The Stolen Queen (26 page)

We rode into the inner bailey, where a few servants came out to meet us. They were a poor lot, no livery and a grubby, unkempt look that contrasted with the new buildings of what was clearly an important stronghold. I tried to recall what I had heard at Westminster about my husband's building here, I knew he had spent a vast amount of money on Corfe, which had been built by his great-grandfather, but beyond that I knew nothing. Still, what did it matter? One prison would be very much like another.

Terric handed me down, my limbs stiff and sore from the joltings of the litter. ‘This way, my lady.' None of the servants knelt, though a few of the slatternly girls attempted a curtsey. I followed Terric to the largest building, to the west of the inner courtyard, up two flights of stairs and along a passage. ‘Your chamber, my lady.'

A wooden bed with a cloth of estate above it. A chest, a stool and a small table. One casement giving onto the castle walls. I thought that somewhere I could hear the sound of the sea.

‘Where are my maids? Where are my things?'

‘Why, here, lady,' Terric gestured to the empty room.

‘But—' I knew that I should be a prisoner. I knew that Pierre and Aliene had contrived that. But royal prisoners were kept in some sort of state, surely? Not like common thieves? I had a horrible recollection of the poor girl Susan, of her mangled wrists, stinking from the shackles.

‘A woman will be provided to wait on your needs. You will be quite comfortable.'

Tears were pricking behind my eyes, but I should not let him see them. ‘A priest, a clerk, a carver?'

‘There is a priest in the town and we can fetch a clerk if you find yourself in need of one. But the king says you must rest, lady. And I must protect you.'

Desperately, I asked, ‘And how long must I remain here?' I could not help the imploring tone in my voice.

‘As long as it pleases the king's Majesty.' He took his own pleasure in that, I saw. And since the king's Majesty's pleasure endured for another three years, I had abundant time to become cognizant of Terric.

I had known different kinds of cruelty, the cold ruthlessness of Lord Hugh, the frenzied rage of John, the dark sensuality of Pierre. I had been cruel myself, to Arthur. And beneath all that, there was the other darkness, the Lusignan taint I carried in and on me, which was not cruelty, quite, but the blood call of Nature itself, the paying of sacrifice embodied in the horned man who for so many years had stalked my dreams. Yet Terric was different. His cruelty had no motive, no end beyond itself. It was blanketed in quietness, in that dull manner of his, by his slow movements and the heft of his vast body. But Terric's
cruelty had no gain at its end. He was cruel in the manner of an idle musician, who would toy with his lute while awaiting his master's summons, cruel because he simply could be.

When first I understood that I was to remain at Corfe, I thought to make a friend of him. I thought he might respond, if not to my state, to myself, to a gentle tone in my voice, a pretty flutter of the eyes, the small tricks that women use to bind men and which I had after all studied for so long. Yet not only did he remain dull as a brick to my overtures, he took pleasure in tormenting me. In the first few weeks of my captivity, what few accoutrements I had brought with me from London disappeared. A scent flagon, my combs, my wine goblet, all vanished. And then began a long game of begging, where I, his queen, was to ask him for something so simple as a napkin, and it would take days to appear, only to be withdrawn again before I had the use of it. Sometimes the pot beneath my bed was left stinking for days, sometimes I was served no food, or my washing water was mislaid. When I asked for news of my children, or my accounts, when I requested a clerk that I might write for information, I was put off, day after endless day. I was permitted to walk as much as I wished on the walls of the keep, Terric plodding behind me like a malignant dog, yet as the weather turned and the days grew long and warm, I was told that the king had forbidden me to walk to the river or the meadows, and only those bare dusty stones might make my exercise. Perhaps the moment which captured the man most clearly was the day I picked the poppies. They were growing in a chink in the wall, just three of them, brave red against the greyness, which by that
first summer seemed eternal to me. I picked them and set them on the casement sill in my dreary chamber and gloated over that small patch of colour as though it were the most beautiful tapestry hanging from Flanders, so pinched and confined had my eye become. And the next day, they were not gone, but crushed and mangled, crunched in a huge fist and left a dry mess, to remind me that I could expect no joy there at Corfe. I wept over them, those poppies, as I had never wept for the loss of my jewels or my fine clothes, for they had seemed a talisman to me, a delicate beacon that drew my mind to the meadows of my childhood and promised that one day, I should once more be in Angouleme.

*

It was not until autumn that we heard from the king. A courier arrived in the royal colours and a great splattering of mud. From the walls where I stalked away my days like the ghost I feared I should become, I watched him hand a parchment roll to Terric. Since I knew he could not read, I thought he might bring it to me, but three days passed and I saw nothing of it. I knew better than to ask a question, for if he sensed it might bring me pleasure to learn my husband's news I should be sure not to learn it at all, and it was only when I saw a scruffy mule trudging up the causeway from the town, carrying the equally scruffy priest who served Mass in the castle, that I thought I should learn its contents. As it was, John came himself the next day, in a great company of knights, my brother riding beside him. I peered humiliatingly from the walls like a nosy serving wench, desperate to see a lady's litter, so that I might know if Aliene had
accompanied him, but his company was of men. From the carts of sacks and tally sticks which rolled in that evening I imagined that his purpose in coming was merely to extract the royal taxes from the country, or perhaps to see about the defences of the castle, where the masons were still working. That John no longer cared even for the appearance of civility was made plain when he did not summon me to supper or to sit with him in the hall, from where I could hear the men carousing, and smell the now-unfamiliar aromas of roasting meat and spiced wine. I dined myself now like a peasant, on coarse bread and onions, herbs and tough smoked fish or hard cheese. John remained two days, and the only moments I spent with him were when he lumbered to my chamber at dawn, stinking like a wineskin and senseless to the small questions I made him as he laboured fruitlessly as ever over my scantily washed body. When Pierre followed him, before I had had time even to scrape the stench of my husband from my skin, he cuffed me into silence, and I was even grateful for the short time of the things we did together, for the brief jolting cruelty of his embrace. And a month after they rode out, I knew I was again with child, and that I should have to endure Terric's leering as my belly swelled, and I wished then that I might die of it, so spiritless had I become.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

I
WAS TWENTY YEARS OLD WHEN I LAY IN AT CORFE
for the birth of Eleanor. When the familiar pains began I recalled how I had first taken my chamber, for Henry. The whole court had assembled as I ceremoniously progressed to the suite of rooms that had been selected for my enclosure, leaning heavily on John's arm, my belly proud before me. The ladies who would attend me entered the rooms while I shared sweet spiced wine with my husband's lords, then bade them a formal farewell. They wished me God's blessing in the bringing forth of a prince, and then I heard Mass before the doors were closed behind me. The walls were hung with carpets and fabrics, the floors thick with rushes, the shutters tightly sealed. I would see no man until the child was born. Now there was no one but me and a maid, and a filthy old wise woman from the town, and England's princess came into the world on a dingy straw pallet unfit for a farmer's daughter. The labour was short, and much less painful, and I was able to hold the scrawny bluish body against my breast for an hour or two before Terric opened the
door, and there was the wet nurse come to take my baby away. I pressed my lips to her soft brow and blessed her. I did not think to see her again. She would join her sister in the royal nursery while I stayed here to rot.

I had the maid bind my breasts tightly with strips of linen torn from my bedsheets, to stop the milk, sent the old bawd away, and slept away a day or so, waking only to take a little gruel, glad of the exhaustion of my body. When I woke, I knew, it would be as if I had dreamed the birth, and a little of the pain would be gone. I floated on clouds of memory, stunned by the opiates a woman's body will make after childbed, as potent as any of dear Agnes's draughts. I thought I smelled a sweet posset, spiced with cinnamon and rich with egg, such as I had drunk when Henry came. I sighed and pushed it away and turned on my pillow to sleep some more, but the scent did not evaporate. I opened one sleep-gummed eye. There was a cup in front of me, steaming milk and honey, cinnamon and nutmeg and cloves. I was still dreaming then. I closed my eyes and prepared to sink away into another dream.

‘Majesty!'

‘Terric?' I sat up and peered drowsily over the edge of the tester. A woman knelt awkwardly on the bare stone, proffering the cup formally. Her hair was covered with a coarse veil. A new maid, it seemed. And a small kindness. I took the cup and drank the thick sweet liquid greedily. ‘You may leave me.'

‘Majesty!'

What was the woman doing? Had she no idea how to behave? ‘I said, you may leave me.'

‘It is Lady Maude!'

I sat bolt upright in the bed as the woman raised her head. ‘Lady Maude! What are you doing here?'

‘Please, Majesty, please help me. I haven't much time.'

I had not seen Lady Maude for more than five years, since she and her husband had left Rouen so hurriedly, in that lost time when I loved Arthur. The burly, commanding figure I remembered was quite gone. Her face was thin and lined like a field woman's, the wisps of hair which escaped beneath her cap were a dirty grey. Her face was besmeared with dust, as though she had come straight from the road. I was puzzled, but I tried to be gracious.

‘You are most welcome, Lady Maude. Forgive me if I am presently unable to receive you properly, but please to stand. I will call for some refreshment.' She might see that I had remembered the lessons she had tried to teach me, even in this dreadful place.

‘Majesty, you are kind. But there are no refreshments. I mixed your drink myself, from my own travelling necessaries. I should think they will be gone already.'

‘Thank you, then, Lady Maude. You are kind.'

‘It is you who are kind, Majesty. But I must speak with you.'

There was no seat to offer her, so I gestured that she should make herself comfortable on the bed. I hated to think how the room must smell; the maid had changed the linen but the pallet would still be soaked with my blood and worse. But I was queen. I would not acknowledge how low I had been pushed.

‘Pray speak then, Lady Maude.'

I was even more surprised when she grabbed at my hand and held it tightly.

‘They brought me here just now. The king's men came to our home. They are gone for my son, and when they return, they will lock us up.'

‘But why? What has happened? I see no one here, I have no news. Has there been another rebellion?'

‘No, Majesty. I am a loyal subject, and my husband too. But the king … the king is angry with us. He knows that we know what happened, back then in Rouen.'

‘Do you mean – to the Duke?' Even now I could not bear to say poor Arthur's name aloud.

‘Yes, I do.'

‘It is an old story, put about by my husband's enemies. It is forgotten now, surely?'

‘Perhaps. But not by the king. You see, my husband was there. He saw it. He saw … you, Majesty.'

‘But you were gone when the-the calamity occurred!'

‘My husband wished us to leave. He felt in honour that he could no longer remain. But as we were on the road that night, he felt remorse. He thought that it was his duty to return, to try to persuade the king not to do anything … hasty.'

Neither of us dared to speak the truth aloud. I was tired of this.

‘Lady Maude, you mean that your husband believed that if he returned he might prevent my husband from murdering his nephew?'

‘Yes.'

‘And then.'

‘My husband road back, as fast as he could, alone. He entered the castle and went to the cell where the Duke was held. The door was barred, but he heard sounds inside. Dreadful sounds. There was a grille in the door, he tried to look through it, but as he did so it was opened from the inside and he saw that he was too late.'

‘What did he do?'

‘He was confused. He thought that he ought to detain the king, but dared not draw his sword on his sworn liege. He told me that the king was wild with rage, wild like an animal. The king asked if he would help them. There was another man in the room, and my husband said that in conscience he could not. Then he fled, fearing that the king would have him killed, too, for what he had witnessed. So we returned to England and have been living quietly on our lands ever since, keeping the king's peace on the border as is our duty.'

‘But if my husband has not troubled you since then, why now? Why have you been brought here?'

‘How long have you been here, my lady?'

I thought, then said, ‘It is almost three years.' How quickly they seemed to have passed when I spoke it, and yet how long it had felt! ‘I live very quietly, as you see,' I added scornfully. ‘I keep no court here. The king has visited from time to time.'

‘I understand. I congratulate you on your family, Majesty.'

‘I have no family,' I muttered. ‘They took my children from me.'