Blood Royal (40 page)

Then, to Owain, she said hurriedly, ‘I’m sorry … so sorry … for everything I did … I’ve been meaning to say, ever since you came in … I was so unkind … I didn’t realise what I was doing. I was a child. Please forgive me.’

His face closed. He shut his eyes. Tightly, he nodded. She understood: she hadn’t made it better. But she didn’t want to let him go. Without him, there’d be just the Mistress Rymans.

They stood for a few minutes in silence. Every time Catherine dared glance up at him, he was looking away. She tried to think of new questions. She couldn’t. But he didn’t retire, either.

There was a sound from the doorway. Elizabeth Ryman was standing with the baby wrapped in fresh linen, a watchful look on her rosy-cheeked face.

‘I don’t suppose’, Catherine said carefully, and ignored Mistress Ryman’s shake of the head at her use of French, ‘that there’s any talk of His Majesty coming back to England?’

She’d known the answer without having to ask. That wouldn’t be Henry’s way. He was a king with a vision, and it wasn’t a vision in which his wife had much of a place.

Owain was moving towards the door now. Catherine followed him, after taking Harry from the lady-in-waiting, relieved to have him back in her arms.

‘I’d love my husband to see him,’ she said, bending her head to Harry’s scalp, reassured by the milky smell of him; ‘and my parents if it comes to that.’

She added sadly, looking at Mistress Ryman, as if expecting to be countermanded, ‘Though I know I can’t. Go. Of course.’

He’d started fiddling with his belt; checking he had his belongings with him. She could see he was about to leave; go back to his life; leave her alone with the dour women.

But he looked up at that. Perhaps, she thought, he’d heard the desperation.

‘You could,’ he said, considering, though still without warmth. Out of politeness to Mistress Ryman, to whom he was bowing a courteous farewell, he switched into English. ‘Go to France. Why not? Once your lying-in is over, there’s nothing at all to stop you.’

She stared. Could she? Wasn’t there?

‘You’re the Queen of England. Future Queen of France. Your husband is in France. Your parents. Take your son to them. Who could blame you? They are your family.’

There was a glitter in his eye and a bitterness in his tone that Catherine couldn’t miss. And then he was gone.

‘But a newborn,’ said Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester, another pop-eyed, ponderous brother-in-law with no time for women. He shook his head. He wouldn’t meet Catherine’s eyes. He looked out of the window, as if wishing she would go away. ‘You couldn’t travel with a newborn.’

‘My son is three months old now,’ Catherine protested faintly. ‘He’s got a tooth.’

‘Never been done,’ Humphrey of Gloucester added more firmly. ‘Heir to the throne. Risk.’

‘Heir to the throne of France as well as England …’ Catherine prompted. She couldn’t give up. ‘That’s new too … he’ll need to learn French ways if his French subjects are to love him …’

She smiled winsomely up at her brother-in-law. But Humphrey of Gloucester just shook his head again, so the cloud of gingery curls above his eyes quivered.

Catherine felt tears of disappointment prickle behind her eyelids. It had taken her so long to pluck up the courage to ask; to master the words. He’d turned her down without even thinking. He wasn’t an unkind man, though, she thought. Just
stubborn and domineering. He was even twinkling at her in his awkward, bear-like way, as if he had suddenly thought of good news.

‘Not to say
you
can’t go,’ he added suddenly. ‘Show us all that France is English now. Not just Calais. A lesson for everyone. Quite right. Get a bit of an entourage together. Leave the boy here. Mistress Ryman – good woman – capable hands. Meanwhile, you: a month or two with your parents. See your husband. Though … battlefield … not your style, eh?’

He chuckled and ruffled her hair. He hurried away. He looked relieved to have finished the interview.

She didn’t want to leave Harry. But now she’d sensed the opportunity she wanted to be home so badly, just for a while. ‘I’ll miss you,’ she muttered to her baby son, hugging him so tightly to herself that he wriggled and squealed, and the fierce red patches on his cheeks grew redder; ‘it will be as if half of me is missing. But you’ll be safe with Mistress Ryman.’ She laughing at herself for wanting this so much; she, who had tried so hard to get to safety in England, and now felt so stifled by it. She was already imagining the garden at the Hotel Saint-Paul. She was imagining her mother’s grin; the hand sneaking out to the bowl of sweetmeats, the dirty laughter over the filthy jokes. She was imagining her father’s handsome profile, and his question-mark back, and his lost eyes.

She wanted to see her husband. She wanted to share the joy of parenthood with him. That was why she was going. He would come to Paris to see her when the war allowed. Soon.

But sometimes she also found herself imagining the journey: being led under the green sunlight of trees by Owain Tudor, whose eyes would sparkle again with the friendly warmth of long ago.

She was trying not to think about that. That wasn’t why she wanted to go. Owain Tudor had given her the idea. But he was no part of this plan.

Bishop Beaufort, splendid in his purple, was easy to persuade.

‘Of course, my dear, of course,’ he said urbanely. ‘Whoever Humphrey recommends. It’s peaceful enough between Calais and Paris; for security purposes I doubt you’d need more than a small company of knights. And, as you say, my man Tudor is fresh back from France and knows the northern roads like the back of his hand. A familiar face to you, too. He’ll be a good guide.’

Catherine felt a little uneasy that she’d gone so out of her way to bring Owain Tudor with her to France, when he so clearly hadn’t wanted to renew their acquaintance. But seeing him here in England had been a kind of trigger to her memories. Owain seemed to have found a way towards the next part of his life – those monkish robes. Surely he wouldn’t hold a grudge forever? She remembered feeling so close to Owain. She wanted to make amends; to show him the past was past; win him back as a friend, at least. She needed friends. If she, as Queen of England, chose to ask a soldier of her acquaintance to lead her entourage on their trip from Calais to Paris, what was wrong with that?

Was there something quizzical in her new uncle’s glance? Was he wondering why she was so interested in borrowing this particular guide, when the English court was full of other young men who also knew northern France like the back of their hands?

No, she thought, banishing the flicker of embarrassment. Bishop Beaufort – lettered, civilised, and a beautiful singer – was more like a French nobleman than anyone she’d encountered at this court. She felt she understood him. He was probably only hoping that, by helping his new niece so promptly, he’d encourage her royal husband to forgive him the crime that had brought five years of King Henry’s brooding resentment – being offered the Cardinal’s hat that he’d been forced by his nephew and monarch to reject. There was no place in Henry’s scheme of things for anything he deemed to smack of disloyalty. All must serve one cause.

‘I will tell my husband’, Catherine said gratefully, ‘how quick you were to help me. I’m certain he will be grateful to
you for reuniting us.’ She squeezed his strong, clean hand, which glittered with rubies. She knew she was right when she saw the matching glitter of gratitude in his eyes.

The France party grew. By the time Catherine set off it was late spring and Duke John of Bedford, the King’s next oldest brother, was her highest-ranking companion on the journey.

She travelled with little Henry and her own household as far as Dover. He’d walked his first steps the day before they set out. She’d never seen joy so intense. Now, cooped up in a jolting litter with his mother, he cried inconsolably.

‘I wish you could come, I wish you could come,’ she muttered, but he only cried louder. She cursed Duke Humphrey’s stubbornness. ‘Next time … next time we’ll go together,’ she added, hoping she might make him understand her meaning and be consoled.

She believed all of her attention, all her mind, all her heart, was taken up with sorrow at the parting to come with her son. The gulpy panic that filled her was real enough; the anxiety gripping her heart whenever little Henry cried was more intense than ever. But there was a fizz of excitement bubbling quietly up in her too. Perhaps it was the prospect of seeing the land of her birth again that had made her put on midnight-blue velvet skirts with a scattering of silver stars. In a day or two, God willing, she’d be riding through the quiet green swell of Normandy, with French wind in her hair.

When Mistress Ryman took Henry away, what seemed hours later, he was still crying – thin, fretful wails that rent the air and set Catherine’s teeth on edge. All Catherine wanted to do was sit in silence and recover. But there was no time. The travelling party was already on board ship, waiting. She’d seen Mistress Ryman’s censorious look at her rich velvets and knew what she thought: Too grand for travel. But she didn’t care what Mistress Ryman thought. She discarded the tear-stained, crumpled linen she’d prudently put between herself and Harry. There was no time to call any of the ladies to help repair the travel damage. She’d just look over herself. She took out the comb and glass she’d been farsighted enough to
bring, and began setting her horned hennin headdress straight, pinching pink back into her tired cheeks. She had to look her best.

She only realised that she must have imagined she’d be on board beside Owain – feeling the exhilarating chop and tug of the tides, watching the gulls swoop in the ship’s wake, looking over the side, throwing crusts, laughing, with the painful awkwardness between them vanished – when, instead, John of Bedford offered her his big hand up the gangplank. She was aware of Owain, bowing his head from a distance with the other knights and ladies. His eyes were fixed on her. She’d thought he’d be looking happy to see her, but his expression was pinched. He didn’t acknowledge her private glance. He didn’t want to be here. She could see he had no intention of coming near.

‘Welcome on board, my dear,’ boomed Duke John cheerfully.

She inclined her head and smiled, trying not to feel crestfallen. She should be pleased to be travelling with Duke John. He was the brother-in-law she minded least: the one with the most wit and consideration mixed in with the charmless warrior virtues of the English royal brothers. He was speaking French. So it was probably just the uncertain movement of the floor under her feet that was clawing at her insides, like disappointment, and bringing a prickle to her eyes.

‘English,’ she heard, as they passed through villages and towns. ‘English,’ from mouths hidden by drooping heads; all eyes carefully averted.

No one else seemed to notice how disliked they were. Perhaps her English companions didn’t hear. Perhaps they didn’t care.

None of these peasants seemed aware that she, the Queen of England, was as French as they were. Perhaps in their minds she wasn’t any more. She was as English as the rest.

Catherine hung her head.

But she was proud of her new identity when, with the four-man escort Duke John had given her, she set out at a smart
trot from the Louvre across Paris, through the familiar smells, past the familiar sights, to her parents’ home at the Hotel Saint-Paul. The Parisians who saw her nudged each other and said loudly, ‘the Queen of England!’, and knew her for a Frenchwoman. They grinned at her, and raised their hats and fists, and sometimes, raggedly, cheered.

She was prouder still when they announced her at the Hotel Saint-Paul, with bugles and great bass cries of, ‘Her Majesty the Queen of England!’ As she walked into the great hall, she saw, in the middle of the huddle of elderly palace folk gathered to look at their Princess coming back as a grown-up married woman and a mother, her own father’s and mother’s eyes: their two faces fixed on hers as yearningly as if she were an impossible, beautiful vision, an angel come to earth.

‘Cobwebs everywhere,’ she said. She ran her finger through the dust, drawing patterns like embroidery in it, making the air dance with motes. When she touched a hanging, the silk splintered and fragmented in her hand into tiny rectangles like torn-up scraps of parchment.

‘Well, everything’s old,’ Anastaise said resignedly back, and Catherine saw the grey threads in the beguine’s dark hair too. ‘The things; the people too … no energy. I do what I can.’

Catherine was glad she’d asked Anastaise to move into the Hotel Saint-Paul and look after the King. Anastaise was a good substitute for Christine: with her heart in the right place. But even Anastaise wasn’t the plump, powerful animal she’d been. She’d got spindly-shanked and weak.

No one much came to the King of France at the Hotel Saint-Paul any more. The courtiers of France didn’t bother. The English King had taken all Paris’s four strongholds for himself: the Louvre on the Right Bank, the Hotel de Nesle on the Left Bank, the Bastille Saint Anthony, inside the Saint Anthony gate, to the east, and the Castle of Vincennes out of the Saint Anthony gate and out of town. Anyone with business to transact went there, to the foreigners who walked as tall and haughty as stags while the French around them starved. ‘There’s not an Englishman anywhere who’ll pay to build a
wall, or paint a piece of wood, or grow a line of wheat,’ Anastaise said sadly. There were no tradesmen. There was no need for them. The luxury trades that had once served France were shutting down or moving – to Burgundy or beyond. For all her excitement as she’d ridden through Paris, Catherine had seen that for herself: whole streets of goldsmiths and illuminators and embroiderers and bookmakers, empty, boarded up, finished. Rubbish blowing over the cobbles. Packs of dogs. Loose boards flapping where hopeful burglars or tramps had got in. There was no work here. There were only the beginnings of crops in the fields. It was May now, but the hard winter had gone on late. Only a few weeks ago, Anastaise said, the hungry had been grateful for what the pigs left. It had become commonplace by now for wolves to be hungry and dangerous enough to have lost their fear of the city, swimming across the Seine by night to dig up and worry newly buried bodies in the graveyards. When she could, Anastaise pawned the little treasures still lying round the Hotel Saint-Paul to buy Isabeau her sugared almonds and rose jellies. Even the Saint-Paul gardens were running wild. Threatening foliage pushed in at the windows, stealing the light.