“She prayed for it as God’s will on earth.”
I take it from him, and he bows and goes from the room so I can read it alone.
My dear Sister,
Harry has told me that he has commanded your husband, the earl, to support you and your son in the council of lords and that he is satisfied that the earl will honor his duty to you and his vows as your husband. I am so glad and so thankful that your troubles are at an end, your husband returned to you, your son accepted as king, and you in power as regent. Your courage has been rewarded, and I thank God for it.
Knowing you as I do, I have begged Harry to urge your husband to be generous to you and patient, and he has promised me that you need not return to Archibald and live as man and wife until Whitsuntide so that you have time to become accustomed to him again and perhaps so that you have time to grow in love for him who has been so true—in exile and in England—to you. I have watched him and he has convinced me that he is your true and loving husband. You have no reason not to return to him.
I have sworn to Harry on my own honor that the rumors we have heard about you are false. I have pledged my word that you are a good woman and that you would not make your own child a bastard nor make a mockery of your royal name by seeking a divorce, especially from a husband who is seeking your forgiveness.
To be a good wife is to forgive. A queen like you, like me, and like our sister Mary, is especially obliged to show the world that there is no end to marriage, no end to our forgiveness.
So I have agreed with Harry that you will take Archibald back as your husband at Whitsun, and I hope that you will be happy again. As I hope to be too, some day soon.
Your sister the queen,
Katherine
I am not even angry with her for delivering me into the arms of an unfaithful traitor who brought his army against me. I think this is her master stroke.
Archibald is to live at Holyrood with our daughter, my son, and me, and we are to show the world that we are a family reconciled. We are to prove to Harry that there can be no divorce, that a husband always returns to his wife, that marriage is truly till death. To the common people, coming in to see us dine seated side by side, overlooking the magnificent hall, we look like a lord and his wife and his son. The cloth of estate extends over James and me, our chairs are set a little higher than Archibald’s, but it is he who sends the dishes around the hall and walks around and chats to his friends, and commands the music like a great man at his own table.
The kitchens send out feasts with many dishes, as if they revel in cooking for the lord himself again. The musicians play dance tunes, and Archibald teaches everyone the new steps from London, which Anne Boleyn has made fashionable. The players perform the new masques—choosing one of the court and drawing them out to dance and play their part in the drama. Often they select Archibald, and he dances at the center of a swirling circle, his dark eyes smiling at me, a shrug of his shoulders as if to say that he does not seek this praise, it just comes to him. He is the constant center of attention.
He is pleasant to James—not overwhelming him with attention which would make my cautious twelve-year-old son suspicious, but speaking to him of hair’s-breadth escapes, battles, strategies, the wars of Christendom, the plans of the King of England, and the constant adjustment and power plays of the courts of Europe. He has not wasted his time in France, nor in England. He knows all that is happening, and he tells James little stories to teach him statecraft, and claps him on the shoulder and praises his understanding. He takes him into the library, spreads out the maps on the great round table and shows him how the Habsburg family have grown great and greater, and that their lands are spreading across the face of Europe. “This is why we have to have an alliance with England and with France,” he says. “The Habsburgs are a monster that will gobble us up.”
He is loving and easy with Margaret, and she adores him as a father miraculously restored to her. He praises her prettiness and he takes her with him everywhere, buying her ribbons for her hair every time they pass a market. To me he is as charming and as graceful as when he was my carver and could not do enough for me. He throws me a warm smile over James’s head as if to praise me for raising such a boy, he laughs when I make a remark, his arm is always ready to escort me into court. When the court dances, the musicians play, the cards are set out, everything is entirely according to my wish. He knows me so well, he guesses what I want before I have time to command it. He asks after the old pain in my hip, he reminds me of our breakneck ride to safety; our history is a love story that he retells from time to time in little reminiscences, always asking me do I remember the time . . . ? Do I recall the night . . . ? Day by day he draws me to him with a gentle weave of shared interests and shared memories.
Often he turns to James and praises my courage and tells my boy that he is lucky to have a mother who is such a heroine. He tells Margaret about the dozens of gowns that my kingly brother sent me as a reward for my bravery. Always, he suggests that he himself was fighting for my cause, for James’s safety. It is as if he sings a ballad of the story that we know, but it is set to a strange new tune.
Behind Archibald’s cocked attentive head, I see Henry Stewart glowering but powerless. There is nothing I can do to prove to him that I am not soothed and comforted by this new gentle Archibald, for he can see—everyone can see—that I am. I have had so little affection in my life that I am hungry for attention, even from a man who has been my enemy.
I am in love with Henry Stewart, my heart leaps when he comes into court and bows to me, his tawny hair shining in the light of the candles, his hazel gaze direct and honest; but when Archibald stands behind my chair, his hand resting on my shoulder, I know that I am safe: the only man in Scotland who could challenge my power is on my side, my brother’s friend and ally stands beside me, the husband that I married for love, who betrayed me so painfully, has come home.
“This is our happy ending,” he bends over me and whispers, and I cannot find the courage to contradict him.
Henry Stewart comes to my privy chamber in the hour before dinner while everyone is getting dressed. My lady comes and tells me that he is waiting, and I send them away and go out to him, dressed like a queen in green velvet with silver sleeves. He bows and waits for me to sit, but I go towards him, and I look up into his sulky face and I feel a pulse of such desire that I cannot stop myself putting a hand on his chest and whispering: “Henry?”
“I have come to ask permission to leave court,” he says stiffly.
“No!”
“You must see that I can hardly live under the same roof as you and your husband.”
“I can’t bear for you to go. You can’t leave me here with him!”
He clasps my hand to his beautifully embroidered jacket. “I don’t want to go,” he says. “You know that I don’t. But I cannot live in his house as if I were his man.”
“It’s my house! Your loyalty is to me!”
“If he is your husband then everything is his,” he says miserably. “Me as well. I feel ashamed.”
“You’re ashamed of me?”
“No, never. I know you have to share power with him, I know you have to have him here. I understand. It is the agreement with the English, I understand this. But I cannot do it.”
“My love, my darling, you know that my divorce will come and I will be free of him!”
“When?”
I check at his gloomy tone. “Any day now, any day it might come.”
“Or it might never come. In the meantime I cannot wait for you in your husband’s house.”
“Don’t go back to Avondale.” I tighten my grip on his jacket. “If you can’t stay here, don’t go back there.”