Wife to Henry V: A Novel (20 page)

“You must learn to outstare the whole world now you are a Queen,” Isabeau said. “Yes, even myself!” The jewelled claw shot out, twisted the girl's ear, half-tender, half-spiteful.

* * *

A strange wedding-journey certainly; but more glorious than any tourney. Her husband was victor of the world; and it was not make-believe. Men bowed the head as he went by—and it was not only because he wore a crown; it was because of the power within him. And all women envied her—except Michelle who asked for nothing but her husband's kindness; yes, even Isabeau. “I am past child-bearing,” she said and laughed, “but I could get myself with child by such a man.”

Now that Sens was garrisoned they were moving north to Montereau. It would be a bloody business. Henry had sworn to avenge to the uttermost the death of Duke John for whom he had cared not a pin, whose death had brought him a second crown.

When he told Catherine she was to stay behind at Bray with her parents she was openly dismayed. No more glorious riding with her King; no more love-making. Angered she might be by his unseemly haste in the business, lie awake she did, angry and unsatisfied, still she was his wife and it was better than no love-making. Besides, she enjoyed the envious eyes of women following her into the tent. Without him she was shorn of her glory. She felt her mother's eye on her.
You have played cards like a fool
, that eye said.

Left behind. Left behind with her disgusting father; with her mother; with all the other useless women. Not even Jacqueline to comfort her; not even Michelle. Jacqueline had gone back to her hateful husband in Brabant; Michelle to Ghent, lonely as she had come, back to the bitter sight of her friend's womb ripening with the child that should have been her own.

Michelle had kissed her with tears, Michelle so little given to displays of affection. “Goodbye,” she said. “Catherine, be happy with your husband. That's more important than a crown.” And then she had said, and it was as though she tore the words from her throat, “More important than a child, even.”

Looking into the thin face beneath the great henin, she had the sudden unbearable thought that Michelle was dying out of life; it was unbearable because it was new. She had never thought of Michelle's death any more than she had thought of her own. Michelle was only two years older. One doesn’t die at twenty-one!

“Take care of yourself, oh take care, Michelle,” she had implored, and, tears pricking her hard young eyes, had watched her sister ride away.

Her parting with Jacqueline had been quite different.

“I will no longer endure my half-man. Half-a-body, half-a-mind. Is that a half or a quarter do you think? Cat, I shall run away...when the time is right. Speak for me to handsome Gloucester when you get to England. Tell him,” she dimpled, “I am ripe for a husband, a real husband; and an heir.”

* * *

Montereau. Certainly it looked like being a bloody business. Packed with Duke John's murderers, it was in no haste to surrender—neither town nor castle. Henry managed to ride over to Bray now and again, where, shorn of his glory, Catherine languished. She looked forward to these sudden comings, there was little else to look forward to. When he came she preened herself in envious glances, gave herself unashamed, but resentful still, to his hasty lovemaking.

He was with her when the news came that the town had fallen. He was out of bed and shouting for his armour before she had time to cover her nakedness.

She did not see him again until all was over. He was elated, unmoved by the peculiar horror of the affair. And he was freer with words than she had ever known him.

“The little Philip wanted to see the place where they'd buried the old man. We were literally shoved to the spot by a crowd of women all in black and wailing—you couldn't hear yourself think! Not much to see when we did get there. No stone of course; they'd done their best with a black cloth spread over the grave and candles burning—head and foot. Of course he had the body dug up—the proper thing. A pity, though; a sight no man's son should have to look at. The old man was naked save for his drawers, slashed in a hundred places...”

He spared her none of the grisly details.

“...part of the face hacked away; a dark clot of blood where the chin ought to have been. Well now the old man's decently buried—pickled in salt and covered with Burgundian soil—we've got to finish the business. We've got the town and we'll soon have the castle too. Hang the lot, as I promised our gentle Philip. And then perhaps we may forget
John-without-Fear
who was the most shifty creature in Christendom.”

* * *

The army moved over to the right bank of the Yonne, the better to train the guns on the castle.

Eleven knights sallying forth were captured and brought to the King's tent. Humble men; innocent of all part in Burgundy's murder—and Henry knew it. “Make the castle surrender,” God's Soldier commanded, “or you shall hang—the lot of you!”

“Sir,” they implored, opening empty hands, “how shall
we
make it surrender when the King of England...”

“Hanging spurs the wits,” he interrupted them. Kneeling hopeless before the towering walls they cried aloud that nothing could stay the triumph of this terrible King.
Surrender, surrender, surrender
...Useless voices crying in the wind.

The poor creatures rose. There was dignity upon them; the dignity of good men about to die. Now they asked one only thing; last sight of beloved faces before they went down into darkness.

Had Henry staged the scene it could not have been more to his purpose. All firing ceased; and, in the strange silence, the doomed men knelt; and on the battlements, the soldiers moved aside for the sad procession—men and women old and young; mothers suckling or big with child; and children stretching out their arms in the last farewell.

Henry rode singing to Bray.

It was the poor mad King who wept when he heard the tale—he alone. From Catherine no word. “It is not for you to be busy about men's work,” Isabeau had said. “And talking of men's work, what about women's work? Don't gape at me, girl; it doesn't take two weeks to get yourself with child.”

* * *

“Let no man blame me for the bloodshed,” Henry said a week later. “Montereau has fallen and I have kept my word.”

Catherine said nothing.

“Justice has been done,” Isabeau said quickly, filling the uncomfortable silence.

“Justice?” Charles said in a low, thin voice. One thought him far away; and then, suddenly, he spoke. “Eleven innocents, what of them?”

“Let no man blame me for those, either. Blame, rather, that fool of a captain who kept me besieging a fortress he knew he couldn't hold.”

He was careless, humming, as he tested the fine edge of his sword. But Charles seemed not to understand the logic of it and could not stay his weeping.

She was afraid of him. She had, she supposed, been a little afraid all her life—of her father with his disgusting madness; of her mother with her harsh angers, of old Burgundy with his rough tongue and young Burgundy with his smooth one. She had never crept and cowered like Michelle, like young Charles, yet still she had been afraid.

But she had never thought to be afraid of her husband...
the charming princess
. Now she knew her mistake; he was not to be taken by any charms. It was not that he was unkind; he was lavish with gifts, careful of her dignity as his Queen, scrupulous for her comfort, proud of her prettiness. Kind, even in his way; but it was a cold way, impatient, impersonal. He was a just man, so they said. But she found it hard to forget those fits of rage that swept all justice aside—his hanging of the innocents at Montereau; and the poor gunners at Louviers. And his harshness at Rouen when he had ordered the unhappy refugees to be driven from wall to ditch in the bitter wind, caring nothing for the sick and the dying, not even for the live child sucking still at the dead breast.

Once she had not cared overmuch about these things. She had said, There is always war. Now she was sickened with eternal fighting. She could not suppose it would stop; did not even wish it to stop; but she longed to get away from the sight, the smell of slaughter; she wanted to laugh and to sing, to ride and to hunt; she wanted to make love gently, kindly.

If her husband could come to her in a quiet place with a quiet mind! First they would make music and then they would make love. He would be gentled with the music and she would not be afraid. Love, she was beginning to think, was less a pleasure than an art, an art that, properly mastered, would bring her the longed-for child. She did not need her mother to point out that Henry might suddenly die—he had narrowly escaped death at Louviers. And there was sickness enough in the English camp—sickness, as she knew well enough, was no respecter of princes. If Henry should die without an heir, then she would be nothing. Nothing in England, nothing in France; without his heir, nothing.

She wished Jacqueline were here. Jacqueline knew all about love-making; there were herbs, Jacqueline said, to overcome fear, to release desire. But Jacqueline was in Brabant leading an army against that disgusting husband of hers—his own city as well as his own wife was sick of him.

When she thought of Jacqueline and her half-man, she was, in spite of everything, glad to be Henry's wife. She had always meant to marry him. She loved him...surely she loved him. It was just that she was a little afraid of him, that was all. If only she could make him see her as a person with a heart and mind as well as a body! But there was never any time. Except for his hurried love-taking he had no use for her; he found her too young, too ignorant.

Her husband enjoyed her body but he did not love her; it was a thing she must face. Well, it was, at least, something to build on. Give her a little time and she would win him; yes, and keep him, too.

* * *

Henry and his armies lay before Melun, the great stronghold of the Dauphin. He must take it. Melun fallen, half of the enemy's strength would be gone.

But the town had no intention of being taken; here too, Burgundy's murderers skulked behind its walls. Besides, it was not only evil-doers who feared Henry of England these days; even among his own men the hanging of the eleven innocents had left a nasty taste.

If Henry knew he gave no sign; he showed nothing but a most savage determination. Even when he lay with Catherine his mind, she knew, harped upon Melun.

Melun might hold out bitter and obstinate, but Paris was in English hands, every garrison and castle; the Bastille, the Louvre, St. Vincennes and St. Pol. All France rang with Henry's triumphs. Courtiers were riding north and south and east and west with the King of France's orders. Catherine savoured them in her mind.

Obedience to the high and mighty Henry of England. Honour htm as your true King. Swear to obey no other excepting King Charles now upon the throne.
Soon Melun must fall; and then—to Paris.

Paris. Entering Paris riding beside her King, the envied of all women.

Paris. Entering Paris in triumph, Regent and heir to France.

But Melun did not fall.

July. August.

It was going to be a long siege. Henry, disturbed because Catherine had not yet conceived, thought she might be the better for a little gaiety. He had a small house built for her six miles away at Corbeil; a charming house. He sent for the great ladies of England to pay their respects to the Queen. Clarence's gentle wife came to meet her new sister-in-law. There were feasts and hunting parties -Isabeau saw to it; and English minstrels played sweet music at sunrise and sunset to raise the sad spirits of the King of France. Catherine sent for her lute; her touch was light, her ear true, her voice small and sweet as a fairy's. Sometimes, now, when he rode over Henry would pick up the lute and play himself. Then she would see the years of struggle wiped from his face; then he was again the debonair boy whose praises minstrels had sung.

September. October.

Catherine had not conceived nor the town surrendered.

Isabeau rallied her openly. Four months and no sign of pregnancy! Henry would call off his bargain if his wife were so slow! Once she made the mistake of baiting the girl before her husband He was furious with a cold and deadly fury, his pride—both royal and male-deeply offended. “The Queen of England will conceive and bear my child in England,” he said. Isabeau the fearless, trembled.

Catherine felt her failure. Though she longed for a child to give her authority both now and in the future, she knew herself rigid beneath his love-making. She blamed herself-and remained powerless against her fear, her resentment. Jacqueline would have told her that it was not her fault alone; the man himself was weary with constant endurance; Michelle, too, might have warned her. Isabeau had no intention of making things easier with excuses.

Melun did not fall nor Catherine conceive.

Henry admitted his failure with the town to Clarence.

“I am weary to the bone. If only I could trust—trust my allies, trust my friends. But—” he shrugged. “The good Philip, for instance. No trusting him...”

“...except to seek his own advantage first and always. You can certainly trust him for that!”

“You're right there, Tom. Let me but turn my back and he'd sell me to the Dauphin if he got the chance.”

“There'll be no chance.”

“No,” Henry said. “No. Not while I have my brothers to stand by me. Brothers. A man's shield breast and back, our father used to say. But it isn't only our allies, Tom; it's our own captains—Warwick and Huntingdon and the rest. While I examine gates and walls, they're agog for the attack. While I count men and arms, while I calculate the food, they cannot contain themselves. Mad for the fighting!”

Tom would have spoken then, but Henry went on. “And there is. Madam Isabeau. Even she begins to think she's backed the wrong side. Nothing would stop her from selling us to the enemy—except fear of her precious son. She knows she'll get nothing out of him, except a cooling in prison.”

“You think too much,” Tom said slowly. “You have forgotten to sit back and rest. It's a fault in a soldier.”