“But you will stay with me now. You too will be wealthy and well guarded.”
“I cannot,” he says gently. “My people still need me. I must lead them and protect them against your enemies.”
“You came just to say good-bye?”
“I couldn’t stay away,” he whispers. “Forgive me. Did I do wrong?”
“No, no, I would rather see you for a moment than not at all. But, Ard, are you sure you cannot come?”
“My castle and my lands and my tenants will all be in danger if I don’t go back. You will forgive me?”
“Oh yes! Oh yes! I would forgive you anything; but I can’t bear you to leave me.”
He gets up from the bed and pulls on his leather riding breeches. They are worn soft and pliable from hard rides in all weathers.
“But you are not going now?”
“I will stay to dinner, if I may. I have had few good dinners in the last few weeks. And I will sleep in your bed tonight. I have had no soft pillows and no tender loving. And I will leave at dawn. It is my duty.”
“At dawn?” I repeat, feeling my lips tremble.
“I am afraid I must.”
I love him for his pride and for his sense of honor. I get up at dawn with him and watch him dress in his old worn breeches. “Here!” I say. “At least take these shirts.” I give him half a dozen fine linen shirts, beautifully hand-sewn and trimmed with lace.
“Where did you get these?” he demands, drawing one over his lean back.
“I commandeered them from Lord Dacre,” I confess. “He was most unwilling but he can get more made for himself, and you should have nothing but the best.”
He laughs shortly and pulls on his old riding boots. “Do you get enough to eat?” I demand. “Where do you sleep?”
“I stay with other outlaws in their castles and forts all along the border,” he answers. “Sometimes I sleep rough, under the sky, but usually I know a friend, someone loyal to your cause, who will take the risk of having me under their roof. Sometimes I even get back near to Tantallon, where everyone would risk their lives to give me a bed for the night.”
I know that Janet Stewart would open the doors of Traquair to him. But I won’t mention her name.
“Do you need money?” I ask eagerly.
“Money would help,” he says wryly. “I have to buy arms and clothes and food for those who ride with me, and I like to pay for my hospitality, especially when the people are poor.”
I go to my chest. “Here,” I say. “Dacre gave me this from my brother, for my benevolences on the way. He can give me more. Take it all.”
He weighs the purse in his hand. “Gold?”
“Yes,” I say. “And take this too.”
I open my treasure box and take out a long chain of gold links. “You can break it up and sell it as you need,” I say. “Take it, wear it around your neck and keep it safe.”
“This is worth a fortune,” he protests.
“You are worth a fortune to me,” I assure him. “Take it. And take these too.”
I find a handful of heavy gold coins at the bottom of the box.
“This is too much,” he says, but he lets me press the gold into his hands. “My wife, you are good to me.”
“I would do so much more for you if I could,” I swear. “When I come home to Scotland you will have half the kingdom for your own. Ard, keep safe. Be true to me.”
He bends his knee and bows his head for my blessing, then he rises up and takes me in his arms. I close my eyes, inhaling the smell of him, adoring him. I would give him the rings off my fingers, I would give him the jewels from my hair, I would promise him the world.
“Come back to me,” I whisper.
“Of course,” he says.
COMPTON WYNYATES, ENGLAND, MAY 1516
I am waiting in the home of my brother’s good friend and servant Sir William Compton, in my best gown of purple velvet with cloth-of-gold lining. My brother the king is coming to accompany me into the city. We will make a great show for all the people—we Tudors know that we have to make a great show—and my authority with the Scots will be greater when they hear that the king himself rode at my side to bring me home again. It has been thirteen years since I saw him, a boastful vain little boy, and in that time we have lost our father and our grandmother, he has become king, I have become a queen, and we have both had and lost children. Everyone tells me that he has grown to be extraordinarily handsome and I am torn between excitement and nerves as I stand by the window in Sir William’s beautiful presence chamber and hear the rattle of the guards’ weapons outside the double doors and the tramp of many feet. Then finally the doors swing open and Harry comes in.
He is changed so much. I left a boy and here is a man. He’s very tall, taller than Archibald, a head taller than me, and the first thing I see, and recoil to see it, is a thick bronze beard beautifully combed and trimmed. It makes him look like a fully grown man, far from the memory I carried of my light-footed, fair-skinned little brother.
“Harry,” I say uncertainly. Then I remember that this is the King of England and I drop into a curtsey: “Your Grace.”
“Margaret,” he says warmly. “Sister,” and he raises me up and kisses me on both cheeks.
His piercing eyes are a bright blue, his features regular and strong. He smiles and shows white even teeth. He is a stunningly handsome man. No wonder that the courts of Europe call him the handsomest prince in Christendom. I think for a swift, spiteful moment that Katherine of Aragon is lucky that she caught him when she did—at the very moment of his coming to the throne. Any woman in the world would be glad to marry my brother now; no wonder Katherine is on constant watch over her ladies-in-waiting.
“I would have known you anywhere,” he says.
I flush with pleasure. I know that I look well. The pain has gone from my legs and I can stand and walk without a limp. I have lost all the weight that I gained before the birth of Margaret, and I am beautifully dressed, thanks to Katherine.
“Anywhere!” he goes on. “You are as beautiful as our lady mother.”
I give him a little mock curtsey. “I am glad you find me so,” I say.
He offers me his arm and we walk a little way down the room, head to head so that no one else can hear us.
“I do, Margaret. I am proud to be a man with two beautiful sisters.”
Mary; already. He has hardly greeted me and already we have to speak of Mary.
“But what of her little namesake?” I demand. “How is your daughter? Is she strong and well?”
“She is.” He beams at me. “Of course we wanted a boy first, but there is no doubt that she will have a little brother at her side soon. And you are older sister to a king, you can tell her how to go on.”
I was not. I was younger sister to Arthur, my brother who should have been king. But I smile and say: “And Her Grace the queen? Is she well also?”
“She has returned to court,” he says. “And you will sit with her at the great joust we have planned this month. The biggest event we have ever planned—to celebrate your coming, and the birth of my daughter, and Mary’s son.”
Mary; again. “I must show you Margaret, your niece.” I nod to her nursemaid, who brings her forward with a low curtsey for Harry to see. She is a plump little thing, brown haired and brown eyed, and she waves her hands and beams at Harry as if she knows that his favor will make her fortune.
“As lovely as her mama,” Harry says fondly, tapping her little fist with his finger. “And as sweet-tempered, I am sure.”
“She is a very good baby,” I say. “She had a hard enough time of it.”
“Good God, what you have suffered!”
I rest my head gently against his shoulder. “I have suffered,” I agree. “But I know that you will make it all right again.”