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CHAPTER SIX

“ H er Majesty will see you now, Lady Cassia.”

The Countess da Penalvo emerged from behind the closed door of the queen's innermost chambers.

A matronly, Portuguese lady-in-waiting, she stepped aside to allow Cassia to proceed inside.

She eyed Cassia warily, which was nothing new really, for she'd always been distrustful of the close relationship she'd come to have with the queen. The only difference was that now the countess didn’t bother to hide her disdain, nor the curl of her downy lip, having obviously heard the damning rumor of Cassia having murdered her father. The pinch in her mouth would make one think she’d just bitten a rancid walnut.

The Countess was the sole lady-in-waiting who remained from the original entourage of older, darkly-clad Portuguese women who had accompanied the then princess Catherine of Braganza on her maiden voyage to England.

The others of the Portuguese contingent had been returned to Portugal soon after the queen's arrival.

Their stay, though brief, had not by any means been marked with pleasantry.

Catherine, who had been most eager to conform to her new country, had immediately begun to adopt the very different- looking English fashions.

Her Portuguese women—known mockingly among the court as “The Farthingales” for their outdated style of dress—behaved as if doing so was somehow beneath them.

This drew them a fair amount of contempt among Whitehall's proud English nobles.

Then had come the conflict over the appointment of Catherine’s Ladies of the Bedchamber.

It had begun almost immediately after the royal marriage when the king had presented Catherine a list of English ladies who he “suggested” for various roles in the queen’s household.

Place of prominence among them was the name of his primary mistress, Barbara Palmer, Lady Castlemaine—seeking to declare her importance before all.

Catherine had already been forewarned about the king’s paramour by her mother, Donna Luiza, Queen Mother of Portugal. She immediately struck her name from the list of suitable candidates.

Lady Castlemaine was incensed.

The king, though fond of his new wife, did not much like her so openly refusing his request. For him, it was a means for the two most important women in his life to become acquainted, before his subjects.

He stood fast in his insistence on Lady Castlemaine's appointment to Catherine’s household.

Catherine stood just as fast in her refusal.

Edward Hyde, the Earl of Clarendon, and Lord Chancellor of England, was even called upon to help persuade Her Majesty to relent. Still Catherine refused.

A battle of wills ensued, with Catherine threatening to return to Portugal, to where Charles then banished most of her Portuguese attendants, leaving the crestfallen and frightened Catherine behind, virtually alone—but for the Countess da Penalvo—in a foreign land among strangers.

Months of bitter sparring went on between the two newlyweds that had even brought on rumors of an annulment.

And then, Queen Catherine had quite suddenly and most mysteriously acquiesced.

It was at that same time when Cassia was granted her position in the new queen’s household as Lady of the Bedchamber.

The daughter of a nobleman, she had grown up among the exiled royal court in France and The Netherlands, and was quite accustomed to its rules and expectation.

Having been raised an expatriate herself, Cassia also had felt an immediate affinity for the quiet, unassuming Catherine.

She’d begun instruction in Catherine’s native tongue and made it her mission to offer the queen a friendly and supportive ally among the den of strangers.

They’d been close friends ever since.

Cassia found Catherine now reclining on a wicker-backed daybed that had been set before the tall windows facing onto the Thames. A blanket covered her legs and her worn and often-read bible lay open, face down upon her lap.

Each time she walked into that room, it struck Cassia as strange and yet somehow appealing how Catherine, at learning of the dismal monetary state of the Privy Purse, had refused to spend a single farthing on anything other than the necessities.

While the king and his mistress, Lady Castlemaine, lived in large roomy apartments in the palace that reeked of opulence, Catherine's walls were bare by comparison, excepting the few religious symbols and personal belongings she had brought with her from Portugal.

Where Charles wore clothing that bespoke his royal status, Catherine had not so much as bought herself more than a few new gowns during the course of the first year of her marriage.

What allowance she was entitled to as queen was constantly transferred into the hands of her spendthrift husband who, it seemed, was ever in need of spare funds.

Cassia paused for a moment at the threshold.

Catherine's dark hair was undressed, and hung in loose waves about her almost child-like face.

She was yet dressed in her nightclothes, a white linen gown decorated with blond Brussels lace, and looked rather pale.

One hand rested lightly on the flat of her stomach as if to somehow give life to the babe growing there and she stared thoughtfully out the windows at the river traffic floating by.

She presented a picture not of a queen to one of the world's most powerful empires, but, of a little girl, lost and uncertain.

Catherine smiled when she spotted Cassia standing there and motioned for her to come forward into the room. She extended a hand toward her, one that was ornamented only by her plain gold wedding band.

“Cassia, dearest friend, I was beginning to wonder if I would ever see your face at court again. I have missed you so very much. Come, please, sit here beside me so we can visit together awhile.”

Catherine patted the cushion on the chair beside her. As Cassia lowered into the seat, she thought to herself how fragile Catherine appeared and wondered if it perhaps had always been so and she was just now recognizing it after having been away these past weeks.

Catherine spoke in her native Portuguese for she still spoke very little of the English language, and only when required.

When she had arrived on England's shores, King Charles had not known more than a few words of Portuguese.

Cassia had offered to help the queen with her English, whilst learning a passing understanding of Portuguese herself, and was often called upon to act as translator for the royal couple.

“I have missed being in your service as well, Your Majesty. Tell me, how do you fare?”

Catherine sighed and glanced out the windows for a moment, her soulful eyes turning suddenly sad.

“I am well enough, I suppose. The Royal Physician believes this pregnancy—if it is indeed a pregnancy—will succeed, but, after losing the other, I cannot help but worry. I cannot seem to keep even a crumb of food in my stomach, and I fear for the health of the child. The physician tells me this sickness is a good sign and that it only lasts through the first few months.”

Cassia smiled. She knew how very much Catherine wanted to provide the king his much-longed for son.

It was a topic they had discussed often in their private conversations over tea.

In Catherine's eyes, giving England an heir was her one true obligation as queen and one in which she was now desperate to succeed since the frightening miscarriage of her first pregnancy the year before.

For with the miscarriage had come the whispers of the courtiers.

Rumors of the new queen's barrenness had begun to circulate among Whitehall's court even months before her arrival in England.

They had been started in effort to prevent the union by those who were not pleased with the match between the new King Charles and a Catholic Portuguese princess.

The rumors had died down not long after the marriage had taken place.

But, now, after having such trouble in conceiving, and then losing her first pregnancy to miscarriage, many were reviving the denunciation.

Some even had the temerity to suggest that the king seek a divorce from Catherine for it—a suggestion that thankfully fell on deaf royal ears.

Cassia leaned forward in her seat and took Catherine's hand. “What is it that troubles you, Your Majesty?”

Catherine smiled weakly. “You always could tell when something was vexing me.” She closed her eyes against the tears that threatened to spill. “I have heard a rumor that she is breeding again as well.”

Cassia did not need any explanation as to who she was.

It was obvious that Lady Castlemaine had managed to breach the language barrier well enough to inform the queen of her own pregnancy.

How miserable it must be for Catherine to want so badly to give Charles and England an heir, and to have such difficulty in doing so.

And yet, unjustly, she was made to watch as the greatest rival for her husband's affections bore child after child with remarkable ease.

“What does it matter if she has fifteen children?” Cassia said.

“No one ever knows for certain who the unfortunate father is. Her breasts sag more with each birth, and I hear that her maids have a difficult time trying to cinch her into her stays each morning. And,” she added, “most importantly, none of her children, no matter how many she has, will ever be heir to the throne of England. Only your child will, Your Majesty, the child you now carry.”

Catherine released a breath, unconvinced. “If only I could be certain this child would thrive.”

“But it will, Your Majesty. You just have to believe in it. Now, tell me,” Cassia said, changing the subject, “how goes your English instruction in my absence?”