Wife to Henry V: A Novel (38 page)

But now they must kneel to him, receive their honours at his hands.

He began well enough; he looked a proper little King. If he were not the strongest or the cleverest, certainly he was the most beautiful.

She counted the slow procession of boys.

The child was growing tired, the movements of his arm a little wild. And no wonder! She had counted thirty little knights already. It was wrong to tax his strength so, stupid and wrong. Harry looked deathly now, a greyness upon the clear pallor; the corners of his mouth turned down. She had seen it so in her brothers a score of times. The child was more Valois than Lancaster. She sighed.

It was over; over at last. They had to help the child into the great chair.

When she saw him later and would have taken him in her arms, he was peevish; and, remembering his new honours—knight and maker of knights—pushed her away.

She was back at Windsor and the spirit was out of her. She had lost her child; he, himself, had rejected her. Now he was lost indeed.

Guillemote tried to comfort her, good, kind Guillemote...A young child's fatigue, Guillemote reminded her, a young child's excitement and pride. Soon he would be crying again for his mother. Before she could look round he would be sending for her or coming himself. Let Madam the Queen take comfort.

But Madam found all comfort comfortless. As a child in the womb cut off from the world without, so was she enclosed within the membrane of her loneliness. All about her she could feel the warmth of summer, see the richness of living, hear the chatter, the laughter. She could feel, she could see, she could hear; but she could take no part.

Her women, she knew, were behaving too freely. There was kissing at night in sly corners...if nothing worse. She had caught whispers of goings-on in the dormitories. She must put an end to it; and at once!

She mistook jealousy for righteousness.

She sent for Guillemote who had watched over her girlhood, Guillemote stout and comfortable. Guillemote did not take the lecture well. She listened with respect; but the blood was in her cheeks.

“There is no harm, Madam—I, myself, would not allow it. They are young all of them—the giddiness of youth.”

Neither Queens nor widows
—did Guillemote mean that?

“But I will speak to them, Madam, though—” and it was as if she shrugged at the Queen, “young blood!”

Young blood. And who should know how it runs and races better than I?
Catherine of the royal House of Valois haunted by a narrow waist, by slender flanks; Catherine daughter of Isabeau cooling hot cheeks against the cold stone of the window frame.

* * *

She was driven by restlessness from window to wall, from room to garden and back again. She had pitied Michelle, too much, she thought. Better to lie still within the grave than wander within the tomb, beating against the stone of the tomb...and outside, in dark niches, in angles of stairs, up in the women's dormitories, or down there in the long grass, hidden in the long grass...

And all the time she heard Johanne's voice,
You will find your own comfort, I daresay
, and did not know it for the voice of her own desire. And all the time she remembered Isabeau's eyes with their veiled look and did not know them for the eyes of her desire.

Guillemote came to undress her for the night.

“Leave me alone!” She pulled herself from the fingers at the backlacing of her gown; and then, seeing the hurt in the woman's face, cried out, “I am like any other woman!” And added quickly lest she be misunderstood—or too clearly understood—”I have my hands at least!” And held out her long, fine hands, bare save for the great jewel of her betrothal.

Guillemote made her reverence and was gone.

Catherine went over to the window again; could not, it seemed, take her eyes from the darkness without, nor her mind from those who might be at love-play beneath its wings. It was intolerable this licence within the Queen's household!

The stone walls, the hanging tapestries of her room held heat as in a cooking-pot.

And then, before she knew well what she was about—a cloak snatched from the press, her face hooded and shadowed—she was running through room after room, running down the stairs. Why she had hidden her face, or why she must hurry she did not know. Impulse whipped her onward.

In the dark, except where a cresset flung its dying flame, in the shifting play of light and shadow all was silent. Courting and love-play were not to be found upon these narrow stairs. She did not know this staircase, had never set foot upon it in her life. Narrow and mean, it must lead to the kitchens. Very well! To the bottom she would go, would see for herself how the creatures behaved.

In the great kitchens all was quiet; no love-making here. Men lay snoring upon the dirty rushes; the old familiar smell of men and dogs and stale food, rose heavy. For the moment she was the little Catherine again, come to beg a meaty bone to still the gnawing in her belly; the next—the smell was too much for her fastidious nose. She passed quickly through the vast rooms, the endless sculleries, half-feeling her way in the stink of dying tallow candles, stumbled along a narrow passage dark as Hades, and so out through an unlatched door.

A door unlatched! She would send for the steward in the morning.

The stars were bright, pricking in the dark blue; after the stench of the kitchens the smell of roses came sweet. She stepped upon the grass; dew lapped cool upon bare ankles above the soft leather shoes.

Suddenly she froze. Someone waited there in the darkness. Terror told her so. Herself scarce daring to breathe, she heard the hard quick breaths as though someone had run hard or was taken with impatience.

Go forward she dared not; and...if she turned her back?

The matter was settled for her.

From the darkness a figure leapt, flung both arms about her, held her close. She felt her cheek against the hardness of a man's breast.

For the moment her wanton blood desired nothing but to stand so, heart against beating heart. The mad moment died. She stiffened where she stood.

“Sweetheart, I thought you would never come!”

She knew the soft Welsh sing-song.

She was swept by so fierce an anger she thought she must die of it. She—the Queen! And this low fellow, this jumped-up squire mistaking her for some serving-wench!

It was as though she bled inwardly; as though, weakened by this bleeding, she could not stir. Her anger turned back upon herself where she stood swooning like any wanton, waiting for his mouth to come down upon hers.

Something was amiss; he knew it. Agnes was soft as wax beneath his hands—a hot slut, she took her love-making easily. But this one was rigid as a rod; he could feel her heart knocking against her stiffened breast like a wild bird, new-caged.

It was not Agnes. It was someone else, someone who had sought this meeting, bribing Agnes perhaps. It had happened before—Agnes was easy in her love. One of the women he hadn't noticed, taken by his looks, perhaps; or by his position, thinking perhaps the Queen's steward might do well by a friend. She had come running; and now she was scared, scared as a small creature in the claws of a hawk; he had seen them just so frozen with terror.

He found the situation piquant. He was pricked as never before; not with Agnes, nor with any of the girls he had taken for his easy love-making, nor for any of his fine ladies, either. He would taste her lips—at least so much he deserved. She had, after all, come seeking him! The heat of a man's lips, the warmth of a man's body, had been known to work wonders with prudes.

“Your lips, your lips, sweetheart!” And he was panting; it was long since any woman had so stirred him. “You are not come from the grave, my love, for all your coldness. The heart of the dead is quiet; but your heart betrays you.”

And when still she stood within his arms, stiff as the dead, cold as the dead—except for the frightened beating of her heart, he laughed a little. And suddenly, with no warning, his hand was upon her hood. But she was swifter.

And now it began, the silent struggle between them.

If nothing else, her face he would see, her lips kiss. And she? She would die rather than yield her face to his eyes, her lips to his mouth.

He caught at the hand clutching the cloak that shielded the face. A long, white hand. One of the Queen's ladies? The glint of a jewel. Agnes after all! The Queen had given her a ring lately. Yes, Agnes playing one of her games, Agnes playing coy!

He was piqued at the strangeness of her behaviour, angered at the baulking of his desire. He tore at the shielding hand. Quicker again, she snatched it from him, flung it before her shadowed face. He heard the blow strike against her cheek...sharp jewel against soft cheek.

She took the blow in silence. Certainly not Agnes!

And then, before he knew it, she had wrenched herself away and was skimming like a dark bird over the dew-wet grass.

He was half-minded to follow her. Intrigued he was and piqued; but pride held him. He wanted no unwilling slut, not he! No need to go a-hunting; he took his women where he would...But there had been something about her. She had been torn by conflict—between hard pride and the heat of desire. He was too knowledgeable in the art of love to mistake it.

And it had not been Agnes. Agnes was well enough; but he had touched beauty beneath the dark cloak—the long, slender limbs, the high, small breasts.

There could not be many like her here in Windsor; he would find her yet.

* * *

Guillemote exclaimed aloud at the Queen's face; at the long scratch running red and angry from eye to mouth.

“So I am not as other women after all,” the Queen said lightly. “I am more careless, more stupid. My gown I managed, even the lacings; and my hair, every pin. But the ring I forgot. I went to bed with my ring! The heat, I suppose. I'm always stupid, as you know, in the heat; and the night was hot—hot as I can remember. There I was, tossing and turning the night through. I must have scratched myself in my sleep.”

Her toilet finished, she kept Guillemote talking.

...de Coucy. The Queen desired her to sing tonight, after supper. The Queen herself would accompany the girl on the lute. And Troutbeck. She had a man's wit over the chessboard; the Queen desired to study a new gambit. And Agnes...

She called Agnes by her baptismal name, Guillemote noted, a little jealous.

...the girl's best gown was somewhat shabby. Let Guillemote bid the steward give her another.

“He'll give her more than a new gown—if she isn't careful!” Guillemote said.

She had got her answer. She said nothing, beyond desiring Guillemote to request that Tudor be told to serve the Queen at meat; he, and no other.

Guillemote took the strange request in silence. To serve on his knees like any little page or green esquire, he, Master Tudor! How would the steward take that?

* * *

The Queen sat in the great chair at dinner. Her face was as white as her gown. The scratch upon her cheek showed red as the ruby upon her breast.

Owen Tudor came the length of the hall; behind him the pages each with his dish. He strode easy as a king, Catherine thought; she heard, behind her, Agnes sigh her desire.

He came nearer; stopped dead; saw the Queen, the great scratch like some fantastic jewel upon her cheek; caught from her steady eyes the indifference of her face.

Behind her indifference she searched his face. Had he paled? She thought so. It was so small a paling she could not well be sure. How long had he stood there motionless? Time seemed endless; and she could not be sure of that, either.

He made a step forward, bowed to the Queen; took a dish—and his hands were steady, she could not question that! Now he knelt upon his knee, serving her humble as the greenest page.

She kept her eyes steady; she found fault with the dish—the meat too highly-spiced—a small fault. Her voice was quiet, friendly even; he was subtle enough to read in her gentle questioning of the food, her royal displeasure.

* * *

He was kneeling before her once more though she had not sent for him. And now there was no mistaking his pallor. It was, though she could not know it, the sign of a man's gentleness and not all at of his fear.

“I have wounded the Queen,” he said, “and for that I should die.”

She said nothing.
A scratch upon the cheek is a small thing; but the wound upon the heart.
She showed neither grace nor anger; punished him with her sovereign indifference.

“You must send me away,” he said.

The heart turned over in her breast. She sat there, unmoving. And all the time she was remembering—remembering the tormented night because of the feel of his hands upon her breasts; and because her whole body had lain open to his desire. Again she sickened with pride, because, for one moment, she had desired this low fellow. Her heart rose in quick reproach at that. He was a gentleman, however poor. But for one thing pride could not acquit her. She had desired the leavings of one of her own women.

“I cannot stay in the place where I have wounded my Queen,” he said.

“Which queen?” she asked stupid with pride and could have bitten the tongue in her head.

She rose from her chair and left him kneeling like a fool in the empty room.

* * *

She had ordered Agnes home. She could not endure to see the mouth that had taken his kisses, nor the body that had taken his body. She had dismissed the girl from her presence, heaping upon her the insult she felt for herself; she was stiff and bitter with her Valois pride.

Tudor came bearing himself humbly, entreating kindness for the girl. Agnes was all bewildered with her disgrace, he said. What had she done but what others had done...and still did?

What Agnes had done lay unspoken between them.

He went on entreating. Agnes implored that, at least, she might say Farewell to the Queen, ask forgiveness for a disgrace she did not understand. It was a hard thing for him, she knew, to come thus shamefully entreating for a cast-off love, entreating to the new.

The old love and the new; that was the unspoken thing that festered in her. Shamefully to entreat, shamefully to be refused; it was his punishment.