A/N: I've added a few changes to the last chapter.

Fireflower.

He smiled and handed the paper back to the silk-and-velvet page who had delievered it.

"Secret missives from the bride to the bridegroom?" his cousin, Maurice St John teased him. Maurice was the Queen's favourite nephew and had been his playfellow for years.

"Hardly," he replied. "It's from Her Grace." He nodded to the page and said, "Will you deliever a message from her to me?"

The boy was young, as young as Harry - and quite as dramatic it seemed. He swept a low bow and cried, "I am yours to command, Your Highness!"

"To the very death?" he asked solemnly. Wistfully he remembered his childhood, playing knights-and-monsters and dragons-and-damsels with Maurice, Gruff and Thomas. 'To the very death' had been one their catchphrases - though Maurice had liked 'Off with your head!' better.

"To the very death, my prince," the boy said, with equal solemnity. Gruff and Maurice were grinning now as though they could tell what he had in mind.

Arthur bent forwards and kissed his cheek. "There," he said. "Will you deliever that message from me to Her Grace?"

The boy turned pale. Arthur laughed and tousled his hair. "I won't hold you to that pledge," he said. "Run along now." The boy obeyed - swiftly. If only I could chase Harry away this easily, he thought resentfully. His little brother was a plague.

Thomas Howard was leaning over him, reading the word on the paper. "Fireflower?" he asked, puzzled.

"Fireworks," he explained. "I used to call them that when I was a child." He didn't elaborate when Thomas continued to look politely puzzled. The story was too... personal.

He could not have been more than three or four at the time, for it was his first memory. It must have been shortly after his betrothal too. There'd been a feast - perhaps they'd won a northern skirmish, perhaps they'd lopped a traitor's head - at night and the sky had burst into flame. He had been frightened but his grandmother had held his hand and told him to be brave. Her stern face had been soft and gentle and she'd told him that those were fireflowers blooming in the sky, that they couldn't hurt him and that he was not to be afraid but to enjoy their beauty. After that it'd be alright and he'd been quite sorry when the show had ended. He'd asked her if they could have fireflowers at his wedding too and she'd smiled and said they might, if he was a good boy.

Perhaps I've been a good boy.

Today was the morning of his wedding day. He'd been dolled up as prettily as a girl, in shining silk and brocade, with a jewelled sword at his hip and a plumed cap on his bright hair. He looked into the mirror and saw a fairytale prince. Little girls - princesses and peasants alike - dreamt of marrying princes like him. They dreamt of songs and roses, pretty words and sweet kisses. Then they grew up and their fathers married them off.

They married hard men, like his father, or soft men under hard women's thumbs, like him. They married dashing men, like Thomas, who lived for blood or cravens with triple chins, like Maurice. They married men old enough to be their grandfathers or young men who smelt like worse. They married fools or, what was worse, wise men. They swore to love and cherish rogues and to keep their faith to traitors and turncoats. They smiled and bowed and simpered under men who were not fit to scrape their shoes.

A bad world for little girls, he thought, thinking about his sister, Margaret. Catalina of Aragon ought to be bloody grateful she's getting me.

"Let's hope the bridegroom's not prettier than the bride," Thomas quipped. Thomas had the dashing good looks of a soldier and women swooned over him. Arthur looked like a mooncalf and girls swooned over him because their mothers told them to. Maurice and Gruff answered him, laughing and quipping, their words bawdy as they discussed the bridegroom's charms - and the bride's.

At least we'll both look pretty together, Arthur thought. Catalina was so tiny that even a small man would seem tall, standing by her. Arthur wasn't small - well, he hoped not - but he still hadn't finished growing. He stood higher than his grandmother, of course but that wasn't saying much - Harry was only an inch shorter than her. He was shorter than their father and - what was worse - than their tall mother too. Catalina will do wonders for my self-esteem.

There was a tap on the door and the silk-and-velvet page appeared again. Arthur wondered where the others were off to - there was usually a swarm of them buzzing around like little bumbleebees bragging about how many brothels they'd been to.

"Come to have another taste of the prince, lad?" Maurice jeered.

The boy flushed but he bowed and said manfully, "My lord prince, the Princess of Wales wishes to see you."

Thomas stared. Gruff stared. Maurice, the supremely self-confident, stared. Then their eyes swivelled to Arthur. Then they swivelled back to the page. It was as good as a tennis tournament to see their eyes swivelling back and forth.

"Thank you," Arthur said coolly. "Does she require me to visit the Queen's apartments?" His mother had no private apartments of her own - his grandmother had her bedded in her own chambers, except when his father called for her.

"So please Your Highness, Her Highness is at the door. She desires to see you privately."

Well. That was... interesting. As far as he could remember, he'd never seen his mother privately. His grandmother had always hovered in the background - or had sent a trusted attendant to do the hovering when she was too busy.

Arthur jerked his head at his companions. They filed out of the room obediently. "You too," he told the page, who lingered. "Go."

"Shall I not announce Her Highness?" the boy asked.

"God above, she's my mother," he snapped, harsher than he'd intended to sound. "She hardly needs to be announced." Though it did give him a queer feeling as the page left and he strode forwards to open the doors.

My mother, he thought. My mother's come to see me on my wedding day. How strange it sounded.

She was standing in the little antechamber that opened onto his bedroom. She was radiant, as always. A vision in grey silk and thick ropes of black-and-white pearls in her hair and at her throat.

"Lady mother," he said awkwardly and bowed. Awkward. Awkward. He didn't like the feeling. Why was she here at all? Who'd sent her? His grandmother? That sounded unlikely. What was she after? What did she want?

There was a little smile playing on her lips, a sad smile. All her smiles were sad. "Her Grace was kind enough to grant me permission to visit you on your wedding morn," she said. "What could be more natural than for a mother to bless her son on such a day?"

That sounded logical enough. Reasonable. Pity that courts were not ruled by reason.

Her voice was hesitant as she said, "I wanted to see you. I- I was not sent."

"My lady mother," he began, but she had moved forwards swiftly and embraced him.

Mother, he thought drowsily as rested her head on his shoulder and a sweet fragrance - lemon pies he thought for one confused moment - enveloped him. It was embarrassing. It was awkward. He couldn't remember his mother ever embracing him and it felt so strange, so wrong as though it were some other woman, the sort of woman you could buy with a coin, holding him in her arms. He pushed her away and was sorry a moment later.

"My apologies," he said quickly and held out his arms, expecting her to rush at him again. That seemed like the sort of thing mothers liked. Perhaps he was lucky that his lady grandmother had never permitted him much contact with her - women's embraces were just so awkward.

But she only stood there and smiled. That same smile. It was- it was... well whatever it was he didn't like it. He wished she'd stop smiling. He wished she'd just go away.

"You look so like my brother," she said tenderly.

"Which?" he said automatically before remembering that it was hardly the most delicate thing he could have said.

She laughed. It wasn't a pleasant laugh. "Oh... either. Both. Edward, Richard - they were just babes when I last saw them. Oh, perhaps not quite babes but... I never can remember their faces." Her voice was wistful.

Then what made you say that I looked like your brother?

"I remember their sweet little faces when they were at the cradle," she said. "But I never can remember them as boys, though I must have seen them. But I like to pretend that-" she stopped abruptly. "You must pardon an old woman's wandering mind, my son."

He bowed and murmured the appropriately courtly compliment to her youth and beauty. This was what he did best. Cater to old women.

"But when I see them in my dreams," she continued. "They wear your face. Yours and Harry's. My bonny brothers, my poor, lost little lads."

My bonny sons, my poor, lost little lads. Not lost, no. Stolen. An Arthur for an Edward, a Henry for a Richard. Tudor sons and York brothers, royal princes, lost and stolen. By the same woman, perhaps. They blurred together.

She leaned forwards and kissed his cheek. "I wish you much happiness and luck in your wedded life," she said formally.

"You are too kind, lady mother," he said. "My thanks." He thought about bowing but decided amongst it. He'd already swept her so many graceful bows that she must think that he was planning to be a dancing master.

She nodded and swept away. He had the feeling that he'd missed something.

She glided in, like a sunbeam, through the great doors of the cathedral and a deep hush fell over all.

Pretty, he thought vaguely, glancing at her as she walked down the nave. She was in something elaborate, white and gold with a swirl of pearls. Elaborate and... heavy, from the looks of it. He remembered what Margaret had once told him, after she'd finished posing for a court portrait in a heavily-jewelled bodice. Near as heavy as a knight's breastplate, she'd assured him and smacked him when he'd laughed. Catalina's wedding gown was even more thickly studded with jewels. As she came closer, veiled and on his beaming brother's arm, he decided that it was simply monstrous. It begged to be flung off.

She was standing beside him now, as tiny and delicate as a doll. She smiled shyly at him through the lace screen of her veil.

"Dearly beloved, we are gathered together here in the sight of God to join together this Man and this Woman in holy Matrimony ..."

And so he was finally being married. He tried to pay attention. Who was it, sniffling behind him? Not his grandmother, surely. Perhaps his mother?

"I require and charge you both, as ye will answer at the dreadful day of judgment when the secrets of all hearts shall be disclosed, that if either of you know any impediment, why ye may not be lawfully joined together in Matrimony, that ye confess it."

He wondered whether her eyes were as blue as those of her portrait. Pity he'd never checked.

"Wilt the have this Woman to be thy wedded wife, to live together after God's ordinance in the holy estate of Matrimony?"

But then - he'd never had time. True, she'd been with them a week but-

"Wilt thou love her, comfort her, honour, and keep her, in sickness and in health; and forsaking all other, keep thee only unto her, so long as ye both shall live?"

Oh. It was his turn.

"I will," he said and was pleased that his voice had come out loud and strong. Thomas had teased him, saying that he was as meek as a maiden and that the guests might mistake him for the bride when he spoke.

It had been his grandmother's doing, he thought resentfully as the archbishop turned to his bride. At every high banquet they'd held throughout the week she'd had the girl seated next to her, while he'd been seated with his sisters. She would keep Catalina engaged in conversation while nudging the other Spanish girls towards him. She'd tell him to dance with an Alita or a Margarita or one of the neverending stream of Marias. If her plan was to make him fall for one of his bride's ladies-in-waiting, it was a poorly-constructed one. Laughably transparent. The Queen of Castile had probably chosen her daughter's retinue with care - none of the Spanish ladies outshone their mistress in beauty.

Perhaps she's getting old, he thought, of his grandmother. Pushing those other girls at him, thinking that he was so hungry for love that he'd willingly-

"I will," she said and her voice rang as loudly as his had done. Perhaps... louder?

It was his turn again. Weddings seemed to take forever. Good thing that Catalina seemed healthy enough. He didn't want to have to go through the whole process more times than he needed to.

"I take thee to my wedded wife, to have and to hold from this day forward, for better for worse, for richer for poorer, for fairer or fouler, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, till death us depart, according to God's holy ordinance; and thereunto I plight thee my troth."

"I take thee to my wedded husband, to have and to hold from this day forward, for better for worse, for richer or poorer, in sickness and in health, to be bonny and buxom at bed and at board, to love and to cherish, till death us depart, according to God's holy ordinance; and thereunto I plight thee my troth."

And then it was done - oh no, not quite. The archbishop was glowering at him because he'd made to throw back her veil as custom required at the end of the ceremony. There was still the matter of the rings.

Bloody hell, he thought resentfully as he brought out the wedding ring to be blessed by the archbishop. Rings and blessings and prayers and then some more prayers. His grandmother loved prayers. The archbishop loved his grandmother.

She'd better be as bonny and buxom as she promised to be, Arthur thought irritably, as he knelt next to his bride. I can think of a hundred better ways to waste a day than by a wedding. Maybe even a hundred and one.

A bedding's always the best part of a wedding.

He was beginning to rethink that. He was beginning to miss the wedding-part of the business when he was confronted by the bedding. He was beginning to miss the ribald oaths and the bawdy jokes that had made his grandmother scowl. He was definitely missing the wedding cake.

The fireworks had been good too.

She lay in his bed, more like a doll than ever. She wore a silk shift, beautifully embroidered no doubt. The loosened waves of her long, red hair lay over her shoulders and her face was now as pale as her shift though she'd managed to smile for him.

He knew what Thomas would have called her - a maiden fit for ravishment. Thomas would know something of ravishment. He fancied himself a pirate.

Would you have preferred Thomas? he thought vaguely. Dashing Thomas with his snapping black eyes and his easy laughter. Damned Thomas.

"My lady," he said formally. He took her hand and brought it to his lips.

"My lord," she said and her smile was very sweet - if nervous.

There - he'd kissed her hand. Now he felt at a loss. You're the lucky one, he thought. You just have to wait patiently and get ravished. I'm the one who has to do the ravishing. Girls always got it better. Boys had to read Latin and Greek and fight with stupid swords and joust and girls... girls didn't have to do much of anything except have boys.

She must have read his thoughts for she took his hand and gently placed it on her breast. He couldn't have jumped higher if she'd poured a pot of scalding water over it.

"I did not mean to give offence, my lord," she said softly and he saw that she was blushing as hard as he probably was. Redheads and blushes, he thought wryly. What a pair we must look now! "I only meant to- I mean, I-"

He smiled reassuringly at her. "Arthur," he said. "Not 'my lord', please. I would prefer if you would call me Arthur - as all my friends do."

And a wife can be a friend? her face said but she only said timidly, "I crave your forgiveness my- Arthur." She didn't like the sound of the word, it was clear. "Forgive me, my prince," she said. "But I am yet young to marriage. I hope I shall be more pleasing if you will but give me time to learn."

That makes two of us. Carefully, he withdrew his hand from her breast. "You have given no offence, my lady," he said, noting that she hadn't yet asked him to call her Catalina. "Indeed, were it but not for your initiative we would never have-" He stopped, realizing the implication of his words. "Are you tired?" he asked quickly.

"No," she replied. "Not in the slightest." She looked at him expectantly.

He climbed out of bed to extinguish the lights. "Well, I am." Now that was an elegant way to resolve the whole dilemma. He felt proud of himself for solving it so quickly. "It has been a long day and you will excuse me, my lady, if I am not in the mood for-"

There is no elegant way to phrase this, he thought. It's damnably stupid, this whole business. If I were God I would have thought of a better way of bringing children into the world.

He had expected her to look relieved. Instead she looked distressed. Either she was madly in lust with him - he rather doubted it - or the idea of their marriage going unconsummated distressed her. There's another Queen Margaret in the making that I have in my bed, he thought. Perhaps his grandmother would warm up to Catalina someday. Behind the pretty face, he sensed, she had a great deal of her mother and his grandmother in her. He pitied their grandchildren. If they ever managed to bring grandchildren out in the world.

He'd need to take Gruff up on his offer to visit the brothels.

"I crave your pardon, my l- my prince," she said. "But ought we not fulfil our duty? It is but a night's work and I have heard that it is not particularly... wearisome." She was a brave girl, to be sure, to make such a speech.

"It is but five minutes' work, my lady, not a night's," he said. "To take a night would require a-" Then he bit his tongue before he said something bawdy.

"Then perhaps we ought to-"

"My lady, you are licentious."

"I-?" she looked thoroughly bewildered. "Oh, my prince, you do mistake me-"

"Lust," he said solemnly. "It is a sin, my lady, a grave sin. My lady grandmother would not be pleased to know that you are of so lascivious a nature."

Your lady grandmother would be even less pleased to know that you have not consummated your marriage, Catalina thought resentfully. There was something queer about this boy. She raked her brains to find something to say. If the marriage went unconsummated, it would be blamed on her of course. A woman always got the blame while the man went free.

Too unattractive for him, they'd say. Too cold, too frigid. They'd whisper that there were greater powers at work, too. The English would take umbrage - did the Spanish think so little of the great alliance? Were they still waiting for a greater marriage for their virgin daughter? If the sheets were not stained with blood by the morrow, the Queen of England would want blood. She voiced this doubt.

"Oh, it's blood you want?" he asked nonchalantly. "There are ways and ways to draw blood, my lady, and only one of them involves a broken maidenhead."

That was rather frightening. "What ways would those be, my prince?" she asked pleasantly. Perhaps the boy liked talk of war, of spilt blood. They had told her that he was gentle and that he delighted in his books - but perhaps they had been misinformed. Boys usually loved bloodshed. Perhaps she ought to ask him about his triumphs on the jousting field or on the fencing court - he might like that.

He was rummaging among the things on a table nearby. He turned to her when he was done and waved a slender stiletto blade in his hand. She flinched automatically.

"This," he said quietly and walked towards her.

I shall not scream, she thought and clung to the sheets for dear life. No matter what he does, I shall not scream. She'd heard tales from her serving girls of men who liked their wives bruised and bloody and she'd pitied them and been duly grateful that her own betrothed was said to be so meek. Well if this was what was needed to uphold the great alliance - then so be it. She could bear it.

"This," he repeated dramatically, his face an inch from hers.

She shut her eyes and heard an yelp.

It didn't hurt at all, she thought and wondered why he'd yelped. She opened her eyes and saw him massaging his fingers.

"I hate blood," he said childishly. He chuckled when she blinked at him and then at the blood spatters on the sheets. "You should have seen me when I was a child and new to swords-"

She looked at his fingers and then the sheets and then burst out, "But that's dishonest! It's-it's-" she spluttered, unable to think of anything appropriate to the enormity of what he'd done. She'd have preferred it if he'd beaten her bloody.

It's unconsummated! she thought hopelessly. But people will say- and what if he never consummates it? They'll want a child and oh lord, what shall I do?

"It's less than five minutes' work," he said cheerfully. "And I really am tired, my lady." He slipped in beside her, grateful that the bed was so large. He would have not liked to awaken with her under him. That would be even more awkward than a private chat with his mother. "Good night, my lady, and sweet dreams."

I hope you have nightmares, she thought resentfully as he drew the curtains around their four-poster bed. A nightmare with... blood since you hate it so. A sea of blood. And swords. Sharp, pointy ones wielded by virgins.