Blood Royal (43 page)

The King was no better, Owain said, so he’d left Corbeil and gone by barge to the comfort of Vincennes Castle. He’d tried to ride the last leg of the journey, but failed. He was weak: almost at the end of his strength.

‘They put him in a litter,’ Owain said.

Catherine bit her lip. It must be serious.

After a moment, Owain added: ‘The Duke of Bedford and the Duke of Exeter are called to Vincennes.’

Vincennes was only an hour’s ride away. Humbly, Catherine said: ‘And me, should I go too?’

Distantly, Owain replied: ‘I have no instructions.’

‘Owain …’ she pleaded. ‘Tell me … please. He’s my husband. Is he dying?’

Owain looked startled at that. Perhaps he hadn’t had time, with all the riding to and fro, to imagine the end of Henry. He looked back at Catherine with dawning horror in his eyes.

Very slowly, he nodded. ‘I think … yes.’ There was none of the old guardedness in his voice now, just shocked honesty.

‘Will you take me back with you?’ she asked. ‘To Vincennes?’ She was thinking only of Henry. She was thinking: Has he no time for me, even now, even when his death might be upon him?

Owain had lost the distance and the quiet hostility that he’d come with. But he shook his head nevertheless. ‘He’s only called for the others to help him draw up documents,’ he explained, every inch the Englishman; every inch the devoted disciple of Henry of England. ‘A will, a war plan, plans for who should govern England and France if he dies before your son grows up. It’s a business meeting … he didn’t send for you … he’s not ready for farewells …’

He looked agonised. She could see that he was imagining
the torment she must be in; that there must be pity for her mixed up in his hero-worship of her husband. Then he said in a rush: ‘He doesn’t like to feel vulnerable. It would unman him if you were there. He might get well any time. I can’t take you now. But I’ll come back for you … if …’ he lifted apologetic shoulders, ‘if it’s the last minute.’ He put a hand on her arm. ‘I promise.’

Catherine was ashamed that even at that moment she could be so aware of Owain’s touch.

She was glad that night to be at the Hotel Saint-Paul. She wanted to feel at home; to have people who loved her close by. Before dawn she went to the chapel and lit twelve candles, spiking a couple of them sideways so she could enjoy the wax pouring in a sweet rush down their sides.

She’d come downstairs when she heard the monks finishing their singing of Matins. The air was hot and scented with incense.

She couldn’t sleep.

If Henry died, if England were to be ruled by a baby, she’d been thinking, how long would it take before that united phalanx of English royal brothers and uncles divided, just as the greatest families in France had a generation ago? John of Bedford, Humphrey of Gloucester, the Beaufort uncles … soon enough they’d all be grabbing for their share of her baby’s inheritance. The Kingdom of England would destroy itself with greed; would turn into the same hell France had become. And in France there’d be Charles, waiting to grab back her Harry’s title and future …

They’d all be swept away.

Harry was only nine months old. The thought of his pudgy cheeks and feet, of his trusting eyes, made her sick with longing for him, sick with the need to protect him.

But how? Catherine had none of the influence her mother had once had as Queen. The English had no time for women. Or for the French. England was full of French prisoners. Her uncle of Bourbon, who couldn’t raise his ransom. Her cousin, Charles of Orleans, another prisoner, who spent his
days writing love poetry to no one. Her husband’s stepmother, Queen Jeanne of Navarre, who had had her lands and rents confiscated shortly after Henry and Catherine married (officially, the suspicion was that Queen Jeanne had tried to kill Henry by witchcraft; unofficially, everyone knew the King had just desperately needed every penny he could get his hands on).

She could never hope to win any battles fought in England. Still, if Henry did die, if the need really arose, she’d have to find a way through her powerlessness. She’d have to fight for her son.

She was itching and creeping with fear. She gathered up her skirts so she could kneel down. If only she wasn’t so alone.

It took a moment to realise that she wasn’t quite alone, at least now, here, in this chapel. Her mother and father were already kneeling, crossing themselves, mouths moving. Anastaise behind them. Her mother looking up already, waving glittering fingers at her.

There was a ghost of her mother’s old mischief in that smile. ‘We don’t sleep much,’ she explained in a piercing, cheerful whisper. ‘We’re old. We are praying for your Henry.’

The sky was going from pallid to bright blue by the time Catherine went to her chamber, a little comforted by her family’s presence around her. The first thing she heard was something loud banging against her window. A branch. A pebble.

She went to it. Owain was standing below, shading his eyes and looking up. Catherine’s first thought was a joyous rush of recognition: How did he know this was my room? Her second only came after she’d taken in his bleak, exhausted face. Like her, he was still in yesterday’s clothes. He must have been riding all night – there, then back. He had bad news.

‘Should I come now?’ she called quietly. ‘I’m dressed. It won’t take long to get new horses.’

He shook his head. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said, and the red-rimmed
eyes turned up to hers reflected her terror of the future. ‘It’s too late.’

For a moment she thought, in a flash of panic, of her son, so young, and all alone at the mercy of his English relatives. Then, in another flash of panic, she thought Owain would ride off. She could hear a horse somewhere behind, with its head down in the grasses, jingling. He must be in a hurry.

She called down, ‘Wait!’ She remembered the rush of silk against her thighs, the muscle and dash of her panic as she ran down the stairs. They were cast adrift on this new storm, all of them. And no one knew yet. No one but her and this man.

She burst outside, sobbing with breathlessness, into the gentle cool of the morning. There was a bird singing overhead.

‘Wait!’ she cried again; but now she saw her voice was far too loud. He was right there.

She whispered: ‘Tell me what happened.’ Her head was drumming with thoughts, each one banging for attention, a disbelief she thought would turn to grief for her husband, and pulses of
I must get home
and
Harry …
but the one that came to the fore was this. Owain Tudor had brought his news to her first. He’d known she was here, at the Hotel Saint-Paul. He’d stopped to tell her. He’d done her that courtesy. It was on his way west across the city to the Louvre. It was only a few moments’ detour. And she was Henry’s wife … queen … widow. She deserved no less. But no one else would have bothered. None of the English would even have remembered her.

He was stammering something out, but she couldn’t make sense of the words. What could you say to explain death?

He was weeping. She could see wet on his cheeks too, tears falling unheeded and soaking into the dark wool of that incongruous Augustinian habit. ‘Gone,’ Owain was saying, with the bleakness of a child losing a beloved father. ‘Just like that.’

And then she was in his arms, holding him, comforting him. And then they were two bodies, pressed together, young and alive in the shadow of death, twining closer in the dew
of a late summer’s morning, ignoring the tang of turning leaves. And then they were kissing.

There was a rhythm and a timetable to death. Henry’s entrails would already be being removed. Soon they’d boil his body to separate flesh and bones for the long journey to England. A King of England must be buried at Westminster. She would follow the procession to her adopted home. There was no escaping that reality. Owain needed to carry word of the King’s death to the English administration at the Louvre. They’d have to start the mourning. Ring the bells.

Let them wait, she thought, wrapping herself closer to Owain’s height, holding the back of his head with one hand, running the other hand down his back. Let reality wait.

She whispered. She only meant to mutter, ‘Thank you.’ She was so grateful.

She shouldn’t have spoken. Shouldn’t have reminded him of this grab at life’s fleeting beauty that they were both making, while pretending not to notice what their bodies were doing.

He stepped back; removed his hands from her back; turned his body away and put his head in his hands. ‘Oh God,’ she heard him groan, ‘what have I done?’ Then, so quickly and quietly she could hardly make out the words, squeezing out between clenched teeth, ‘My vows. Betrayed.’ He pulled his hands away from his eyes and the gaze that fixed on hers was both horrified and accusing. As if the next thought that struck him was even worse than betraying the vows he planned to make, he added: ‘Betrayed my lord.’

‘He’s gone,’ she said tenderly, reassuring him as though he were a child. ‘You haven’t betrayed him. Henry’s dead …’

Was that the first time either of them had admitted that out loud? As the meaning of those words sank in, Catherine’s calm faded. She added, more hastily: ‘You haven’t betrayed anything. We shouldn’t have
…’
Shrugging off their kiss as if it hadn’t meant anything to her; as if she’d hardly been aware of his desire, or hers. ‘A kiss. A mistake. We didn’t know what we were doing.’ But then she clutched at his arm.
If he went, she’d be alone. Holding on tight, she finished in a small voice: ‘… I’m so frightened.’

She must have sounded scared enough. Owain took her back in an awkward, rough embrace – a brother’s embrace, this time, or pretending to be. ‘Of course,’ he said, in a muffled, penitent voice from somewhere above, rocking her, yet holding her at a more modest distance. ‘You must be.’

A reprieve. She buried her head in his shoulder, breathing in his smell. Stealing a memory of his essence, a part of his soul, in case there was nothing else.

‘My father was a child king,’ she said, losing herself in the rocking motion. ‘They say all the wars here started after he went mad – because the uncles and cousins and brothers knew there’d be no one to stop them grabbing a bit more power here, and a bit more land there. But that’s not true. The wars started long before he went mad. The uncles and cousins and brothers were already used to grabbing whatever they wanted by then. They’d been doing it ever since he was a child. Poor Papa … he grew up watching them doing it, brazenly, right under his nose. What could a child do to rein in the most powerful men in the land? He never learned to use his authority to stop them. They just laughed at him: sent the boy off to joust a bit more, climb more mountains, get drunk at another masked ball – throw himself about more. And he rushed about like a lunatic, eager to please, like any child, doing their bidding. That’s what did it. The rushing about; a child helpless before adults but supposed to rule them. The helplessness. That’s what sent him mad.’

Owain rocked her.

‘You’re thinking … you’ll have to stop anything like that happening to your son,’ he muttered, after a while. After another pause, he said: ‘You’re wondering how.’

She nodded. She was so grateful to him for trying to imagine her dilemma. She didn’t want this gentle moment to end. She couldn’t bear for him to go again.

‘I know so little about England,’ she said pitifully. ‘I can’t even make my ladies do what I want. I wish I had someone to guide me.’

Perhaps Owain was beginning to be aware of the gossamer threads she was casting around him. At any rate, he stopped rocking her and stepped back – not in a jolting, angry panic this time, but quietly, as if he sensed it was time to leave.

‘You’ll find a way,’ he said. ‘You found a way to bring your father back from utter insanity … you found a way to bring your mother back to him … you found a way …’ and here his voice hardened a little, ‘to the marriage you wanted. You’re capable.’

He clicked to his horse, and, when it refused to pay attention but went on placidly eating the patch of greenery it had established itself in, stretched out a hand and took its bridle.

‘I’m a widow now,’ she pleaded. ‘Henry’s widow. And you know what it means to be a widow. Do you remember Christine complaining that everyone ignores widows, or cheats them, or steals from them – or all three at once. We both know that. I can’t look after Harry – can’t even look after myself – without help.’

She was about to say, ‘I need you.’ But even as the words formed on her lips she could see him shake his head.

She’d lost him.

Owain said: ‘I have to go.’ He wriggled his foot into the stirrup; mounted. He went on, looking down, as if he felt safer talking to her from up there, ‘We’re in grief. Both of us, in our different ways. We’ve lost our lord.’ She could see from his face that he wasn’t, after all, going to take the comfort she’d offered of pretending that kiss hadn’t happened. His anger was back. He added, with a tinge of bitterness: ‘I wish we hadn’t … I hadn’t … dishonoured him while he’s still warm.’

She thought he might leave without another glance, but he stopped in the doorway. There was something almost like regret in his voice when he said, ‘I can’t help you with what lies ahead. You’re a queen. All I could be is your creature. And I can’t be your creature.’

She said, ‘Please.’ She could think of nothing better to say.

Owain replied, with a finality that proved he’d thought
about this before: ‘It would destroy me. I’ve chosen a life I can live.’

That dingy habit. He couldn’t mean to be a friar. Not really. And it couldn’t be because of her …

She opened her lips to say ‘Please’ again, but he’d gone.

Duke John guessed at Catherine’s sense of abandonment and tried to comfort her a little.

‘He would have sent for you,’ the Duke said. ‘Once he was through with the papers.’ He patted her hand ineffectually. ‘But there was so much business to do first. He’d never thought he might die so young, and with his son so young. He had to think it all out … there and then …’

He shook his head. He didn’t like to remember the horror of those foetid rooms at Vincennes: the purgings; the buckets; the cloths; the stink. Henry’s eyes burning in that shrunken head as he tried to frame each clause of the will carefully enough so that his baby son’s inheritance couldn’t be whittled away. His bones sticking out. Calculation and legal jargon, broken by vomiting and death on the breath. The care; the clerks; the scratching of quills on parchment. The prayers. Duke John would have given a lot to have been spared the sight of his brother’s miserable, unsoldierly end. He thought the girl was lucky not to know how ugly it had been.