Patience, Princess Catherine (14 page)

"But you will never marry Prince Henry, Lady Catalina. Do you not understand
that}
" Aghast at her intemperate words, she turned and fled sobbing from the chamber.

Rarely had I lost my temper with Maria, my oldest and closest friend. I regret to say that on that day, I did. "I
will
marry him!" I shouted after her. "How dare you speak otherwise? I believed you were loyal to me, but I see that you are not!"

The door slammed, and I thought I was alone. I was shocked then when Francesca stepped out of an alcove at the far end of the chamber, holding a stocking that she had been mending. I realized that she had been there all along, a witness to this unpleasant scene.

She stared at me for a moment and then said quietly, "Maria dares speak the truth to you, Catalina, if no one else will. It is not she who is disloyal to you. For once, my lady, remove the blindfold from your eyes and look about you!"

Her harsh words stunned me.
Who would be disloyal to me?
The very idea wounded me deeply. I seized Francesca's shoulders and gazed into her eyes. "Tell me, Francesca."

She opened her mouth as if to speak and then closed it again and shook her head. "Forgive me, my lady, but I cannot."

"Francesca, tell me!" I cried. "I demand that you tell me!"

Suddenly the door burst open, and Doña Elvira swept in. "Tell her what, Francesca?"

Francesca recoiled, pale with fright. "Tell her—Tell her whom I love," she stammered. She dropped me a low curtsy and rushed away.

Hurt, angry, and confused, I resolved that I would somehow determine the truth for myself. I soon concluded that I knew the answer: Don Rodrigo. It should have been clear to me all along why my life had sunk to such a low state: Why my father had sent no money, and why the king no longer provided my allowance. I had disliked the unpleasant little ambassador from the first, but now my distrust of him was total.

The more I thought of the matter, the more convinced I became. And Doña Elvira never missed an opportunity to feed my suspicion.

"Do you still believe that treacherous Puebla supports you and your rightful claims as a princess of Spain?" she asked spitefully. "He does not!"

"But what am I to do?" I implored. "Please advise me, Doña Elvira."

Doña Elvira deliberated for a moment. "I have a suggestion, Catalina: Write to your sister, Juana, and appeal to her. Ask her to meet with you. Now that she is queen of Castilla, surely she and her husband will come to your aid."

At once my spirits brightened. After my mother's death, Spain had broken again into the two parts, Castilla and Aragón, that had been united long ago by my parents' marriage. My father still wore the crown of Aragón, but Juana had inherited the throne of Castilla from our mother. Though she lived in Flanders with her husband, Philip, she was bound to fill Queen Isabella's place. She had the means to help me. At Doña Elvira's urging, I wrote to Juana, suggesting a meeting, and dispatched the letter at once.

Sooner than I dared wish for, I had a reply from my sister. Juana expressed pleasure at the idea of seeing me again and urged me to propose that King Henry and the royal family cross the Channel to Calais. I would naturally be invited to accompany them, and Juana and Philip would meet us there. How festive it would be! How splendid!

In a joyful mood I wrote another letter, this one to King Henry, describing the plan. I went off in search of a messenger to carry my letter and my sister's to the king.

As the messenger left Durham House on horseback, bound for Richmond, I happened to encounter the treacherous ambassador, Don Rodrigo. So high had my confidence risen that I thoughdessly told him of my plan to see my sister and Philip.

Don Rodrigo blanched, and a look of dismay crossed his face. I saw at once that something was wrong. This chance meeting was surely a bad omen. Perhaps I had interfered in one of his little plots! Well, that was unfortunate for him!

"Good day, sir," I said and walked rapidly away, leaving him standing with his mouth agape.

I had barely reached the door of my chambers when Don Rodrigo caught up to me, seized my hand, and dropped to his knees, white as death, sweat beading his broad forehead. "Madam," he cried, tears streaming down his face and his voice thick with emotion, "I beg you, listen to me. I speak only the truth, I swear it, and you must pay heed. Your future and the future of Spain depend upon it."

Angrily I snatched my hand from his and was about to walk away again when I changed my mind and decided to hear him out.

"Speak, then," I said icily, my arms folded across my chest. I saw that he was trembling.

"My lady princess, without your knowledge you have been caught up in an intrigue against your father. At the center of it is Doña Elvira."

Doña Elvira? At the center of an intrigue? Impossible!

I knew that Doña Elvira's brother, Don Juan Manuel, was my father's ambassador to the court of Emperor Maximilian, Philip's father. Don Juan had been loyal to my mother as long as she lived, but I now learned from the ambassador that Don Juan hated my father. "Don Juan leads a group of discontented Spanish noblemen determined to end your father's rule in Castilla through your sister," explained Puebla, his voice hoarse. "They will hand it over to Philip, who will rule Castilla in Juana's stead. Don Juan has devised a plot to align King Henry with Philip against your father."

I was dismayed by Don Rodrigo's words. "You speak of Don Juan Manuel. But what has this to do with Doña Elvira?"

"Everything, my lady. Doña Elvira also hates your father, and she has now found a way to use your desire to see your sister as a way to further her brother's plot. A meeting between Philip and King Henry could result in disaster for King Ferdinand and for Spain. Please, my lady princess," begged Don Rodrigo, "listen to me. Such a meeting must not take place. You must prevent it."

Was this another of his lies? Or was I finally hearing the truth? My thoughts raced in all directions. I was so shaken that I could barely stand. I needed to sit down, and I needed to think. "The chapel," I said. "Kindly accompany me there."

Somehow I managed to walk, unsteady as I felt, to the small chapel royal, the ambassador following at a little distance. Fortunately, the dimly lit chapel was empty, and we withdrew to a bench farthest from the altar. We spoke in whispers.

As the ambassador explained the situation in greater detail, I began to see how badly my mother had misjudged Doña Elvira. When I left Spain, my mother believed she had done me a great service by appointing Doña Elvira to stand in her stead as my protector and guide. Now I recognized that the lady's virtue was overshadowed by her thirst for power. This so-called virtuous woman was guilty of treachery—to me and to my father's kingdom. The betrayal was absolute. I felt my soul bleed. The time for weeping would come later.

All my life I had been schooled in obedience. As a result, I had obeyed Doña Elvira unquestioningly, even when I seethed with resentment. Now I could see that I had been wrong not to resist. Don Rodrigo must have understood all along that Doña Elvira was capable of plotting an intrigue against my father and the best interests of Spain. Now I chose to believe him.

When Don Rodrigo had answered all my questions, I told him to leave me. Alone, then, I walked with trembling legs to the front of the chapel, where I knelt before the altar and opened my aching heart to God's tender mercy. "Oh Lord," I prayed, "grant me the wisdom to see my duty and the strength to perform it." I have no notion of how long I remained there on my knees, but when at last I rose and made my way out of the chapel, I felt strong again.

My duty was clear now, and I acted without hesitation. I stormed into my duenna's chambers and confronted her. "I know that you are part of your brother's wicked plot to bring about the downfall of King Ferdinand."

Her already pallid face grew ashen, and her glittering eyes filled with fear. At first she attempted to deny any knowledge of a scheme or her complicity in any intrigue. But I would have none of her worthless denials.

"You are dismissed from my service, madam," I said, in a voice cold with fury. Doña Elvira dropped to her knees and waited with bowed head, for once unable to speak. "And you are no longer welcome here. I expect that you will leave England without delay."

I swept out of her chamber and assigned a servant to assist her—and to keep watch on her. Within three days she, her husband, and her son, Don Iñigo, were on a ship bound for Flanders.

My duenna was my duenna no more. Never again would she tell me what I could and could not do. Henceforth, I vowed, I would be mistress of my own court—and of my own life.

Richmond Palace, November
1505

 

Prince Henry followed the page's smoking torch down a steep flight of rough stone steps to a dim cellar beneath the palace. A narrow, twisting passageway led to the heavy oak door of the alchemist's laboratory. The door swung open on creaking iron hinges. The king, wearing a leather apron over his rich garments, hunched over a table laden with mysterious instruments and vessels. Fumes filled the air. Henry breathed in the acrid stench. A strange feeling prickled Henry's skin. He believed that his father was actually capable of performing magic.

The king frequently called Henry to this secret laboratory to lecture him on his latest experiments.

Henry dreaded these lectures. The king had become more capricious; his irascibility increased, and his temper
was often uncontrolled. He shouted at his servants, his gentlemen, his councillors, and especially his son. The older Henry got, the more he sensed his father's growing dislike of him. But
why
did the king dislike him? Henry did not know, but he suspected it was because his father wished that Arthur, the favorite, had lived, instead of Henry.

Henry watched silently as his father poured a murky liquid from one vessel into another.

For years King Henry had been searching for the secret of transmuting base metals into silver and gold. He was already wealthier than nearly all the rest of the English nobility put together. He owned many sumptuous palaces, old castles, manor houses, and hunting lodges, all of them repositories of his accumulated wealth—gold and silver plate, rich tapestries from the Netherlands, priceless ornaments from Italy, ironbound chests filled with gold. Buckingham often said that once a gold piece entered the royal coffers, it never came out again.

But even more important to King Henry than gold was the search for the elixir of youth—not to prolong his life forever, he had once explained to his son, but to become like a young man again. It was true that he looked like an old man: His once blond hair was now thin and gray, his body bent, his skin sallow, his teeth mostly blackened or missing. He believed he was on the verge of discovering the potion that would reverse all of this, and the belief kept him in his laboratory hour upon hour.

Absorbed in his experiments, the king seemed to forget
Henry. Time ticked by; Henry grew restless. Could he slip away unnoticed?

He would wait awhile longer. His father muttered to himself. An hour crawled by. Henry had challenged Brandon to wrestle this afternoon. He hoped Brandon would still be there. For some time now Brandon had become much taken up with the ladies of the court, and recently one of them had borne him a daughter. "So you are to be wed then?" Henry had asked when he heard the news. For a moment he thought of Princess Catherine with the shining auburn hair. But Brandon had shrugged off the question, remarking, "There are so many women to love!" He had winked at Henry and grinned knowingly. "As you shall soon discover, my lord."

Henry took a few quiet steps toward the door and pressed it until it opened slightly. As he pressed harder, the door creaked.

Alert as a deer, the king spun away from his array of instruments, glaring at the interruption. Henry froze, but it was too late. His father's wrath exploded.

"You have not been dismissed!" the king howled, seizing one of the glass vessels and hurling it at Henry, who tried not to flinch. The vessel missed Henry's head by a handspan and smashed against the stone wall. Maddened, the king hurled another vessel, and another while Henry, teeth clenched, disciplined himself to remain motionless. The inkhorn was the last to fly; ink trickled down the wall like blood.

"You may go," said the king, suddenly calm, apparently forgetting why he had summoned Henry in the first place, and Henry rushed away from the gloomy chamber.

When he found Brandon at last and they had stripped to their smallclothes, Henry rushed his opponent and threw him to the ground. Brandon fought back. He was six years older than the prince and had always defeated him easily. But Henry did not back down. Sweating and panting, the two struggled until Henry succeeded in pinning him. Henry stood over Brandon, grinning in triumph.

"The tide has turned," he said.

 

O
NCE
D
OÑA
E
LVIRA HAD DEPARTED
, I
EXULTED IN AN
unfamiliar sense of freedom. But I realized that to protect my reputation, I needed the presence in my household of an older, married lady. I thought of Lady Margaret Pole, who had become my friend at Ludlow and with whom I had since exchanged occasional letters. Unfortunately, her husband, Sir Richard, had recently died, and Lady Margaret herself was unwell. In any case, the decision was not mine but the king's. To spare himself the expense of a duenna, King Henry decided that I and my diminished court should take up residence at Richmond Palace as part of the royal household, where I would not require a governess.