The Forbidden Queen (35 page)

How could this be? How could I have fooled myself for so long? His family, his captains, his confessor all summoned to his bedside. But not me.

And at last true horror laid its vicious hand on me,
and the degradation, for I had not been ousted from his affections by another woman, or even by another man. Or even by a cold and distant duty laid down by God. War and conquest and English glory had proved to be a demanding mistress, against whose enchantment I had never been able to compete. At last I sat and wept, my infatuation for Henry as dead as his earthly remains, my body an empty shell.

Saddest of all, Henry had never even set eyes on the son he had so desired.

All the structure of my life lay in pieces, the pattern of my life as Henry’s wife and Queen of England.

What was expected of me now?

‘Do I go to him at Vincennes?’ I asked John next morning. Surely I could make this decision for myself. Of course I would go. As my last office to him as his wife, I would kneel beside his coffin and pray for his departed soul.

‘No,’ John replied. ‘They will have already begun the journey back to England. I advise you to make your way to Rouen.’ I had found him in the entrance hall, already dressed to leave, shrugging into a heavy jerkin, pulling on his gauntlets, outside in the courtyard, his horses and entourage already drawn up. ‘I’ll leave James here. He’ll escort you when you’re ready.’

So I would go to Rouen. The customary flutter of apprehension that attacked me when all was not clear was
beating against my temples, warning me of imminent pain. I realised that I had not even asked John what provision had been made for me on my return to England. I had no idea what would be expected of me there.

‘What will I do?’ I asked Isabeau in despair. My mother was already making her way towards the chapel for her daily petitioning of the Almighty, but she turned and considered, head tilted, a little smile on her mouth.

‘Do you not know? You are more important now, Katherine, than you ever were before the English King’s death. Are you not the living, breathing symbol of all that was agreed between Henry and your father?’ She sneered. ‘They’ll put you on a pedestal, place a halo around your head and clothe you in cloth of gold. Glorious motherhood personified.’

Her brutal cynicism horrified me. ‘I can’t…’

‘Of course you can.’ A sour twist of her mouth, wrecking the smile, coated Isabeau’s words in disdain. ‘What is your alternative? Better that than to be driven to return here to France, to live out your days in penury in company with a bitter, aging woman and a witless man.’

It shook me into a terrible reality I could not envisage.

As advised—or instructed—by Lord John, and accompanied by a silent James, for once robbed of all his high spirits, I travelled to Rouen. I was there, in the position prepared for me at the door of the great cathedral, when the remains of King Henry of England arrived.

I watched the scene unfold, all in sharp detail but as if at a great distance from me. The vast doors had been opened wide to receive the procession. It was truly magnificent: a mighty host of mourners. If I had not realised before the honour in which Henry of Lancaster was held in Normandy, I did now. Bells tolled, clergy chanted, while beneath it all simmered a dark and doleful sense of doom as a carriage drawn by four burnished black horses came to a halt.

A canopy of rich silk was held aloft. Behind it they came, John of Bedford, James of Scotland, the Earl of Warwick, all the English lords and royal household who had been there at my husband’s death, sombre in black. They bowed to me as they approached and stopped.

I walked forward, my limbs stiff, to where the bier lay draped in black silk. My errant heart, lodged in my throat, beat louder still. For upon it there was an effigy, a more than life-sized effigy, of Henry, fashioned in leather. I took in the details of it as if it were Henry himself, clad in royal robes, furnished with crown, gold sceptre and orb.

Slowly I placed my hand on the arm, as if it might be a living body. It was warm from the sun, but rigid and unresponsive. How could this stiff facsimile contain all Henry’s exuberant life-force? The austere features would never again warm into a smile that could pierce my heart as it had in that long-distant pavilion, with the hound and the hunting cat, at Meulan. How strange that now I was
free to touch him without redress—except that this creature was not real.

‘Is he…?’ I tried to ask. How ignominious it would have been for him if he had been dismembered as the dead sometimes were. His pride could not have tolerated it. ‘Is he…?’ I could not think of the words to ask.

John came to my rescue. ‘Henry has been embalmed. He was very emaciated at the end. And it is a long journey.’

Of course. His body would have been packed with herbs against putrefaction, but still my mind could not encompass it. All that life snuffed out. Too young, too young. And as the procession passed by into the dark interior, there was James of Scotland at my side, as he had been for the whole of that terrible journey from Senlis.

‘Are you strong?’ he asked, closing a hand around my arm. I must have looked on the brink of collapse. I could not remember when I had last slept through a night.

‘Yes,’ I said, my eyes following the preserved remains of my husband.

‘When did you last eat?’

‘I don’t recall.’

‘It will be all right, you know.’ He stumbled a little over the words. ‘I know what it is to live in a foreign country—without friends and family.’

‘I know.’ The cortege had now made its ponderous way into the cathedral where Henry’s body would lie in state.

‘You will return with us to England?’

I did not think I had a choice. I raised my head and watched the effigy still moving away from me into the shadowed depths, until a bright beam of light illuminated it with colour from one of the windows, and for that brief moment the effigy was banded majestically in red and blue and gold. It woke me from my frozen state and with it came an inner knowledge of what I must do.

‘I was his wife. I am the mother of his son, the new king. I will make his return to England spectacular because that is what he would have wanted.’

James’s hand was warm on my cold one. I could not recall when I had last been touched with such kindness, and I said it to him because I could say it to no one else.

‘Henry did not think of me, but I will think of him. Is it not the duty of a wife towards her husband in death as in life? I will carry out his last wishes—whatever they are—because that is what he would have expected of me. I will do it. I will come home to England. Home to my baby son, who is now King of England.’

‘You are a brave woman.’

I turned my head and looked directly at James, seeing a depth of compassion in his face as I remembered John expressing similar sentiments. How wrong they were. I was not brave at all. ‘Why could he not have loved me?’ I asked. ‘Am I so unlovable?’

It came unbidden to my lips, and I expected no answer but, surprising me, James replied. ‘I don’t know how Henry’s mind worked. He was driven by duty and
God’s will for England.’ He hitched a shoulder. ‘No one held centre place in his life. It’s not that he could not love you. I doubt he could love anyone.’ His smile was a little awry. ‘If I did not love Joan,
I
would love you.’

It was an easy response, and one he had made before, but it struck at my heart. And I wept at last under the arch of the cathedral door, tears washing unhindered down my cheeks. I wept for Henry, who had not lived to see his visions fulfilled, and for myself and all my silly shattered dreams: the young girl who had fallen in love with the hero of England, who had wooed her as a political necessity.

‘My lady.’ Made uneasy by my tears, James handed me a piece of linen. ‘Don’t distress yourself.’

‘How can I not? I am French. Without Henry, I will be the enemy.’

‘So am I the enemy. We will weather it together.’

‘Thank you,’ I murmured. I wiped my tears and lifted my head as I followed my husband’s body into the hallowed darkness. All I wanted was to be at Windsor with my son.

When we buried Henry in Westminster Abbey, I gave him everything he rejected from me in life: all the care and attention that a wife could lavish on her husband. Henry had arranged it all, of course—how could I ever think I would be given a free hand?—but I paid for it out of my own dower, and I watched the implementation
of his wishes with a cold heart as I led the mourners in procession to the Abbey, with James at my side, Lord John behind.

I arranged that Henry’s three favourite chargers should be led up to the altar. I considered that he would be more gratified with their presence than with mine.

Henry had put in place a plan for a tomb and chantry chapel in the very centre of the Abbey. So be it. I arranged for the workmen and paid their wages for the very best work they could achieve. No worshipper in the Abbey would ever be able to ignore Henry’s pre-eminence in death as in life.

I also took the effigy in hand: carved in solid English oak, plated with silver gilt, head and hands in solid silver. And above this magnificent representation were hung his most treasured earthly possessions. His shield and saddle and helmet. Trappings of war.

Completed at last, gleaming as it did with dull magnificence in the light from hundreds of candles, I stood beside the remarkable resemblance of his effigy. I placed my hand on his cheek then on his chest, where once his heart beat. The heart beneath my hand was still, stone-like in its oaken carcase, but mine shivered within the cage of my ribs.

‘I am sorry, my lord. I am sorry that I could not mean more to you. Your heart never beat for me—but I vow that I will raise your son to be the most powerful king that England has ever seen.’

It was all I could do for him, and I would not be found wanting in this.

Then, distressingly, clearly into my mind came Madam Joanna’s memory of the old prophecy:

Henry born at Monmouth shall small time reign and much get
.

The accuracy of the old wisewoman’s reading of Henry’s lifespan took my breath. So short a life, so great an achievement. But would her further insight come to pass also?

Henry born at Windsor shall long reign and all lose
.

What a terrible burden this placed on me, for was I not helpless to alter the course of such predestined events? But my protectiveness towards my son was reborn with even greater fervency. I would protect him and guide him and pray to God that his reign would be as glorious as his father’s. As the whole country mourned the passing of its acclaimed King, I decided that that must be the course of my life, to protect and nurture. And I banished the unsettling prophecy from my thoughts. I would simply not let it happen.

I wrote to Henry, taking the matter into my own hand with a direction that shook me.

Spring had arrived. Travellers began to people the roads, groups of merchants and pilgrims about their business, travelling together for safety. The market in Windsor was thronged with townsfolk glad to emerge after the
winter. I watched them from the walls, listening to the cries and music that spoke so eloquently of life going on outside the castle, and with them had come that urgency, to lodge in my mind like a burr under a saddle.

My letter received a reply, and smartly, delivered by Lord John. Yes! Henry would give me leave to join him at last. I tore open the single sheet, scattering the wax in my joyful haste.

No! I swallowed against the intense disappointment and read on.

So my safety was his prime concern, was it? He would send a courier, would he? Then why did I get the impression that such an invitation would never happen? My desolate restlessness was replaced by fury. It blazed, for by
now I had not seen Henry for over a twelve-month, so long ago that when I closed my eyes I had to concentrate to bring his features into focus. Would I eventually forget that direct stare, the straight nose and uncompromising mouth? Would I need his portrait to remind me?

Oh, Henry! You have not even given me a sound reasoning why I should not, merely it is not a good time. When will it be a good time?

‘He says no.’

‘I know.’

‘What is he doing now?’ I asked Lord John, looking up from the brisk refusal that he had brought. ‘I thought Meaux had asked for terms at last.’

‘Yes. It’s taken.’

‘But he has no wish to see me. You don’t have to deny it,’ I said, seeing John’s failure to find a soft reply, trying not to read the pity in his face. ‘I know that his feelings for me are…mild.’ How painful it was to admit that in public. ‘But I cannot accept his reasoning. In fact, I will not accept.’

There was a lull in hostilities. If Henry would not come to me, then I must go to him, and it seemed to me to be high time Henry came face to face with his son. It was time my baby travelled to the country that he would one day rule. It was time he became acquainted with his Valois grandparents.

How easy it was to make that decision, and to inform John of my wishes, refusing any advice to the contrary.
My energy restored with the prospect of action, I marched to Young Henry’s room, swept the baby up from his cradle and took him to look out of the window in the general direction of where his father might be at that very moment. Young Henry was growing, I noticed. He was heavier in my arms now.