LITMIR.BIZ

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the door, starting at every sound that comes from within. My mother always screamed in childbed and I am expecting the same from my wife. My princess’s silence is more disconcerting than my mother’s agonising cries ever were, and I am beset with fear as I imagine any number of terrible scenarios.

      “She’s a strong one, is your lady,” says Tsura Goodman the midwife in her strange accent when she comes out to report on my princess’s progress. “She doesn’t make a sound.” She cocks her head, searching my face for something I am unsure of. She is a peculiar woman, this midwife, said to have descended from the wandering Gypsy folk. Her ancestry reflects in her dark skin and penetrating grey eyes. Her black hair is wound atop her head in a knot; loose tendrils escape to frame her olive-skinned face, and her dark beauty is as alluring as it is haunting.

      The woman takes my sword hand. “Beautiful,” she says as she admires it, turning it palm up. “Beautiful and dangerous.” She raises her eyes to mine. I shudder. I have never been keen on what some call the dark arts; indeed, my wife’s attachment to her faery folk is unsettling enough. Looking at the woman before me confirms that she is in possession of something otherworldly. “Take care of its power, my good lord,” she tells me in an eerie tone suggesting that she speaks not by choice but at the command of some higher being with whom I have never become familiar.

      “What are you about?” I snap, trying to quell my trembling.

      She is unaffected, unafraid. Her full, claret-colored lips curve into a slow smile. “There is always a chance for redemption; no fate is ever certain,” she hisses in urgency, and the incongruity of her seductive expression and harsh tone causes me to start.

      “Attend your charge at once, woman!” I cry, snatching my hand from hers and backing away, stifling the urge to make the sign of the cross and run in terror.

      Tsura the Gypsy dips into a curtsy, then returns to my wife’s bedside.

      I stand outside the chambers, studying my hand a long moment. I clench it into a fist.

      Take care of its power indeed.

      It is a boy! Another bonny boy! We call him Henry after the king and his son. He is a delight, so blonde and rosy. His eyes are lighter than his brother’s; their silvery blue gaze penetrates the soul as he studies me, his little face earnest as a judge’s. I find myself particularly attached to this wee mite, perhaps because I was here when he was born, and I love holding him, caring for him. It touches me to feel his tiny hand curling about my thumb and I marvel at his perfect small feet, an example of God’s attention to the finest details.

      I never knew I could love like this.

      The princess and I spend many an hour in the gardens with the children. She laughs more now. Our toddling Little Thomas brings her delight as he discovers his world; he is everywhere at once and it takes a great deal of energy to keep up with him, but it is energy we are happy to spare.

      When Thomas is out of his swaddling bands and put into short breeches, assembling words into short sentences, following me about wherever I permit him to go, my princess tells me I should begin considering names for our third child.

      I stare at her in wonder. How is it a man can be this happy?

      The princess is eight months gone with child when the nurse tells her our baby, our Henry, was found dead in his cradle one spring morning.

      I have never heard my princess raise her voice, but now she is screaming. The sound rips from her throat, raw and terrifying. She sinks to her knees before our lamb’s little cradle, thrusting her long arms skyward, bidding the Lord to answer for His decision. When at last she has collected herself, she turns to me, staring, large green eyes filled with questions I cannot begin to answer.

      Tears stream down my cheeks unchecked as I approach the cradle. He does not look dead at all, his tiny head lolled to one side, eyes closed, fists curled by his chin. He is so still. I reach out to touch him, then draw back in horror. The warmth I had treasured when cradling him so close is gone. He is cold; the breath of life has departed.

      I sob, great gasping, gulping sobs of despair.

      There is no reason. There is no good reason.

      I turn to the nurse, hot anger replacing the tears that I now wipe away in disgust. “Why was he not attended to?” I seethe.

      The woman backs away in horror. “But he was—he was as he is every night, my lord. We checked on him right good, sir.”

      “If that were so, he would be here with us!” I cry. “You are dismissed! This whole nursery staff is to leave this instant and I do not care where you go! May God rot your souls for your negligence!”

      The woman retreats with the two rockers and nursery maids. I hear them fleeing, their voices raised in panic.

      “Pray you make it out of here before I reach the door!” I shout.

      I turn once more to the cradle. What do I do now?

      “He was perfect,” I tell the princess in softer tones, shaking my head in agonised wonder. “I do not understand…. He was perfect. How can he be here one day and gone the next?”

      The princess shakes her head, then sinks to the floor, rocking back and forth, inconsolable.

      He did not have many effects. He did not live long enough. But I did save his first pair of little shoes, tucking them into a drawer in my desk, a strange reminder of lost perfection. I will not look at them … often.

      We bury him at Stoke. He is too small to be traversed to the family chapel at Lambeth, so I do not bother. We receive sympathy from the royal family along with the Howards—indeed, everyone is well acquainted with loss. My mother had passed that same year and if anyone could have offered me counsel on the subject, it was she. But she is gone and the earl has remarried. Somehow his marrying within months of her death does not make his grief altogether convincing.

      As it is, I do not care about anyone’s shared grief or stories of their own losses. All I can think of is my own, of the princess’s face as she asks me wordlessly, Why?

      How in God’s blood am I supposed to know?

      I fear for the princess, for the faraway look in her eyes. She no longer laughs. We do not speak to each other very much.

      We await the birth of our next child, neither of us filled with the hopeful anticipation we harboured for the first two.

      Yet when she brings forth another little boy, the knot in my chest eases a bit. He takes after me with his dark hair and skin, but is long like his mother. He seems healthy. I want to love him. I want to enjoy him. I don’t want to grieve anymore.

      We call him William, Wills for short.

      As he grows I find myself relaxing a bit. When he reaches nine months, the age our Henry was when he was taken from us, tension grips me. I awake in the night, crying out in terror. Sometimes I sit by his cradle all night to make sure his soul is not stolen from me.

      But he lives.

      It seems God will let us keep our sturdy little Wills.

      In 1503 I am blessed with two other events. The first is the birth of a daughter, my own little girl to pet. We name her Margaret after our niece, Princess Margaret Tudor, which leads me to the second event. We are to accompany Princess Margaret to Scotland with my father and the rest of the family to witness her marriage to King James IV. I am thrilled about the journey for so many reasons, not only because of the royal exposure but because I will be with my entire family again. It will be a wonderful opportunity to acquaint myself with my father’s new bride, Agnes Tilney, and an excellent chance for the children to get to know their Howard relations.

      “Perhaps I should stay home with the children,” my princess tells me before we depart. “I should not feel comfortable leaving them with a nurse, and bringing them does not seem prudent either. They could catch a chill, what with the nasty Scottish winds.”

      I offer a dismissive laugh. “Father

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