The Secret Bride by Diane Haeger Read Free Book Online Page B

you do not marry Katherine after all?” Mary asked him as the wind tousled his hair.
    “If not her, it will be some princess or other to whom our father shall tie me.”
    “Have you waited so long that you care nothing for poor Katherine any longer?”
    He laughed at her. He was almost sixteen now and had endured the convolutions of this betrothal for several years already. “Poor Katherine is wealthy beyond measure, Mary, and she has become quite pretty now, actually. She shall do fine, no matter what happens.”
    “Will you not miss her?” she pressed, undaunted, having thought there might be something excitingly romantic in what her brother felt. “She has been in our lives for so many years I have long thought of her as a sister to us both.”
    “Precisely. And how many men in the world—especially kings—long to marry one of their sisters?” he asked, his laugh fading to a smile.

    Mary felt her father’s arms around her a curious, rather than a pleasant, sensation. She was not accustomed to her father’s affection. The king had long been prone to fits of unreasonable anger, and at one time or another all of his children had been victim of that. He had fought physically with Henry for no logical reason, and many times brought Margaret or Mary to tears, neither of them having any earthly idea what they had done to displease him. Being called to his chamber had always been a cause for fearful anticipation. In spite of her long absence, today was no different.
    Swirling around them in the warm and welcoming chamber, as they stood together before a grand fire blazing away in the hearth, was the familiar woody mix of musk, leather and sweat, but as they embraced Mary sensed something more.
    She smelled age, she thought, and futility. Both had their own particular aroma on her father now and it caused her fear to fade. They had not been close, but the king seemed to want a connection with her now. The very day she and Henry arrived at Westminster Palace he had summoned her alone to his bedchamber, to sit with him in two leather chairs, studded with hammered nails, beside the massive tester bed, his heraldic emblem sewn with gold thread into the silk behind him. The grand, slightly austere chamber was warmed by a wood fire and two charcoal braziers, which drew the worst of the chill from the air. The table beside him was littered with books, including one special volume, Froissart’s Chronicles , that had always been spoken of as his favorite. It detailed great battles in which the kings of France were vanquished by the kings of England. Beside it was a small miniature of the queen, set in silver, and a dagger he always kept with him, once used at the Battle of Bosworth Field, where so many dear to him had died. On the walls around them were mural paintings of Old Testament battle scenes he loved to study.
    Beneath that sat a large round ship’s chest covered with strips of iron and black leather. It was a room full of meaning, Mary knew. A room full of things that defined him.
    She remembered that he spent much of his time here now, remembering his glory days, when he was wild and strong—a warrior in the field, not a king on a throne. Mary glanced around now at the remnants of his life and was filled with sadness for him. The fear was all but gone.
    She sat now playing with the king’s fuzzy little monkey, Solomon. She had always loved the pet and forgotten how much. The little nut brown creature would sit on her lap and eat chunks of dried fruit from her fingers, then nestle into her arms like a baby. His fur was soft, his eyes wide, and she was the only one, her father said, he had never bitten. He was dressed up like a court page, poor little thing, in a blue and gold velvet doublet and tiny little puffed trunk hose. Mary stroked his ear as her father sipped a silver goblet of wine and laid his head back against the chair that sat facing her own.
    “So then, my Mary, tell me, are you pleased to be making