“We still have Harry,” I say.

“Yes.” She leans on my shoulder as she rises to her feet. “But Harry wasn’t raised to be Prince of Wales, or king. I’ve spoiled him, I’m afraid. He’s flighty and vain.”

I am so surprised to hear her say so much as one word against her beloved son that for a moment I cannot answer her. “He can learn . . .” I stumble. “He will grow.”

“He’ll never be another Prince Arthur,” she says, as if measuring the depth of her loss. “Arthur was the son that I made for England. Anyway,” she continues. “God be praised, I think I am with child again.”

“You are?”

“It’s early days yet, but I pray so. It would be such a comfort, wouldn’t it? Another boy?”

She is thirty-six, she is old for another childbirth. “It would be wonderful,” I say, trying to smile. “God’s favor to the Tudors, mercy after sacrifice.”

I go with her to the window and we look out at the bright gardens and the people playing at bowls on the green below us. “He was such a precious boy, coming as he did, so early in our marriage, like a blessing. And he was such a happy baby, d’you remember, Margaret?”

“I remember,” I say shortly. I won’t tell her that my sorrow is that I feel I have forgotten so much, that his years with me have just slipped through my fingers as if they were nothing more than uneventful sunny days. He was such a happy boy, and happiness is not memorable.

She does not sob, though she constantly brushes tears from both of her cheeks with the back of her hands.

“Will the king send Harry to Ludlow?” I ask. If my husband has to be guardian to another prince, then I will have to care for him too, and I don’t believe I can bear to see another boy, not even Harry, in Prince Arthur’s place.

She shakes her head. “My Lady forbids it,” she says. “She says he is to stay with us, at court. He will be educated here and trained for his new calling under her eye, under our constant supervision.”

“And the dowager princess?”

“She will go home to Spain, I suppose. There’s nothing for her here.”

“Nothing, poor child,” I agree, thinking of the white-faced girl in the big palace.

I visit Princess Katherine before I go home to Stourton Castle. She is very young to be left all alone with no one but paid companions—her strict duenna and her ladies-in-waiting, her confessor and her servants—in the beautiful palace with great terraced gardens leading down to the river. I wish they would take her into the queen’s rooms at court and not leave her here, to run her own household.

She has grown more beautiful in the months of mourning, her pale skin luminous against the bronze of her hair. She is thinner and it makes her blue eyes seem larger in her heart-shaped face.

“I have come to say good-bye,” I tell her with forced cheerfulness. “I am going to my home at Stourton and I expect you will soon be on your way back to Spain.”

She looks around as if to make sure that we are not overheard; but her ladies are at a distance, and Doña Elvira does not speak English.

“No, I’m not going home,” she says with quiet determination.

I wait for an explanation. She gives me a swift, mischievous smile that brightens the gravity of her sad face. “I am not,” she repeats. “So there’s no need to look at me like that. I’m not going.”

“There’s nothing for you here anymore,” I remind her.

She takes my arm so that she can speak very low as we walk down the length of the gallery, away from the ladies, with the slap of our slippers on the wooden floor hiding the sound of our words.

“No, you are wrong. There is something here for me. I made a promise to Arthur on his deathbed, that I would serve England as I had been born and raised to do,” she says quietly. “You yourself heard him say, ‘Promise me now, beloved’—they were his last words to me. I will keep that promise.”

“You can’t stay.”

“I can, and in the most simple way. If I marry the Prince of Wales, I become Princess of Wales once more.”

I am stunned into silence, then I find my voice. “You can’t want to marry Prince Harry.” I state the obvious.

“I have to.”

“Was this your promise to Prince Arthur?”

She nods.

“He can’t have meant you to marry his little brother.”

“He did. He knew it would be the only way that I would be Princess of Wales and Queen of England, and he and I had many plans, we had agreed many things. He knew that the Tudor rule of England is not as the Yorks had ruled. He wanted to be a king from both houses. He wanted to rule with justice and compassion. He wanted to win the respect of the people, not coerce them. We had plans. When he knew he was dying, he still wanted me to do as we had planned—even though he could not. I shall guide Harry and teach him. I will make him into a good king.”

“Prince Harry has many strengths.” I try to choose my words. “But he is not, and he will never be, the prince we have lost. He is charming, and energetic; he is brave as a little lion cub and ready to serve his family and his country . . .” I hesitate. “But he is like enamel, my dear. He shines on the surface, he sparkles; but he’s not pure gold. He’s not like Arthur—who was true, through and through.”

“Even so, I will marry him. I will make him better than he is.”

“Your Grace, my dear, his father will be looking for a great match for him, another princess. And your parents will be looking for a second marriage for you.”

“Then we solve two problems with one answer. And besides, this way the king avoids paying my widow’s allowance. He’ll like that. And he’ll get the rest of my dowry. He’ll like that. And he keeps an alliance with Spain, which he wanted so much that he . . .” She breaks off.

“He wanted it so much that he killed my brother for it.” I finish the sentence quietly. “Yes, I know. But you are not the Spanish Infanta anymore. You have been married. It’s not the same. You are not the same.”

She flushes. “It will be the same. I shall make it be the same. I shall say that I am a virgin, and that the marriage was not consummated.”

I gasp. “Your Grace, nobody would ever believe you . . .”

“But nobody will ever ask!” she declares. “Who would dare to challenge me? If I say such a thing, it must be so. And you will stand as my friend, won’t you, Margaret? Because I am doing this for Arthur and you loved him as I did? If you don’t deny what I say, then no one will question it. Everyone will want to think that I can marry Harry, nobody is going to question servants and companions for gossip. None of my ladies would answer a question from an English spy. If you don’t say anything, nobody else is going to.”

I am so astounded by this jump from heartbreak into conspiracy that I can only gasp and look at her. Her face is completely determined, her jaw set.

“Believe me, you cannot do this.”

“I am going to do this,” she says grimly. “I promised. I am going to do this.”

“Your Grace, Harry is a child . . .”

“Don’t you think I know that? It’s to the good. It’s why Arthur was so determined. Harry has to be trained. Harry will be guided by me. I will advise him. I know he’s a vain, spoiled little boy. But I am going to make him into the king that he has to be.”

I am about to argue but suddenly I see her as the queen she may become. She will be formidable. This girl was raised to be Queen of England from the age of three. It seems she will be Queen of England however the luck runs against her.

“I don’t know what’s the right thing to do,” I say uncertainly. “If I were you . . .”

She shakes her head, smiling. “Lady Margaret, if you were me, you would go home to Spain and hope to live your life in quiet safety, because you have learned to keep your distance from the throne; you were raised in fear of the king, any king. But I was raised to be Princess of Wales and then Queen of England. I have no choice. They called me the Princess of Wales from the cradle! I can’t just change my name now and hide from my destiny. I have to do what I promised to Arthur. You have to help me.”

“Half the court saw you put to bed together on your wedding night.”

“I’ll say that he was incapable if I have to.”

I gasp at her determination. “Katherine! You would never shame him?”

“It’s no shame to him,” she says fiercely. “It is a shame on anyone who asks me. I know what he was to me and what I was to him. I know how he loved me and what we were to each other. But nobody else need know. Nobody else will ever know.”