The Baker's Daughter Volume 1 Page 16

  Maria was instantly alert. “Majesty?” she said, going from doze to attention in one quick movement. “Your Grace, what is it? Shall I fetch the priest?” She searched Katharine’s face, so pale now as to be almost transparent, the eyes sunken and lusterless in their dark circles. It was a bad night, one of the worst so far; but Katharine had refused the Holy Office, wanting to wait until the proper hour of dawn to receive the Host. Considerate to the last, Maria also knew that Katharine was loath to interrupt the sleep of her few faithful servants. She would wait.

  Katharine managed a wan smile. “No. Not yet. But, Maria,” said Katharine, her voice barely a whisper now, “you should go to your bed.” It was warm near the fire, but away from it the room was deathly cold and uncomfortable.

  In all her years with Katharine, never once had she given anyone a direct order; never more than a gentle, polite request, even though she was a queen and twice royal, being the daughter of a reigning queen as well as a reigning king. And never in all these years had Maria ever disobeyed or refused Katharine any request she made. She had not been loath to argue, to cajole, but always, in the end, acquiescenced. To disobey now, to refuse now, after all this time…

  “But what if Your Grace should need me for something?” said Maria doubtfully. “I like not the idea of leaving you alone.”

  A good argument, Katharine thought; but not good enough. Not now. Of all the privileges of royalty, one of the things most sadly lacking was simple privacy. She wanted to be alone, before the end, which could not be far off, perhaps for the last time in her life. Katharine knew how Maria’s uncomplicated mind worked, and had no wish to offend her. A compromise, then. “A good point, Maria; perhaps if you would just fetch the other Maria…”

  “Yes, Your Grace, I will do that. But cannot I please…” At the pained expression that crossed Katharine’s face, she stopped and said, “Yes, you are right. My very bones feel as if they would break from sitting in that chair. I will go and get Maria.” She sighed. Defeated again. But the thought of lying on her bed, stretched out, under the blanket… She arose, kissed the queen’s brow, and rustled quietly out of the heavy oaken door, which was surprisingly quiet on its hinges.

  Katharine smiled to herself; she knew her two Marias. Maria de Salinas, now and for some time past the Countess of Willoughby, would make at least a perfunctory toilette before venturing out of her chamber. Mayhap there would be just enough time, just enough, to search her soul in the peace and privacy of a few moments of hard-won solitude.

  She sighed. She, who had never knowingly hurt another living creature, must needs now search her soul, look back on her life, prepare herself for death and the judgment, and determine if she was to blame after all. She was an anointed queen; the holiest of oil and the chrisom had touched her mouth, her eyes, her ears, her breast; her decisions were supposed to be inspired by God, whose representative on this earth she was supposed to be. Had she done right? Had her stubborn refusal to let go, to let go of everything she had ever known and held dear, been right for Henry, for Mary, for England, for the pope, and for the Holy Catholic Church? Or had she been blinded by her own love, her own hate, her own jealously, into believing that what was best for Queen Katharine of England, Princess of Aragon, was best for all?

  At first the very thought appalled her and a wave of unspeakable weariness swept over her. It was too much to bear. But the wave receded and her mind began to clear; in fact, became so clear that she thought she could see it all, right back to the beginning.

  # # #

  Katharine’s favorite sister, Joanna, had once told her that she had almost been born in a ditch. During her mother’s, Queen Isabella’s, war to drive the Moors from Catholic Spain, Isabella had never allowed the exigencies of war to deter or hinder her from what she perceived to be her sacred duty; that of providing royal children to united Spain to secure the succession of two thrones. But even Isabella could not wage war successfully in winter, and had had to call a halt to hostilities and bring her bedraggled army back to Central Spain where they could rest and recover their strength until the spring. So on a wild night of howling wind and rain, the cavalcade pushed on doggedly to the Archbishop’s Palace in Alcala de Henares.

  The party had been expected to arrive much earlier in the day, but a number of mishaps had conspired to make for delay after delay. Isabella had changed back and forth throughout the day between the swaying litter and the swaying donkey on which she now rode; both were uncomfortable in their own way and made her feel much more ill than she thought was warranted. God send that this would be her last pregnancy. The rain was falling in torrents; the oiled leather hood and cape that she wore had long since become saturated and did not provide much protection anymore. She must have been dozing in her exhaustion when the donkey’s hoof hit a pothole and he stumbled. Isabella tried to hold on, but she could not, and she slid from the mule’s back into the mud. A brave woman always, she made no fuss, remounted the donkey with the help of a few of the soldiers, and rode on. But the fall had precipitated her time and she knew that she was in labor.

  But all had been well, and later that evening, in a dry, comfortable bed in a warm room with a bright fire burning on the hearth, Isabella had delivered her fourth daughter and her last child.

  Katharine’s earliest memories were of playing with her sister Joanna, nearest in age to her but six years her senior, as the war raged on around them wherever they happened to be. Although a royal princess, her childhood had been one of hardship and privation. Every available coin went to the war. The little princesses were taught to sew and when they weren’t making bandages and slings for the wounded soldiers, they turned the hems of old dresses and made do with what they had. Katharine grew up with the sights and sounds of war, wounded men, dead men, graves with little wooden crosses wherever one looked.

  And then suddenly, everything had changed. Instead of playing in the dusty streets of Santa Fe, she and Joanna romped through the fairytale Palace of the Alhambra in Granada. The war was over; gradually, finances improved. Soon marriage was mooted for all the girls. Isabella, the oldest sister, was for Portugal; shy Maria, perhaps for the Church; Joanna for the Empire and Katharine, as the youngest, was betrothed to unimportant England, the more brilliant matches going to her elder sisters.

  When Katharine was fifteen, she had bid her parents, her beloved Joanna, Spain, and all she had ever known, farewell, and sailed from Corunna for England. They were hopeful days; her future certain as queen of England, she would find husbands for her Marias, and together they would live out their days in the fairytale land of King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table.

  Katharine had been corresponding with her future husband, another Arthur, prince and heir to the throne, since their betrothal; she was already half in love with him. And she knew about England. It was a green and pleasant land, where the rain fell lightly almost all the time, and the mists rose gossamer-thin and pink in the rosy dawn. Flowers bloomed in profusion and lambs gamboled in the dewy meadows. After the desert-like existence of her years in southern Spain, where all was arid and parched, it did indeed seem as if she were going to an enchanted land, there to be pampered and spoiled, loved and cosseted by a husband who loved her.

  Amazingly, it all turned out to be true. England was lovely and Arthur, although he was an inch or two shorter than herself and rather shy, was all that she had hoped for. He was handsome, and kind. She could love him truly.

  Even that thing that had sat disquietingly in the back of her mind was put to rest and would not disturb her happiness; at least, not for the time being. Isabella did not send any of her daughters to their husbands in ignorance, so Katharine had been well prepared for what must be done to fulfill her duties as a wife. And in her case, this was not just an inevitable expectation, but a dynastic necessity. She must produce heirs to the throne as quickly as possible. But on her wedding night, she had discovered that poor Arthur had been secretly dreading the thing as much as she had, which,
at the time, came not only as a surprise, but a relief. Arthur was not ready. They would wait. But they would pretend; a delicious secret just between the two of them. A young boy’s pride, a wife’s duty; and Katharine took seriously her responsibility to support and please her husband in all things. If this was his wish, well then… How was she to have foreseen the far-reaching consequences of such a decision?

  Queen Elizabeth, her Plantagenet mother-in-law, was a benign, sweet-scented presence, always serene, and so beautiful in her pink and white loveliness as to seem slightly unreal. Her father-in-law, the king, treated Katharine as though she were a precious doll, an item that he had longed for, finally found, bought, and now wanted to be sure was real, was well and truly his. Well, Arthur’s, of course, but his in the sense that here, here was a real Spanish princess, bound to the Tudors by marriage and the living symbol that he was not just a parvenu king who had taken his throne by force on the thinnest of claims, but a true king, recognized by the most ancient and solid dynasty in Continental Europe.

  The little Princess Mary, ten years her junior, was a tiny replica of her mother; blonde, blue-eyed and with a skin so white and rosy that her family called her Mary Rose. The only slightly disturbing presence was young Henry, whom she often caught staring at her and eyeing her speculatively. He seemed to know more, or gave the impression that he knew more, than a ten-year-old boy destined to be a priest ought to know. Still, the stares were anything but hostile, and sent little unexpected shivers up her spine. Two brothers could not have been more different, and many was the time when Katharine thought that Henry was more suited to the throne than the church, and that Arthur should have been the younger brother. But then she wouldn’t have married him…and there her thoughts would take flights of fancy about what other fates could have been bestowed upon her. All in all, she was glad to be here in beautiful, green, cool, moist England, with a new family as loving and secure as her old one was, and happily married.

  Katharine had been educated by her mother, a reigning queen, and had learned many lessons that would stand her in good stead throughout the course of her life. One of these was that when something seems too good to be true, it probably is. One day all was well, she was truly, blissfully happy, and then, her happiness was shattered, never to be truly recovered. It was as though she had been holding an exquisite, perfect, beautiful rose, had admired it and then lifted it to her nose to delight in its heady scent, when an ugly black spider suddenly crawled out of it. Her instinct had been to drop it, to crush it and grind it beneath her foot, to run and run and run…

  She had innocently inquired one day of one of the English ladies who served her why she seemed so sad. Katharine was kind at heart, and she wanted the people around her to be as happy as she was. The girl, Lady Margaret Plantagenet, seemed even more distressed that Katharine had noticed her glumness, but Katharine quickly reassured her. Lady Margaret sensed that Katharine was genuinely concerned about her, but still seemed reluctant to discuss the cause of her sadness. Katharine gave the girl what comfort she could, and let her be.

  Discreet enquiries revealed that Lady Margaret was cousin to the queen. Both she and her brother had claims to the English throne through their royal bloodlines. Margaret being a woman was not viewed as a threat, but her brother Edward was so viewed, and had been imprisoned in the Tower by Henry VII since the age of ten. Since King Henry had come to the throne there had been several attempts to overthrow him; two of these attempts had been by the pretenders Perkin Warbeck and Lambert Simnel. With pretenders real and imaginary a constant threat, King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella had demanded Edward’s execution as the final bride price for Katharine. They would not send their daughter to an unstable country, with a throne likely to be seized by a better claimant. And so shortly before Katharine sailed from Corunna, Edward had lost his head. Lady Margaret did not fear the axe herself, but she was devastated by the death of her brother.

  Katharine was so upset when she learned of this that she cried for days, and would not be comforted. Even Arthur could not reach her. Little Mary held her hand in mute sympathy; the queen had her apothecary give the girl soothing draughts; Katharine’s confessor assured her that Edward Plantagenet’s death was none of her doing and that her conscience should be clear.

  But it was not, and never would be again. A marriage begun in blood, she was certain, could breed naught but unhappiness. No one could shake her belief on this point, and where once Katharine had been at the pinnacle of happiness, she was now in the depths of despair. An innocent young man had been done to death on her account; and not just any young man…with Edward’s death the legitimate Plantagenet male line was snuffed out forever, extinct. It was a grave decision that could never be recalled. There would be a reckoning; God was not mocked. An eye for an eye.

  Katharine went about in the weeks that followed tearful and hollow-eyed, haunted by the image of the axe falling on a slim, white neck, much like that of poor Margaret’s. No wonder the girl walked about like a sleepwalker, her stricken face a testament to her heartbreak. Katharine had shivered over the stories she heard about the queen’s own brothers being murdered by their wicked uncle. She wondered, until she actually met them all, what kind of people these English were. And now to find that her own parents had demanded the judicial murder of a boy whose only fault, as far as she could see, was the blood that ran in his veins! It was simply not to be borne.

  The king and queen were patient and kind, Arthur fretted…but Katharine’s state of mind began to wear on them all. Perhaps a change of scene…

  Arthur was Prince of Wales, and a married man; it was time he visited his principality of Wales and tried his hand at government there. Arrangements were made, and the young couple removed to Ludlow Castle on the Welsh border. The king marveled when Katharine requested Lady Margaret as her chief lady-in-waiting. Would not the girl’s presence be a constant reminder…? But King Henry did not know his daughter-in-law well enough to know that that was the very reason why Katharine wanted Lady Margaret, the Countess of Salisbury, as close to her as possible. By advancing Lady Margaret and her children at court, she hoped to atone for the grievous sin that had been committed on her, Katharine’s, behalf. It was to Katharine’s great joy that she and Lady Margaret eventually became great friends, almost like sisters.

  The days in Wales became golden happy days for the young couple. They conducted business together with their council as Prince and Princess of Wales; they rode, they hunted, they laughed together at the unpronounceable Welsh names.

  But after only a few short months, Arthur suddenly became ill when the Sweating Sickness raged through the castle and the surrounding town. Katharine nursed Arthur devotedly until she, too, was stricken. When she awoke from her fever haze it was to find Lady Margaret beside her, studying her face worriedly. It was Margaret Pole who broke the news to her of Arthur’s death.

  Katharine was stunned. After only a few short months, the idyll had been snatched away and she, who had been the happiest of brides, was now a widow.

  “This is my punishment,” she sobbed. “God has taken my heart from me. I will suffer misfortune for the rest of my days. A husband for a brother…”

  Strangely, it was Lady Margaret who comforted the princess, assuring her that this was not so; God had simply seen fit to call Arthur to him, and this they accept as His will. It was not theirs to question the will of God. They must cling to each other and bear the burdens that God placed upon them.

  In her heart, Katharine knew that Lady Margaret was right. But was it just coincidence that that was when the darkest days she had ever known closed in upon her?

  The following year the beautiful, gentle queen died; and the next year Katharine lost her mother. Then rumours began reaching England that her beloved sister, Joanna, now Queen of Castile, was mad. Her father and the king wrangled acrimoniously over the unpaid portion of Katharine’s dowry for years after Arthur’s death. The king, loath to send Katharine and the part of her do
wry that was already paid back to Spain, dangled before Ferdinand a marriage with Henry, the new Prince of Wales, but Katharine was neither allowed to see him nor correspond with him. Her father would not pay her expenses, adamant that she was now the responsibility of the English crown as Arthur’s relict; King Henry would not give her a groat as long as the second half of her dowry was still owing. It was stalemate between the two kings, and Katharine was caught in the middle.

  The years that followed were hard, but having been inured to poverty early in life, Katharine knew what to do. She begged for loans from friends, turned her dresses and that of her servants, and tightened her belt. Another lesson from her formidable mother saw her through this difficult time: never, never, never, give up.

  And then, finally, some good news; her sister Joanna had been sailing the English Channel on her way to Spain to claim her crown and a storm had washed her ships up onto English shores. At last, she was to see her sister again! Joanna would know what was to be done. Joanna would help her.

  But Katharine’s joy soon turned to dismay. Joanna had been no help, and indeed, for one who knew her as well as Katharine did, it was obvious that if not mad, Joanna was unbalanced. Her obsessive love of her husband blinded her to all reason. She could focus on nothing else. She was ready to wage war upon her own father because Philip wanted her crown of Castile for his own, and she was ready to hand it to him. Katharine was aghast and bitterly disappointed. There would be no help from that quarter. Katharine had lost Joanna as certainly as if she, too, had died. The Joanna she had known was gone, and in her place lived a beautiful, empty shell inhabited by…what? Even Katharine could not say, but this was not Joanna.