Wife to Henry V: A Novel (37 page)

“His Holiness hasn't spoken yet. He hopes, maybe, that given time, the burning question may burn itself out.”

“God grant it may be so! God grant that my Brother of Gloucester and my Cousin of Burgundy may yet work together to make my son's crown safe in France.”

He said nothing; but she read his thoughts in his eyes.

“But—” she spread her hands. “Gloucester is tired of the Lowlands affair. And now he sees there's nothing to gain and all to lose, he'd be glad, one would think, of an excuse to lay down arms.”

“But not Madam Jacqueline. She has the courage of a hundred Gloucester—saving the Queen's Grace! she will never call a halt.”

“She has no choice in prison.”

“She has escaped.”

“Escaped? From the Grafenstein fortress? Impossible!”

“In the fortress she was; but not under lock and key. There my lord of Burgundy made his mistake. One fine night out walked a couple of lads for an airing “

For the moment she wanted to laugh. Jacque all plump curves-how had she managed to pass for a boy?

“Madam the Countess has a will of iron—and many friends.” But for all that his eyes twinkled. “Now she is safe in her own Holland.”

“God be praised!” Her face glowed; the next moment darkened. Now was the time, whether he wanted to or not, for Humphrey to send help to Jacque; if not, he branded himself a coward in the eyes of Christendom. So much for hope of peace between him and Philip!

“My lord of Gloucester is to send six hundred men,” Tudor told her. “He does not go himself.”

Her breath went out in a sigh of relief. She wanted help for Jacque. But—
Near is my gown ; jet nearer my shift
; it was an old saying of her mother's.

“Of what use six hundred against the hosts of Burgundy?” she said. .

“It is not meant, perhaps, to be useful; a gesture, I think. Our men are forbidden to attack—Parliament's orders. As if they could! No, they are simply to protect the Countess and bring her home to England.”

“Do you think Burgundy would lose his prize for six hundred, or six thousand; or sixty thousand, even?” she asked.

“My lord of Gloucester has asked himself that question, too, no doubt. Rash he is; but not rash enough to live with two Queens in one hive.”

They were silent, both of them, thinking of Gloucester's dark, beautiful witch.

All the beauty of Jacque and the wit; all the high courage and the warm heart wasted. For the moment grief for Jacque overcame Catherine's relief at the paltriness of the expedition. Jacque's sun had risen fair. She had married a King's son; had fate been reasonably kind, she would have been Queen of France by now. She had married a reigning duke and little good had she got out of it—but slights and humiliations and the thieving of her inheritance. She had married yet another King's son and lost everything—including her good name. Now her bright day was overcast and she...
the most ruined, the most treacherously betrayed of women.
The words of Jacque's piteous letter came to her mind. She thought, and knew not how the thought had come, If Jacque could marry some quiet gentleman who would love her and serve her! She caught back the thought. Jacque with her high and ancient lineage, with her royal blood, marry some quiet gentleman! And yet, why not, so he loved her truly? Let her be done with light, slight Gloucester and the cares of her inheritance; let her be done with her hard existence between prison and camp, and live her woman's life.

* * *

She pitied Jacque, God knew. But was she in better case herself? For her, too, the barren years stretched ahead. Life stood still. Twenty-five. And one day like another...one night like another, lying sleepless and alone. She found herself irritable, impatient; regretted it and could not help herself. Impatient with her servants, with her women; most of all impatient with herself.

She went up to London once or twice to see Johanne. Driving through Staines she could not but remember how she had driven, her King upon her lap. She visited him now and again at Eltham or at Westminster, or at Wallingford. He was grave among the palace boys, the smallest, the slightest. He wore a subdued look. A quiet little fellow; no sparkle. The blue eyes clouded too quickly with tears; but the drooping Valois underlip was held too firmly to tremble. Slowly, slowly, he was learning his lesson.

* * *

For all my lord of Bedford, Duke Humphrey was making trouble still. He refused so much as to meet his uncle. Twice, both at St. Albans and at Northampton, when the Council met, there was my lord Bishop with hand outstretched...and no nephew to grasp it. Bedford, like the wise, quiet man he was, said nothing. Humphrey had, at least, sent his excuses—not well enough to travel. The excuse was accepted; but there must be no more refusals. When the court moved to Leicester, sick or well, Gloucester must be there to meet his uncle—and no armed followers on either side to make trouble. The two must take each other by the hand and swear peace and friendship.

By mid-February the court was at Leicester. It was cold as winter even in Windsor; the wind cut sharp as a knife. Catherine hoped that the little King was warmly dressed for the bleak midland of England; she hoped Astley had seen to it that his shirts, at least, were of Flanders cloth.

Tudor kept his messengers on the run.

Gloucester had obeyed orders...up to a point. He was at Leicester—he and his uncle glowering at each other like fighting-cocks. Accusations ran backwards and forwards. And if there were no armed followers there had been fighting for all that—stones and men's naked hands. Parliament had dealt with nothing, not even the Speaker chosen. The business of the country, so it seemed, must wait upon the angers of those two!

It was well into March before my lord Duke and my lord Bishop could be induced to take hands. “Honours even—so it appears,” Tudor told the Queen. “But all the same up goes Gloucester and down goes Beaufort—my lord Bishop has resigned the Seal.”

The daffodils were over and Jacqueline's queer, stiff tulip-flowers standing stiff as soldiers, when she heard news that stirred her strangely. The little King was to be knighted. And he not yet five!

May came in soft and mild after the cold spring; the air was soft and sweet as summer.

From her high window Catherine looked across garden and meadow; down by the river, men and women were sporting together. Loneliness fell upon her, solitary in her tower. She tried to shrug it away. Suppose she were not a Queen; suppose she were one of the laughing young women, which of the gallants splashing about in the bright water would she choose?

A man came up out of the river. He was of Henry's build, long and lean; it was a build she favoured in a man. She thought, watching, it might have been Henry himself as she had dreamed of him once—broad shoulders, narrow waist, slim flanks, vigorous, unblemished youth.

And, suddenly, she was no longer a Queen. She was Isabeau's daughter hot with desire.

Shaking the water from his hair, he turned a careless head.

She shrank back within the window-seat. The steward! A servant; a cheap esquire...not even a knight.

The old contempt was on her.

The Queen was for Leicester to see her son knighted. She had gone no more to the Wardrobe; had not been able, for shame, to look upon the steward having once looked upon the man. Now, the distance between Windsor and herself lengthening, self-contempt lessened, too. A pother about nothing! She had but used her eyes to see a handsome fellow—no more than that! And, drawing near Leicester, and remembering how she had ridden here once before, with Henry—England's Queen—she denied her heart's madness.

In the Castle the Queen's rooms were prepared, sweet with strewn rushes, with green boughs, with flowers. My lord of Bedford was in Council, the chamberlain told her; and his lady a-hawking. They had not looked for Madam the Queen so soon. My lord craved the favour of the Queen's company at supper.

She found the child in the King's suite; he was pleased to see her in his quiet, subdued way. He had a nervous look, she thought, as though responsibilities were already weighing upon his narrow shoulders. When she spoke to him, it was not easy at first to get an answer. It was as though, small as he was, he was already schooled to watch his tongue. And even when it was a little loosened, it was not of people that he spoke, nor of the other boys, nor even of his coming knighthood; but of the saints and the angels. He looked, she thought, not unlike an angel himself. In his room the giant crucifix—the Christ as big as himself—the holy pictures disturbed her. Even Henry, that Soldier of God, would not have approved; Henry might have had one eye on heaven; but very certainly he had had both feet on the ground.

Looking at the great eyes so blue in the smudged whiteness of his face her heart misgave her. She tried to turn the conversation from saints and angels to other matters, matters that should surely delight a little boy.

“And so you are to be knighted very soon. I've come on purpose to see that; it is a thing I could not miss!” Looking at the peaked little face, the small, thin body, she thought how absurd, how pitiful was this business of knighting him.

“Yes,” he said. But the prospect, it was clear, dismayed him. She brought out the little scabbard the steward had had made; it was set about with jewels, his initials inlaid in cypher. He pretended to like her gift. But, she could see, he would have preferred some other thing; perhaps her gift brought his ordeal too near.

But still he let her fasten the scabbard; he even went, unasked, to fetch the fine sword my lord of Warwick had sent from France.

“The other boys are going to be knights, too,” he told her. “I've got to do it.”

“That will be splendid.” And it was absurd; it was more than absurd. “Your friends?” she asked, curious to know who were his friends among the palace boys.

“No. Not friends. Just boys.” He was patient, revealing his loneliness.

All the time he had been quiet and watchful. But now, when she rose to go, he flung himself upon her and hugged her; and asked why he could not live with her once more? And asked when would she come again? And whimpered a little so that Astley appeared from nowhere and quelled him with a look.

* * *

John looked worried, Catherine thought; but for all that he was pleased to see her—there was a softening in those hard, grey eyes. As for Anne, she had altered not a whit. Madam the Duchess of Bedford she might be; but she was still the little girl with the pale skin and the soft owl eyes. She was rather pretty, Catherine thought, and moved quickly forward both hands outstretched. But Anne was shy; or perhaps her brother Philip had warned her against being too friendly because of Jacque.

Over supper John gave her the news, Anne sitting silent. He told her that though Gloucester and Beaufort had sworn friendship, “They had as lief put hand to sword as in each other's. Well, willing or not, as long as they keep the peace I am content.”

She asked how long he intended to stay in England. “Till all is quiet,” he told her and then fell to talking of affairs in France; and of Isabeau and his brother-in-law Burgundy. Jacque's name was not mentioned again; and all the time Anne sat quiet and watchful, missing nothing with her pretty shortsighted eyes.

Whitsunday was bright with sunshine, the wind blew sweet; fit day for the knighting of a small King.

From her place Catherine's anxious eyes dwelt upon him as he moved to the great chair high on the dais; the chair set with cushions to make him look taller made him look smaller still; and there was a high footstool to prevent the dangling of his small feet. She had seen him early this morning. After the way he had flung himself upon her at that last meeting, she had expected him to come running. He had been, instead, very quiet. Maybe it was the long night vigil over his arms that had tired him. She had put her arms round him and felt him stiffen...a little man not sure of his manhood.

He looked frail up there on his high throne; frail but beautiful. And he was nervous; he was finding it difficult to raise his eyes. He was too young, too young, she thought, compassionate. With their discipline and their whippings and their lessons, and the weight they laid upon his shoulders, they were killing him. She found herself wishing—she who had been so ambitious—that she were the wife of a simple knight and he their son.

Before his chair stretched the empty, grassy space. All about him stood the princes of England; on his left hand, my lords Archbishops of Canterbury and York, my lords the Bishops of London, of Norwich. Behind him his great-uncles, the priest Beaufort and the fighting Beaufort, watched; on the right Gloucester eyed them with an anger he did not trouble to hide. And, closest of all to the throne itself, like a rock, shielding the child with his own strength, stood the great, tall man, Bedford.

She caught her breath; found herself praying that the child would acquit himself well.

He was stepping from the great chair, very small, very pale, very nervous. He stumbled a little as he came from the high footstool; she felt the stumble in the twisting of her heartstrings. Bedford put out a hand. The child flushed, would not look at it, lowered himself with care. Among all those men robed and armed he looked even more of a baby. She could not see any more for weeping.

When she looked again he was kneeling, and Bedford stood above him with uplifted sword. She caught the murmur of time-honoured words. She looked at her small son...the new knight. Her heart turned over in her breast.

Now, with new honour, he put on new courage. Standing there in the shadow of his uncles, sword in hand—and it looked like a plaything though the edge was sharp as a man's, my lord of Warwick had seen to it—he was watching the line of little boys moving towards him. They were all older than he, larger, stronger. Some of them she knew—the tough little York whose town house she now enjoyed; he might be well a thorn in Harry's flesh. Little Devon looked a gentle child, but he had all the Beaufort grace, all their quickness of spirit; little Oxford looked sharp and hard; little Westmorland sturdy and blunt—he'd make two of Harry. How many of these had put the child to shame with their readier skill, their grace, their agility?