Arthur, pale with nerves, pushed his blond fringe back from his face, stood still and said nothing.
‘I’ll send that duenna home at the first moment I can,’ the king said. ‘And the rest of them. She can’t make a little Spain in England, my son. The country won’t stand for it, and I damned well won’t stand for it.’
‘People don’t object. The country people seem to love the princess,’ Arthur suggested mildly. ‘Her escort says…’
‘Because she wears a stupid hat. Because she is odd: Spanish, rare. Because she is young and –’ he broke off ’– pretty.’
‘Is she?’ he gasped. ‘I mean: is she?’
‘Haven’t I just gone in to make sure? But no Englishman will stand for any Spanish nonsense once they get over the novelty. And neither will I. This is a marriage to cement an alliance; not to flatter her vanity. Whether they like her or not, she’s marrying you. Whether you like her or not, she’s marrying you. Whether she likes it or not, she’s marrying you. And she’d better get out here now or I won’t like her and that will be the only thing that can make a difference.’
I have to go out, I have won only the briefest of reprieves and I know he is waiting for me outside the door to my bedchamber and he has demonstrated, powerfully enough, that if I do not go to him, then the mountain will come to Mohammed and I will be shamed again.
I brush Dona Elvira aside as a duenna who cannot protect me now, and I go to the door of my rooms. My servants are frozen, like slaves enchanted in a fairy tale by this extraordinary behaviour from a king. My heart hammers in my ears and I know a girl’s embarrassment at having to step forwards in public, but also a soldier’s desire to let battle be joined, the eagerness to know the worst, to face danger rather than evade it.
Henry of England wants me to meet his son, before his travelling party, without ceremony, without dignity as if we were a scramble of peasants. So be it. He will not find a princess of Spain falling back for fear. I grit my teeth, I smile as my mother commanded me.
I nod to my herald, who is as stunned as the rest of my companions. ‘Announce me,’ I order him.
His face blank with shock, he throws open the door. ‘The Infanta Catalina, Princess of Spain and Princess of Wales,’ he bellows.
This is me. This is my moment. This is my battle cry.
I step forwards.
The Spanish Infanta – with her face naked to every man’s gaze – stood in the darkened doorway and then walked into the room, only a little flame of colour in both cheeks betraying her ordeal.
At his father’s side, Prince Arthur swallowed. She was far more beautiful than he had imagined, and a million times more haughty. She was dressed in a gown of dark black velvet, slashed to show an undergown of carnation silk, the neck cut square and low over her plump breasts, hung with ropes of pearls. Her auburn hair, freed from the plait, tumbled down her back in a great wave of red-gold. On her head was a black lace mantilla flung determinedly back. She swept a deep curtsey and came up with her head held high, graceful as a dancer.
‘I beg your pardon for not being ready to greet you,’ she said in French. ‘If I had known you were coming I would have been prepared.’
‘I’m surprised you didn’t hear the racket,’ the king said. ‘I was arguing at your door for a good ten minutes.’
‘I thought it was a pair of porters brawling,’ she said coolly.
Arthur suppressed a gasp of horror at her impertinence; but his father was eyeing her with a smile as if a new filly was showing promising spirit.
‘No. It was me; threatening your lady-in-waiting. I am sorry that I had to march in on you.’
She inclined her head. ‘That was my duenna, Dona Elvira. I am sorry if she displeased you. Her English is not good. She cannot have understood what you wanted.’
‘I wanted to see my daughter-in-law, and my son wanted to see his bride, and I expect an English princess to behave like an English princess, and not like some damned sequestered girl in a harem. I thought your parents had beaten the Moors. I didn’t expect to find them set up as your models.’
Catalina ignored the insult with a slight turn of her head. ‘I am sure that you will teach me good English manners,’ she said. ‘Who better to advise me?’ She turned to Prince Arthur and swept him a royal curtsey. ‘My lord.’
He faltered in his bow in return, amazed at the serenity that she could muster in this most embarrassing of moments. He reached into his jacket for her present, fumbled with the little purse of jewels, dropped them, picked them up again and finally thrust them towards her, feeling like a fool.
She took them and inclined her head in thanks, but did not open them. ‘Have you dined, Your Grace?’
‘We’ll eat here,’ he said bluntly. ‘I ordered dinner already.’
‘Then can I offer you a drink? Or somewhere to wash and change your clothes before you dine?’ She examined the long, lean length of him consideringly, from the mud spattering his pale, lined face to his dusty boots. The English were a prodigiously dirty nation, not even a great house such as this one had an adequate hammam or even piped water. ‘Or perhaps you don’t like to wash?’
A harsh chuckle was forced from the king. ‘You can order me a cup of ale and have them send fresh clothes and hot water to the best bedroom and I’ll change before dinner.’ He raised a hand. ‘You needn’t take it as a compliment to you. I always wash before dinner.’
Arthur saw her nip her lower lip with little white teeth as if to refrain from some sarcastic reply. ‘Yes, Your Grace,’ she said pleasantly. ‘As you wish.’ She summoned her lady-in-waiting to her side and gave her low-voiced orders in rapid Spanish. The woman curtseyed and led the king from the room.
The princess turned to Prince Arthur.
‘Et tu?’ she asked in Latin. ‘And you?’
‘I? What?’ he stammered.
He felt that she was trying not to sigh with impatience.
‘Would you like to wash and change your coat also?’
‘I’ve washed,’ he said. As soon as the words were out of his mouth he could have bitten off his own tongue. He sounded like a child being scolded by a nurse, he thought. ‘I’ve washed,’ indeed. What was he going to do next? Hold out his hands palms-upwards so that she could see he was a good boy?
‘Then will you take a glass of wine? Or ale?’
Catalina turned to the table, where the servants were hastily laying cups and flagons.
‘Wine.’
She raised a glass and a flagon and the two chinked together, and then chink-chink-chinked again. In amazement, he saw that her hands were trembling.
She poured the wine quickly and held it
