The Agincourt Bride (37 page)

While I was genuinely sorry for Jacques’ sudden loss of his parents, at the same time I recognised a promising situation. The young man had inherited a flourishing business and had the talent and training to pursue it successfully. This baby need suffer neither the stain of bastardy nor the privations of poverty. I must find a way for Alys to return to Jacques as soon as possible.

‘He said I reminded him of his mother,’ she whispered.

‘I have a good feeling about this, little one. You must not worry any more. It is bad for the child . . .’

How could I have known that while I was busy comforting Alys, Catherine was riding into danger? Not that there was anything I could have done to stop it. Of course she confided in me later – how could she not? – but the full depth of her distress was only revealed to me many years afterwards in one of her undelivered letters to her brother.

Catherine, ruined daughter of France to Charles, ‘bastard’ Dauphin of Viennois,

Greetings brother, as one victim to another.

Now the devil duke has done everything he can to ruin us both. You are labelled bastard and I can no longer call myself virgin. As I write this I feel distraught and on the verge of madness. Shame and dishonour have been visited on me by the brute force of Jean, Duke of Burgundy.

Yesterday, during my exercise ride outside the walls of Pontoise, he waylaid me in the forest, dismissed the vile creatures who were supposed to be protecting me and raped me. The words seem so simple to write, but the deed is so terrible to record!

The nuns at Poissy instilled in me a deep reverence for the Virgin Mary. Having found no honour in my own mother, She has always been for me the purity of the Church. She brought her virginity to Her contract with God, just as I should bring mine to my contract with my husband. But now that can never be and I must either begin any marriage I make with a lie or else retire into the religious life for which I know I was never made. My virginity is gone and the loss is unbearable.

Equally terrible is the fact that the people I was riding with, the treacherous Guy de Mussy and two of my Flemish ladies-in-waiting, could each have prevented it if they had not been cowards and traitors. They turned away when I told them to stay. Burgundy actually gloated about it. ‘De Mussy wears my badge, Princesse. He is my squire. None of them will obey you. They are all my creatures.’

Even the women – for I can no longer call them ladies – must have suspected his wicked intention, but they were too cowed. There is no doubt that the devil is among us.

If you wonder why he chose to destroy the virginity he had so perversely preserved until now, I can tell you, for he took unnatural pleasure in telling me.

‘You may be surprised to hear,’ he said, ‘that this morning your precious Harry Monmouth abandoned the peace conference in a fit of pique, declaring that he will have you and all the territories he claims, even if he has to drive me, King Charles and your bastard brother out of France.’ Then he bent my arm cruelly up my back and snarled, ‘There is as much chance of you becoming his wife now as there is of your baseborn brother becoming king. But he lusted after you like a rutting ram, I could see that. The arrogant fool really thought that he, the scar-faced son of a usurping dog, was worthy to couple with a royal daughter of France!’

That was when he forced me down to the ground and pushed his face into mine with words that made my blood run cold. ‘And I saw that you lusted for him. Despite your prayers and delicate airs, beneath your skirts you throb with heat. You are just like your mother, panting for a man between your legs. Well, now you shall have one.’

I screamed then, but I knew it was pointless and he raped me, Charles. There in the dirt beneath the trees he pulled up my skirts and forced himself into my virgin flesh, as he must have done a hundred times to helpless girls across the land, as if it was nothing – just one of the spoils of war.

Afterwards, he told me that it was my own doing, that I wanted it as much as he did and will welcome him again whenever it pleases him to pleasure me! Ah, dear God, I shudder when I write it but I must, for I want it clearly understood, whenever it may be made known, that I was not willing, that I loathe and detest the beast that is Burgundy and I would be a virgin still if he were not the very devil incarnate.

How I wish I could tell you of all this face to face, then you could see my distress and know my true innocence of the horrible things he accused me of. But I am so completely at his mercy that I cannot even find a way to get this letter to you!

Our poor father cannot help me, for when he is not raving under some terrible delusion he is little more than a child in adult clothing. One does not have to look very far to determine the source of his bewitchment. As for our mother, I would prefer to think that she, too, is under some form of enchantment rather than believe, as I am afraid I do, that she knowingly and voluntarily turns a blind eye to what is happening to me. She may do it from her own necessity, but that does not make it excusable in my eyes. I feel as much at her mercy as I am at his. I believe that the deaths of Louis and Jean can ever more certainly be laid at the door of these two devilish conspirators and that when you escaped from Paris you narrowly avoided a similar fate.

May God and the Blessed Virgin deliver me from this living hell! I never thought there would come a time when I would feel murder in my heart, but I cannot deny that I want him dead. Do you think it possible that God would forgive anyone who revenged the ravishment of the ill-used creature that is your sister?

Catherine

Written at Chateau Pontoise in the dark morning hours of the first day of July, 1419.

Just as I had forced myself to my feet and run from the scene of my violation, Catherine had forced herself to rise from the forest floor and walk away from the devil duke. Somehow she had ridden home. When she entered her chamber I was alone there, laying out her apparel for the evening, and with a cry of anguish she collapsed in my arms.

I suppose every woman or girl feels differently about virginity. I admit that before I lost it I never gave much thought to mine. I follow the teachings of the Church more from expediency than belief and, looking back, I can see that I was lucky not to suffer the possible consequences of my rather devil-may-care attitudes, both to chastity and the Church. I was not publicly denounced by the priest or disowned by my family and thrown onto the streets, although some might say that the stillbirth of my first child was a pretty severe form of divine retribution, if that is what it was.

For Catherine however, virginity held a mystical significance. Reared by the nuns with an intense reverence for the Virgin Mother of God, the notion of her own purity was of great importance to her, not only because in a young royal princess the assumption of pre-marital chastity was an essential element of any marriage-contract, but also because of her personal belief in the Church’s teachings on the sanctity of the human body. She had been able to withstand the Duke of Burgundy’s earlier assaults because they had left her with a fragile thread to cling to; the belief that she could still consider herself both spiritually and physically intact. However the brutal destruction of her virginity was severely testing her previously unshakeable faith in God.

After she had soaked long and gratefully in a hastily summoned hot tub and was lying white-faced in her bed, one of my first tentative suggestions was that I provide a herbal poultice. ‘It will heal the wounds and ease the bruising, Mademoiselle, and also, God willing, prevent any more serious consequence of your ordeal.’

Her frown deepened and her dull eyes sought mine. ‘What do you mean, more serious consequence …? Oh!’ As realisation of the possibility of pregnancy dawned, she made the sign of the cross and clasped her hands together at her breast, clutching the sheets around herself like a protective cocoon and shivering, despite the late afternoon heat and the recent warmth of the bath. Then she suddenly reared up from the pillows and glared at me where I stood at the bedside.

‘I want him dead!’ she exclaimed. ‘If God will answer my prayers, he will strike down Jean of Burgundy and send no spark to ignite his devil spawn,’ she cried and then turned once more to me. ‘But, just as I cannot kill the duke, neither can I poison his seed. Make your poultice for my wounds, Mette, but no more.’

Muttering my own curses against Burgundy, I prepared the poultice and also a soothing draught and watched for a good while until the tense lines in her brow smoothed away in sleep.

A little later, a message came in response to one I had sent in Catherine’s stead, excusing her from dining in the great hall due to a sudden rheum. The queen declared her hope that her daughter would quickly recover and her intention to visit her the following day if she had not.

The Compline bell woke Catherine an hour or so later, its plaintive note echoing from the chapel beside the castle keep. The light of the setting sun tinged the shadows in the room blood red. Hastily I lit candles to dispel the gathering gloom.

‘I cannot prevent the queen visiting,’ said Catherine with resignation, when I relayed the message, ‘but I cannot guarantee that she will like what she hears when she does.’

‘The Flemish ladies came too while you slept, Mademoiselle, but I sent them away.’

‘Tell them to stay away!’ she exclaimed, ‘ugly, traitorous wretches that they are.’ Flinging back the covers she winced as she swung her legs over the edge of the bed, but I was gratified to see that no more blood stained the linen. ‘Bring my gown please, Mette. I want to talk to you. Let us sit together.’

She perched in her canopied chair, the folds of her velvet chamber-robe pulled tightly around her and I brought a bowl of the warm broth Alys had fetched and set it on a table close by.

‘Please sup a little before you begin, Mademoiselle,’ I said. ‘It will restore your strength.’

Obediently she lifted the bowl and took several sips, regarding me solemnly over the rim while I pulled up a stool and settled myself beside her. Then she set the bowl down and said, ‘With regard to my mother’s visit, I have a plan. It concerns you.’

As I listened to her plan, I was torn with violently conflicting emotions. So much had happened in the last few hours that my mind was already reeling and Catherine’s expressed intentions only added to the confusion. I could see that her plan was ingenious and would undoubtedly relieve her own deplorable situation, but in conjunction with my other concerns it put me in a quandary, which I pondered through the long sleepless night as I listened to the scratching of her quill.

By dawn Catherine had returned to bed and fallen into a deep sleep. Alys and I crept into the little turret oratory off the bedchamber to talk privately. Once again I did not tell her of Burgundy’s attack on Catherine, but I did explain that there would be changes in the princess’ life that would enable us to make a journey to Troyes very soon.

She gave me a troubled look. ‘You are not leaving the princess’ service for my sake, Ma?!’ she exclaimed. ‘You must not do that!’

I laid a warning finger on my lips. ‘Ssh, we do not want to wake her. She was up half the night praying and writing. No, I am not leaving her; it is she who is leaving us, but only temporarily. I will explain everything later today, but what I need to ask you now is your permission to tell her about your baby. You can be there when I do and, of course, we will swear her to secrecy, but I think we owe it to her to tell the truth. What do you say?’

Alys thought about it for a minute then nodded. ‘Very well, but do you think she will disapprove? Tell me to confess my sins and do a penance? She is much more saintly than you or I.’

I laughed. ‘No, Alys, she will be happy for you, believe me. Hard though you tried to hide it from us, she knew about your friendship with Jacques and you know she likes him. She will wish you good luck and offer to pray for you.’

Alys shrugged. ‘Yes, you are right, she will. That is what I mean about being more saintly.’