“Still,” said Henry, “we heard a long time ago that she had set out . . . and still she does not come.”
“There are storms in the Bay of Biscay,” Margaret put in.
“Perhaps,” cried Henry spitefully, “she’ll be drowned. Then
Arthur nodded in his mild way; but he did not look in the least perturbed by this possibility.
Poor Arthur, thought the wise Margaret, he is not looking forward with any great pleasure to being a husband.
It occurred to her that the subject of the Spanish marriage was not really a very much happier topic than that of the mastiffs.
“I’m going to have a game of tennis,”said Henry suddenly. That meant that he was leaving the family party— because Arthur was not good enough to play with him. Henry would go and find the sprightliest of young boys, and doubtless he would win, not only because he hated to lose and his opponents knew this, but because he really did excel at all games. Arthur would shut himself into his own apartments to read or brood. Margaret would hand Mary over to her nurses, and she herself would do a little embroidery with some chosen companions, chatting lightly but thinking of Arthur’s marriage with the Infanta of Spain and wondering what further marriages were being arranged. It was almost certain that her own would be the next. She would not be as fortunate as Arthur, who at least would stay at home. She believed she would have to go into the wild country beyond the Border.
The Queen took an early opportunity of retiring to her own apartments. The spectacle had disgusted and alarmed her. She was shocked that her husband should have so betrayed himself. She had not dared to glance at him, sitting there stonily staring ahead at those struggling bodies, but she knew exactly how he would be looking. His lips would be tightly compressed; his eyes narrow and calcculating. She understood more of his nature than he would have believed possible. She had seen much, during her lifetime, of the terrible fascination a crown had for some men and women; she had seen them face disaster and death to win and then retain it.
Yet Henry, her husband, did not understand this. He did not understand her at all; he made no attempt to. He was a man shut in with his emotions, and shared them with none. For two things only did he betray an overwhelming passion: for the crown and for gold; and these she knew he loved with an intensity he would never feel for anything or anyone else.
She herself was no longer young, having last February passed her thirty-fifth birthday; and during those thirty- five years what she had lacked most was security.
Her handsome father had doted on her; he had planned a grand marriage for her, and when she was nine years old she had been affianced to Charles, who was the eldest son of Louis XI, and she remembered how at that time everyone had called her Madame la Dauphine. She remembered the French lessons she had taken at that time. It was imperative, her father had said, that she speak fluently the language of the country which would one day be her home. She had also learned to write and speak Spanish.
Thinking of those early days, she said to herself: “The latter will be useful when the Infanta arrives . . . if the Infanta ever does arrive.”
Royal marriages! How could one be sure they would ever take place until one witnessed the actual ceremony itself! Her marriage to the Dauphin had certainly not; she remembered the occasion when the news had arrived at the Palace of Westminster that Louis was seeking the hand of Margaret of Austria for his son.
Elizabeth could recall her father’s rage; the hot red blood rushing to his face and the whites of his eyes. He had died soon after—some said of the rage this news had aroused in him.
She had been afraid of such emotion ever since. For that was the beginning of trouble. Her father dead, her uncle taking the crown, herself with her mother and some other members of the family taking refuge in sanctuary, where her little brothers were taken from them to be lodged in the Tower—this Tower in which she now sat. Somewhere in this place were buried the bodies of those two young princes who had disappeared mysteriously from their lodgings. She could remember them so well, her little brothers whom she had loved so dearly. What had happened to them? They had stood in the way to the throne. In the way of her uncle Richard? In the way of her husband, Henry?
She dared not think of their fate.
It had all happened so long ago. Her uncle Richard, who had once thought of marrying her, had met his death at Bosworth Field; the Tudor dynasty had begun.
It was this matter of hanging the mastiffs which had made her brood on the past. It was this betrayal of her husband’s fear, of his determination to show all those who might rise against him what they could expect at his hands.
It was thus that Henry found her. He had come to her, she knew, to discover her feelings regarding the affair in the arena, though he would not ask. He never asked her advice or opinion. He was determined that she should remain his consort only. This desire to preserve his own supremacy was always present. Elizabeth knew it for a weakness which he attempted to hide by a show of arrogance.
“You are resting?” he asked.
He had come to her unheralded. She, who remembered the pageantry of royalty with which her father had surrounded himself, even now was a little surprised by this.
She gave him her hand which he kissed without much grace.
“The heat in the arena was overpowering,” she said. “At one time I was afraid Arthur would be overcome by it.”
The King frowned. “The boy’s health leaves much to be desired,” he said.
The Queen agreed. She murmured: “But young Henry grows more and more like my father every day.”
The King was not displeased; he liked to be reminded that his son’s maternal grandfather was Edward IV. But he did not wish Elizabeth to realize the extent of his pride, so he said: “Let us hope he does not inherit your father’s vices.”
“He had many virtues,” Elizabeth said quietly.
