Philippa Gregory 3-Book Tudor Collection 1 by Philippa Gregory Page B

France to invade us from the north. I think Your Grace knows from your own childhood that even a small country on your frontier can be a danger.’
    ‘Well, the Moors had only a small country at the end,’ she observed. ‘My father always said that the Moors were like a disease. They might be a small irritation but they were always there.’
    ‘The Scots are our plague,’ he agreed. ‘Once every three years or so, they invade and make a little war, and we lose an acre of land or win it back again. And every summer they harry the border countries and steal what they cannot grow or make themselves. No northern farmer has ever been safe from them. The king is determined to have peace.’
    ‘Will they be kind to the Princess Margaret?’
    ‘In their own rough way.’ He smiled. ‘Not as you have been welcomed, Infanta.’
    Catalina beamed in return. She knew that she was warmlywelcomed in England. Londoners had taken the Spanish princess to their hearts, they liked the gaudy glamour of her train, the oddness of her dress, and they liked the way the princess always had a smile for a waiting crowd. Catalina had learned from her mother that the people are a greater power than an army of mercenaries and she never turned her head away from a cheer. She always waved, she always smiled, and if they raised a great bellow of applause she would even bob them a pretty little curtsey.
    She glanced over to where the Princess Margaret, a vain, precocious girl, was smoothing down her dress and pushing back her headdress before going into the hall.
    ‘Soon you will be married and going away, as I have done,’ Catalina remarked pleasantly in French. ‘I do hope it brings you happiness.’
    The younger girl looked at her boldly. ‘Not as you have done, for you have come to the finest kingdom in Europe, whereas I have to go far away into exile,’ she said.
    ‘England may be fine to you; but it is still strange to me,’ Catalina said, trying not to flare up at the rudeness of the girl. ‘And if you had seen my home in Spain you would be surprised at how fine our palace is there.’
    ‘There is nowhere better than England,’ Margaret said with the serene conviction of one of the spoiled Tudor children. ‘But it will be good to be queen. While you are still only a princess, I shall be queen. I shall be the equal of my mother.’ She thought for a moment. ‘Indeed, I shall be the equal of your mother.’
    The colour rushed into Catalina’s face. ‘You would never be the equal of my mother,’ she snapped. ‘You are a fool to even say it.’
    Margaret gasped.
    ‘Now, now, Your Royal Highnesses,’ the duke interrupted quickly. ‘Your father is ready to take his place. Will you please to follow him into the hall?’
    Margaret turned and flounced away from Catalina.
    ‘She is very young,’ the duke said soothingly. ‘And although shewould never admit to it, she is afraid to leave her mother and her father and go so far away.’
    ‘She has a lot to learn,’ Catalina said through gritted teeth. ‘She should learn the manners of a queen if she is going to be one.’ She turned to find Arthur at her side, ready to conduct her into the hall behind his parents.
    The royal family took their seats. The king and his two sons sat at the high table under the canopy of state, facing out over the hall, to their right sat the queen and the princesses. My Lady, the King’s Mother, Margaret Beaufort, was seated beside the king, between him and his wife.
    ‘Margaret and Catalina were having cross words as they came in,’ she observed to him with grim satisfaction. ‘I thought that the Infanta would irritate our Princess Margaret. She cannot bear to have too much attention shown to another, and everyone makes such a fuss over Catalina.’
    ‘Margaret will soon be gone,’ Henry said shortly. ‘Then she can have her own court, and her own honeymoon.’
    ‘Catalina has become the very centre of the court,’ his mother complained. ‘The