Philippa Gregory 3-Book Tudor Collection 1: The Constant Princess, The Other Boleyn Girl, The Boleyn Inheritance. Philippa GregoryЧитать онлайн книгу.
and see the fields.’
‘The fields?’ asked Lady Margaret, rather taken aback. ‘In March? They won’t plough for another week or so, there is almost nothing to see.’
‘I have to learn,’ Catalina said. ‘Where I live, it is so dry in summer that we have to build little ditches in every field, to the foot of every tree, to channel water to the plants to make sure that they can drink and live. When we first rode through this country and I saw the ditches in your fields, I was so ignorant I thought they were bringing water in.’ She laughed aloud at the memory. “And then the prince told me they were drains to take the water away. I could not believe it! So we had better ride out and you must tell me everything.’
‘A queen does not need to know about fields,’ Dona Elvira said in muted disapproval from the corner. ‘Why should she know what the farmers grow?’
‘Of course a queen needs to know,’ Catalina replied, irritated. ‘She should know everything about her country. How else can she rule?’
‘I am sure you will be a very fine Queen of England,’ Lady Margaret said, making the peace.
Catalina glowed. ‘I shall be the best Queen of England that I can be,’ she said. ‘I shall care for the poor and assist the church, and if we are ever at war I shall ride out and fight for England just as my mother did for Spain.’
Planning for the future with Arthur, I forget my homesickness for Spain. Every day we think of some improvement we could make, of some law that should be changed. We read together, books of philosophy and politics, we talk about whether people can be trusted with their freedom, of whether a king should be a good tyrant or should step back from power. We talk about my home: of my parents’ belief that you make a country by one church, one language, and one law. Or whether it could be possible to do as the Moors did: to make a country with one law but with many faiths and many languages, and assume that people are wise enough to choose the best.
We argue, we talk. Sometimes we break up in laughter, sometimes we disagree. Arthur is my lover always, my husband, undeniably. And now he is becoming my friend.
Catalina was in the little garden of Ludlow Castle, which was set along the east wall, in earnest conversation with one of the castle gardeners. In neat beds around her were the herbs that the cooks used, and some herbs and flowers with medicinal properties grown by Lady Margaret. Arthur, seeing Catalina as he walked back from confession in the round chapel, glanced up to the great hall to check that no-one would prevent him, and slipped off to be with her. As he drew up she was gesturing, trying to describe something. Arthur smiled.
‘Princess,’ he said formally in greeting.
She swept him a low curtsey, but her eyes were warm with pleasure at the sight of him. ‘Sire.’
The gardener had dropped to his knees in the mud at the arrival of the prince. ‘You can get up,’ Arthur said pleasantly. ‘I don’t think you will find many pretty flowers at this time of year, Princess.’
‘I was trying to talk to him about growing salad vegetables,’ she said. ‘But he speaks Welsh and English and I have tried Latin and French and we don’t understand each other at all.’
‘I think I am with him. I don’t understand either. What is salad?’
She thought for a moment. ‘Acetaria.’
‘Acetaria?’ he queried.
‘Yes, salad.’
‘What is it, exactly?’
‘It is vegetables that grow in the ground and you eat them without cooking them,’ she explained. ‘I was asking if he could plant some for me.’
‘You eat them raw? Without boiling?’
‘Yes, why not?’
‘Because you will be dreadfully ill, eating uncooked food in this country.’
‘Like fruit, like apples. You eat them raw.’
He was unconvinced. ‘More often cooked, or preserved or dried. And anyway, that is a fruit and not leaves. But what sorts of vegetables do you want?’
‘Lactuca,’ she said.
‘Lactuca?’ he repeated. ‘I have never heard of it.’
She sighed. ‘I know. You none of you seem to know anything of vegetables. Lactuca is like…’ She searched her mind for the truly terrible vegetable that she had been forced to eat, boiled into a pulp at one dinner at Greenwich. ‘Samphire,’ she said. ‘The closest thing you have to lactuca is probably samphire. But you eat lactuca without cooking and it is crisp and sweet.’
‘Vegetables? Crisp?’
‘Yes,’ she said patiently.
‘And you eat this in Spain?’
She nearly laughed at his appalled expression. ‘Yes. You would like it.’
‘And can we grow it here?’
‘I think he is telling me: no. He has never heard of such a thing. He has no seeds. He does not know where we would find such seeds. He does not think it would grow here.’ She looked up at the blue sky with the scudding rain clouds. ‘Perhaps he is right,’ she said, a little weariness in her voice. ‘I am sure that it needs much sunshine.’
Arthur turned to the gardener. ‘Ever heard of a plant called lactuca?’
‘No, Your Grace,’ the man said, his head bowed. ‘I’m sorry, Your Grace. Perhaps it is a Spanish plant. It sounds very barbaric. Is Her Royal Highness saying they eat grass there? Like sheep?’
Arthur’s lip quivered. ‘No, it is a herb, I think. I will ask her.’
He turned to Catalina and took her hand and tucked it in the crook of his arm. ‘You know sometimes in summer, it is very sunny and very hot here. Truly. You would find the midday sun was too hot. You would have to sit in the shade.’
She looked disbelievingly from the cold mud to the thickening clouds.
‘Not now, I know; but in summer. I have leaned against this wall and found it warm to the touch. You know, we grow strawberries and raspberries and peaches. All the fruit that you grow in Spain.’
‘Oranges?’
‘Well, perhaps not oranges,’ he conceded.
‘Lemons? Olives?’
He bridled. ‘Yes, indeed.’
She looked suspiciously at him. ‘Dates?’
‘In Cornwall,’ he asserted, straight-faced. ‘Of course it is warmer in Cornwall.’
‘Sugar cane? Rice? Pineapples?’
He tried to say yes, but he could not repress the giggles and she crowed with laughter, and fell on him.
When they were steady again he glanced around the inner bailey and said, ‘Come on, nobody will miss us for a while,’ and led her down the steps to the little sally-port and let them out of the hidden door.
A small path led them to the hillside which fell away steeply from the castle down to the river. A few lambs scampered off as they approached, a lad wandering after them. Arthur slid his arm around her waist and she let herself fall into pace with him.
‘We do grow peaches,’ he assured her. ‘Not the other things, of course. But I am sure we can grow your lactuca, whatever it is. All we need is a gardener who can bring the seeds and who has already