“I did it,” she says quietly to me as I lean to kiss her cheek.

“You did it,” I confirm.

The next day, Henry sends for me. I find his rooms still crowded with men shouting congratulations and drinking the health of his son. Above the noise and the cheering he asks me if I will be the prince’s Lady Governess, and set up his household and appoint his staff and raise him as heir to the throne.

I put my hand on my heart and I curtsey. When I come up, Henry the boy pitches into my arms and I hug him in our shared joy. “Thank you,” he says. “I know you will guard him and raise him and govern him as if you were my mother.”

“I will,” I say to him. “I know just how she would have wanted it done, and I will make everything right.”

The baby is christened at the chapel of the Observant Friars at Richmond; he is to be Henry, of course. He will be Henry IX one day, God willing, and he will rule over a country which will have forgotten that once the rose of England was pure white. His Lady Mistress is appointed and his wet nurse, he sleeps in a cradle of gold, he is swaddled in the finest of linen, he goes everywhere carried breast-high, with two yeomen of the guard preceding his nurse and two behind. Katherine has him brought to her rooms every day, and while she rests in bed she has him laid beside her, and when she sleeps she has his little cradle put at the head of her bed.

Henry goes on a pilgrimage to give thanks. Katherine is churched and rises up from her bed, takes one of her hot Spanish baths, and returns to her court, glowing with pride in her youth and fertility. Not a girl in her train, not a lady in her rooms hesitates for one moment before bowing low to this triumphant queen. I don’t believe there is a woman in the country who does not share her joy.

WESTMINSTER PALACE, LONDON, SPRING 1511

Indulgently, I go to the arena and, to my surprise, I find that Henry is alone, riding a great gray war charger round and round in careful circles, first one way then the other. Henry waves me to sit in the royal box, and I take the seat that his mother would have taken, and know, for I know him so well, that he wants me there, watching over him, as she and I once watched him practice on his pony.

He brings the horse right up to the balcony and shows me that it can bow, one foreleg extended, one foreleg tucked back. “Hold up a glove or something,” he says.

I take a kerchief from my neck and hold it up. Henry goes to the other side of the arena and shouts: “Drop!” As it falls he spurs forward and catches it in his hand, riding around the arena holding it high above his head like a flag.

He pulls up before me, his bright blue eyes fixed on my face.

“Very good,” I say approvingly.

“And there’s this,” he says. “Don’t be frightened. I know what I’m doing.”

I nod. He turns the horse sideways to my view and makes it rear and then buck, forelegs up then back legs kicking, in a fantastic display. He changes his seat slightly and the horse leaps above the ground, as the Moorish horses do, all legs in the air at once as if it were flying, and then it trots on the spot, raising one leg proudly high and then another. He really is a remarkable rider; he sits completely and beautifully still, holding the reins tightly, his whole body molded to the horse, alert, relaxed, at one with the great muscled animal.

“Get ready,” he warns me, and then he swings the horse round and it rears up, terribly high, its head as high as me in the royal box built over the arena, and it crashes its front hooves onto the wall of the box, springs back again, and drops down.

I nearly scream with fright, and then I jump to my feet and applaud. Henry beams at me, loosens the reins, pats the horse’s neck. “Nobody else can do that,” he remarks breathlessly, bringing the horse closer, watching me for my reaction. “Nobody in England can do that but me.”

“I should think not.”

“You don’t think it’s too loud? Will she be frightened?”

Katherine once stood with her mother to face a charge of enemy Arab cavalry, the fiercest horsemen in the world. I smile. “No, she’ll be very impressed, she knows good horsemanship.”

“She’ll never have seen anything like this,” he claims.

“She will,” I contradict him. “The Moors in Andalusia have Arab horses, and they ride wonderfully.”

At once the smile is wiped from his face. He turns a furious look on me. “What?” he demands icily. “What do you say?”

“She will understand how great is your achievement,” I say, the words tumbling out in my haste to redress the offense. “For she knows good horsemanship from her home in Spain, but she will never have seen anything like this. And no man in England can do this. I have never seen a better horse and rider.”

He is uncertain, and pulls on the rein; the horse, sensing the change of his mood, flicks his ear, listening.

“You are like a knight of Camelot,” I say hastily. “Nobody will have seen anything like it since the golden age.”

He smiles at that, and it is almost as if the sun comes out and birds start to sing. “I am a new Arthur,” he agrees.

I ignore the pang I feel at the casual use of the name of the prince we loved, whose little brother is still striving to better him. “You are the new Arthur of the new Camelot,” I repeat. “But where is your other horse, Your Grace? Your lovely black mare?”

“She was disobedient,” he throws over his shoulder as he rides out of the ring. “She defied me. She would not learn from me.”

He turns and gives me his most charming smile, all sunshine once again. I think that he is the most adorable young man as he says lightly: “I sent her for baiting. The hounds killed her. I can’t bear disloyalty.”

It is the greatest joust that I have ever seen, that England has ever seen. The king is everywhere, no scene is complete without him in a new costume. He leads the procession of the Master of the Armory, the trumpeters, the courtiers, the heralds, the court assistants, the poets, the singers, and at last, the long line of jousters. Henry has announced a tournament in which he will take on all comers.

He rides his great gray warhorse and he wears cloth of gold, interleaved with the richest blue velvet, gleaming in the bright spring sunshine as if he were a king newly minted. All over his jacket, his hat, his riding breeches, his trappings are sewn little gold K ’s as if he wants to show the world that he is hers, that she has set her initial all over him. Above his head is the standard he has chosen for this day: Loyall. His tournament name is Coeur Loyall, Henry is Sir Loyal Heart and as Katherine glows with pride he rides his horse around the ring and shows the tricks that he practiced before me, a perfect prince.

We all share her joy, even the girls who would welcome the attentions of the perfect prince themselves. Katherine sits in a throne with the sunlight shining through the cloth of gold canopy making her skin rosy and golden, smiling on the young man whom she loves, knowing that their first child, their son, is safe in his golden cradle.

But only ten days later, they go to pick him up and he is cold, and his little face is blue, and he is dead.

It is as if the world has ended. Henry withdraws to his rooms; the queen’s rooms are stunned and silent. All of the words of comfort that can be given to a young woman who has lost her first child dissolve on the tongue in the face of Katherine’s bleak horror. For day after day no one says anything to her. There is nothing to say. Henry falls into silence, and won’t speak of his lost child; he does not attend the funeral or the Mass. They cannot comfort each other, they cannot bear to be together. This loss in their new marriage is so terrible that Henry cannot comprehend it, cannot try to comprehend it. A darkness spreads over the court.