Patience, Princess Catherine (8 page)

The duke's riding master caught the gelding by the bridle. "Once more, my lord," he called out, preparing to send the horse flying again toward Henry.

His labored breath turning to frosty clouds, Henry struggled to his feet and braced himself as the horse raced toward him. This time the horse came on straightaway, but too fast. Brandons taunting laughter echoing in his ears, Henry gathered all his strength and made a desperate leap. Without stirrups to assist him, he landed in the saddle with a grunt, off balance, but he managed to keep his seat and to seize the reins and slow the horse to a trot.

"An improvement," called the riding master, taking the reins. "Once again, my lord!"

On his third attempt the duke heard Brandons hearty cheer and knew that this time all had gone as it should. He waited for words of praise from the riding master, but they were not forthcoming. They seldom were. "Now we shall practice mounting from the opposite side, my lord."

In a few days Henry and his household would return to Richmond for Shrovetide, before the start of Lent. There would be feasting, of course, and also jousting—running at the rings, at which Henry was accomplished, and tilting. Henry was fearless. He was certain that he would charge straight at his opponent, his lance held steady, and unhorse him. He wished that Arthur and Catherine might be present to witness this display of skill, but the king had said it was too soon for the prince and princess to come back from Ludlow. "At Eastertide, York," he had answered shortly, when Henry asked.

He was surprised by how much he missed Arthur and his bride. When the prince and princess were there, the king paid less attention to Henry. On the whole that was a good
thing, for it meant his father found less fault with him. Henry believed he was the least favored of his father's children. Arthur, of course, was the heir. His sisters would make political marriages arranged with men whose families were important allies. But Henry had not yet learned what his father planned for his future. He knew that his grandmother wished him to become a priest and one day to serve as archbishop of Canterbury, the most important position in the church. But he had heard his father tell Lady Margaret, "The duke will be more useful to me in Flanders or Austria than in the pulpit." His father's wishes would prevail, he was certain of that, and he hoped that when a bride was found for him, she would be as pleasing as Princess Catherine.

 

A
S THE DAYS OF WINTER PASSED, THE WINDS HOWLED
around Ludlow's massive stone towers, sleet tapped insistently at the windows, and snow piled in billowing drifts around the castle like a mantle of ermine. After such a storm had lasted for days, the skies suddenly cleared. That night Arthur summoned me to walk out with him in the snow-covered bailey.

"You must not even consider such a foolhardy act," said Doña Elvira sternly.

"But my husband wishes it," I replied.

"Your husband in name only." Her jaw was set, her voice wintry. "It is my sworn duty to protect you from just such folly. And I always do my duty, as must you, Catalina."

Her stubborn insistence only hardened my determination. "And my duty, Doña Elvira, is to my lawful husband," I said, emphasizing the words.

Shutting my ears to Doña Elvira's dire warnings of certain illness, I called for my maidservants to pull on my leather boots and ran out to meet him. The stars shone brightly, and the snow gleamed silver in the moonlight. I believed I had never seen anything so beautiful.

Hand in hand Arthur and I trudged happily through knee-deep snow across the inner bailey toward the Round Chapel of Saint Mary Magdalene. Ours were the only tracks in the fresh snow. When we reached the chapel, Arthur pushed open the heavy door, and like naughty children we crept inside. A few moonbeams poured through the narrow windows and splashed on the stone floor. Arthur smiled and laid his finger to his lips, signing me not to speak. I realized that the ladies and gentlemen who always accompanied us were nowhere to be seen. For a rare moment we were alone.

Arthur turned to me and took me awkwardly in his arms for the first time. He pressed his cold mouth against mine. I had never before been kissed upon my lips, and I eagerly welcomed his embrace. But before I could return the kiss, Arthur pulled away from me abruptly and broke into a hacking cough. The fit went on and on. Its severity frightened me.

We stumbled out of the inky shadows of the chapel and into the wintry night. Arthur coughed again, bent over at the waist, and I stared in horror at the spatters of blood that bloomed like holly berries in the pristine snow.

"My husband," I gasped in alarm. "You are ill!"

"It is nothing," Arthur muttered. He seized my hand and hurried me back to the castle. "Speak no more of it," he said.

I longed to tell someone—Doña Elvira, Lady Margaret Pole, anyone—but I said nothing, though I was deeply troubled. If he learned I had spoken of the incident, our fragile trust would be broken. But how ill
was
he? Even as I worried, I thought again and again of Arthur's kiss. It had seemed to signal a change since our marriage three months earlier. But the kiss had been ended abruptly—was that also a sign?

Soon after that night in the snow, my fears were realized, and Arthur took to his bed. For a fortnight apothecaries administered potions made of herbs, and after much consultation, the physicians bled him. In time he seemed to recover and was up and about and again tending to the business of governing. Yet I could see that he had lost strength. His pallor was alarming. He complained to me that his cough kept him awake at night, but he said nothing about the blood, and I dared not ask.

The days passed as steadily and inexorably as the rain that dripped from the tree branches and froze in sparkling fingers of ice. My hands and face grew chapped and raw from the cold and dampness. Lady Margaret recommended that I apply goose fat to soften and heal them. This good woman had other advice for me: that I must learn to speak a little English.

"It will serve you well with the common people, who speak no Latin," she advised, and sometimes as we sat at our stitching she tutored me in the new language:
Hail. Farewell. If it please you. Cup. Bowl Needle. Thread. Table.

I longed for spring. I worried about Arthur. My sister, Juana, wrote from Flanders that she was expecting another child. I sent long letters to my parents and yearned for some word from them but received none. My mother had warned me that letters often took weeks, even months, to reach their destination, and so I was not troubled much by their silence.

Rain. Snow. Sun. Moon. Clouds.

The ladies of my court could not abide Ludlow, though mostly they managed to conceal their discontent. Only Francesca occasionally lost patience. "I miss Spain so much I wish I could die!" she cried out on one occasion, and my heart echoed her words. But Maria chastised her and urged her to be brave "for the sake of our lady princess."

I watched Arthur carefully. He looked weary, I thought, and his face had grown gaunt. He lacked the strength to walk about in the countryside with me or to ride to a nearby village, even when we were favored with a rare mild day. When I finally collected the courage to mention this to Lady Margaret, she brushed aside my concerns. "Once fair weather arrives, your husband is sure to grow robust again," she said. But I thought I detected an unease beneath her cheerful assurances.

On Shrove Tuesday, the last great feast before the beginning of Lent, Arthur felt strong enough to enjoy a banquet before we plunged into the unremitting gloom of the penitential season: forty days of fasting and prayer. My fool, Santiago, entertained us with his tumbling and grotesque dances, disappearing and reappearing in ever more eccentric costumes. The minstrels played, my ladies and I danced, we drank wine and feasted. I observed that Arthur had little appetite, and my worries about him increased tenfold.

The next day, Ash Wednesday, marked the beginning of Lent. I packed away my jewels, intending not to wear them until the festal season of Easter. That evening we ate only a small supper of bread and water. Doña Elvira vowed to continue this sacrifice through the entire Lenten fast.

My chaplain, Padre Alessandro, believed such an austere diet was an unnecessary penance for me and urged me to eat a little salt fish and whatever vegetables had lasted through the winter. According to the cook, these were mainly turnips.

Arthur visited me only once in my bedchamber during those somber days. "I dreamed that Death, dressed in a long red cloak, had come for me," he told me, holding my hand in both of his.

"Are you certain that it was Death?" I asked him. "I believe that Death wears black, or perhaps white. But not red."

I had no notion if what I said were true, but the idea seemed to comfort Arthur. "You are a good wife to me," he murmured and fell into a light sleep broken by a fit of coughing that drove him from my bed. After he had gone, I searched for telltale droplets of blood on the pillow and was relieved to find none. Still, I wondered if the red of the cloak in Arthur's dream signified blood. Again I felt weak with fear for our future.

The prince's visit earned me the disapproval of my duenna. "A Christian gentleman does not visit his wife's bed during the period of Lent," she lectured me sternly.

I merely nodded. "He visits
me,
not my bed," I told her, "as is his right as well as mine." I did not mention his fright or the dream that had induced it.

"Such impertinence does not become you, Catalina," said Doña Elvira, but she did not speak further of Arthur's visit.

The weeks passed. As the days began to lengthen, my hopes rose. "Soon it will be Easter," I reminded my ladies in an effort to cheer them.

On the morning of Palm Sunday Arthur ordered that bare branches be cut from the copper beeches surrounding the castle and carried in procession in honor of our Lord's entry into Jerusalem. On Maundy Thursday, following tradition, the prince of Wales washed the feet of several of the servants of the castle, as our Lord did with his disciples before breaking bread with them for the last time. On Good Friday we fasted and spent the hours of Christ's suffering upon our knees in the chapel. The Great Vigil, the first service of Easter day, commenced at midnight Saturday with the lighting of the paschal candle. Mass was followed by a banquet. When it all ended, I was stumbling with fatigue, and I saw that Arthur looked much paler and weaker than usual.

"Are you unwell, my lord?" I asked him uneasily.

He shook his head and made no reply.
Why does he not answer me?
I wondered.
Why does he not tell me if he is ill?

Just as the first warm breaths of air stirred the still-bare branches and the sun appeared for whole minutes at a time, I was taken with an ague. For more than a fortnight I burned with fever and shivered with cold. My whole body ached, and my head ached even more. Doña Elvira had left my chambers to order a poultice prepared for me when one of the royal physicians brought word that my husband had fallen desperately ill again.

"There is grievous concern for his life," said the physician somberly.

"For his life?" I cried. "Why am I being told of this only now?"

"Because madam's health has not permitted it," said the physician. "And there was still hope for the prince's recovery."

"There is no longer hope of that?" I threw aside the coverlet and called for a maidservant to bring me a robe to cover my shift. "I shall go to him at once," I said.

Despite my feverish weakness, I rushed barefoot through the freezing gallery from my chambers to Arthur's.
My husband, dying! Surely not! Oh, if it please God, surely not!

I arrived to find the prince, my husband, surrounded by his physicians in their furred gowns, his apothecaries preparing herbs, his astrologers consulting their charts, and his chaplains muttering prayers. I tried to push my way through this crowd to my husband's side, but I was held back, gently but firmly, by Arthur's chamberlain, Sir Richard Pole.

"But I must go to him!" I cried, struggling to break free. "Arthur needs me. I know that I can comfort him!"

"There is nothing more to be done for him, madam," whispered the chamberlain. "The prince is gravely ill and no longer in possession of his senses. It is my painful duty to tell you, my lady princess, that he may not last the night. There is nothing left for us but to pray."

I fell to my knees upon the cold stone floor near Arthur's bed and began to pray fervently. My prayers were interrupted when Doña Elvira burst into the chambers, her sleeping garments in disarray, and demanded to know what I was doing there.

"I am with my husband," I said, in as firm a voice as I could muster. "The prince is dying," I added, and these words seemed to cause the duenna to quiet herself. She, too, knelt with others of the household who gathered hastily. As the hours passed I remained upon my knees, offering the discomfort of my body as a sacrifice. Padre Alessandro stayed by my side, comforting me, leading me in prayers first for God's healing grace upon my suffering husband and then, as dawn approached, in prayers for the repose of the soul of Arthur, prince of Wales.

Arthur was dead. With Sir Richard and Padre Alessandro supporting me, I made my way to Arthur's bed and kissed him. It was only our second kiss, and our last.

Arms lifted and carried me to my own chamber, placing me in my own bed. For several days I drifted in and out of awareness. Compresses were laid upon my forehead, poultices upon my chest. Leeches were placed upon my arms to bleed me, and clysters were administered. Each time that I awakened from merciful sleep, I realized afresh that my husband was dead, and I was a widow, all alone in a new world still completely strange to me.
What would happen to me now?
The enormity of that question plunged me again into whirling darkness.