties of Spain would be glad to apply for dispensation for their daughter to marry Prince Harry. It would be a good match for her and she will do as she is ordered. It leaves you free to look around for your wife, Your Grace, and it frees the revenues of Cornwall and Wales and Chester to your own disposal once more.’

King Henry shrugged his shoulders and turned from the schooling ring and the horse. ‘So it is over?’ he asked coldly. ‘She does not desire me, as I thought she did. I mistook her attention to me. She meant to be nothing but filial?’ He laughed harshly at the thought of her kiss by the river. ‘I must forget my desire for her?’

‘She has to obey her parents as a Princess of Spain,’ de Puebla reminded him. ‘On her own account, I know there was a preference. She told me so herself.’ He thought that Catalina’s double-dealing could be covered by this. ‘She is disappointed, to tell you the truth. But her mother is adamant. I cannot deny the Queen of Castile. She is utterly determined to have her daughter returned to Spain, or married to Prince Harry. She will brook no other suggestion.’

‘So be it,’ said the king, his voice like ice. ‘I had a foolish dream, a desire. It can finish here.’

He turned and walked away from the stable yard, his pleasure in his horses soured.

‘I hope that there is no ill feeling?’ the ambassador asked, hobbling briskly behind him.

‘None at all,’ the king threw over his shoulder. ‘None in the world.’

‘And the betrothal with Prince Harry? May I assure Their Catholic Majesties that it will go ahead?’

‘Oh, at once. I shall make it my first and foremost office.’

‘I do hope there is no offence?’ de Puebla called to the king’s retreating back.

The king turned on his heel and faced the Spanish ambassador, his clenched fists on his hips, his shoulders square. ‘She has tried to play me like a fool,’ he said through thin lips. ‘I don’t thank her for it. Her parents have tried to lead me by the nose. I think they will find that they have a dragon, not one of their baited bulls. I won’t forget this. You Spaniards, you will not forget it either. And she will regret the day she tried to lead me on as if I were a lovesick boy, as I regret it now.’

‘It is agreed,’ de Puebla said flatly to Catalina. He was standing before her – ‘Like an errand boy!’ he thought indignantly – as she was ripping the velvet panels out of a gown to re-model the dress.

‘I am to marry Prince Harry,’ she said in a tone as dull as his own. ‘Has he signed anything?’

‘He has agreed. He has to wait for a dispensation. But he has agreed.’

She looked up at him. ‘Was he very angry?’

‘I think he was even angrier than he showed me. And what he showed me was bad.’

‘What will he do?’ she asked.

He scrutinised her pale face. She was white but she was not fearful. Her blue eyes were veiled as her father’s were veiled when he was planning something. She did not look like a damsel in distress, she looked like a woman trying to outwit a most dangerous protagonist. She was not endearing, as a woman in tears would have been endearing, he thought. She was formidable; but not pleasing.

‘I don’t know what he will do,’ he said. ‘His nature is vengeful. But we must give him no advantage. We have to pay your dowry at once. We have to complete our side of the contract to force him to complete his.’

‘The plate has lost its value,’ she said flatly. ‘It is damaged by use. And I have sold some.’

He gasped. ‘You have sold it? It is the king’s own!’

She shrugged. ‘I have to eat, Dr de Puebla. We cannot all go uninvited to court and thrust our way in to the common table. I am not living well, but I do have to live. And I have nothing to live on but my goods.’

‘You should have preserved them intact!’

She shrugged ‘I should never have been reduced to this. I have had to pawn my own plate to live. Whoever is to blame, it is not me.’

‘Your father will have to pay the dowry and pay you an allowance,’ he said grimly. ‘We must give them no excuse to withdraw. If your dowry is not paid he will not marry you to the prince. Infanta, I must warn you, he will revel in your discomfort. He will prolong it.’

Catalina nodded. ‘He is my enemy too then.’

‘I fear it.’

‘It will happen, you know,’ she said inconsequentially.

‘What?’

‘I will marry Harry. I will be queen.’

‘Infanta, it is my dearest wish.’

‘Princess,’ she replied.