Читать книгу Philippa Gregory 3-Book Tudor Collection 1: The Constant Princess, The Other Boleyn Girl, The Boleyn Inheritance - Philippa Gregory - Страница 27

‘You are to be betrothed to Catalina of Aragon,’ the king told his son, thinking of the son who had gone before.

The blond boy flushed as pink as a girl. ‘Yes, sire.’

He had been coached perfectly by his grandmother. He was prepared for everything but real life.

‘Don’t think the marriage will happen,’ the king warned him.

The boy’s eyes flashed up in surprise and were then cast down again. ‘No?’

‘No. They have robbed us and cheated us at every turn, they have rolled us over like a bawd in a tavern. They have cozened us and promised one thing after another like a cock-teaser in drink. They say –’ He broke off, his son’s wide-eyed gaze reminding him that he had spoken as a man to a man, and this was a boy. Also, his resentment should not show, however fiercely it burned.

‘They have taken advantage of our friendship,’ he summed up. ‘And now we will take advantage of their weakness.’

‘Surely we are all friends?’

Henry grimaced, thinking of that scoundrel Ferdinand, and of his daughter, the cool beauty who had turned him down. ‘Oh, yes,’ he said. ‘Loyal friends.’

‘So I am to be betrothed and later, when I am fifteen, we will be married?’

The boy had understood nothing. So be it. ‘Say sixteen.’

‘Arthur was fifteen.’

Henry bit down the reply that much good it had done Arthur. Besides, it did not matter since it would never happen. ‘Oh, yes,’ he said again. ‘Fifteen, then.’

The boy knew that something was wrong. His smooth forehead was furrowed. ‘We do mean this, don’t we, Father? I would not mislead such a princess. It is a most solemn oath I will make?’

‘Oh, yes,’ the king said again.

The night before my betrothal to Prince Harry, I have a dream so lovely that I do not want to wake. I am in the garden of the Alhambra, walking with my hand in Arthur’s, laughing up at him, and showing him the beauty around us: the great sandstone wall which encircles the fort, the city of Granada below us and the mountains capped with silvery snow on the horizon.

‘I have won,’ I say to him. ‘I have done everything you wanted, everything that we planned. I will be princess as you made me. I will be queen as you wanted me to be. My mother’s wishes are fulfilled, my own destiny will be complete, your desire and God’s will. Are you happy now, my love?’

He smiles down at me, his eyes warm, his face tender, a smile he has only for me. ‘I shall watch over you,’ he whispers. ‘All the time. Here in al-Yanna.’

I hesitate at the odd sound of the word on his lips, and then I realise that he has used the Moorish word: ‘al-Yanna’, which means both heaven, a cemetery, and a garden. For the Moors, heaven is a garden, an eternal garden.

‘I shall come to you one day,’ I whisper, even as his grasp on my hand becomes lighter, and then fades, though I try to hold him. ‘I shall be with you again, my love. I shall meet you here in the garden.’

‘I know,’ he says, and now his face is melting away like mist in the morning, like a mirage in the hot air of the sierra. ‘I know we will be together again, Catalina, my Katherine, my love.’