Anne’s eyes gleamed. It was a glorious thing to be asked such favors; the power of the King’s mistress would be infinite.
She bowed her head graciously.
“I would be your friend for evermore,” murmured Francesca.
Anne laughed lightly and said: “I shall not forget you.”
She walked on as though she were a Queen instead of a potential King’s mistress.
Little fool! thought Francesca. If she ever does reach the King’s bed she will not stay there long.
There was a constricted feeling in Francesca’s throat which was the result of bitterness. She was the most unfortunate of women. She had endured all the years of hardship as Katharine’s friend; and then two months before the coming of power and glory she had run away to Grimaldi—she, who longed to live her life in an atmosphere of Court intrigue, whose great delight was to find her way through the maze of political strategy.
She went back to the luxurious house where she lived with her rich husband.
He watched her with a certain sadness in his eyes. To him she was like some gorgeous bird which had fluttered into the cage he had prepared for her and was now longing to escape.
She was so young and so beautiful, but lately the lines of discontent had begun to appear on her brow.
“What luck?” he asked.
“None. When do I ever have luck? She will not receive me. She will never forgive me for marrying you. I have heard that she thinks I did it to cover up a love affair with Fuensalida. Our Queen cannot understand a noblewoman’s marrying a commoner except to avoid a great scandal. Fuensalida was of a family worthy to match my own.”
“And I am a vulgar commoner,” sighed Grimaldi.
Francesca looked at him, her head on one side. Then she smiled and going to him she took his head in her hands and laid her lips lightly on the sparse hair. She loved power and he gave her power over him. He would do anything to please her.
“I married you,” she answered.
He could not see her mouth, which had twisted into a bitter line. I married him! she thought. And in doing so I brought about my exile from the Court. It was so easy to offend. She thought of the frivolous Anne Stafford who was hoping—so desperately hoping—to begin a love affair with the King.
Then she smiled slowly. Such a woman would never keep her place for more than a night or two. Francesca could not place herself on the side of such a woman; and if it was going to be a matter of taking sides there would be another on which she could range herself.
If Katharine were grateful to her, might she not be ready to forgive that unfortunate marriage?
KATHARINE WAS on her knees praying with her confessor, Fray Diego Fernandez, and the burden of her prayer was: Let me bear a son.
Fray Diego prayed with her and he comforted her. He was a young man of strong views and there had been certain rumors, mainly circulated by his enemies, the chief of whom was the ambassador Fuensalida with whom he had clashed on more than one occasion; and another was Francesca de Carceres who had been convinced, first that he was preventing her returning to Spain and, now that she was married and exiled from Court, that he was preventing her being received again.
The pugnacious little priest was the kind to provoke enemies; but Katharine trusted him; indeed in those days, immediately before her marriage, when she had begun to despair of ever escaping from the drab monotony of Durham House, and had discovered the duplicity of her duenna, Doña Elvira, and the stupidity of her father’s ambassador, Fuensalida, she had felt Fray Diego to be her only friend.
Katharine was not likely to forget those days; her memory was long and her judgment inflexible. If she could not forgive her enemies, she found it equally difficult to forget her friends.
Fuensalida had been sent back to Spain; Francesca had proved her treachery by deserting her mistress and escaping to marriage with the banker; but Fray Diego remained.
She rose from her knees and said: “Fray Diego, there are times when I think that you and Maria de Salinas are the only part of Spain that is left to me. I can scarcely remember what my father looks like; and I have almost as little esteem for our present ambassador as I had for his predecessor.”
“Oh, I do not trust Don Luis Caroz either, Your Grace,” said the priest.
“I cannot think why my father sends such men to represent him at the English Court.”
“It is because he knows his true ambassador is the Queen herself. There is none who can do his cause more good than his own daughter; and none more wise or understanding of the English.”
Katharine smiled tenderly. “I have been blessed in that I may study them at the closest quarters…singularly blessed.”
“The King is full of affection towards Your Grace, and that is a matter for great rejoicing.”
“I would I could please him, Fray Diego. I would I could give him that which he most desires.”
“And is there any sign, Your Grace?”
“Fray Diego, I will tell you a secret, and secret it must be, for it is as yet too soon to say. I believe I may be pregnant.”
“Glory be to the saints!”
She put her fingers to her lips. “Not a word, Fray Diego. I could not endure the King’s disappointment should it not be so. You see, if I told him he would want to set the bells ringing; he would tell the entire Court…and then…if it were not so…how disappointed he would be!”
Fray Diego nodded. “We do not wish Caroz to prattle of the matter.”
“Indeed no. Sometimes I wonder what he writes to my father.”
“He writes of his own shrewdness. He believes himself to be the greatest ambassador in the world. He does not understand that Your Grace prepared the way for him. He does not know how you continually plead your father’s cause with the King.”
“I do not see it as my father’s cause, Fray Diego. I see it as friendship between our two countries. I would have perfect harmony between them, and I believe we are working towards it.”
“If Caroz does not ruin everything, it may well be. He is such an arrogant man that he does not know that Your Grace’s father sent him to England because he had sufficient wealth to pay his own way.”
“Ah, my father was always careful with the gold. He had to be. There were so many calls upon it.”
“He and the late King of England were a pair. The King, your husband, is of a different calibre.”
Katharine did not say that her husband’s extravagance sometimes gave her anxiety; she scarcely admitted it to herself. Henry VII had amassed a great fortune, and once his successor had had a surfeit of pleasure he would shoulder his responsibilities and turn his back on it. Katharine often remembered his behavior when the people had robbed him of his jewellery so unexpectedly; and she believed that when he was in danger he would always know how to act. He was a boy as yet—a boy who had escaped from a parsimonious upbringing. He would soon grow tired of the glitter and the gold.
Fray Diego went on: “Your Grace, Francesca de Carceres was at the Palace today, hoping for an audience.”
“Did she ask it?”
“She did and I told her that Your Grace had expressed no desire to see her. She abused me, telling me that it was due to me that you had refused, that I had carried evil tales about her. She is a dangerous woman.”
“I fear so. She is one who will always scheme. I do not wish to see her. Tell her I regret her marriage as much as she evidently does; but since she made it of her own free will I should admire her more if she were content with the station in life which she herself chose.”
“That I will do, Your Grace.”
“And now, Fray Diego, I will join my ladies. And remember I have not even told Doña Maria de Salinas or Lady Elizabeth Fitzwalter of my hopes.”