“You sent his coat to Harry. His bloodstained coat.”
There is a long silence. Then she gets to her feet with a dignity I have never seen in her before. “I did,” she says quietly. Behind her, all her ladies rise too, and mine. They cannot be seated when the Queen of England stands, but nobody knows what to do. Awkwardly, I stand too. Are they leaving already? Is the queen offended? Have I dared to quarrel with the Queen of England while I perch in a house that she has loaned me, the first decent roof I have had over my head in months?
“I did,” she says quietly. “So that the King of England, fighting for his country, should know that his Northern border was safe. So that he should know that I had done my duty to him, my husband, even though it cost you your husband. So that he should know that English soldiers had triumphed. Because I was glad that we had triumphed. I am sorry for this, my dear sister, but this is the world that we live in. My first duty is always to my husband; God has put us together, no man can put us asunder. Even the love that I bear for you and yours cannot come between me and my husband the king.”
She is so dignified that I feel foolish and rude beside her poise. I never thought I would see Katherine rise to her queenship like this. I remember snubbing her when she was a poor hanger-on at court, I never knew that she had this righteous pride in her. Now I see that she is truly a queen, and has been a queen for seven years, while I have lost my throne and married a lord, who does not even live with me.
“I see,” I say weakly. “I understand.”
She hesitates, as if she sees herself for the first time, on her dignity, on her feet, ready to walk out of my chamber. “May I sit down again?” she asks with a little smile.
It is gracious of her, as she does not have to ask.
“Please.” We sit together.
“We buried him with honor,” she says quietly. “In the Church of the Observant Friars. You can visit his grave.”
“I didn’t know.” I choke on a sob. I am more embarrassed than anything else. “I didn’t even know that.”
“Of course,” she said. “And I had Masses said for him. I am sorry. It must have been a terrible time for you. And then you had worse times to follow your grief.”
“They say that it is not his body,” I whisper. “They say that he was seen after the battle. That the body you brought to England did not wear the cilice.”
“People always make up stories,” she replies, steady as a rock. “But we buried him as a king with honor, Your Grace.”
I cannot bully her, and I cannot shake her. “You can call me Margaret,” I say. “You always used to.”
“And you can call me Katherine,” she says. “And perhaps we can be friends as well as sisters. Perhaps you can forgive me.”
“I thank you for the gowns, and for everything,” I say awkwardly. “I was glad to get my inheritance.”
She puts her hand over my own. “All this is no more than you should have,” she says gently. “You should have your throne again, and the wealth of Scotland. My husband the king has sworn that you will have all that is yours again, and he will make sure that it is so, and I will speak in your favor.”
“I am grateful,” I say, though it costs me to say such a thing to her.
Her palm is warm, the rings are heavy on her little fingers. “We were not good sisters to each other before,” she says quietly. “I was very afraid that I would never be married to your brother, and I was homesick, and terribly poor. You don’t know what I went through in the years that I waited. I was never happy after your mother died. When she had gone it was as if I lost my only friend in the family.”
“My grandmother . . .” I begin.
She shrugs her shoulders. Rubies gleam at her throat. “My Lady the King’s Mother never cared for me,” she says shortly. “She would have sent me home if she could have done so. She tried to say—” She breaks off. “Oh! All sorts of things. She tried to prevent my marriage to the prince. She advised him against me. But when he came to the throne he took me, despite everything.”
“She was always ambitious for him,” I say quietly. And she was right, I think to myself—he could have done better than a widow who cannot bear a son.
“So I understand what it is to be far from home, and to think that no one cares for you, that you are in danger and no one will help you. I was very, very sorry when I learned that you were widowed and had lost the guardianship of your son. I swore then that I would do what I could to help you, and to be a good sister to you. We are both Tudors. We should help each other.”
“I always thought you looked down on me,” I confess. “You always seemed so very grand.”
Her ripple of laughter makes her ladies look up and smile. “I ate day-old fish that we bought cheap from the market,” she says. “I pawned my plate to pay my household. I was a princess in rags.”
I clasp her hand in my own. “I too have been a princess in rags,” I say quietly.
“I know,” she says. “That is why I have urged Harry to send an army to put you back on your throne.”
“Will he listen to you?” I ask curiously, thinking of how James would chuck me under the chin and go and fulfill his own plans, ignoring anything I said. “Does he take your advice?”
A shadow crosses her face. “He used to,” she says. “But Thomas Wolsey has grown very great recently. You know that he advises the king on everything? He is Lord Chancellor, he is very able, a very able man. But he thinks only of how to do what the king wishes. He doesn’t consider God’s will as well as the king’s desire. Indeed, it has become very rare for anyone to advise the king against his desire.”
“He is the king,” I say flatly. Really, I don’t understand her at all; why should anyone advise him against his wishes?
“But not infallible,” she says with a ghost of a smile.
“Is Thomas Wolsey in favor of my return to Scotland? He must want the best for my daughter, as her godfather?”
She hesitates. “I think he has greater plans for you than just your return,” she says. “He knows that the Scots must accept you and that your boy must be in your keeping, but I think he hopes . . .”
“He hopes what?” I ask.
She bows her head for a moment as if in prayer, as if she has to think what she says next: “I believe that he hopes that your present marriage can be annulled and you shall marry the emperor.”
I am so shocked that I say nothing. I just look at her, my mouth agape.
“What?” I say, when I find my voice. “What?”
She nods. “I thought you did not know of this. Thomas Wolsey is playing for high stakes in Europe. He would be very pleased to have an ally bound by marriage to England, to hold against France. Especially now that he is trying to get the French out of Scotland.”
“But I am married already! What is he thinking of?”
“The Lord Chancellor thinks that your marriage could be annulled,” she says quietly. “And then Harry observed that your husband did not accompany you, though he had a safe conduct. Harry thought that you might be estranged. He thought that you might welcome a separation.”
“Archibald has duties in Scotland! I told the king myself. He is obliged, by his honor . . .”
“You would be empress,” she remarks.
That silences me again. As the wife of the Holy Roman Emperor I would be queen of enormous lands, half of Europe. I would outrank Katherine. Indeed I would be married to her kinsman. Mary, the wife of a nonentity like Charles Brandon, would be nothing beside me, she would have to serve me on bended knee. I would never see either of them again, and I would be wealthier than my brother Harry. This is the destiny that slipped away from me when I considered the emperor and the King of France as husbands, and then found that the King of France had jilted me for my little sister. When I married Archibald I lost my chance of being one of the great rulers of Europe. Now, once again, the possibility of greatness opens before me.