Crown in Candlelight (37 page)

‘Build the gallows close to the castle walls. He shall hang with our enemies.’

Priests were with the hostages, hearing confession. Guillaume de Chaumont stood armed upon the walls, bellowing that he would never surrender the garrison; below, the raging Burgundians and quietly ranked English listened.

‘In God’s mercy, let us see our loved ones before we die!’ cried the hostages, and women with babies, young boys and greybeard fathers came to look over the battlements. Dreadful lamenting drifted across the moat.

‘Command him one more time,’ Henry said tightly to the captives’ spokesman. Again de Chaumont wagged his head and roared defiance. On either side of him, stood huge bearded men wearing fleeced tunics over their harnesses.

‘Are these the Scots?’ asked Philip of Burgundy.

‘Yes,’ Henry said grimly ‘There are hundreds in there. That barbarous’ race with whom my father tussled and whose king we’ve held in London Tower for these past fourteen years. I might have known the Scots would ally themselves with Armagnac!’

There was one woman, leaning dangerously over the crenellations of the wall, her hands outstretched imploringly to where her husband knelt, a rope about his neck. Her long dark hair streamed, her black eyes were full of tragic light. Henry looked away swiftly.

‘By St Mary Virgin! Have done!’ He signalled to the executioners. The weeping stopped abruptly. Death was played out in absolute silence. Then a raven, perching on the highest turret, emitted a hoarse bark and others began to circle, landing heavily. Henry looked up again. The woman had gone. In the town the fighting had recommenced. Thomas of Clarence came to stand by him, and they stared at the twelve lolling heads.

‘And now they’ll surrender,’ said Clarence. ‘Mark me.’

‘I know,’ Henry said. ‘Were I inside that castle, I’d cut de Chaumont in pieces. The stubborn fool.’

‘There’s a message. Bedford will be with us in a day. He’s bringing Scottish James from London at your orders. God willing, he may persuade his subjects to desert their cause. Also a reinforcement’s on its way. Fifteen hundred. Mostly bowmen. And Count Lewis of the Rhine is coming, with seven hundred men. Your last letter convinced him, Harry …’

He could not get the woman, the dark eyes and hair, from his mind.
I only live upon the moment
; he had said it himself. I do not think of you … battles are lost that way. He knew now that he had lied to himself; bewildered, he felt the subtle change, and sought vainly to expunge it. He said, ‘Is the messenger still here?’ and Clarence pointed to a man standing on the river bank beside a foaming horse.

No time to write a long letter; the castle would fall before night came. What message then? He knew that she was well, de Robsart’s courier reported almost daily … but it was not enough.

‘I wish to send greetings to my Queen,’ he began stiffly, ‘to inform her of my fair health and successful feat of arms in this place …’

The clerk kneeling before him scratched away, then waited. God’s mercy! Henry thought. Madness, truth. Like the wines of old of which I drank too deep. I need her.

‘Say that we have built her a house …’

‘A house,’ muttered the clerk, writing busily.

‘In Melun,’ said Henry, and saw Philip’s eyes kindle with a near-mad joy, for Melun held the Dauphin’s chief castle, where he well might be in person.

‘… where she may live wth us in great joy and comfort—’ haltingly, and hearing his voice harsh with diguised longing—‘then we will send for her.’

The November fog smoked lithely about the walls of the new stone mansion. In their haste for completion the glaziers had skimped their labour on the windows and into the chamber where Owen was working on his dance crept grey puffs of mist. Acrid gunpowder mingled with it. He could hear the distant rumble of the bombardes and the sharper explosions from the small cannon, the crapaudins and veuglaires, all blasting their way into the fourth month of the siege of Melun.

The dance was nearly right, except for the ending. Its creation eluded him, for its essence was man and woman in one, yielding yet virile; almost impossible to form its pattern without the music. He had to listen in his mind. Poised, he turned to look back at the four white clovers, bequeathed by Olwen’s mystic feet. It was coming … it was almost perfect … now, now … A tremendous explosion came from the siege lines. The ill-fitting windows rattled. Owen lost his balance, almost fell. He swore, all the old Welsh words; he kicked a leather bucket across the room, forgetting it was lined with steel and he wore soft shoes. Thomas Harvey, laughing at him in the doorway, clapped his hands to his ears.

‘I wish I could curse like that! Even in English. What ails you now?’

‘My work,’ Owen said crossly.

He walked across the room, flexing his bruised toes. Someone had left a little Book of Hours open on a bench. A saint was being boiled alive in a vast cauldron, under which knaves stoked the fire. Smirking over prayerful hands, he seemed almost to be enjoying the experience. Saints, it appeared, had all things made easy.

‘You love your music, your dancing!’ said Harvey, surprised. ‘As for the Wardrobe duties, pay no heed to Master Feriby. He was always a crossgrained wretch.’

Owen glared down at the simmering saint. ‘Once,’ he said bitterly, ‘I was a soldier, and I stood for weeks behind a palisade like those out there. I fought near the King and his brother – I was part of the
galanastra
—the slaughter—
on
Artois plain. The great knight Gam, whom Christ assoil, died in my arms. Now I’m a prancing tamed ape, a mender of holes in velvet, a singing salver of consciences.
Y diafol!
They’ve turned me into a lady!’

Harvey said: ‘You’ve made yourself too useful, soothing Mad Charles.’

‘Maybe. Would to God I was out there fighting. Tell me the news.’

‘Today the King beheaded de Chaumont—not Guillaume, but Bertrand, his cousin.’

‘
That
de Chaumont! He was one of our best captains at Agincourt, he fought under the King’s standard.’

‘He was found guilty of corrupting the Melun garrison. The Armagnacs bribed him to let some prisoners escape. The King said he would have given 50,000 nobles rather than hear of such treason. Clarence and Burgundy pleaded … but Harry said had it been his own brothers he would have done the same.’

Owen nodded, unsurprised. ‘What more?’

‘In Melun itself, it’s Harfleur all over again. The belly-rot is raging. They’re starving; the town ditch is full of corpses. Stop complaining! You’re snug in the royal house with enough food, and your other comforts!’ He winked. ‘I admire your present choice, I must admit.’

Owen’s latest mistress, acquired in Sens, was the silverblonde Jeanne, sixteen years old and known as Jeanne la Picarde. On several occasions he had had her among the piled furs and velvets, in the room where the winter wardrobe was stored. Harvey had one day opened the door. I do not always behave gently, he thought, and for excuse: among the English I am not deemed a gentleman. At home, I have consanguinity with princes.

He was very fond of Jeanne. She never wept; she had the wit not to pursue him, and an appealing graciousness. He had not spoken to her of love, it was against his principles, and he hated the false courtly speeches that were in fashion, yet it would not have been difficult to do so. That is, until a few weeks ago. He couldn’t remember exactly when the feeling began, not of boredom with her, but more of failed attainment, something lost. A hunger like an unrecognized disease, quite outside his diagnosis. He knew it to be no fault of hers; this made it doubly mysterious.

Harvey was still talking. ‘Everyone thinks the end of the siege is near, but there have been some unhappy moments. Apart from the Dauphin’s raiding parties—he, by the way, still lies about twenty miles from the action—some of the Burgundian troops have been deserting to his standard. And King James has had little influence with his Scotsmen, who stay with Armagnac. It appears that there were Scotsmen on the bridge where they killed John the Fearless, so
they’ll
be for the rope, if Philip has any say in the matter!’

‘Are they still fighting in the mines?’

‘Most of the warfare goes on underground.’ Harvey chuckled. ‘Yesterday the Gascon, Arnaud of Barbazan, went down below, trumpets sounding, bells ringing. And who did he meet there in the dark? King Harry himself! They struck at one another for minutes until the Gascon realized and withdrew, saying the honour was too much for him! They’re chopping the axe handles off short to fight down there better. I hate to see a good axe mutilated.’

‘Are the town walls breached?’

‘Daily, but they fill them up again overnight. It
must
end soon. It
must
.’

‘Listen,’ said Owen.

They were silent. The fog seemed to be clearing, a thin ray of sunshine silvered Owen’s fair head. The drifts of mist through the ill-fitting windows smelled purer; the gunsmoke odour was dispersing.

‘The firing has stopped.’ They looked at one another. They waited for long moments. A sparrow cheeped irritably outside the window.

‘They’re resting. Gathering reinforcements.’

‘Wait!’ Harvey sharply raised his hand. Then he flung the window wide letting in gusts of sunlit damp. Very far away, cheering arose.

‘It’s ended!’ Harvey’s face shone. He slapped Owen on the back, and then performed a hopping dance all round the room. Owen thought: I should be glad too, but what’s it to me? Something is eating me, other than being armourless and housebound, which annuls all my small pleasures, takes the shine from my wit and my responses. Another town taken, another woman bedded, another listener satisfied, another dance created. All insignificant landmarks down my lonely road. Once, I was promised greatness or some such arrant nonsense. I am nearly twenty-two. And, with excessive melancholy: I should have died in the field like Davy, and become immortal.

‘God be praised,’ said Harvey, unexpectedly wiping away tears. ‘Four months in this cursed place has made a dotard of me.’

A page’s head, with popping eyes, came round the door. ‘Melun is taken!’ he cried, then added: ‘And Master Tydier is summoned to the French king’s apartments.’

I’ll take the lute today, Owen thought. And, he decided, I shall give him a
bergerette
by Gilles Binchois, that brilliant young Burgundian musician whom I envy so, for he is also a soldier. Mad Charles will have to endure it. I am overrun with psalms.

‘Have a care,’ said Thomas Harvey, sitting down breathless from his dance on the Book of Hours. ‘Remember the eyes!’

Lately, Henry had commanded that none should look a royal person in the face. Even the Marshal of France, Sire de l’lsle Adam, had been reprimanded. When he had remarked that it was the French custom not to address anyone, whatever his estate, with a downcast countenance, Henry had replied coldly: ‘
It is not ours!
’

Harvey mused: ‘There’s only one person I can identify without looking at or hearing. The Queen’s Grace.’

‘The perfume,’ said Owen. One of the lute-strings looked worn; he frowned. He hoped it would not snap today and frighten Charles. ‘Her perfume.’

‘Yes. I knew the day she took up residence here … it’s very seductive. Harry must like it, he visits her whenever he can …’

‘Yes.’ Owen took a sudden dislike to the look of the lute, it was a bad design, an ugly shape. He felt an insane desire to break it across his knee.

‘… otherwise she keeps close within her bower, with that glorious Hainault woman,’ said Harvey.

Owen left him and went along to the wing inhabited by King Charles. The passage window was open and Isabeau’s voice, raised in anger at a tiring-woman, floated from the opposite tower through the thinning fog. Further down the passage were the apartments of Harry and his Queen. Jacqueline of Hainault passed him and gave him a provocative look which he registered efficiently from beneath lowered lashes. He was admitted to the French king’s presence. He watched his own feet move over the parti-coloured tiles until Charles’s slippers came into view. He was startled by the merry greeting.

‘Welcome, troubadour! Welcome, Jacques! Wash your mouth out with wine before you sing. Look up, man, don’t be nervous!’

Here was a predicament, but, Harry being absent, he obeyed. He was astonished at the change he saw. Charles’s eyes were sparkling, he had a goblet in his perfectly steady hand, and his ravaged face was almost handsome.

‘God’s greeting,
grand seigneur
,’ Owen murmured.

‘Gramercy. See, the sun is returning. This weather has given me
la grippe
, but I feel better today. You may play as lustily as you please.’

Just what I intended, thought Owen. He gratefully drained the cup of wine offered by a page, and sat down with his lute. Then Charles said: ‘A moment!’ The door opened. Owen slid his eyes round, cautiously waiting to see whether it was safe to raise them. There was no need. Lilies and roses and honey, and more, a musky, almost peppery odour, distilled in one warm woman’s flesh. The Queen was moving swiftly to the dais, she was somewhat
deshabillée
, her dark hair in a thick plait over one shoulder; her gown was pink wool, her mantle lemon silk. She was attended by two handmaidens. A lamp might have been lit from her, she had a sheen, a rapturous glow, a blithe contentment that enrgulfed him as she passed by.

She ran up lightly on to the dais. Charles rose to embrace her, fearless, willing, changed; no more tears, no shrinking away.

‘Katherine, my dear child, my little one. What passes?’

‘Melun has surrendered at last. The King’s Grace will be here within the hour, and then we’re going to Paris!’

‘Paris!’ cried Charles. ‘Sacred city! Shall I be with you, daughter?’

‘Of course, of course. The whole court. Harry’s conning. It’s wonderful. He’s safe, unharmed.’

She turned on the dais as if to welcome all into her bliss. Owen raised his head fully and looked at her. Had it meant hanging he would still have done it. In the time she had been at Melun he had scarcely seen her. Now he saw her changed. No longer childlike, but flowered in beauty, graceful as an undine. He looked at her eyes, her mouth, her body. He saw the signs of love in her, as in a mirror. A terrible joy and grief laid hands on him; a knowledge so fierce that the room darkened in his sight.