Chapter Text
I sometimes forget myself, thought Arthur, Prince of Wales, you’d think fifteen years in this life would have robbed the surprise off of me.
Arthur’s old life, which was in the future, or something like that (he really couldn’t be bothered to remember), had been nothing like this one. He’d been attractive then, too, but from an eastern country he could barely remember and hadn’t really liked before him and his old family moved to the other country which he liked better.
(OS? US?)
The point was, in this life, he was a prince. Of a European nation in what his brain had supplied to him years ago to be renaissance era, or thereabouts. He was the miracle his parents had prayed for (though he thought there was nothing particularly special about him aside from, well, his face) and was the cornerstone of the new dynasty which had sort-of-but-not-really-it-is-complicated deposed the old one. That his mother was part of.
It was complicated.
Back to the present. Arthur really hadn’t meant to do this. He’d been repeatedly told by numerous sources (Grandmother, Mother, Father, his sisters, that brat Harry, and half the court) that he was so beautiful, it bordered on ridiculous. On an intellectual level, he knew this to be true. So true it was more of a hassle than an advantage, before his father (Henry, the something, Tudor) decided to put a temporary ban on new court arrivals Arthur had to witness people faint in front of him on the regular. Or, well, swoon, or whatever it was when people swayed a little, wouldn’t respond when called, and suddenly lost the ability to speak.
Harry thought it was hilarious.
His parents, less so.
Arthur put a hand above his mouth. The Spanish Infanta (and didn’t that mean infant? Why that and not princess) finally seemed to regain her bearing.
“F-forgive me…”, she trailed off in accented English, “I’d heard…”
“It’s fine”, it really was, thought Arthur, this Catalina girl was actually one of the better ones, barely a minute of swooning, only beaten by Lady Jane Crane, whom Arthur was convinced was secretly a lesbian, “Believe it or not, this happens to me all the time.”
His hand was still over his mouth.
“Forgive me for asking, your highness”, began the princess, “but may I ask why you are covering your face?”
Already back to full sentences? Arthur felt the sudden urge to hug her. But that was probably inappropriate, somehow.
“I’m forbidden from smiling.”, he said instead.
Clearly Catalina, and wasn’t that a lovely name, thought the order as ridiculous as Arthur himself did. At first a joke within the royal nursery, it had evolved into an official, if not strictly enforced royal order when two years ago one of the Duke of Norfolk’s relations threw herself at Arthur and demanded his love, knife in hand.
(It was one of the most terrifying moments of his life, and left him and his siblings, who witnessed the scene, heavily traumatised.
That the woman was well into her twenties and towered over Arthur made it worse, he thinks.)
But though he and the princess were to be married, she had yet to unlock his tragic backstory, so instead he said, “It’s to prevent more of that.”, and pointed behind Catalina.
Maria de Salinas and the Moor Lady Lina (as Catalina called her), were faring differently, though worse than their mistress. Lady Lina had been snapped out of her own swooning by Lady Maria suddenly loosing her footing and falling to the grass. The kind Lady Lina caught her before she could stain her dress, thankfully, but Maria was still trying to blink out of her trance.
“…I believe I understand.”
While Arthur did not doubt she did (she seemed like a smart girl) he also sensed there was a second meaning behind her words, as if some kind of resolution had been made. He supposed so long as she never went crazy over him, and she didn’t seem likely to, the two of them were well matched.
And to think he’d been worried!
My husband has the face of an angel, thought Catalina in the back of her mind, while out loud she recited the vows of marriage before the priest.
When no portrait of the prince arrived before she set to travel to England both Catalina and her mother feared the worst. That he was somehow deformed, or just ugly. Queen Isabela did not falter, however, and so Catalina did not allow herself to doubt either. It was her destiny to be Queen of England, this had been true almost since she was born.
She had first thought herself blessed when her future husband turned out to not be ugly, but rather too beautiful. According to the Princess Margaret, Arthur’s younger sister, three different artists had been hired to paint her brother, but upon meeting Arthur, they had professed themselves unable to replicate the likeness of the ‘ultimate muse’.
Ten years old prince Harry laughed while saying that.
But a too beautiful husband came with downsides, as could be seen with her sister Juana’s relationship with her husband Philip, known for his philandering. She had expressed her concerns to one her new ladies, a Jane Crane, assigned to her from the household of Queen Elizabeth.
“That would require a lady to be able to speak in his presence.”, was her response, “The prince has been rather put off by women since the incident two years ago.”
The incident in question, according to lady Jane, consisted of a madwoman who thought herself the prince’s one true love. Not only was this blatantly untrue as the prince had not even known her name before she decided to act on her affections, he’d also been thirteen to her 29 years of age.
As Lady Jane put it, “She decided to act when the prince was visiting his younger siblings’ household in Hastings. There’s less security there, because there are so many people, the guards are just at the entrances. She threw herself at him, literally, with a knife in hand and said that if he wouldn’t be hers, he could be nobodies. This was because preparations for your arrival were already underway, we think, madam, it’s what prompted her to act.”
“What did the prince do?”, Catalina had asked, and Lady Jane looked at her with an expression that conveyed her utter disgust for the situation.
“The prince didn’t do anything, poor boy was terrified, it was princess Mary’s nurse that broke a vase over the woman’s head.”
Another one of her new ladies, Mistress Anne, had leaned in and added, “I heard that wasn’t before she’s fondled the prince all over though.”
That had seen shushed by Lady Jane.
Looking at her new husband now, the picture of princely grace, Catalina could not image a younger version of him experiencing such an event without a shudder running down her spine.
Arthur noticed her looking and turned to her, face blank, “Everything alright?”
She wondered how long it took him to stop smiling, even without meaning to, and pondered at the despair that must have driven his dedication to such a task.
“Just exited for tonight.”, she said.
Arthur’s face fell from neutrality to what could almost be called nervousness. “Yes. Tonight.”, and then he seemed at a loss for words, “Tonight… It is not that I do not like you—that is, you are very beautiful…I don’t want you to think—”
“Arthur, I know.”, she said, because it needed to be told, “I understand.”
“You understand.”, said Arthur, though he did not make it sound like a question. “Jane Crane?”
Catalina blinked, confounded, “What?”
“Lady Jane Crane was my sister Margaret companion before she became one of my mother’s ladies. She was in Hastings, that day. Though not at that moment.”, there was a tightness to Arthur voice, a catch of his breath. It would make any other person sound awkward, but with Arthur it sounded strangely… soothing.
“She didn’t say”, was her answer, though he had not asked a question.
Arthur nodded, “No, I image she didn’t. It was all very confounding. But I was not asking because of that… incident. I just think sleeping with someone I barely know to be a non-ideal situation. But if you would prefer to—”
“I would like to be guided by you.”, she said, still not entirely convinced he wasn’t lying.
If she had been in his place, Catalina might have chosen to enter a convent.
“We are married. I will support you in everything now, as my lord and husband. If you wish for time, I will give it. We are not in a hurry.”
The feast to celebrate their marriage continued. Catalina and her Spanish ladies performed a traditional Spanish dance. Catalina had the pleasure of seeing Lord Mendoza, the new Spanish ambassador, undergo what Prince Harry told her the English called the Arthur Effect. It was an unusual display of excess from the famously penny pinching first Tudor king.
That night, in her bedchamber, when the night was done and all was quiet Arthur took her hand into his and said, “To be honest, I’ve been wanting to hug you since I met you. For some reason, I just think that I am lucky to have you.”
Catalina was the first to put her arms around him. She thought about her mother, who’d been right after all, God had put her exactly where she was needed, placed to support her beautiful young husband in a way only a daughter of Isabela of Castile could. She thought wryly that their roles were rather reversed, that she was to be maiden knight in shining armour. She found that she did not mind the prospect.