VIII

that goes against your own inclinations. Sir.”
    “You imagine no decision I take is hard?” He stares at me, then scrapes back his chair and bolts out of it. “I take hard decisions every day.”
    I manage not to flinch as he approaches. I say, “To fine a duke you don’t like and clink the coins into those chests over there?”
    He is looking at me intently. He whispers, “I had to execute a man she believed might be her brother.”
    “She?” But I know who he means. My mother. And that man, the Pretender…
    My father’s eyes are unfocussed, as if memories are replaying themselves in his mind. He says, “The Spanish demanded it. They refused to consider letting Catherine leave Spain unless, they said, not a drop of doubtful royal blood remained in England. This man had been in prison for years – I’d taken care that the Queen never saw him. But she had been hoping all along it was her brother… I knew that. And still I had him killed. To make an alliance England needed.”
    He rubs his face. “It half-killed her too. It weakened her health. Perhaps if I had not done it, she might be…” His voice tails off. He looks at me – and his expression hardens. “Do you think I don’t live with this every day? I am strong—” Raising a white-knuckled fist he thumps himself on the chest. Then he leers at me, savage and close. “Could you do it? Are you heroic enough?”
    He is close enough that I can see the texture of his skin, the individual dots of stubble, the greyish tinge to his pallor, the hairs protruding from his nostrils. His lips are dry, flecked with white spittle at the corners; his breath is sour. Sinews at his neck stand out like ropes. The gnarled, scarred hands are ink-stained. Here is the sanctified flesh of a king: ideals lost, soiled by struggle, decayed into a manipulative, frail sinner.
    I have never before felt so clean and shining. Righteousness fills me to the skin. And righteous anger too: why have I been blaming myself for my mother’s death? Here is the sorry creature who made calculations with my mother’s happiness – weighed it on the scales, counted up the cost on his grubby abacus. Thou art weighed in the balances, Father, I say to myself, and art found wanting . Disgust rises in my throat like bile.
    Confident and powerful, my voice no longer wavers: “It is God’s will that Catherine should be my wife.”
    “Is it?” My father limps back to his desk. His tone is sardonic. “Well… it is my will that she should not.” He leans on his hands as he lowers himself to sit. “You will reject the marriage. I command it. Or your life will become extremely unpleasant. Don’t push me to devise ways to make you suffer. But be assured – I will devise them if necessary.” He pulls papers towards him, dips his pen. “Now get out.”
    I slam the door behind me, startling the servants and guards standing outside. As I walk through the chamber beyond, I think: I only have to wait, Father. You are an old man .

 
♦  ♦  ♦  XXI   ♦  ♦  ♦
     
     
    As far as the world is concerned, I am good. When I am with my father – as he receives his councillors or the ambassadors from foreign courts – I hold my tongue. I contrive to look intelligent. They flick their eyes to me, they look for something – anything – to interpret. But I say not a word. My face is framed for obedience. They cannot know my thoughts.
    And, on the eve of my fourteenth birthday, before Bishop Fox and a handful of other councillors in a stuffy chamber at Richmond Palace, I make a formal declaration that I protest vehemently against my marriage to Catherine and am utterly opposed to it. I state that the marriage was not binding because it was made when I was a minor. In coming to this decision, I say, I have been in no way forced. It is not true, of course – but while my father is king I have no option. I must simply bide my time.
    It’s only with the boys and men who joust that I can relax. There is something clean and honest about physical combat. With them, I am good-tempered. It comes easily. Nothing has touched me; I know what I am for. This time – this waiting – is like the ascent up a steep hill: when my father is dead and I am at the summit, I will see it – that golden land stretching before me, bathed in sunlight. The dark years are always brought to a close by a saviour. I am blessed.

 
♦  ♦  ♦  XXII   ♦  ♦  ♦
     
     

Three years