The Autobiography of Henry VIII: With Notes by His Fool, Will Somers (21 page)

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Authors: Margaret George

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The towers of Richmond Palace, rising pale and beseeching against the blanched autumn skies. Inside, inside, was my wife. Mother-to-be, victor at Flodden Field ... oh, truly I was blessed.
Down the walkways (people on all sides pushing, claiming me) I flew toward the royal apartments. And there she was, at the entrance, like any schoolchild, not a royal daughter of Spain. Her hair glinted gold in the murky light. Then it was embrace, embrace; and I felt her warmth in my arms.
“O Henry,” she whispered, close by my ear.
“The keys to Tournai.” I had carried them on my person. Now I presented them to her, kneeling.
She took them, clasped them. “I knew you would win a city. So many times, as a child, I saw my mother or father return with such keys, keys wrested from the Moors—”
So. She compared the memories. Ferdinand and Isabella driving the Moors from Spain, pushing them back, city by city. Could her husband measure up?
We were traversing the royal apartments. We would go to hers, as the King’s were dark and silent and not yet in order. “The Moors are back in Africa, where they belong,” I said.
“Yes.” Her face was shining. “And the Scots are back in the mountains, where
they
belong.”
In her withdrawing room, we stood still a long moment and kissed. Her lips, how sweet!
“You put Moorish honey on your lips,” I murmured.
“I do nothing Moorish!” she said, pulling away.
“Surely the Moors had good things to give Spain—”
“No. Nothing.” Now her lips, so soft, were set in a hard little line. “There is nothing good from the soft beds of the East.”
“Yet you spent your girlhood in the ‘soft Moorish East,’ ” I teased. “Watching the fountains play in the Caliph’s Palace in Granada. Come, teach me.” I reached out for her belly.
Which was flat. Entirely flat, and hard as her mouth had been when dismissing the Moors.
“He died,” she said softly. “Our son. He was born the night after I received word that the Scots were massing. In between midnight and dawn. Warham christened him,” she added. “His soul was saved.”
“But not his body,” I said rotely. “You say—‘he’?”
“A son,” she said. “A little son, not formed enough to survive. But enough to be baptized! His soul has gone to Paradise.”
My son. Dead.
“It was the Scots,” I said. “They killed him. Had it not been for them, and their dastardly attack, you would not have delivered before your time.” I broke away from her. “They stand punished. Their King is dead.”
A present King for a future King. Had they truly been punished?
I came back to her and enfolded her in my arms. “We will make another King.”
I led her into her sleep-chamber. But it was not duty that called me, but desire, as Katherine was at her ripest and most beautiful: a queen who defended her realm, a mother who mourned a son, a daughter of the East who could give exotic pleasures, no matter how her Catholic conscience denounced them.
XXI
I
n recognition of their services on the battlefield, I restored Thomas Howard to his lost dukedom of Norfolk; and I made Charles Brandon the new Duke of Suffolk.
WILL:
 
A title recently vacated by Edmund de la Pole, as it were.
HENRY VIII:
 
Wolsey, too, must be recognized. God had opened many Church positions in the last few months, as though anticipating our needs. I gathered them up, making a bouquet of them, and presented them to Wolsey: Bishop of Lincoln, Bishop of Tournai, and Archbishop of York. In one brief ceremony he catapulted himself (like one of the cannonballs from the war machines he had helped supply) from simple priest to powerful prelate. “For a man only lately a mere priest, you aim high.” I smiled. “I like that.”
“What else could I aspire to?” He attempted a look of innocence.
“What else, indeed? And for what do you intend this palace you are planning?”
Wolsey had just acquired the lease of a tract of land far upstream on the Thames from the Knights Hospitalers. He had consulted masons and builders and had twice already braved icy riding paths to inspect the grounds.
“Hampton? ‘Tis not a palace, ’tis but a manor house. An archbishop, after all, must have quarters befitting his office.”
“There’s York Place for that.”
“It’s old and damp.”
“So are my palaces. So, my friend and minister, you aim at something grand. How would you like a ... cardinal’s hat?”
“Yes.” No disclaimers, no hesitation.
“Cardinal
Wolsey.
That’s
higher than Canterbury. A cardinal would be a worthy representative and minister for you. As King, you deserve no less a man to serve you.”
His flattery was so ready. “Oh, yes. I owe it to myself to make you Cardinal. Let’s see, now. There is a new Pope. What is he like? How best should we approach him for this little favour?” I paused. “We’ll flatter Leo. He’ll send the cardinal’s hat, never fear. By King of France, and you’ll be Cardinal Wolsey!”
And I would be a father, pray God. The Queen was pregnant again, and surely this fourth time we would have what we—and England—so deeply desired. And urgently needed.
The plans were drawn up. My world was ordered, like a chessboard freshly laid out with new ivory pieces. How the board—the squares and duchies of Europe—gleamed before me! On my side were Ferdinand, Maximilian, the new Pope, Leo. We were to launch our attack on France on many fronts simultaneously, coordinating them by means of the fastest messengers in Christendom (albeit mounted on Arab horses). Katherine and I spent hours imagining the battles Ferdinand and I would fight as comrades-in-arms; she longed to cross the sea with me and fight alongside us. Only the coming child prevented her.
“With the Scots vanquished, I could come,” she said wistfully. “Only I would not endanger the child for anything in this world.” She patted her stomach tenderly.
“Nor I, my love.”
“I am so deeply happy that you and my father will meet at last.” True, I had never seen Ferdinand, except through Katherine’s devoted eyes. “And that you have chosen—or rather, allowed me to choose—a name from
my
family: Philip Charles.”
The men in her family seemed blessed with vigour and longevity; perhaps I had become superstitious about the doomed Henrys, Richards, and Edwards in mine. In any case, it seemed a small enough concession at the time. Anything to keep Katherine happy so that the child might grow in peace.
“Aye, yes.”
Her devotion to both Ferdinand and Jesus often interfered with her devotion to her husband’s earthly needs. More and more I had found those needs taking on a life of their own, pulsating within me and demanding a hearing. They cared little for Katherine’s scruples, or for mine, either. I was twenty-three years old and a man, that was all they knew. Katherine’s maids of honour, her ladies-in-waiting, particularly the Duke of Buckingham’s married sister, seemed to rouse that imp within me. Satin pulled taut over breasts roused it in me.
The sound of a lute in Katherine’s outer chamber called it forth like a cobra rising to a snake charmer’s flute. Out there would be the ladies, the maids, playing tunes, passing time, all arrayed in satin and velvet. Like a sleepwalker, I was drawn away. Like a sleepwalker, I was an onlooker only; all that ever happened was in my own head.
The foul letter lay there like a dead fish, stinking with corruption, slime, and rottenness. Ferdinand had played me false, had betrayed me all along. At the very hour when I was entering Tournai in conquest, he was signing a secret peace treaty with the French. His toady and minion, Maximilian, had followed suit.
This whole long winter, whilst plans were being meticulously formulated, munitions ordered, supplies replenished (the precise image of these things danced across my brain!), and my flagship taking shape, board by board, beam by beam, at great cost and rush, so as to be ready for launching in June ...
And I had even called a Parliament, humbled myself to approacs. It was always the Pharisees, wasn’t it? But then there was an exception, a sort of condition that permitted divorce. It was something Saint Paul had mentioned. I made up my mind to ask Wolsey when I met with him the next morning. He
was
a priest, even if he was no theologian.
After Mass, I went directly to Wolsey’s apartments in the Palace, where I found the Archbishop already at work at his desk. The Archbishop, I noted, had not attended Mass himself.

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