The Queen's Lover (33 page)

Isabeau drew in a breath so deep that all her green iridescence--flab, silk, jewels, eyelids--wobbled.

"If you and Papa were to repudiate Charles now..." Catherine breathed. "If you told the world what you've told me..."

She waited. After a long pause, Isabeau nodded again, looking harsher and more vengeful now.

"...then Charles would never be King of France," Catherine
said, in the voice of temptation: naming Isabeau's dearest wish, speaking it out loud, conjuring it into existence. "You could stop him."

There was a pause.

"We'd need to send armies south and clear up his rebellion," Catherine said, adding with contempt, "what's left of it. So there wouldn't be peace straightaway. But that would be easy enough. Because once you'd repudiated Charles, Henry of England would be back to talk peace with you straightaway. And if you had
his
armies at your disposal, it would take no time to deal with Charles."

She smiled. She knew it was a hard smile. She sensed she was winning.

"And if we had an agreement with Henry of England, there'd be a marriage. I would be his Queen..." Catherine said: her clinching argument. "And your grandson would be King of England."

Isabeau still said nothing. The Queen was still nodding. But, suddenly, Catherine wasn't completely sure anymore that her mother was agreeing; she might just be weighing up her options.

Catherine knew what the catch must be. However much her mother wanted to prevent Charles from taking the throne, she would be reluctant to pay the necessary price: admitting to the world that she had been an adulteress, a sinner who'd broken her marriage vows, who had taken a lover...

Well, she thought brutally, Isabeau couldn't afford squeamishness either. The Queen would have to pay the price if she wanted the reward.

"You know I want that marriage," Catherine finished, wondering how she was managing to be so brave, and where her old fear of her mother had gone. "Anything else would mean dishonor. I already am Henry's. You know that too. So when I think about it, what I ask myself is, what do you want most--Charles' happiness, or mine?"

Isabeau's lips were crimped together. She'd gone opaque.

Catherine couldn't tell at all what she was thinking.

When her mother's lips did, finally, open, Catherine leaned breathlessly forward to catch the words.

"Don't you worry," the Queen told her daughter. "I know exactly what to do."

Then Isabeau disappeared, and all that was left of her were the wheezing noises going down the spiral staircase.

Owain's horse was already saddled for the return to England when they called him to the King's tent. They were bringing his bundles out of the tent. They'd be loading them up in a minute.

He went at once, picking his way through the mud, not even seeing the encampments and cooking fires and saddles being greased on all sides anymore; already, in his mind, on the quiet road home. He didn't worry about the summons. They knew he was off. Henry had only laughed when he'd turned down the King's offer of a knighthood after Pontoise. "I'm not a soldier," he'd told the King; "and you're already giving me the best reward I could hope for--letting me go." He was ready now to make his farewells.

But they hadn't called him to make any farewells. The King was sitting on a rough stool, laughing with his brother John of Bedford: two big pairs of hands slapping at themselves, as if there were flies on their thighs; two sets of pop eyes popping out more than ever with merry disbelief.

"You'll never credit this, Tudor," Bedford said. Then he stopped and hiccuped and began helplessly laughing again.

Owain stared.

"The Prince has murdered Burgundy!" Bedford got out, with his eyes almost out of his head. "Actually during their talks! Unbelievable! So much for peace between the French!"

Owain thought: It must be relief that's making them laugh. They must have been scared. Henry was roaring and snuffling.

"And now the Queen and the new Burgundy--Burgundy's son--have sent proclamations to every town in France--denouncing Charles! The Queen's own son! Saying this proves he's unfit to rule!" the King of England somehow got out.

Bedford hugged himself. "Oh, these people!" he sighed. "If they didn't exist, we'd have to make them up!"

Henry finished: "And there's better! We've just received a messenger who says the Queen's even starting telling all and sundry that Charles can't rule France--because"--he stopped; tried to overcome a snicker; gave way to it; went on: "because...she says...her son's a bastard!"

Bedford snorted again. He spluttered: "She doesn't seem to care...if the whole world wonders...if Charles is a bastard...who's the father...and what does that make her?"

"They don't need us here at all, do they?" Henry said to his brother in a moment's calm; as if he didn't mind the bewildered Owain being here, or had forgotten him altogether. "They could destroy France all by themselves, even if we weren't here...they've got a genius for self-destruction..."

"Genius!" Bedford agreed, and the two brothers started rocking and guffawing again.

Owain waited until their helpless laughter had subsided a little. Even with his mind already fixed on home, even with all his defenses up against beginning to imagine the distress Catherine might feel about the latest chaotic turn of events, he could see what good news this was for the English war effort. Of course they'd be pleased. They were right to be. Then, clearing his throat to draw attention to himself, he stepped forward and said, "Your Graces will remember that I'm leaving today; I've come to ask Your Majesty's permission to set off..."

Henry stopped laughing. But there was still a smile on his face as he got up, walked to Owain's side, put an arm round his man's shoulder, and said, with his lips twitching, "Refused, Tudor. Refused."

Owain tried not to let himself flinch visibly. But he felt as though the ground were opening up beneath his feet.

"Can't possibly let you go now," Bedford was saying from somewhere beside him. "This is the moment we've been waiting for. Our big opportunity: take France through the hole in the Duke of Burgundy's skull. They're in chaos. Can't let the Prince be King now. No one else in the picture. King's as mad
as a hatter. They'll say yes to anything. We'll say: Henry marries the daughter; Henry becomes King of France. And they'll say yes, no question. We've won the war; we're about to win the peace!"

Henry added: "We've just had word from the Queen ourselves. The French are asking us for more talks. So we're off to meet her at Troyes. And so are you, Tudor. You do talks. Your kind of thing. We'll need you."

He nodded determinedly. But he was a good enough master to remember what he was depriving Owain of. He added: "Your books will still be there in a few months. Oxford's not going anywhere..."

He looked at his brother, and, as if they were aware of some secret signal Owain couldn't see, they both began to shake with laughter again.

PART FOUR

The Vision of Christine

SEVENTEEN

There were birds singing all around. Catherine was sitting on a chamomile bench, enjoying the scent of the crushed leaves and the little star-faced daisy flowers, as she absorbed the news.

The English had agreed to talk again within two days of Burgundy's assassination, and within a day of Isabeau's announcements that Charles was unfit to rule and was illegitimate. They would all meet at Troyes within three days--as soon as possible.

"No corridor-creeping now," Isabeau had grunted playfully. "I know you girls."

Catherine had begun to say something indignant, then subsided. It would have been ungracious to remind Isabeau that she'd been the one who'd pushed her daughter into bed with the King of England. Isabeau had got the English back now, and Catherine should be showing gratitude. Isabeau had added, with triumphant cynicism: "Better he's hungry. We'll keep you in your rooms this time. Make him wait."

This time, with her mother's help, it would surely all come right. In a moment Catherine would go inside and begin to pack. For now, with the sun on her back, she was happy to lose herself in reverie.

"...I knew you'd come back," she'd whisper to Henry when she saw him next, in a swooning, shimmering, scented bower of dewy roses. "...I knew you'd rescue me." And he
would smile very tenderly, and take her in his arms, and kiss her...

"You must wonder, whatever can have possessed your mother?" Christine said, letting her eyes rise to Catherine's face with the new near-timidity that age and hard times had brought her. Christine wondered about it all the time. She still couldn't believe what the Queen had said, and in public too, any more than she could believe in the murder of Burgundy. The Bavarian woman wasn't a disgrace, Christine thought helplessly to herself; she was worse: an, an...
outrage.
An
abomination.

Catherine shrugged, and put another robe on the pile of garments to be ironed and hung up. She wished Christine would stop nagging away at this difficult question. She wished, too, that Christine didn't look so frail and old and helpless as she did so. It made her feel--almost--guilty.

Catherine knew perfectly well why Isabeau had finally made up her mind to repudiate Charles and say he was a bastard: because she'd been asked to by her daughter. That in itself didn't especially trouble Catherine's conscience. She was grateful to her mother for taking the step she had. Reasonably grateful, at least: though she also knew her mother had wanted revenge on Charles at least as much as she'd wanted to save her daughter. Still, the results were more important than the reasons, Catherine thought. Isabeau had chosen her daughter's future over that of her son, and she'd been right to. Charles had done his best to destroy his mother, and had spent years demonstrating the contempt in which he held his sister. He shouldn't expect either of them to care overmuch what became of him now.

She didn't feel sorry for Charles. He deserved his fate. The more Catherine thought about it, the more she'd come to believe that Charles' viciousness and disloyalty to his blood relatives alone was enough to disqualify him from taking the throne. She'd been raised in the belief that God chose only the wisest and most virtuous to be anointed kings of France; her ancestors numbered saints and emperors. She'd grown up with the certainty that she must therefore act with virtue and
nobility; do everything in her power to be worthy of her royal blood. Surely God would not allow a murderer--someone who had ignored that sacred duty and chosen sin--to be anointed His chosen vessel. That would be a mockery of kingship itself. And Charles was a murderer, there was no doubt about that. She'd seen him kill once. Now she also knew he'd murdered his cousin, with his own hands. It was possible, she thought, that her brother shed blood because his own blood was literally impure--because he actually was the fruit of some liaison between her mother and one of her lovers, rather than the legitimate son of the King of France. But she didn't care whether that was why. The facts she knew were enough.

"Oh, who can ever tell what Maman is up to?" Catherine said lightly. "She says so many things..."

"Well, you mustn't believe it," Christine replied, very gently, as if Catherine were a child with a hurt knee. "Not for a moment. And try not to be shocked that she said it. I think...perhaps...she did it out of love for you...she means well...she just doesn't understand how wrong it is...to say such things..."

Without meaning to, Catherine let irritation harden her voice. What made Christine so certain? How could Christine possibly think she always knew the answers?

"But what if it's true?" she said. "What if he
is
a bastard?"

She knew at once that this had been the wrong thing to say. Even without looking up, she was aware of a change in Christine. The old woman was puffing up like an enraged turkey cock.

"You can't think it's true," Christine said angrily, and the forlorn air was gone; she was suddenly as formidable again as the powerhouse of a woman Catherine remembered from childhood. "You can't think that a Queen of France would allow a lover to father her child?"

Catherine raised her hands, as if to hold off the tide of angry words she sensed coming.

But, privately, rebelliously, she was thinking: Well, why wouldn't it be true? If they all accepted that the Queen had had many lovers, including the King's brother, why should
Christine be so angry at the possibility that a child might have been conceived by accident? However careful you were, however many sponges soaked in vinegar and pig's-bladder hoods and consultations with the stars, mistakes happened. Everyone said so. There would have been no reason to think, back then, that the boy who might have been the mistake of an illicit liaison might ever be called on to rule France. Charles was Isabeau's fifth son, and her eleventh child; back then he'd been very far from the throne.

Christine was still talking, furiously and very fast. "Because if you
did
allow yourself to believe that of your mother, you'd be admitting the possibility that she might have done the same with you--that you might be a cuckoo too. If I were you, I'd think very carefully indeed about that before you--"

"Please," Catherine said impatiently. "Of course I'm not a bastard."

Christine stopped and looked shocked. At herself, Catherine thought; as well she might, after the absurd suggestion she'd just made.

On the night before the talks began, the two sides were to sit down together at a dinner. "You can go to dinner, at least," Isabeau said with an excited grin. "Flirt a little with your Henry. Then leave."

The thought of seeing Henry again--after last time--both excited and alarmed Catherine. She sent Christine away and spent all afternoon with her ladies, bathing and choosing her clothes and dressing her hair and trying to calm her nerves.

But when she entered the hall and went to her place on the dais, she saw that the English guest of honor was not Henry but John of Bedford, his brother. She didn't like to ask where Henry was. Keep him hungry, her mother had said. But perhaps he was not dining here tonight because he was thinking the same thing? Her mother, four seats away, was too far off to consult.