The Infanta's Arrival
The sea had not forgiven her for anything.
Six weeks she had endured its moods—the sullen gray swells off the coast of Galicia, the shrieking gales that split one sail and cracked the mainmast of the *Santa María de Guadalupe* so that the sailors crossed themselves and murmured of ill omens. Six weeks of salt crusted in her hair, of the ship's timbers groaning like a dying beast, of her stomach heaving until there was nothing left to give and still it heaved. And now, at last, on this second day of October in the year 1501, the gray cliffs of England rose out of the mist like the ramparts of some vast, indifferent castle, and Catherine of Aragon understood that her old life had ended somewhere behind her in the churning water, and could not be called back.
She stood at the rail with her spine straight, though her legs trembled beneath the weight of her gown—the deep tawny velvet, stiff with gold thread, that Isabella had chosen for this very moment, this first sight of English soil. It clung to her damp skin. Her jewels, the pearls at her throat and the gold combs pinning back her red-gold hair, felt suddenly like manacles. She had worn far simpler things below decks these past…