“Friendship!” He heard the tremor in her voice and he knew that she was near to tears. “I am not a child any more, Charles. Let us at least be frank with one another.”

He was silent and she stamped her foot. “Let us be frank,” she repeated.

He gripped her wrist and heard her catch her breath at the pain. In a moment, he thought, she would attract attention to them and the first rumors would start.

He drew her closer to him and said roughly: “Yes, let us be frank. You imagine that you love me.”

“Imagine!” she cried scornfully. “I imagine nothing. I know. And if you are going to say you don’t love me, you’re a liar, Charles Brandon, as well as a coward.”

“And you, a proud Tudor, find you love a liar and coward?”

“One does not love people for their virtues. I know you have been married … twice. I know that you cast off your first wife. I should not love you because you were a virtuous husband to another woman, should I? What care I, how many wives you have had, how many mistresses you have? All I know is this, that one day I shall command you to cast them all aside because …”

“My love,” he murmured tenderly, “you are attracting attention to us. That is not the way.”

“No,” she retorted, “that is not the way. You called me your love.”

“Did you doubt that I love you?”

“No, no. Love such as mine must meet with response. Charles, what shall we do? How can I marry that boy? Is it not a touch of irony that he should be Charles, too. I think of him as that Charles and you as my Charles. What shall we do?”

“My dearest Princess,” he said soberly, “you are the King’s sister. You are affianced to the Prince of Castile. The match has been made and cannot be broken simply because you love a commoner.”

“It must be, Charles. I refuse to marry him. I shall die if they send me away.”

He pressed her hand tightly and she laughed. “How strong you are, Charles. My rings are cutting into my fingers and it is very painful, but I’d rather have pain from you than all the gentleness in the world from any other. What shall I do? Tell me that. What shall I do?”

“First, say nothing of this mad passion of yours to anyone.”

“I have told no one, not even Guildford, though I believe she guesses. She has been with me so long and she knows me so well. She said: ‘My little Princess has changed of late. I could almost wonder whether she was in love.’ Then, Charles, my Charles, she put up the picture of that Charles. But I think she meant to remind me, to warn me. Oh Charles, how I wish I were one of the serving maids … any kind of maid who has her freedom, for freedom to love and marry where one wills are the greatest gifts in the world.”

She was a child, he thought; a vehement, passionate child. This devotion of hers which she was thrusting at him would likely pass. It might well be that in a few weeks’ time she would develop a passion for one of the other young men of the Court, someone younger than himself, for he was more than ten years her senior.

The thought of her youth comforted him. It was pleasant enough to be so favored by the King’s sister. He was at ease. None would take this passion seriously, and certainly he was not to blame for its existence.

If he attempted to seduce her as she was so earnestly inviting him to do, there would be danger. Henry might not respect the virginity of other young women, but he most certainly would his sister’s.

Charles knew that he was being lured into a dangerous—though fascinating—situation, but he believed he was wise enough to steer clear of disaster.

She was pressing close to him in the dance.

“Charles, tell me, what shall we do?”

He whispered: “Wait. Be cautious. Tell no one of this. Who knows what is in store for us?”

She was exultant. They had declared their love. She had the sort of faith which would enable her to believe the movement of mountains was a possibility.

She had already made up her mind: One day I shall be the wife of Charles Brandon.

When Henry’s son was born there was more merrymaking. The boy made his appearance on the first of January; he was a feeble child who struggled for existence for a few weeks, and by the twenty-second of the following month had died.

This was Henry’s first setback, his first warning that what he urgently desired was not always going to be his. He was plunged into deepest melancholy; and that was the end of one phase of his life. He had spent almost the whole of the first two years of his kingly state in masking, jousting, and feasting; but with the death of his son his feelings had undergone a change; he would never be quite the same lighthearted boy again.

He wanted to give himself to more serious matters. His father-in-law, Ferdinand of Aragon, had persuaded him to join him, with Pope Julius II and the Venetians, against France; and because Henry saw in war a vast and colorful joust in which, on account of his youth, riches, and strength, he was bound to succeed, he was ready to follow his father-in-law’s advice and promised to send troops into France.

War now occupied Henry’s mind; he was constantly closeted with his statesmen and generals; and while he planned a campaign he dreamed of himself as the all-conquering hero who would one day win France back for the English crown.

He was impatient because he could not collect an army without delay and go into battle; he had thought a war was as quickly organized as a joust. His ministers had a hard time persuading him that this was not so, and gradually he began to see that they were right.

The Court was at Greenwich, the King much preoccupied with thoughts of conquest; and one day when he was walking with some of his courtiers in the gardens there, Mary saw him and went to him.

She signed to the courtiers to leave them together and, because Henry was always more indulgent to his sister than to anyone else, he did not countermand her order but allowed Mary to slip her arm through his.

“Oh, Henry,” she said, “how dull is all this talk of war! The Court is not so merry as it used to be.”

“Matters of state, sweetheart,” he answered, with an indulgent smile. “They are part of a king’s life, you should know.”

“But why go to war when you can stay here and have so much pleasure?”

“You, a daughter of a king and sister of one, should understand. I shall not rest until I am crowned in Rheims.”

“Do you hate the French so much?”

“Of course I hate our enemies. And now I have good friends in Europe. Between us we shall crush the French. You shall see, sister.”

“Henry, there is one matter which gives me great cause for sorrow. You could ease my pain if you would.”

“Sorrow! What is this? I was of the opinion that life used you very well.”

“I do not wish to leave you ever, Henry.”

“Oh come, my dearest sister, that is child’s talk.”

“It is not child’s talk. It is woman’s talk, for I am a woman now, Henry.”

“What! Are you so old then?”

“Henry, as you love me, stop treating me as a child. I am sixteen years old, and I am begging you not to send me to that odious Charles.”

“What’s this?”

“You know full well. Against my wishes I was affianced to him. I am asking you to break off this match.”

“Sister, you are being foolish. How could I break off this match? The Emperor Maximilian is a good friend to England. He would not be, I do assure you, if I said to him, ‘There shall be no match between your grandson and my sister … because she has taken a sudden dislike to the boy.’”

“Henry, this is my life. I am to be sent away from home … to a strange land … to marry this boy who looks like an idiot … and his mother is mad, we know. So is he. I will not go.”

“Listen, little sister. We of royal blood cannot choose our brides and bridegrooms. We must remember always our duty to the State. We have to be brave and patient, and in good time we grow to love those chosen for us because we know it is our duty to do so.”

“You married whom you wished.”

“Kate is the daughter of a king and queen. Had she not been I should not have been able to marry her … however much I wished for the match. Nor should I have done so, because I have always known that to consider the advantages to the State is the first duty of princes.”

“Henry, something must happen. I cannot go to that boy. He is but a boy … and I thank God for that, otherwise I should have been cruelly sent away from my home and all I love, ere this. He is about twelve years old now. When he is fourteen they will say he is old enough to have a wife and then … then … unless you save me …”

“It is two years away, sister. Dismiss it from your mind. In two years’ time you will understand more than you do now. You will be reconciled to our fate. Believe me, a great deal can happen in two years. Why, at one time I repudiated Kate … then, when I was King, I married her.”

Mary stamped her foot. “Henry, stop treating me as a child.”

He smiled at her as indulgently as ever, but there was a sharp note in his voice. “Remember to whom you speak, sister.”

“Henry,” she said vehemently, “it is because I never want to leave England. Let me marry in England. Greenwich … Richmond … this river … this King … these I love.”

He patted her hand. “Methinks,” he said, “that I am over-soft with you, sister. It is because of the great love I bear you. I no more want you to leave us than you wish to. But I can no more keep you back than I could have kept Margaret.”

“You did not care that Margaret went.”

“I had no wish for her to go to Scotland. I love not the Scots.”

“And you love these Flemings, these Spaniards?”