The Autobiography of Henry VIII_ With Notes by His Fool, Will Somers - Margaret George [14]
The wedding was to take place on November fourteenth, and Arthur was expected to produce an heir within a year. The King never said so, but I overheard the jests and jokes among the servants (they always spoke freely in front of me, as if I were already a priest). They all wanted a baby by Christmas of the following year; indeed, they thought it their due.
For someone charged with such prodigious responsibilities, Arthur was oddly unenthusiastic. As his wedding day approached, he became more and more listless. He shrank; he dwindled; clearly he did not want to be married. One day he came to my chambers, ostensibly to àsk my help in trying on his new clothes, but in reality to cry and confess he didn’t want it—any of it.
“I don’t want to go through a marriage ceremony before thousands of people,” he said in a tremulous voice, standing before a half-length mirror and looking pensively at his reflection, swathed in his white velvet cape. Three years later, he had finally grown into it.
“Well, you must, that’s all,” I said, grabbing his plumed hat off his head and plopping it on my own, making faces at myself in the mirror. “Think about afterwards.” I knew something about that business—in a confused sort of way.
“That’s the part I don’t want to think about,”àr‰2®Š&d, I made my way to a corner where I slumped against the wall. I could feel sweat trickling down my face and back, soaking into my shirt.
“D‘you want yer fortune?” a voice suddenly whispered into my ear. I turned and saw a well-dressed woman standing beside me. But she had an odd expression in her eye, and she leaned over in a conspiratorial manner. “I ain’t supposed to be here. If they find me, I’m gone. But I come to all the royal weddings. I was at the King’s, now”—she jerked her head to indicate Father—“as well as at poor Richard’s; and Edward’s ... aye, not that one, since he married her secretly—if he married her at all, that witch!”
She was talking about my other grandmother, Elizabeth Woodville. Still I sat stiffly and did not say anything.
“So you are not curious?” she said, as if I had wronged her. Slowly she picked herself up and prepared to go elsewhere. As she stood up, one of the King’s guard recognized her.
“That woman!” he choked, hurriedly coming over. “She’s a Welsh fortune-teller! A sorceress!” He apprehended her, hustled her toward the door, and shoved her out. He shook his head apologetically in my direction. “They cluster around like flies! I cannot keep them all out!”
That night Arthur took Katherine into his bed. Alone in mine, I thought about what that Welsh woman had said about my grandmother being a witch, to keep myself from thinking what Arthur was—or was not—doing. Strange to think that in years to come that very question was to be debated by scores of learned men.
V
The next morning Arthur called for courtiers to attend him in his bedchamber. He demanded cups of wine and was full of boasts about how marriage was thirsty work, and so on. He kept repeating this all day. It was the first thing he said to me as he emerged from his room and saw me. He even attempted a manful chuckle.
Arthur and Katherine were at court all during the Christmas holidays, and I found I could not bear to be with them. I sulked and tried to avoid the festivities. This was so unlike me that the Queen eventually sought me out in my secret, solitary spot: an empty room high in the eaves of the palace. I had thought no one knew I went there, but clearly she had noticed.
It was cold there; no fires were ever lit. But I could hear faint music and laughter from the Great Hall below. It was another masque, another dance. I shut my ears against it and looked out the small cobwebbed window, seeing the late-December sun slanting over the Palace grounds, and far beyond. Everything was brown and golden and still. I could see the ships on the Thames, anchored