I hear her guard of honor accompanying her down Dower Gate and I hear the cheers that follow her. The English love the Spanish princess who waited and waited for the day when she would finally be queen. I cannot see her from my window, though I press my face against the glass. I have to sit on my throne in my presence chamber to wait for her to arrive.
They throw open the doors. I rise to my feet and advance to greet her, for however I remember her from our girlhood—pale, sorrowful, poor—she is Queen of England now and I am the exiled Queen of Scotland and it is me waiting for my luck to change, not her. I curtsey to her, she curtseys to me, then she opens her arms and we hug. I am surprised by her warmth. She pats my face and says that I have grown into a beauty, what lovely hair I have. How well the gown suits me.
I give her one searching glance, and I could laugh aloud. She has run to fat after five pregnancies, her skin has gone dull and sallow. Her beautiful golden hair is hidden under an unflattering hood, she is loaded with chains around her neck, reaching to her broad waist, a crucifix resting at her throat; her little plump hands have rings on every finger. I note with unworthy triumph that she looks all of her thirty years, she looks tired and disappointed, but I am still a young woman with everything to hope for.
She says at once, “Don’t let’s talk here among everyone. Can we go to your privy chamber?” and I hear once again that familiar, irritating Spanish accent, which she has ostentatiously retained, thinking it makes her special, after fourteen years of speaking English.
“Of course,” I say, and even though I live here, I have to step back and show her into the room that leads off the presence chamber, just before my private rooms.
Informally, she takes a seat in the window and beckons me to join her, seated beside her at the same height, as if we are equals. Her ladies and mine sit on stools out of earshot, though they are all dying to know how we will make friends, when everyone knows there is so much between us, and so much of it bad.
“You are looking so well,” she says warmly. “In such good looks! After all that you have endured.”
“And you too,” I lie. When I last saw her she was a young widow, hoping against all the evidence that my father would let her marry Harry, fragile in black, dainty as a doll. Now, she has achieved her heart’s desire, and found it lacking. They married for love—passionate boyish love on his part—but they have had five pregnancies and only one healthy child, and she is a girl. Harry takes a lover every time Katherine is pregnant, and she is pregnant almost every year. They are not the golden couple of her dreams. I expect she thought that she would be like her mother and father, equally proud, equally beautiful, equally powerful, in love forever.
It has not turned out like that. Harry has grown taller and more handsome, wealthier and more kingly than she could have hoped, and he casts a great shadow over her—over everyone. She is tired, she aches with mysterious pains. She fears that God does not favor their marriage, and she spends half the day on her knees asking Him what is His will. She has none of the radiant confidence of her mother, the crusader. Now she comes to befriend me but even here she brings guilt. She has blood on her hands: her army killed my husband, and I do not forget it.
“I hope that you can stay with us for a long time,” she says. “It would be such a pleasure to have both the king’s sisters at court.”
“Both of us? Is Mary here very much?” I ask. “I didn’t think she could afford to live at court.”
Katherine flushes. “She comes often,” she says with dignity. “As my guest. We have become very good friends. I know that she is longing to see you.”
“I don’t know how long I can stay, I will have to go home as soon as the Scots lords have agreed to my rule,” I say. “It is my duty. I cannot walk away from my husband’s country.”
“Yes, you have been called to a great office,” she says, “in a country that I know is not easy to rule. I was so sorry for the death of your husband the king.”
For a moment I cannot speak. I cannot even glare at her. I cannot imagine how she dares to talk of his death as if it were a distant event, beyond anyone’s control.
“The fortunes of war,” she says.
“An unusually cruel war,” I remark. “I have never heard before of English troops being ordered to take no prisoners.”
She has the decency to look abashed. “These border wars are always cruel,” she says. “As when neighbors fight. Lord Dacre tells me—”
“It was he who found my husband’s body.”
“So sad,” she whispers. “I am so sorry.” She turns her face and, hidden by the enormous headdress, wipes her eyes. “Forgive me. I have recently lost my father and I—”
“They told me that after Flodden you were triumphant,” I interrupt, suddenly finding the courage to speak out.
She bows her head but she does not shrink from the truth. “I was. Of course I was glad to keep England safe while the king was far away, and fighting himself. It was my duty as his queen. They said that the King of Scots was planning to march on London. You would not believe how afraid we all were of his coming. Of course I was glad that we won. But I was very sorry for you.”
“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.”