1535-1536

Going to Italy is what saves him. Hal hasn't wanted to admit it to his father, who dotes on him more and more with every year he doesn't have a legitimate Prince of Wales in the cradle, but another damp, cold English winter might well have been the last straw for his straining chest.

However, he is sent to Ferrara in October 1535, tasked with the job of getting Duke Ercole to agree to a marriage between his young son and heir, Lord Alfonso, and the Princess Elizabeth, who is just two months older than her prospective groom. Many mutter that Hal is too young for such a task, being just sixteen, but his father is adamant. After all, he argues, "who better to sing the praises of our beloved Elizabeth than her own dear brother?"

There is another reason for sending him, Hal knows. The Dukes of Ferrara are fiercely Catholic – they have to be, being so close to that bastion of Catholic Power, the Papal States – but they are not, by any stretch of the imagination, a strong player of international diplomacy. They're too small a state for that. His father hopes, therefore, that making a grand show of honouring them by sending his own son to treat with them will be enough to woo them into allowing the match between their heir and his daughter, especially given the Duchess herself was once childhood friends with the Princess's mother, Queen Anne.

It is not, in the end, enough. Oh, the Ferranese play the game well enough, receiving Hal with honour and answering his suit with pretty words and vague promises of consideration, but they never have any real intention of agreeing to what he asks of them.

Still, the months in Italy do him the world of good, physically. Between the warmer winter and the chance to escape to the Alps and breathe in the clearer mountain air, Hal finally manages to shake off the nagging weakness in his chest. Excited by the progress he is making, he lingers in Ferrara far longer than he necessarily needs to. By the time he returns to England, in early July of 1536, he feels like a new man.

Even better, he returns to find that the Howards have finally agreed to allow his wife, Mary, to share his house, his life and his bed.

They'd been reluctant to do so before he left, citing Mary's youth and his own poor health as reasons for why they shouldn't cohabit, and his father the King, always mindful that Prince Arthur had weakened himself by sharing the bed of the Spanish Infanta Katherine too often, had agreed, despite Hal's own vehement protests.

But the England he returns to is not the England he left. Princess Elizabeth's mother, Queen Anne, has crashed out of favour, beheaded on Tower Hill for incest and adultery. Princess Elizabeth, once feted as the only legitimate heiress to the throne, has been branded a bastard and shuttled off out of sight to Hatfield House. Jane Seymour now sits at his father's side with a crown upon her head, and it is her brothers and her father who are the rising stars of the English Court, not the former Queen's Howard relatives.

In this new political landscape, the Howards, scrambling to regain their footing, reconsider their refusal to have Hal and Mary cohabit. After all, with no Prince of Wales on the horizon just yet, and his father free to choose his own heir, if things stay that way, all of a sudden, the prospect of Fitzroy grandchildren seems a very enticing one.

As such, when Hal rides north to take up the reins of his position as Warden of the Marches towards Scotland once more, he does so with his wife at his side, her honey-brown hair rippling in the wind as they ride across the Yorkshire moors to Sheriff Hutton.

1538-1544

If he's honest with himself, Hal has to admit that he wasn't entirely sure how Sheriff Hutton and its people would cope with their new Duchess. He and Mary have been married for three years, it's true, but this is Mary's first trip north of the Trent. What little time the two of them have spent together has been in London, at Durham House on the Strand, or even at Court. And with his having been away for so long…he can't help but worry that the northerners might feel just the tiniest bit aggrieved at having to share him with his wife, now that they are suddenly confronted with her actual presence, rather than just the theoretical idea of her.

He very quickly realises that he needn't have worried. Mary Howard is as determined and pragmatic and charming as any of her brothers. The northerners fall in love with her almost as soon as look at her.

When their first son, Henry, is christened two summers later, in August 1538, cheering villagers line the road between the manor and the chapel, all craning their necks to get a glimpse of the new Earl of Nottingham as he is borne past in a litter bearing the Richmond coat of arms. Those who are lucky enough to work at Sheriff Hutton dote on the little lord, as they call him, despite the fact that he is prone to acquiring patches of dry, red skin. These tend to flare up on his bottom and the backs of his legs, so that he kicks irritably in his swaddling bands deep into the night, leaving his nursemaids grainy-eyed and cross from lack of sleep.

The King, however, has no patience with the northerners' adoration of young Harry Fitzroy. He doesn't trust the North. He hasn't trusted it since the populace rose up in defence of their Catholic faith and their religious houses. He will not have the future Duke of Richmond and Somerset raised in what, to him, is a hotbed of treasonous thought. As such, when Hal and Mary are summoned south for Christmas and to meet Hal's newest stepmother, the Lady Anne of Cleves in December 1539, it is made excruciatingly clear that they are to bring Harry with them and leave him in the care of Lady Bryan, to be raised alongside his uncle, the toddler Prince Edward.

Mary, predictably, is distraught.

"How could he do this to us, Hal? Does he not trust us?" She weeps into Hal's shoulder, her nails digging painfully into his spine, "Have we not done everything we can to hold the North for him? Have we not sworn to bring our children up in the Church of England, as he asks of us? How can he take Harry from us? How?"

"Hush, sweetheart," Hal murmurs, rubbing her back, "I know how upset you are, but have a care what you say. Please. He's the King and we, including Harry, are but his subjects. We are his to command, and so it should be. You know that. Don't let him see your anger. Please. Or do you want to risk losing custody of Gilbert as well, if my father thinks you resent him?"

Mary's grey eyes go wide as her head shoots up. Hal barely gets his chin out of the way in time to stop their heads colliding.

"Do you think he'd do that? Truly?"

Hal shrugs, "I'd like to say not, but between the death of Queen Jane and the years of tension from here in the North? My father is not as carefree a man as I remember him being when I was a child. In all honesty, I no longer dare to presume I know what he will and will not do. Let's not take our chances, hmm?"

He forces a smile at Mary, and, hesitantly, she returns it, "But we have each other, don't we?" she asks, and Hal nods.

"Until death do us part, my darling. You have my word on that. Come what may."

He kisses her softly and pulls her up from the divan they have collapsed on together, "Come. It's time we told Harry he's coming with us. And the household. They'll be as distraught as you were, I shouldn't wonder."

Only Hal ever knows what it costs Mary to hand her precious eldest son over to Lady Bryan's care. With her husband's warning ringing in her ears, she makes sure of that. Everyone else simply sees the mask of gratitude that the King should see fit to have his eldest grandson raised alongside his longed-for Prince.

And at least the boys bond well, laughing and squabbling together over a set of cloth balls within minutes of meeting each other. That is a great relief, one that lightens Mary's heart just a little.

At home too, Mary finds the burden of having left her eldest soon eases, subsumed into a mere nagging ache by the mindless routine of her daily duties as Duchess of Richmond and Somerset. It is helped in this regard by both Lady Bryan's regular missives reporting on Harry's latest achievements, and by the antics of the children she still has left to her.

Gilbert, thirteen months younger than Harry, has his royal grandfather's ruddy curls as opposed to his parents' ashier looks, and is three times as active as his older brother ever was. Once he has learned to walk, which he does at a frighteningly early age, not a day goes by when his nursemaid isn't bemoaning the fact that he has managed to get into something he shouldn't. He is both an enchanting child and a terrifying one. Indeed, Mary is convinced that it is the day he runs under his father's horse and gets kicked in the shoulder at the age of just fifteen months that causes her to miscarry his first younger sibling.

Fortunately, Gilbert's first younger sibling is not to be his last. In May 1542, he is joined in the nursery by a younger sister, Cecily, named for the King's grandmother, the Duchess of York, whose birthday she is born on.

Mary is pregnant for a fifth time when a startling piece of news reaches them from London.

"But Sire! Please, Your Grace cannot put the Duke of Richmond into the Succession ahead of the Lady Mary and the Lady Elizabeth!"

"I cannot?! You dare to tell me I cannot?"

King Henry snarls the words and glares at his Archbishop of Canterbury. Cranmer fights back a sigh, rubbing his nose fiercely with one hand as he seeks God-given patience to answer the King.

"Your Majesty, I wish it were otherwise. No one is denying that the Duke of Richmond has been a splendid Warden of the Northern Marches, that he would no doubt make a splendid King, if, God forbid, anything were to happen to Prince Edward. But, at the same time, His Grace is undeniably base-born."

"Need I remind you, Cranmer, that my daughters are base-born too?" The King's voice lowers dangerously. Cranmer stifles a gulp and twists his fingers together so that the King might not see them trembling. Stealing a beseeching look at the Queen, he forces himself to speak.

"Well, yes, Sire, but unlike His Grace of Richmond, the Lady Mary and the Lady Elizabeth were both conceived and born while Your Majesty believed yourself to be in true holy matrimony with their respective mothers, the Dowager Princess and the Lady Anne."

Sensing the King's eyes smouldering, Cranmer hurries on, "I am not saying Your Majesty was not deceived into thinking so, for you were, of course, but the fact remains that Your Grace's daughters possess at least a claim to legitimacy that His Grace of Richmond and Somerset does not. I beg you, Sire, for the sake of the Kingdom, do not put Henry Fitzroy into the Succession above his sisters."

An awkward silence falls. The King splutters incoherently, puce with rage.

"My Lord of Canterbury, I wonder if I might ask you a question?"

To Cranmer's immense relief, it is the Queen's soothing voice that cuts through the tension. He nods frantically, noting that she has put her hand on the King's thigh as she speaks.

"Of course, Your Grace."

"Did the Act of Succession drawn up in 1536 not give His Majesty the right to decide his own heir?"

"Well, yes, My Lady, but that was before the birth of Prince Edward. The Act clearly states…"

"Well, as His Majesty has no plans to disinherit the Prince of Wales, I don't see what difference it makes," Queen Katherine cuts him off, voice decisively cool, "You have just told me that my lord husband has the right to decide upon the Succession for himself. He has made it perfectly clear what he wishes to do. Now it is up to you to set it in stone."

Her Majesty's tone is perfectly polite, but her eyes are steely. Cranmer's heart sinks as he realises she will brook no argument. He sinks his head into a nod.

"As you say, My Lady."

1553

"I hate to say it, Hal, but Edward won't last much longer," Mary looks up at her husband, laying her hand on his chest as her golden-brown head lies gently on his shoulder. The curtains of their grand four-poster bed are firmly shut around them. She made sure of that before she spoke. They've always done their plotting like this, shut in their bed, away from the world, so that no one but their most trusted servants even has a chance of overhearing them.

Hal sighs, "I know, Mary. Believe me, I know. But then, so does the rest of court. It's obvious he'll barely last the month, if that."

"And your father named you his heir. Are you going to stand by that?"

"What choice do I have?" Hal asks her heavily, sliding his eyes down to look at her, "I know Mary won't like it, but, for all his faults, my father was thinking clearly enough when he named me Edward's heir presumptive. I have the advantage of being male and Harry and Gilbert and Will are solid, breathing proof that my Succession, at the very least, is secure. Neither Mary nor Bess can offer the people that."

Mary nods, feeling her husband's chest vibrate as he stifles a laugh at how her hair tickles him as she moves her head, "My father will stand with you, you know that. If only for the boys' sake. He'd do anything to see his grandsons on the throne."

"I know, and I am grateful for it. But, powerful though the Howards are, they're not enough to base my kingship upon. I need other families too."

"You need the Dudleys."

Mary says what they are both thinking. John Dudley, Duke of Northumberland, the King's Lord Protector, may come from relatively humble stock, but he has catapulted himself up the ranks and is now the second-most powerful man in the country. To have his support for Hal's bid for the throne would be invaluable.

"What will you offer them?" she asks quietly.

"Bess."

Hal's response comes back so quickly, she knows at once he has already thought this through a thousand times. God above, how many nights has he lain awake planning this?

"In exchange, I'll expect Northumberland to hold London for me, particularly the Tower, until I can get there. I'll send your father to Norfolk. I need him to seize Mary for me."

"I see. And you, Hal? Where are you going to be in all this?"

"Me? I'm going to be with Bess, so I can bring her to London with me. I don't trust her not to baulk at the idea of marrying Guilford Dudley."

"Guilford?" Mary can't help the way her brows raise at that, "Can't you offer her Robert and make the match at least somewhat palatable for her?"

"Not unless you want me to break off his marriage to Amy Robsart," Hal arches an eyebrow back at her and Mary groans.

"She's not going to be happy."

"I know. Which is why I need to be with her, to make sure she doesn't baulk. You, on the other hand, are going to stay here at Court. We need at least one of us with the King till the end, to put anyone who might be suspicious off our tracks. But yes, before you say it, you may write to Sheriff Hutton and prepare the children to come south at a moment's notice."

Mary flashes him a brilliant smile for that. It is moments like these, when he remembers her love for the domestic in amongst all the clever plotting, that she remembers just why she adores her husband so.

Hal stretches then. He begins to rise, nudging her off his shoulder as he does so. He reaches out a hand to part their tester curtains. Fingers wrapped around the fabric, he stops. He looks back at her.

"Do I have you, my love?" he questions softly, so softly she has to strain to hear him.

When she makes out the words, however, her mind flashes back to that morning, all those years ago, when he comforted her over having to leave Hal with Lady Bryan. She answers just as he did then.

"Until death do us part, my darling. You have my word on that. Come what may."

Her words hang in the air. Hal squares his shoulders and prepares to meet the world.

He rides for Hatfield that very afternoon.

Elizabeth and Hal are together when the news comes. They are playing chess, both bent over the chessboard, gazing at it intently. They are leaning so close that her red curls almost touch his ash-blonde ones. She hesitates, then, with a decided nod, jumps her Queen's Knight over his King's Bishop.

He curses softly under his breath, "I was hoping you wouldn't see that."

She glances up at him her lips twisting coyly into a smirk, "You taught me too well for that, brother. I'm not a little girl you need to be gentle with anymore. Not on the chessboard."

He is about to respond when hurried footsteps in the gallery outside the parlour break into their comfortable closeness.

They look up in unison and turn towards the door even as Robert Dudley slams it open.

Kat Ashley is right behind him, flushed with embarrassment.

"Lord Richmond, My Lady Elizabeth, I do apologise. I told Lord Robert that you had withdrawn and had no wish to be disturbed, but…"

"This news cannot wait," Robin snaps, cutting Kat off so abruptly that she falls uncharacteristically silent, stunned by his effrontery. Thus freed from the shackles of her twittering, Robin swings to face Hal where he sits.

"King Edward is dead. Long live King Henry IX!"

His strong young voice rings through the small chamber. His words hang in the air potently.

Elizabeth's mind whirls. Hal, King? How could Hal be King?

Oh, she's known for years that their father wanted him to be King, had gone so far as to name him Edward's heir presumptive ahead of herself and Mary, because he is a boy and they are just girls, but somehow, as long as Edward was alive, she's never really considered what she might do if this day actually ever came.

Which means she's having to re-calibrate her entire way of thinking very, very quickly. Mary will never stand for this, of course, she's never seen anyone but Edward and herself as their father's true heirs. But what does that mean for her? There is no denying that, while Hal is definitely illegitimate, he has been chosen as Edward's heir by both Edward and their father – and Parliament gave their father, at least, the right to choose his own heir. Their father had always been quick to point that out whenever any of them displeased him, warning that just as he had put them into the Succession, so too could he take them out again.

There is also the pressing fact that Hal is here, in the flesh, waiting for her reaction. And illegitimate or not, he is still indisputably their father's son. Tudor blood runs in his veins too, and with it, ruthlessness. She'd like to think he wouldn't hurt her, if she refused to acknowledge him as her King, but…

"Liza!" Robin catches her eye in the mirror over the fireplace and mouths her name so that Hal can't see. Silent though his call is, it is no less urgent for all that.

"I'd not be Queen anyway. If I refused to acknowledge Hal, I'd have to acknowledge Mary as my sovereign, and Heaven knows we're not as close as I am to Hal. Not anymore."

That thought, flashing through her mind, decides her. She rises, gathers her skirts in her hands and sweeps down into what is possibly the deepest, most important curtsy of her life.

"Your Majesty," she breathes, "My dearest brother."

Somewhere above her bent head, she senses Robin slump with relief and then Hal is lifting her up and kissing her on both cheeks.

"Sweet sister Bess," he smiles, "Might I invite you to ride to London with me?"

"I'll not do it! I'll not marry Guilford Dudley!" Elizabeth screams at her older brother, her cheeks almost as red as her hair and her lips profoundly white with temper against her flushed skin.

She shoves at him, dark eyes snapping. There is a sharp intake of breath. The guards standing unobtrusively in the corner rattle their swords in their sheaths and take a step towards her. Hal, though, Hal doesn't take his eyes from hers as he stops them in their tracks with a half-raised hand.

"I need the Dudleys, Elizabeth," he says coldly, and, despite Elizabeth's fury, somewhere in the back of her mind, it registers with her that Hal must be seriously displeased, if he is using her full name. He has never called her Elizabeth before, never. She's always been 'Bess' to him, right from when she was a little girl, playing with her Richmond cousins at Durham House.

"Give them your daughter!" she spits, only just refraining from stamping on his foot in her heeled boots.

"Cecily's too young and you know it!"

Suddenly, his hands flash out to seize her shoulders. He uses his superior height and strength to drag her to a halt and force her to look at him.

"I am your King, Lady Elizabeth, and I would have you remember that," he hisses from between teeth locked together in rage, "I am your King and you are my subject. You will wed where I bid you."

Were it any other man, Elizabeth would laugh in his face for this. But Hal is as much a Tudor as she, and, even if she hates it, he is speaking the truth. Her father, her brother Edward, Parliament, they have all proclaimed Hal first heir presumptive and now King Henry IX. She is far from a fool; she would not deny Hal his title, not to his face, not when he still holds her shoulders in an iron grip, fury sparking in his bright blue eyes. Mary might have done, but then Elizabeth knows enough now to know that her older sister can often be more stubborn than is good for her. Hence why she now languishes in the Tower, under the 'protection' of a mixed cadre of Richmond and Northumberland guards, while Elizabeth herself still dances attendance (and balls and masques) at her half-brother's court.

With a concerted effort, she makes herself drop her gaze. Hal waits several seconds and then exhales, letting her go.

"You were raised to do your duty by England, sister," he says gravely, "I am asking you now to do it."

He turns on his heel before she can respond and stalks to the door.

"Why can't it be Robert?" The words are out before she can stop herself, "If I must marry a Dudley, why can't it be Robin? You saw us together as children, Hal, you know what he is to me! How can I marry his brother and not him?"

Hal freezes on the threshold. She sees his shoulders rise and fall several times before he answers her.

"Your 'Robin' is married, Bess. He has been married for a full three years. Whatever he may be whispering in your ear, it is high time you got used to that idea."

With that, he swishes his cloak behind him and strides away.

1558

"We've done it! After all these years, after everything, we've actually done it. England is safe at last." Hal thinks, as he sits on the dais in the Great Hall at Windsor Castle, awaiting the arrival of the guests of honour, the Prince and Princess of Wales and Princess Cecily.

The last five years haven't been easy for them; not with Spain using their familial ties to the Lady Mary to raise the Catholic standard championing her cause and influencing many other Catholic countries to refuse to acknowledge Hal as King.

But Hal had always known that was a likely possibility, and so he never even tried to stop it. Rather, he sought to counter it, to place England at the heart of a wide-ranging anti-Catholic alliance. And tonight, at this banquet, he knows in his heart he has done it. His son, the twenty-year-old Prince of Wales, has just married Maria of Nassau, the eldest sister of the Prince of Orange. It is not perhaps the most prestigious of matches, but the House of Orange is a key player in the Protestant states of Europe, a useful trading partner, and – possibly most importantly, given the circumstances under which the match was made – not afraid to defy their Spanish overlords. Cecily, meanwhile, is sailing for Denmark at the end of the month, to marry the Danish Crown Prince in person, after their proxy marriage was celebrated on her 16th birthday this past May. Hal likes to think that even Spain might think twice about taking the English, the Dutch and the Danish all on at once.

Especially now that the Lady Mary, on whose behalf they have made so many threats over the years, is the late Lady Mary. Hal's older half-sister died earlier in the year, having not seen the world outside the Tower in nearly five years. The physicians say she died of a growth in her stomach, and Hal has been worried in case people accused him of poisoning her, but no such rumours have reached his ears, thankfully. Maybe the presence of not just a healthy Prince of Wales, but also a Duke of Richmond and a Duke of Somerset, has stopped too many people wanting to question just what Hal would do to keep his throne, if he had to. His father always did say that the English populace would do nearly anything for the sake of a secure Succession.

Gay laughter breaks into his thoughts and Hal squints down at the dancefloor to see his second son, eighteen-year-old Gilbert, whirling his Duchess of Richmond, seventeen-year-old Katherine Grey, around the floor. He smiles at the sight. Gilbert begged to marry Kate several years ago now. He'd only been fifteen, and Kate fourteen, but he'd been adamant. He'd stamped his feet and swore blind he'd take no other Duchess of Richmond. Hal hadn't been sure that letting the impulsive young cousins marry was a wise thing to do, but his Mary, who has always had a something of a soft spot for her second-born son, had convinced him, saying it was much better than risking Kate's dishonour, if nothing else, and so far, it seems to be going well. Although he really must remind Mary to talk to Kate; to mention to her that vigorous dances like a galliard are no fit exercise for an expectant mother.

Bright copper hair catches his eye as his sister Bess whirls past him, laughing merrily with her partner. This time, Hal narrows his eyes and looks away.

Bess's conduct with her brother by marriage, Lord Robert, is an open secret. Everyone knows that Bess spends far more time with Robert than she ever does with Guilford. Everyone knows that she still calls him Robin and he still calls her Liza, even though they are long past being children in the nursery. Everyone knows that her two daughters, Anne and Katherine, are far too dark-haired and dark-eyed to realistically be Guilford's.

Everyone knows, but no one says anything, and for that, Hal is glad, for as long as no one says anything, he doesn't have to act. He can turn a blind eye; pretend he doesn't see what's right in front of him. He's promised Bess he'll do that for as long as he can, provided she doesn't force his hand by being too blatant in her preference for Robert over Guilford.

She's treading a fine line tonight, but then, this is the greatest celebration England has seen in years. It would hardly be surprising if she was more than a little drunk right now.

"They're here!" Mary scrambles up on to the dais beside him, breathless with joy. He takes her hand, delighted to see she's had such a fine time dancing while he stood and watched.

Side by side, they wait with bated breath as the heralds bang on the floor with their staves.

"Their Highnesses, the Prince and Princess of Wales! Her Highness, the Crown Princess of Denmark!"

The three young people, all resplendent in the green and gold of their house, advance down the centre of the hall, Cecily keeping pace with her brother and new sister perfectly, as befits the fact that they are all three of equal rank.

Halfway down the room, they stop. Hal locks eyes with each of them in turn and lifts his goblet in a silent toast. They follow suit.

The four of them hold the tableau for several long seconds.

"The Future!"

It is Gilbert who shouts it, and Hal cringes inwardly. Will his second son never learn the importance of solemnity?

But then the courtiers take it up, shouting themselves hoarse with the rallying cry until the very walls of Windsor seem to shake. Hal softens and turns to give Gilbert a smile. Perhaps his more impulsive son has a better sense of what appeals to people than he does.

The future. What a perfect toast. What a perfect legacy.