But I don’t overlook Henry’s hints. I write to Lord Dacre to ask him for news of Archibald, and of all those who support me in Scotland. I tell him I know all about Hume; he need not shrink from the truth. I know the worst. But even with that assurance, he does not reply and I take it that he either knows nothing, or does not want to tell me. I meet again with the Scots ambassadors and I cannot tell from their quiet courtesy whether my husband is on my side or has turned his collar and joined theirs. In the end I have to ask Thomas Wolsey to come to me.
I show him his goddaughter, my darling little Meg, and she smiles at him, just as she should. I serve the sweet pastries that he likes with a glass of malmsey wine. Then, when he is flattered and fed, I ask him for a loan. The Scots have sent my jewels and my gowns from my palaces, but no rent money. Thomas Wolsey is obliging—why should he not be? As Lord Chancellor he has control of the royal treasury and is amassing a fortune on his own account. His fat little fingers are loaded with jewels. He lends me money that will be repaid when my rents are paid. Dacre will collect them at the border and send Wolsey his share.
He congratulates me on the agreement I have made with the Scots. “You can go home in safety, you can rule as co-regent,” he says. “They promise to pay your dower and consult you. This is a triumph, Your Grace. I am impressed.”
I smile. “Thank you. I am glad that I have been able to achieve so much. But I really wanted to ask you about the Earl of Angus,” I say.
I am hesitant to say his name. Nor do I want to say “my husband” to this plump clerk whose eyes are so bright, whose wit is so sharp but who knows nothing about living hard, of the hazard and luck of being on the border.
He says nothing, he merely bows.
“I wanted to ask if you know where he is,” I say. “I am concerned . . . after what you told me of Alexander Hume. They were all riding together, the Humes and my husband.”
He knows something. I swear that he has known for weeks.
“Indeed yes, I think that the earl, your husband, surrendered at the same time as the Humes, Alexander and William,” he says evenly. “We think the three of them surrendered to Albany the regent and took the pardon. Your husband has given up.”
For a moment, I simply cannot hear him. “Given up? Given himself up?”
“I only just learned it myself. It is a blow,” Wolsey says, quiet as a priest in confession.
It is a lie. It must be a lie. “He can’t have done,” I say hotly. “He hasn’t written to me. He wouldn’t have done such a thing without telling me. He wouldn’t have surrendered without winning me the right to see my son. He wouldn’t just give up.”
“I think he has got his own lands back,” Wolsey says gently. “He has traded your cause for his own. He has Tantallon Castle back in his keeping. I know it was important to him and to his—clan, do they call themselves?—that he recover his own. And his own fortune, of course.”
“What about my own?” I demand, suddenly furious with this soft-skinned man who tells me such terrible news in a softly confiding voice. “This is my husband! He should be fighting for me! He did not come with me to England so that he could continue the fight. He should be fighting for me now!”
Wolsey spreads his fingers, heavy with diamond rings. “Perhaps he did not come to England so that he could regain his castles and lands. And he has done that. It is, for him, a victory.”
I am so furious that I can hardly speak. “It is no victory for me,” I say, choked.
His round face is tender. “No,” he says. “You have been overlooked again.”
I could cry that he names this grief so exactly. This is always what happens to me, over and over again. I have been put into second place. My needs have been neglected; where I should be first, I have been put aside. My own husband befriends my enemy rather than fighting for my cause. He has betrayed me.
“I can’t believe it,” I mutter. I turn away from Wolsey so that he cannot see my face, twisted with anger. I am torn between fury and despair. I cannot believe that Archibald would surrender without telling me. I cannot believe he would ride to Edinburgh and not to London. I cannot believe that he would get his lands back, and leave me with nothing.
“The wife of the emperor would be the greatest woman in Europe,” Wolsey says silkily. “You would be first. You would be able to command everyone in Scotland.”
Even in my distress, I don’t forget my marriage vows. “Archibald may have neglected his duty to me, but I do not neglect mine to him,” I say. “We were married in the sight of God and nothing can change that.”
“If you’re sure,” Thomas Wolsey says.
LAMBETH PALACE, ENGLAND, AUTUMN 1516
I surprise myself by not collapsing into tears. I find I want to talk to someone who will understand how I feel—not someone whose softly-spoken advice only makes me feel worse. I call for my horse and for my grooms of the stable. I put on my best riding cape and my gown trimmed with marten, and I ride to Greenwich. I don’t go to the king’s presence chamber to see my brother, I take the stairs to the queen’s side, and the chief of my ladies asks the head of Katherine’s household if she will see me. He shows me in at once, and I find her ladies sitting quietly in her presence chamber, and the door to her privy chamber closed.
“You may go in,” he says quietly. “Her Grace is at prayer.”
I enter quietly, closing the door behind me on all of them, and I see her through the open door to the private chapel that she has made adjoining her privy chamber. I stand in the doorway and watch as the priest makes the sign of the cross over her bowed head and crosses himself, and she rises from the luxurious prie-dieu, speaks a few words to him, and comes out, her face smiling and serene.
She lights up with genuine pleasure when she sees me. “I was just praying for you, and here you are,” she exclaims. She puts her hand out to me. “I heard the news from Scotland. You must be glad at least that your husband is alive and restored to his own.”
“I can’t be,” I say, with sudden honesty. “I know that I should be. I know that I should be glad for him. And I am glad that he has not been killed. I have been in a constant terror that there would be an accident, or a raid, or a fight . . . But I can’t be happy that he has agreed with Albany and left me here.” I swallow a gulp of tears. “I know I should be glad for his safety. But I can’t.”
She draws me to the fireside and we sit together on stools of equal height. “It is hard,” she agrees. “You must feel quite abandoned by him.”
“I do!” I trust her with the painful truth. “I left him behind because he wanted to fight for me and would not come to England with our cause in so bad a state. It broke my heart to leave him, and he was so loving, he followed me to York and swore that he would fight for me to the death, and now I find that he has made an agreement with our enemy and is snug in his own little castle! Katherine—it must have been he who sent on my gowns!”
She looks down, she purses her lips. “I know. It is hard when you think someone is very good, very great, and they disappoint you. But perhaps it will be for the best. When you go back to Scotland you will have his castles to live in, he will have a fortune to support you. He will be on the council and can speak for you. You will be the wife of a great Scots lord and not an outlaw.”
“Have you been disappointed?” I ask so quietly that I wonder if she can hear me.
She turns her honest blue eyes on me. “Yes,” she says shortly. “You will have heard of some of my troubles. I think that everyone knows that Henry took a lover in the very first year of our marriage, when I was confined with our first child. Since then, there have been others, always another. There is one now.”