Виктория Холт - Katharine, the Virgin Widow

She called to one of her maids and said: “Tell Doña Elvira that I wish to see her without delay.”

Her tone was peremptory and the girl looked at her in astonishment; but Katharine was unaware of the glance. She was thinking of what she was going to say to Doña Elvira.

Elvira came in, gave the rather curt little bow which was her custom, and then, as she looked into the Infanta’s face, she saw the change there.

“I sent for you,” said Katharine, “to tell you that I understand full well why you persuaded me to write to my sister.”

“Why, Highness, I knew you wished to see your sister, and it seemed shameful that you should live here as you do…”

“Pray be silent,” said Katharine coldly. “I know that your brother, Don Juan Manuel, plots against my father in Brussels and has persuaded you to help him here in Durham House.”

“Highness…”

“Pray do not interrupt me. You forget to whom you speak.”

Elvira gasped in amazement. Never before had Katharine spoken to her in that manner. She knew that Puebla had betrayed her to Katharine, but she had been confident that she could continue to rule Durham House.

“I do not wish,” said Katharine, “to have here with me in England servants whom I do not trust.”

“What are you saying…?” Elvira began in the old hectoring manner.

“That I am dismissing you.”

“You…dismissing me! Highness, your mother appointed me.”

It was a mistake. Elvira realized it as soon as she had mentioned Isabella. Katharine’s face was a shade paler, but her eyes flashed in a new anger.

“Had my mother known that you would plot against my father, you would have spent these last years behind prison walls. It is where you should be. But I will be lenient. You will prepare to leave Durham House and England at once.”

“This is quite impossible.”

“It shall be possible. I will not send you back to my father with an explanation of your conduct. I will spare you that. But since you are so eager to help your brother in Brussels you may go there.”

Elvira tried to summon all the old truculence, but it had deserted her.

“You may go now,” continued Katharine. “Make your preparations with all speed, for I will not suffer you for a day longer than I need under this roof.”

Elvira knew that protest was useless. If she attempted to assert her authority, Katharine would expose the part she had been playing in her brother’s schemes.

It was hard for a proud woman to accept such defeat.

She bowed and, without another word, left the presence of the Infanta.

Katharine was shaken, but she felt exultant.

For so long she had been, not so much the prisoner of Durham House, as the prisoner of Doña Elvira. Now she was free.

KATHARINE HAD BEGUN TO WONDER WHOM SHE COULD trust, for when her anger against Doña Elvira had subsided she realized how shocked she had been by the duenna’s duplicity.

Maria de Rojas was steeped in melancholy. Yet another marriage which had been planned for her was not to take place because Iñigo had departed with his mother.

It was true that the household was free of the tyranny of Doña Elvira, but poverty remained.

Katharine summoned Puebla to her, and he came limping into her presence. He was growing old and shocks such as that which he had sustained seemed to add years to his age in a few weeks.

In her newly found independence Katharine spoke boldly.

“This situation cannot go on. I must have some means of supporting my household. I am the daughter-in-law of the King of England and I think that you, as my father’s ambassador, should bestir yourself and do something about it.”

Puebla spread his hands helplessly.

“You should go to the King,” went on Katharine, “and speak boldly to him. Tell him that it is a disgrace to his name that he allows me to live in this way.”

“I will do my best, Highness,” answered Puebla.

He shuffled out of the apartment, not relishing his task and yet agreeing with Katharine that she could not continue in such penury for much longer.

He sought audience with the King.

Henry was still brooding on the suggested meeting with Philip and Juana. Perhaps in the spring or the summer…he had been thinking, for the prospect of the damp seeping into his bones alarmed him. It would be disastrous if he became completely crippled. It seemed so ridiculous that he could not get himself a bride. Yet it was not easy for Kings to find suitable partners. So many qualifications were necessary in a Queen.

He frowned at Puebla as he came in, but he listened quietly while the ambassador laid before him Katharine’s complaint.

Henry nodded gravely. “It is true,” he said, “that Durham House must be an expensive household to manage. I am sorry for the Infanta. I will help her.”

Puebla’s face lighted up with pleasure.

“She shall give up Durham House,” went on Henry, “and come to Court. I am sure, when she no longer has such a large establishment to support, she will live more comfortably.”

Puebla thanked the King, but he was dubious as he went back to Durham House, being unsure how Katharine would receive this news. He knew that with an adequate allowance and without Doña Elvira life at Durham House might be quite pleasant; and it was this allowance for which Katharine had hoped; but if she went to Court she would be under supervision as strict as that of Doña Elvira.

He was right. Katharine was far from pleased.

She looked at the shabby little man and was filled with disgust. This man…an ambassador from that country which she had always been taught was the greatest in the world! How could she hope to be treated with respect, how could she possibly retain her dignity when her father’s representative in England was this little marrano!

She spoke coldly to him. “I see that my position has changed very little for the better. Sometimes I wonder whether you work more for the King of England than for the King of Spain.”

Puebla was deeply wounded. How could she understand the intricacies of state policies? How could she realize the dangerous and difficult game he must continually play?

It seemed to be his fate in life to be misunderstood, to be scorned by those to whom he gave his services.

Katharine was thinking as he left her: Was Doña Elvira really spying for her brother, or did Puebla, with diabolical cunning, contrive the whole situation in order to have Elvira removed? Was the King of England behind the scheme? Did he wish to close Durham House, to bring her to Court where many might gloat over her poverty and the indignity of her position? Whom could one trust?

* * *

THERE WAS NEWS from Spain which shocked Katharine.

Her father was proposing to marry again.

Katharine was so disturbed that she shut herself in her apartments and told her maids of honor that she must be left alone. Kings remarried speedily when they lost their Queens; she knew that. It was a continual need of Kings to get heirs. But this seemed different. There would be someone to take the place of Isabella of Castile, and in Katharine’s eyes this was sacrilege.

Moreover her father proposed to marry a young girl of eighteen.

She was very beautiful, rumor said; and that hurt Katharine even more. She thought of her father, showering caresses on a beautiful young girl, and she pictured her mother, looking down from Heaven in sorrow.

Nonsense! she admonished herself. It is a political marriage.

It was true that Ferdinand was anxious to make an alliance with the French King, Louis XII. The situation had changed. The French had been driven from Naples, for a too easy success had made them careless; and Ferdinand had Gonsalvo Cordova, the Great Captain, to fight for him.

In the circumstances, Louis was delighted to see the trouble between Ferdinand and his son-in-law Philip. Philip or his son Charles was going to be the most powerful man in Europe. There would be Maximilian’s dominions to come to him, including Austria, Flanders and Burgundy; but that was not all; for from Juana would come the united crowns of Spain, and in addition all the overseas dependencies.

To Louis alliance with Ferdinand seemed advisable, even though Louis’ daughter had been promised to young Charles.

Louis laid down his conditions. He would relinquish his claim to Naples, which he would give to the young bride as her dowry. Germaine de Foix was the daughter of Jean de Foix, Viscount of Narbonne; this viscount’s mother had been Leonora, Queen of Navarre, half sister to Ferdinand, and she had poisoned her sister Blanche to win the Crown of Navarre. The Viscount had married one of the sisters of Louis XII, so Germaine was therefore not only related to Louis but to Ferdinand.

Ferdinand also agreed to pay Louis a million gold ducats during the course of the following ten years to compensate Louis for what he had lost in the Naples campaign.

This was the news which came to Katharine and which seemed to her such an insult to her mother. It was not merely that her father had taken a young wife in her mother’s place, but, as she realized, this marriage could result in destroying that policy for which Isabella had worked during the whole of her reign: the unity of Spain. It had been Isabella’s delight that when she married Ferdinand she united Castile and Aragon; and when together they drove the Moors from the kingdom of Granada they had made a united Spain. But if this new marriage were fruitful, if Germaine bore Ferdinand a son, that son would be the heir of Aragon, while Juana and her heirs—and she already had sons—would be rulers of Castile. Thus by his selfish action—perhaps to have a beautiful young wife, but more likely to grasp the somewhat empty title of King of Naples—Ferdinand was showing his indifference to the lifelong wishes of Isabella.

This treaty between Ferdinand and Louis had already been signed in Blois.

Katharine, no longer a child, no longer ignorant of state politics and the overwhelming greed and pride of ambitious men and women, wept afresh for her mother.

* * *

IT WAS BLEAK JANUARY and there were storms all along the coast; the wind swept up the Thames and not even the great fires which blazed in Windsor Castle could keep out the cold. Katharine sat huddled about the fire with some of her maids of honor. They were very gloomy and rarely ceased talking of their desire to return to Spain.

Francesca de Carceres, who was impulsive and never could control her tongue, blamed the various members of Katharine’s household in turn. First she blamed Puebla, then Juan de Cuero. They were all in league with the King of England, she declared, and their desire was to keep them all in this island until they grew crippled with rheumatism.

Maria de Rojas was sunk in gloom. As she had mourned for her Englishman, now she mourned for Iñigo Manrique.

Katharine was dipping into her store of plate and jewels, and often wondered what would happen when the time came for the remainder of them to be valued.

There was no news from Spain. Ferdinand rarely had time to write to his daughter. He was too busy, she supposed bitterly, thinking of his new marriage which would shortly take place.

As they sat thus they heard the clatter of horses’ hoofs and shouts from without, and Francesca ran to the window.

“There is some excitement below,” she said. “It is evidently important news.”

“News from home?” asked Katharine quickly.

“No,” answered Francesca, as the others came to the window to stand beside her. “That is no Spanish courier.”

Katharine who had risen sat down listlessly.

“There is never news from Spain…never news that one wishes to hear.”

The other girls turned from the window, and Maria de Salinas said: “It must change soon. It cannot go on like this. Perhaps when there is a new King…”

“He will marry Her Highness,” cried Francesca.

Katharine shook her head. “No, he is promised to Marguerite of Angoulême.”

“Oh, he has been promised to so many,” Francesca said.

“That happens to most of us,” put in Maria de Rojas bitterly.

Katharine was silent; she was thinking of the Prince of Wales, whom she saw occasionally. It was a strange position; she did not know whether she was still affianced to him or not. It was true there had been a formal betrothal in the Bishop of Salisbury’s house, but ever since then there had been rumors of other brides who had been chosen for him.