Katharine, The Virgin Widow - Plaidy Jean - Страница 16

They rested for a night in the royal Manor at Bewdley in Worcestershire, and it was here that Arthur showed her the chapel in which their marriage had been performed by proxy.

“Puebla stood as your proxy,” said Arthur, wrinkling his nose with disgust.

Katharine laughed. “At least you prefer me to him!” she slowly answered in English, which he was teaching her and at which she was making good progress.

“I like him not,” answered Arthur. “And you I like so much.”

As they went back to the Manor and their separate apartments there, Katharine thought that she was fortunate indeed to have a husband as kind and gentle as Arthur.

“You are smiling,” said Arthur, “and you look happier than I have seen you look before.”

“I was thinking,” she answered, “that if my mother were here with us I should be completely happy.”

“When I am in truth King,” Arthur told her, “we will visit your mother and she shall visit us. You love her so dearly, do you not? Your voice is different when you mention her.”

“She is the kindest mother anyone ever had. She is the greatest of Queens and yet…and yet…”

“I understand,” said Arthur, touching her arm gently.

“Others did not understand her always,” went on Katharine. “They thought her cold and stern. But to us, her children, she was always gentle. Yet none of us, not even my sister Juana, would have dared disobey her. Sometimes I wish she had not been perfect; then it would have been easier to have said goodbye to her.”

They were silent, but during that stay at Bewdley she realized that she could easily love Arthur. As for Arthur, he was happy with his bride.

He was thinking: In a year or so I shall be her husband in very truth. Then we shall have children, and she will be such a mother to them as Queen Isabella was to her.

Arthur could look forward to the future with a serenity and pleasure he had rarely known before.

And so they came to Ludlow.

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THE CASTLE ROSE from the point of a headland, and its bold gray towers appeared to be impregnable.

“There are no better views in all England than those to be seen from the castle,” Arthur told Katharine. “From the north side there is Corve Dale, and from the east you can see Titterstone Clee Hill. And stretched out beyond is the valley of the Teme with the Stretton Hills forming a background. I have a great affection for Ludlow. It is on the very borders of the Welsh country which I have always felt was my country.”

Katharine nodded. “The people here love you,” she said.

“Am I not the Prince of Wales? And do not forget that you are the Princess. They will love you too.”

“I fervently hope so,” answered Katharine.

Katharine never forgot her first nights in Ludlow Castle. There in the large hall fires had been lighted; cressets shone their light from the walls, and as she sat beside Arthur while the chieftains of Wales came to the castle to pay homage to their Prince, she felt that she was farther from the halls of the Alhambra than she had ever been.

Never had she seen such fierce men as those who came in from the Welsh mountains. She could not understand their melodious speech; some looked like mountain brigands, others appeared in odd finery, but all spoke like poets and entertained her with such sweet singing that she was astonished.

The first of the chieftains of Wales, Rhys ap Thomas, came to pay his homage and to swear to Arthur that he accepted him as his Prince and would fight for him whenever and wherever it should be necessary.

Arthur was a little in awe of the fierce chieftain who he knew hoped for much, now that there was a Tudor king on the throne. Perhaps he was a little disappointed. Perhaps the Tudor was more English than Welsh. But at least he sent his son to forge friendships with the people of Wales, and in the mountains they continued to hope that one day the Tudors would remember Wales.

With Rhys ap Thomas came his son, Griffith ap Rhys, a beautiful young boy who, said his father, sought service in the household of the Prince and Princess of Wales; and when the boy was brought forward to kneel and kiss the hands of Arthur and Katharine, he assured Arthur in the Welsh tongue of his loyalty and will to serve.

“Now speak the other tongues you know, boy,” said his father proudly; and Griffith ap Rhys began to speak in a language which Katharine recognized as French.

This delighted Katharine, because here was someone with whom she might be able to converse. She answered Griffith in French, and to her pleasure he was able to understand; and although their accents and intonations were so different they could chat together.

“I wish to make Griffith my gentleman usher,” she told Arthur, and there was nothing she could have said which would have given the boy’s father more delight.

There was no doubt in the minds of any that Wales was pleased with its Princess.

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A FEW WEEKS PASSED, weeks which afterwards seemed to Katharine like a dream. She was happier than she had been since she left Spain. She, Arthur and Griffith ap Rhys rode together; she found great pleasure in talking in French to Griffith, and Arthur liked to listen to them. They were like two brothers and a sister—constantly discovering interests in common. In the long evenings by the blazing fires and the lights of the torches there would be singing and dancing in the great hall; and those who watched said: “Before long this marriage will be consummated. The Prince and the Princess are falling in love.”

They would sit side by side, and Griffith would be seated on a stool at their feet, strumming on his harp and singing songs, the favorite of which was one about a great King Arthur who had once reigned in Britain.

One day, it was said, there would be another great King Arthur to rule over England and Wales; he would be this Arthur who now sat in the hall of Ludlow Castle. He was young yet; he was a little pale and seemed weak; but he was leaving boyhood behind him, he was becoming a man, and he had the fair young Princess from Spain beside him.

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MARCH HAD SET IN and the snow gave place to rain. For days the mist hung about the drafty rooms of the castle; the damp seeped into the bones of all and even the great fires which blazed on the hearths could not drive the mist from Ludlow Castle.

Katharine longed for the cold, frosty weather; then she and Arthur could have gone riding together. She dared not suggest that they go out in the driving rain, for Arthur had begun to cough more persistently since they had come to Ludlow.

One day Griffith ap Rhys burst somewhat unceremoniously into their presence.

They were sitting by the fire in one of the smaller apartments of the castle and a few of their suite were with them.

Dona Elvira looked sternly at the young Welshman and was preparing to reproach him for forgetting the respect he owed to the Prince and Princess of Wales, when Griffith burst out: “I have ill news. The sweating sickness has come to Ludlow.”

A horrified silence fell on the company. The sweating sickness was considered to be one of the greatest calamities which could befall a community. It spread rapidly from one to another and invariably ended in death, although if the patient could survive the first twenty-four hours of the disease, it was said that he usually recovered.

Questions were fired at Griffith, who said that several of the townsfolk were stricken and that he had himself seen people in the streets sinking to the ground because the fever had overcome them before they could reach their homes.

When this was explained to Elvira she began giving rapid orders. The castle was to be closed to all visitors; they were to consider themselves in a state of siege. At all costs the sweating sickness must not be allowed to enter Ludlow Castle while the Infanta of Spain was there.