they would be gone for more than an hour. At Ludlow a sentry would complete the circle in minutes. ‘Is this it?’
At once he was aghast. ‘Did you expect more? What were you expecting?’
She would have caressed his anxious face, if there had not been hundreds of people watching. She made herself keep her hands still. ‘Oh, I was foolish. I was thinking of Richmond.’ Nothing in the world would have made her say that she was thinking of the Alhambra.
He smiled, reassured. ‘Oh, my love. Richmond is new-built, my father’s great pride and joy. London is one of the greatest cities of Christendom, and the palace matches its size. But Ludlow is only a town, a great town in the Marches, for sure, but a town. But it is wealthy, you will see, and the hunting is good and the people are welcoming. You will be happy here.’
‘I am sure of it,’ said Catalina, smiling at him, putting aside the thought of a palace built for beauty, only for beauty, where the builders had thought firstly where the light would fall and what reflections it would make in still pools of marble.
She looked around her and saw, in the centre of the inner bailey, a curious circular building like a squat tower.
‘What’s that?’ she asked, struggling out of the litter as Arthur held her hand.
He glanced over his shoulder. ‘It’s our round chapel,’ he said negligently.
‘A round chapel?’
‘Yes, like in Jerusalem.’
At once she recognised with delight the traditional shape of the mosque – designed and built in the round so that no worshipper was better placed than any others, because Allah is praised by the poor man as well as the rich. ‘It’s lovely.’
Arthur glanced at her in surprise. To him it was only a round tower built with the pretty plum-coloured local stone, but he saw that it glowed in the afternoon light, and radiated a sense of peace.
‘Yes,’ he said, hardly noticing it. ‘Now this,’ he indicated the great building facing them, with a handsome flight of steps up to the open door, ‘this is the great hall. To the left are the council chambers of Wales and, above them, my rooms. To the right are the guest bedrooms and chambers for the warden of the castle and his lady: Sir Richard and Lady Margaret Pole. Your rooms are above, on the top floor.’
He saw her swift reaction. ‘She is here now?’
‘She is away from the castle at the moment.’
She nodded. ‘There are buildings behind the great hall?’
‘No. It is set into the outer wall. This is all of it.’
Catalina schooled herself to keep her face smiling and pleasant.
‘We have more guest rooms in the outer bailey,’ he said defensively. ‘And we have a lodge house, as well. It is a busy place, merry. You will like it.’
‘I am sure I will,’ she smiled. ‘And which are my rooms?’
He pointed to the highest windows. ‘See up there? On the right-hand side, matching mine, but on the opposite side of the hall.’
She looked a little daunted. ‘But how will you get to my rooms?’ she asked quietly.
He took her hand and led her, smiling to his right and to his left, towards the grand stone stairs to the double doors of the great hall. There was a ripple of applause and their companions fell in behind them. ‘As My Lady the King’s Mother commanded me, four times a month I shall come to your room in a formal procession through the great hall,’ he said. He led her up the steps.
‘Oh.’ She was dashed.
He smiled down at her. ‘And all the other nights I shall come to you along the battlements,’ he whispered. ‘There is a private door that goes from your rooms to the battlements that run all around the castle. My rooms go on to them too. You can walk from your rooms to mine whenever you wish and nobody will know whether we are together or not. They will not even know whose room we are in.’
He loved how her face lit up. ‘We can be together, whenever we want?’
‘We will be happy here.’
Yes I will, I will be happy here. I will not mourn like a Persian for the beautiful courts of his home and declare that there is nowhere else fit for life. I will not say that these mountains are a desert without oases like a Berber longing for his birthright. I will accustom myself to Ludlow, and I will learn to live here, on the border, and later in England. My mother is not just a queen, she is a soldier, and she raised me to know my duty and to do it. It is my duty to learn to be happy here and to live here without complaining.
I may never wear armour as she did, I may never fight for my country, as she did; but there are many ways to serve a kingdom, and to be a merry, honest, constant queen is one of them. If God does not call me to arms, He may call me to serve as a lawgiver, as a bringer of justice. Whether I defend my people by fighting for them against an enemy or by fighting for their freedom in the law, I shall be their queen, heart and soul, Queen of England.
It was night time, past midnight. Catalina glowed in the firelight. They were in bed, sleepy, but too desirous of each other for sleep.
‘Tell me a story.’
‘I have told you dozens of stories.’
‘Tell me another. Tell me the one about Boabdil giving up the Alhambra Palace with the golden keys on a silk cushion and going away crying.’
‘You know that one. I told it to you last night.’
‘Then tell me the story about Yarfa and his horse that gnashed its teeth at Christians.’
‘You are a child. And his name was Yarfe.’
‘But you saw him killed?’
‘I was there; but I didn’t see him actually die.’
‘How could you not watch it?’
‘Well, partly because I was praying as my mother ordered me to, and because I was a girl and not a bloodthirsty, monstrous boy.’
Arthur tossed an embroidered cushion at her head. She caught it and threw it back at him.
‘Well, tell me about your mother pawning her jewels to pay for the crusade.’
She laughed again and shook her head, making her auburn hair swing this way and that. ‘I shall tell you about my home,’ she offered.
‘All right.’ He gathered the purple blanket around them both and waited.
‘When you come through the first door to the Alhambra it looks like a little room. Your father would not stoop to enter a palace like that.’
