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Authors: Philippa Gregory
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wintry sun had started to light the pale sky. They had prepared a great bath—her ladies told her that the English were amazed that she was going to wash before her wedding day and that most of them thought that she was risking her life. Catalina, brought up in the Alhambra, where the bathhouses were the most beautiful suite of rooms in the palace, centers of gossip, laughter, and scented water, was equally amazed to hear that the English thought it perfectly adequate to bathe only occasionally and that the poor people would bathe only once a year.
She had already realized that the scent of musk and ambergris which had wafted in with the king and Prince Arthur had underlying notes of sweat and horse, and that she would live for the rest of her life among people who did not change their underwear from one year to the next. She had seen it as another thing that she must learn to endure, as an angel from heaven endures the privations of earth. She had come from al-Yanna—the garden, the paradise—to the ordinary world. She had come from the Alhambra Palace to England; she had anticipated some disagreeable changes.
“I suppose it is always so cold that it does not matter,” she said uncertainly to Doña Elvira.
“It matters to us,” the duenna said. “And you shall bathe like an Infanta of Spain though all the cooks in the kitchen have had to stop what they are doing to boil up water.”
Doña Elvira had commanded a great tureen from the flesh kitchen which was usually deployed to scald beast carcasses, had it scoured by three scullions, lined it with linen sheets and filled it to the brim with hot water scattered with rose petals and scented with oil of roses brought from Spain. She lovingly supervised the washing of Catalina’s long whitelimbs, the manicuring of her toes, the filing of her fingernails, the brushing of her teeth, and finally the three-rinse washing of her hair. Time after time, the incredulous English maids toiled to the door to receive another ewer of hot water from exhausted page boys and tipped it in the tub to keep the temperature of the bath hot.
“If only we had a proper bathhouse,” Doña Elvira mourned, “with steam and a tepidarium and a proper clean marble floor! Hot water on tap and somewhere for you to sit and be properly scrubbed.”
“Don’t fuss,” Catalina said dreamily as they helped her from the bath and patted her all over with scented towels. One maid took her hair, squeezed out the water, and rubbed it gently with red silk soaked in oil to give it shine and color.
“Your mother would be so proud of you,” Doña Elvira said as they led the Infanta towards her wardrobe and started to dress her in the layer after layer of shifts and gowns. “Pull that lace tighter, girl, so that the skirt lies flat. This is her day as well as yours, Catalina. She said that you would marry him whatever it cost her.”
* * *
Yes, but she did not pay the greatest price. I know they bought me this wedding with a king’s ransom for my dowry, and I know that they endured long and hard negotiations, and I survived the worst voyage anyone has ever taken, but there was another price paid that we never speak of—wasn’t there? And the thought of that price is in my mind today, as it has been on the journey, as it was on the voyage, as it has been ever since I first heard of it.
There was a man of only twenty-four years old, Edward Plantagenet, the Duke of Warwick and a son of the Kings of England, with—truth be told—a better claim to the throne of England than that of my father-in-law. He was a prince, nephew to the king, and of blood royal. He committed no crime, he did nothing wrong, but he was arrested for my sake, taken to the Tower for my benefit, and finally killed, beheaded on the block, for my gain, so that my parents could be satisfied that there were no pretenders to the throne that they had bought for me.
My father himself told King Henry himself that he
She had already realized that the scent of musk and ambergris which had wafted in with the king and Prince Arthur had underlying notes of sweat and horse, and that she would live for the rest of her life among people who did not change their underwear from one year to the next. She had seen it as another thing that she must learn to endure, as an angel from heaven endures the privations of earth. She had come from al-Yanna—the garden, the paradise—to the ordinary world. She had come from the Alhambra Palace to England; she had anticipated some disagreeable changes.
“I suppose it is always so cold that it does not matter,” she said uncertainly to Doña Elvira.
“It matters to us,” the duenna said. “And you shall bathe like an Infanta of Spain though all the cooks in the kitchen have had to stop what they are doing to boil up water.”
Doña Elvira had commanded a great tureen from the flesh kitchen which was usually deployed to scald beast carcasses, had it scoured by three scullions, lined it with linen sheets and filled it to the brim with hot water scattered with rose petals and scented with oil of roses brought from Spain. She lovingly supervised the washing of Catalina’s long whitelimbs, the manicuring of her toes, the filing of her fingernails, the brushing of her teeth, and finally the three-rinse washing of her hair. Time after time, the incredulous English maids toiled to the door to receive another ewer of hot water from exhausted page boys and tipped it in the tub to keep the temperature of the bath hot.
“If only we had a proper bathhouse,” Doña Elvira mourned, “with steam and a tepidarium and a proper clean marble floor! Hot water on tap and somewhere for you to sit and be properly scrubbed.”
“Don’t fuss,” Catalina said dreamily as they helped her from the bath and patted her all over with scented towels. One maid took her hair, squeezed out the water, and rubbed it gently with red silk soaked in oil to give it shine and color.
“Your mother would be so proud of you,” Doña Elvira said as they led the Infanta towards her wardrobe and started to dress her in the layer after layer of shifts and gowns. “Pull that lace tighter, girl, so that the skirt lies flat. This is her day as well as yours, Catalina. She said that you would marry him whatever it cost her.”
* * *
Yes, but she did not pay the greatest price. I know they bought me this wedding with a king’s ransom for my dowry, and I know that they endured long and hard negotiations, and I survived the worst voyage anyone has ever taken, but there was another price paid that we never speak of—wasn’t there? And the thought of that price is in my mind today, as it has been on the journey, as it was on the voyage, as it has been ever since I first heard of it.
There was a man of only twenty-four years old, Edward Plantagenet, the Duke of Warwick and a son of the Kings of England, with—truth be told—a better claim to the throne of England than that of my father-in-law. He was a prince, nephew to the king, and of blood royal. He committed no crime, he did nothing wrong, but he was arrested for my sake, taken to the Tower for my benefit, and finally killed, beheaded on the block, for my gain, so that my parents could be satisfied that there were no pretenders to the throne that they had bought for me.
My father himself told King Henry himself that he
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