I swear that the Duke of Albany shall pay for this. However Alexander died, it is the duke who is to blame for it. I should never have been forced away from the boys at Stirling Castle. I should never have been separated from him. My own sister Mary, a royal widow just like me, married a man in secret, and was allowed to leave her country with full honor. Why should I be an exile and my husband with a price on his head, and my son dead? Always, always, I am not granted my due as the senior Tudor princess. Thomas, Lord Dacre, agrees completely with me and together we compile eight pages of charges against the duke to send to London. Dacre adds every instance when the Scots have been allowed to invade English Northern lands, everything they have stolen, every cottage they have burned, every traveler they have robbed. We will destroy the duke; we will persuade Harry to invade. If it causes war with France it is a small price to pay for the revenge that a queen should exact for the death of her son.
The false duke writes to me, sympathizes with my loss, congratulates me on the birth of my daughter and says that he hopes we can come to an agreement. He is sending an emissary to Harry. He hopes we can come to peace.
“Never,” I say flatly to Dacre. “I shall tell him what he has to do before I will consider a peace treaty. He is to release Gavin Douglas, he is to forgive Lord Drummond, he is to lift the outlawry from my husband, he is to send me my jewels and he is to restore my husband’s lands and wealth to him.”
“He can’t do all that,” Dacre says, looking worried.
“He has to,” I say. “I will write to him myself.”
The old border lord looks cautious. “Better not to negotiate with him while he is sending a man to your brother. Better let the two men agree together.”
“Not at all,” I say fiercely. “I am queen regent, not anyone else. I shall tell him my demands, and he will meet them.”
I write also to my sister the Queen of England, Katherine, who seems to have held this child in her belly for all this long time, and tell her that I am praying for her as she nears her time, and ask her to write to me at once, as soon as her baby is born, a little cousin to my Margaret. I think of my two sisters, nearing their time, lapped in luxury, advised by physicians, with gold cradles ready for their babies, and I think that it is the unfairness that hurts me the most. They have no idea of the pain that I suffered; they will suffer nothing like it. They have no idea of the danger I was in. They are sisters together; I am like a changeling, forever excluded.
Albany writes to me promising peace, promising agreement, but at the same time his emissaries write to my brother. Perhaps he is trying for a peace, trying to speak to Harry and agree with me, but I would rather that he deal with me direct. I cannot allow Harry to agree with Albany keeping charge of my son the king. I cannot impress on Harry the importance of my jewels. Everyone thinks that I am thinking of trivial things, women’s things. But I know that Albany treats me with contempt, treats my allies with contempt. Nobody but me seems to understand that the men who fought for me have to be rescued from Albany’s imprisonment. Gavin Douglas is still imprisoned. He must be released and given the see that I said he should have. These are not things that can be lightly traded; they are, like my jewels, my possessions. Anyone who takes them from me is a thief.
Sometimes I think that I should creep back into Stirling Castle and raise a siege again, just so that I can be with my boy. Sometimes I think that I should go to Edinburgh and negotiate with the duke in person. But then Dacre comes to my chamber with letters from London when I am seated before the fire.
“Give them to me!” I say delightedly.
“There is one here from the queen,” he says, indicating her royal crest.
I show an excited and happy face, and put out my hand, eagerly breaking the seal to read. I make sure that I give Dacre not a clue that I am filled with dread, certain that she has given birth to a healthy boy at last, after so many attempts. If she has got a boy then my son has lost his inheritance of the English throne, and there is no reason for Harry to rescue him. I put my hand over my eyes as if to shield my face from the heat of the fire. That would be the worst loss of this year of losses.
And then I see that Katherine has not done her duty. God has not blessed her. Thank God, she has failed again, and her heart will be breaking. Tucked down at the bottom of the page, almost scribbled out by her signature, is the news that makes me smile.
“She’s had a girl,” I say flatly.
“God forgive her. What a pity,” Dacre says, heartfelt, as every Englishman will say. “God save her. What a disappointment.”
I think, I have given birth to four royal sons and I still have one left. And all Katherine has is a girl. “She is going to call her Mary. Princess Mary.”
“After her aunt, the dowager queen?” Dacre asks cheerfully.
“I doubt that,” I snap. “Not since she came home in disgrace married without permission. It will be Mary for Our Lady, as Katherine will want the Queen of Heaven’s protection on this little child, after all her previous sorrows. We must pray that the little one lives; none of the others have.”
“I hear they are very close, Princess Mary and the queen,” Dacre perseveres.
“Not particularly,” I say. “Duchess of Suffolk, she is now.”
“And here is a letter from your brother’s steward,” Dacre says. “And he has written to me.”
“You may read yours here,” I say, and we break the seals and read together.
It is the letter we have both been waiting for. Harry’s master of horse writes to say that he has commissioned a special litter to come for me from London with a guard of honor, extra horses, wagons for my goods, and soldiers to keep me safe through the wild Northern lands. Harry himself has scrawled a note at the side of the careful script to say that I must come at once.
“What about Archibald?” I demand, smiling at my husband as he comes into my room.
He stands behind my chair, and I feel his hand rest gently on my shoulder. I straighten up in pride and ignore the twinge in my hip bone. I know we are a handsome young couple. I see Dacre take in Archibald’s strength and my determination.
Dacre smiles. “I am pleased to be able to tell you that your brother the king has sent a safe conduct for His Grace, your husband. You are to go to London together and the two of you will live there as queen regent and consort. He will be accorded all appropriate honors and you will take precedence before everyone but the queen. You will go before your sister the Dowager Queen Mary and her husband.”
“You shall see what I have tried to describe to you,” I promise Ard. “You shall see me at my home, in the castles that were my childhood homes. I shall present you to my brother, the king. We will follow him and Katherine in to dinner and then everyone else, everyone, will come behind us. You will be the greatest man in England after the king and I will be the greatest woman after Katherine.”
He comes around to my side and he goes down on one knee. He turns his handsome face up to me and I cannot stop myself from putting my hand to his smooth shaved cheek. My God, this is a handsome man. I feel myself yearn for him. It has been so many days that I have had to lie flat as a corpse in a bed while he sat beside me, not daring to touch me for the pain that it would cause. I want to be his wife again, I want to be his lover. I want to be his queen and walk proudly at his side.
“My lady wife, Your Grace, I cannot come,” he says simply.
Dacre and I exchange shocked looks over his head.
“What?”
“I cannot come to London.”