Chapter 19 #3
Back came a firm reply. “You must go,” Francis commanded.
“Mistress Wellgood can look after the children, and you told me only last week that William has taken lustily to his wet nurse. I have seen your brother, and I know he will be very disappointed if you are not at his wedding.” He added, as if for encouragement, “The King is ill. He has had a burning fever for several days, and the malady has attacked his bad leg. He has remained behind closed doors, and we are all sworn to secrecy about the true state of his health, but there is much speculation, as you can imagine.”
He was saying that it was safe to go to court.
Reluctantly, Kate had Thomasina pack her traveling chest, then set off for Whitehall Palace, sad that Francis would have left for Scotland by the time she got there.
She was consumed with a mounting sense of dread, knowing that he would be exposing himself to danger and that she would be spending the next weeks or, God forbid, months worrying about him.
He had left the key to his lodging with her brother.
When she neared Whitehall, she sent one of her grooms ahead to find Harry, and they were waiting for her at the gatehouse.
She hardly recognized the tall, thin-faced, dark-haired young man who was standing there.
Gone was the boy she remembered; he had hardened into manhood, and in features he favored the Boleyns.
“Sister! You are most welcome!” They embraced awkwardly. “You have changed!” Harry said, leading her to Francis’s lodging. “I hear you have four children now. I pray that Anne and I will be blessed with as many.”
“I hope so, too, and that you will both visit us at Greys Court and meet the little ones.”
“We’ll see,” he replied. His manner was brusque and a little off-putting. There was no warmth in him. And when a servant, hurrying along a gallery on some urgent errand, careered into him, he responded with an angry expletive that Francis would never have used in front of a lady.
“Fuck the fool,” he muttered, stalking onward. “No respect for his betters.”
Kate said nothing. She was wondering why she felt no close affinity with this brother of hers, and if she could ever love him as a sister should.
He unlocked the door to Francis’s rooms and cast his eye around. “Passably tidy.”
“Tidy enough for me,” Kate retorted, as her grooms set down her chest in the next room and disappeared. She wondered if little Anne Morgan had seen the irascible side of her bridegroom, and if she had the character to soften him a little.
“I am looking forward to meeting Anne,” she said, moving into the bedchamber. Harry followed.
“She’s a pretty girl, and biddable,” he said, sprawling in the only chair and watching her maid unpack, his eyes lingering on her bottom.
“I’d been hoping for a better match, one that was commensurate with my status as a royal ward, and I also looked to the King for a handsome wedding gift to boost my income, but he has given me no special grants or favors.
I could have done with something, for I have only a modest income. ”
His voice was peevish. Kate tried, and failed, to see anything of their mother in him beyond the dark hair. All she could see was Grandfather.
“But what of the lands you inherited from Father?” she asked.
“I can’t take possession of them until I come of age next spring,” he said.
“But that’s not long to wait. And Anne will surely bring you a good dowry?”
“No,” he sighed. “She has three sisters. Their portions are small.”
“Then why are you marrying her?” She could not resist asking the question.
“Because the King wills it. I’ve heard rumors that I am his son. This should put paid to them. If I was his son, I should have been found a rich heiress. But I am not. Mother told me that I am not.”
Kate wondered for a moment if Mother had told him that he was brother to the King’s daughter.
She doubted it, for surely, in his present mood, he would have mentioned it.
And yes, if he had been the King’s son, he would have been making a better marriage.
Henry Fitzroy, the bastard son the King had acknowledged, had been given two royal dukedoms and the Duke of Norfolk’s daughter to wife.
She wondered why he hadn’t noticed how like the King she herself looked, but then he was probably too wrapped up in himself to consider her.
“Sometimes, it is better to live in obscurity than to be connected to royalty,” she said.
Harry gave a dismissive gesture. “Not if one wants to get on in the world.”
“Just think of our family. They were high in royal favor—but their fall was calamitous.”
“Our aunt had a talent for making enemies, and our mother was a fool.”
Kate was shocked. “You should not speak of her like that.”
“Oh, come, Sister, she had a poor reputation. She was the King’s mistress for a time, didn’t you know? She got nothing out of it because she was stupid and had no ambition.”
Kate could have shaken him. “You should have more respect. She loved you.”
“And she abandoned us to marry a nobody and then had to flee abroad because of the scandal.”
“She abandoned no one! We were well looked after. The King was your guardian!”
They were sparring again, as they had when they were little.
He shrugged. “I didn’t come here to argue with you, Sister. You must forgive me if I am in a bad mood. I am feeling hard done by.”
“There are some who have worse cause for complaint,” she retorted. “Think of your little bride, how she must be feeling, far from home and marrying a stranger who quite obviously doesn’t want her. Be kind to her, Harry. You will reap the benefits.”
He scowled at her. “I will do my best.” The scowl softened. “It is good to see you. And that’s a fine gown your maid is hanging up.”
It was a dusty-green velvet edged with embroidered biliments, one of the best gowns Kate had.
“Don’t change the subject!” she reproved. “Be kind to Anne. And be grateful that you enjoy royal favor. You are young yet, and if you give good service, it will bring you rewards.”
“I am fortunate that the King knows me for a loyal man and trusts me. I am with him often.”
“I have heard that he is ill.”
“Yes, but he is on the mend. He will not be at the wedding tomorrow, though. He does not like to be seen in public when he has these attacks. I have seen him go black in the face because of the pain.”
“I am sorry to hear it.” Kate did not feel sorry. God, she felt, was visiting His anger on the wicked man who had sent so many to their deaths. “So you plan to live the life of a courtier?”
“I want to serve my King, and I want to rise high. I’d like to do some soldiering as well.”
Why did all men want to put their lives at risk? Were they naturally combative? Kate knew she would never completely understand them.
“You know, Sister, you much resemble our cousin, the Lady Elizabeth.” Kate stiffened, waiting for Harry to remark on her likeness to the King, but he didn’t.
“I’ve seen her several times when she’s been at court.
She’s shown herself very friendly to me.
It’s good to know that she cares for her mother’s kin. ”
“I am close to her,” Kate told him. “As you know, I served for years as her companion when she was growing up. I don’t see her as often as I would like to these days, but we write to each other. Which reminds me, you should write to me more often! I like to know what you’re doing.”
He gave her a wry grin. “I know, I know. I will try to be better at keeping in touch.”
—
The wedding was a quiet affair, with only a small gathering in the Chapel Royal.
Kate was glad that she had come. The Morgans were a pleasant couple, clearly overawed by the splendor of the court, but touchingly proud of their daughter, a round-faced maid with a mass of dark curls.
She looked terrified when her father placed her hand in Harry’s, but Harry had caught Kate’s eye and suddenly smiled down at his bride.
Afterward, wine and comfits were served, and then the wedding party repaired to the Bell Inn, where Harry had commandeered a private room, and everyone tucked into a hearty dinner.
Anne was looking happier by then, and Kate saw Harry lean over and kiss her affectionately on the cheek.
Anne smiled back and he kissed her again, on the mouth this time, to the cheers of some of his friends.
She began to hope then that all would be well and that his antipathy to the marriage the previous day would soon be a thing of the past.
—
She left for home the following morning.
Francis was very much on her mind. He would be well on the way to Scotland by now, each mile taking him farther and farther from her.
She was glad that Will was with him. Will had paid a brief visit to Greys Court after his return south, and been much taken with his tiny namesake, yet he, like Francis, had been eager to resume military life.
Kate was beginning to understand that men’s worlds did not revolve around the hearth and the home, or even love itself.
Important as these were to Francis, he needed to be out doing things and being active in his own sphere.
That summer, he wrote home of the savagery and slaughter of Hertford’s advance across the southern lowlands of Scotland. Kate suspected that he had withheld the worst details from her. Fifteen towns and all the crops had been burned. She could not imagine the devastation.
Francis was away all summer; from his letters, she detected that he was in a buoyant mood.
In September, he informed her that Will had distinguished himself by seizing for the King two great Scottish ships, for which Hertford had knighted him.
Kate could not help thinking of how proud Mother would have been.
She would have loved being addressed as Lady Stafford.
When the campaigning season ended in the autumn, Francis arrived home unharmed, and Kate thanked God devoutly for his safe return. Yet she could see that he was troubled.
“We’ve lost Scotland,” he said dejectedly, the children crowding around him as he tried to talk to Kate. “I don’t think we will ever reverse our losses. But I fear that the King will not give up. He means to bring the Scots to heel.”
Kate shuddered, for this meant that Francis might have to go north again next year. It was bad enough when he was away for long periods at court, but when he was a-soldiering, it was misery for her.