The Queen's Lover (47 page)

Mopping his brow, and grinning for the first time--he couldn't control himself enough to hide his relief that she'd knuckled under, she thought, with quiet resentment--Duke Humphrey went on, "Now, as I'm sure you're aware, your principal duty will be to bring up His Majesty to understand his French kingdom as fully as his English one...speak French with him...tell him"--he paused, flummoxed--"well, French stories. Sing him French songs. That sort of thing."

She lowered her head. Her lips were twitching. She wondered whether Humphrey had any idea how many French songs and stories and histories were about the English, or how unflattering they were. But she didn't think it would be politic to explain that. So she just nodded again. She was aware of his relief at the ease with which she took orders.

Perhaps as a reward for her obedience, he went on, "I've--we've--drawn up lists of house hold members for both of you. If there are names you want included or left out, please make your preferences known."

He held out a sheaf of papers. Glancing at the top sheet, she saw columns of names and wages for Harry's personal women servants--ungenerous wages, too, for tending the King. After Mistress Ryman, she read:
"Joan Astley, nurse, PS20 a year. Matilda Fosbroke, PS10..."
"Mistress Ryman," she began hesitantly, testing his offer. Perhaps, after all, she could begin to exercise a little control over her life. "She was very useful while I was away. But, with all these others coming now, is there any need for Mistress Ryman anymore? I'm back, after all."

But Duke Humphrey only tut-tutted and looked vaguely irritated. "Done an excellent job for the past six months. Good housekeeper. You'll need her," he said briskly, remembering to smile mid-sentence.

There was no room for maneuver then. Catherine suppressed the sigh she'd have given if on her own, and approved the rest of the appointments, clearly designed to fill the household with Duke Humphrey's men, doing no more than to run her eye down each of the sheets and nod, even though she knew Sir Robert Babthorpe, named here as steward, would have a hard time doing the job, since he was actually in France as the English army's paymaster, and Lord Fitzhugh, the former treasurer of England, named on the list as Harry's chamberlain, was far too old for the work. It was true what people said about Duke Humphrey, then: he liked to control things, but he wasn't very good at working out how.

It was only when she got to the less political list, of staff who would work in her own household, that she noticed one name that startled her. There, below the familiar Walter Beauchamp, her chief steward from before, and George Arthurton, the clerk of her closet, and various others she knew or at least half remembered, was an insertion. It had been made late, by a different hand from the one that had written most of the list.

"Ahh...someone new?" she said carefully, holding out the document but making sure not to startle Duke Humphrey, or let him think his authority was being questioned in any way.

Duke Humphrey took the parchment and paused while he deciphered the name. "Oh! Yes...Tudor," he vouchsafed, and the too-wide smile seemed to be held on artificially. "My uncle of Beaufort's man. Bishop Beaufort, that is. My uncles were keen to help staff your household; put a few of their own men in. Keep everyone happy. Balance of power. Tudor volunteered." Humphrey harrumphed out something that was half-sigh, half-laugh. "Not really a soldier, Owain Tudor. We thought he would be early on; he bagged a big fish at Azincourt." Humphrey stopped, perhaps remembering that the prisoner he was talking of with such disrespect would be Catherine's blood, some close cousin, someone she might con
ceivably love. Collecting himself, he went on: "But after that--nothing. Now he's thinking about the Church, but can't bring himself to take the plunge. A lightweight." Duke Humphrey's next thought amused him hugely. He spluttered: "A poet, too!" and caught Catherine's eye as he rocked with laughter over his final joke: "And a Welshman to boot!" He sobered himself, though he couldn't resist adding mockingly: "Well, what can you say? A Welshman, but he's taken my uncle's fancy."

She smiled back. "I know him," she said gently; "a little."

"Good with paperwork, though; might be a decent administrator," Duke Humphrey finished benignly. "Got him down as keeper of your household. Only if you want him, of course."

Catherine's head was full of the words
he volunteered.
They rang like bells. She couldn't understand how she could be still standing there, talking courteously with this threatening buffoon as if the sun and moon hadn't shifted on their course; as if, in her lonely, shadowed universe, a little more light hadn't suddenly started to glimmer.
He volunteered.

At her noncommittal nod, Duke Humphrey came round from behind his side of the enormous table, which was scattered with papers. He was still beaming, but more naturally now.

"Well, that's it then," he observed with satisfaction. "All sorted out." He moved closer, offering her an arm to help her rise from her seat. "For now, anyway." She was on her feet now, but he didn't move away. She was uncomfortably aware of the big pores on his face; the slight odor of onions and beef fat. He lowered his face closer, still grinning. She was glad of the two clerks writing away at the end of the table. "Though all too soon we'll have to start thinking about the Queen Mother's marriage, eh?" he said, chuckling again until the whiskers on his chin were almost touching her cheek.

Catherine stopped herself from stepping back until she'd flattered him by saying neutrally, "I will be advised by Your Grace. Naturally. When the time comes. When I am no longer in grief for my lord."

It was the best she could do. As she sank her head, gathered her skirts, and prepared to leave the room, he tightened his arm on her waist, patted her hand awkwardly, and said, with the
roughness of a man not used to flirting, "...a shame for such a pretty face to be hidden away behind veils for too long."

She hardly took the words in. She was floating. My old friend, she was thinking, almost singing with relief and something else she found it easier not to name or think about.
He volunteered.

They walked in the rose garden, between the gnarled skeletons of bushes, ignoring the snow. Owain was in black. The pointed hood of his scapular stretched down his back. His head was shaved. She could see the roughness of the linen on his sleeve. He'd been wearing those robes ever since she'd come across him again in England, she knew. But she was more aw are of them now. Something in him had changed, become more unyielding, and the monk's habit seemed to symbolize the distance he was putting between them.

Timidly, she glanced sideways and upward at his face, tight-boned now, stripped of its youthful softness and optimism. She could hardly believe how light-headed with relief even the sight of him made her.

"I've thought about you a great deal," he said, and although those were gentle words there was nothing especially gentle about his delivery of them. "You're a widow in an unfamiliar place, in unstable times. We both know why that is frightening. You told me how vulnerable you feel; you asked for my help. If you still want that help, I've made it available. If you so wish, my Bishop is quite happy for my secondment to your household to last the full seven years you share living quarters with Harry--that is, six years from now."

She bowed her head, so nervous of saying the wrong thing that she found her voice dropping almost to a whisper. She replied: "Yes...Duke Humphrey said...I've accepted, with pleasure..."

She smiled at him. He didn't smile back. He looked away.

"The post suits me," he added, by way of explanation. "I owed everything to..." Owain's voice tailed off. Bleakly, he crossed himself. "...King Henry," he finished. "He helped
me through my time of troubles; he showed me the way to a new life. It seems fitting to me that I should serve his son and his widow now."

She was chilled and a little surprised by his tough, businesslike demeanor. He was making plain that he'd made a man's decision. He was telling her he was here not because he loved her, but because he'd loved Henry.

She still felt lucky he was here. Protected. He would advise her; they would talk; for years and years to come she would have him to confide in. Perhaps they might become friends.

She nodded gratefully, not daring to speak.

"I'll do everything I can to serve you and your son in that time," he went on. "The Bishop's delayed my going to the Augustinians until after I leave you, even though I'm still to prepare myself...spend time at my devotions...wear the habit. God will wait seven years for me."

He smiled his hard new smile. Breathlessly, eager to find her way to obeying the new rules he was setting out, she began to try to laugh with him.

"Then," Owain's voice ground on, "you'll marry. They'll find you someone of your own rank."

There was no chivalry in his voice, no yearning. All that was gone. If anything he sounded irritated. Perhaps he'd thought her breathy giggle flirtatious and out of place. He added baldly: "So there are no misunderstandings"--he looked away before he finished--"we won't be lovers."

The word "lovers" felt like a slap in the face. But she hid her shock; lowered her eyes. For a moment the beginnings of indignation pulsed through her. She'd surely done nothing to deserve...suggest...she hadn't meant...how dare he...Then she sighed. She did deserve it. There was the past, what could she call it, indiscretion...She felt her mind a void calling it up. And, if she were really honest with herself, she might even have wondered whether in the future, too...It would always be hard to talk to this man without a thought, a memory at least, of bodily attraction. But, if she were to keep him and his goodwill--and she needed to, for there'd be no one who didn't
want to use her now she was so weak--she would have to try to put all that aside. She needed all the friends she could get.

She muttered: "Of course." She shivered. She sensed he wasn't even planning to become a friend; just a dutiful servant, waiting quietly for the day he could leave. But even that would be better than nothing. It was a time for making do with what there was.

PART SIX

The Book of the Body Politic

TWENTY-FIVE

Both Catherine and Owain knew the household of the new Queen Mother of England would be no place for lovers.

For the first few months that the infant King and his mother and their new entourages lived at Windsor, and Wallingford, and the other castles of the Thames Valley, in their tightly swaddled child-world of milk and napkins and isolation from whatever passed for entertainment for adults of the court elsewhere in England, it seemed it might scarcely even be a place for friends.

Catherine still barely knew most of her servants, and was kept at a distance by her slowness to master their customs and language. The only person she did know, Owain, kept at his own formal distance. Catherine busied herself with her son, spending most of her waking hours with Harry in the nursery, evading Mistress Ryman when she could. Outside his working hours, Owain kept himself occupied with his studies or his prayers. At least, Catherine had to assume that, since Owain shut himself up in his rooms or somewhere else out of her sight, and never came out.

Yet Catherine didn't let her courage altogether fail her. She told herself that this more austere Owain was helping shape Harry's life, just as she'd asked. She should be grateful for what she'd been given. If he'd found something else to make the center of his life--the wish to serve God, not her--she had to respect his wishes. Catherine knew now, had known all along really, that
Owain had been right from the start about the shaming proposition she'd once made to him. Her royal blood would always have stood between them; she could no more have loved him than a dog could love a cat. She'd been a child. She'd hated him for shutting her out, and taken a cruel revenge, but he'd been right to know his place, and remind her of it.

She tried to remember that, and be contented with her lot.

Her intuition--that having Owain Tudor near was better than not having him at all, and that there was at least the possibility that they would draw comfort from each other's presence eventually, if their shared embarrassment about some of the moments they must both remember from the past could be overcome--seemed, as the first year wore on, to be being borne out by reality. Catherine was impressed to see that, as Duke Humphrey had so condescendingly remarked, Owain was a good administrator. For someone so modest and without pretensions, he kept order extraordinarily well. He never raised his voice or looked out of sorts, but Catherine's household ran smoothly. The accounts were done, the cupboards full of food and linen, the furniture repaired, the servants paid, the gardens planted, the pottagers harvested, and Catherine's every material need or wish anticipated and satisfied, as if by magic, down to the gorgeously scented rose petals and lavender scattered in her bath, under translucent muslin.

There was more. Even if he was no more than correct in his rare conversations with Catherine, Owain was so affectionate with little Harry--playing jumping and singing games with him, carving and weaving him tiny toys--that it wrung his mother's heart. Gradually, as Harry turned one, then two, a new atmosphere came into existence between his mother and the master of her household. Not a loving one, exactly; not a friendship, quite. Nothing that would have offered true emotional satisfaction, if Catherine hadn't been so absorbed already with raising a child. But at least a businesslike warmth.

As Harry learned to talk, Catherine and Owain learned the ways of comradeship too: smiling stops on stairs and in corridors, careful, not unfriendly conversations, exchanges of
commonplaces, asking after each other's health, sleep, or observations about the child's behavior. Living in the same household, they could talk together many times a day, even if each conversation was brief.

Every week he brought her the household accounts. Increasingly, he encouraged her to speak English, until at last she stopped being scared to open her mouth for fear her tongue would betray her. Occasionally, when Owain's duties permitted it, they might read together. Once Owain read her the teaching of his order's master, Saint Augustine of Hippo, that it was always right to pursue, intelligently, what you loved:
"'...nothing conquers except truth, and the victory of truth is love,'"
he quoted, "that's why the Augustinians pursue knowledge through their books." And then, so coolly that she could do nothing but swallow and look away with a brittle smile, he added, "That's what I have come to see that love most genuinely is."