Wife to Henry V: A Novel (42 page)

“He will not scant the rod either!” Catherine said. “That is easily seen.”

“That is part of a man's discipline; and, most of all, part of a king's discipline. And Harry, though he is little and gentle and sweet has a stubborn streak. In so young a child it must be disciplined.”

Discipline, discipline! Everyone talked of discipline—Warwick and Johanne and Owen...and the pale little boy himself.

* * *

Gloucester had married his witch.

“A witch, indeed!” Johanne said, grim. “No birth; no riches; and less than no virtue. Who can count the string of her bedfellows? And he makes her a royal duchess! Why does he marry her, greedy, ambitious Humphrey, when he has slept with her these many years?”

“And he forsakes Jacque for that!”

“He's forsaken love after love. But he will never forsake the Cobham, she has him tight-bound in spells. He is not always clever, our handsome Humphrey. Goodness knows he's lost enough goodwill over the matter already. To take her for his mistress was bad enough—but now, to marry her!”

So much for Jacqueline. She had lost her freedom and her lands; her honour and her happiness.

* * *

Madam the Duchess of Gloucester rode over—unasked, to Windsor. She interlarded her conversation with
Sister
until Isabeau's spirit rose in her daughter and she longed to strike insolence in the face. But, give the creature the satisfaction of showing she had angered the Queen! Catherine was cold and courteous; very much the Queen.

Eleanor was not concerned; she was even a trifle patronizing. She knew well enough that Madam the lord Protector's wife had more consequence than a put-upon Dowager Queen. Besides, she had come not only to assert her position but to spy out the land. She had had to send Agnes away—the girl had grown tedious with her wrongs. And yet, in all her nonsense, surely there must have been a grain of truth. A grain, a grain would serve!

She kept the conversation light, a little lewd; flung in the name of Agnes, inconsequent.

She had brought a greeting from a humble friend; did Madam, her dear sister, remember Agnes? A distant cousin, a poor branch of the Cobhams.

She spoke as though her own obscure branch of the house had been forever hung with glory. And all the time she looked slyly out of her slanting eyes, let nothing of the hardening of the Queen's jaw nor the deepening of her cheeks escape her.

Agnes begged the Queen's forgiveness for having run away; nothing would have torn her from the Queen's service but a woman's proper care for her virtue. There had been, so it appeared, a gentleman of the household too handsome to be good. Now which gentleman would that be? But then her sweet sister the Queen could know of none—she would never permit such a ram to run among her ewes. But Agnes, silly creature, had been shocked; she had feared for her maidenhood; she had come running to her cousin for protection...

Agnes' maidenhood, the hot slut! Virtue flying to Eleanor Cobham for protection! Anger choked in Catherine's throat. She opened her mouth to say that Agnes had been dismissed for lewd behaviour and thought the better of it. She would not stoop to excuse herself to this creature!

“She tells a story, my so-virtuous cousin,” and now the creature was laughing and winking with her slitted eyes, “about this charmer from whom she fled. He was dancing with one of your women, she says; and all the other females watching and casting their sheeps' eyes and longing to be in the favoured one's shoes. And he, feeling, no doubt, all eyes upon him, stumbled embarrassed, as such creatures are, and fell into the lap of a lady who was eating him with her eyes.”

To the sugary, spiteful tinkle of Eleanor's voice, Catherine was remembering...Owen dancing and suddenly losing step; and brushing against her knee as he recovered himself. She had forgotten it until he himself had recalled it. Her eyes upon him had undone him, he said. So long ago, she had not even thought of him as a man...

The incident, delicate with the dawning of their love, thus recalled, thus spoken of, brought the crimson to her cheeks.

Madam the Duchess continued.

“Then, indeed, there was a how-d'you-do. Such a clatter of loose tongues, such bawdy jesting. And the lady herself, all blushes, all joy, as though they blessed the marriage-bed—no less!”

Madam Eleanor stayed to dinner unasked. When the steward came into the hall her own lewd blood leaped. He paid the Queen no courtesies beyond his servant's dues; and the Queen barely lifted her eyes to his handsome presence. But for all that Madam the Duchess, well-skilled in the game of love, sensed the greeting that passed between them.

The Queen's new sister did not stay long. She had little enough to tell her lord; but it might be much...enough, perhaps, to put the riches of a dishonoured Queen into a hand that waited; to avenge an insult that festered.

* * *

Catherine went raging with fear and fury to Johanne.

My lord Protector whose name was a byword, who had married his light-of-love to the scandal of Christendom, had issued an edict. Any man so bold as to wed a woman in possession of crown lands, without permission, should forfeit his life. And at whom was that aimed, slyly discreetly aimed, but at Catherine herself?

“We may thank Madam Paramour for this!” she told Johanne and never considered that the name might fit her, too.

“It's really quite amusing—not that Humphrey would see the joke. No sense of humour!” Johanne said. “Well, be thankful you haven't married your Tudor. Or—” she stared into Catherine's telltale face. “No,” she said. And thrust away the thought with both hands.

Catherine nodded, white.

“And who dared?”

“The Welsh priest. Owen's confessor. In my chamber...before the child was born.”

“Truly you're a fool in love. Who can count upon a priest for silence? It was my confessor brought me to prison...babbling in the torment. And this man?”

“Owen's sworn brother.”

“These Welsh have a loyalty,” Johanne shrugged. “If you will all guard your tongues, it is perhaps no great matter—though a very foolish one. You may thank your God upon your knees this marriage is no marriage contract between you, nor can it be—English and Welsh! And your Tudor knows it. No doubt, you wept—a woman heavy with his child—and he comforted you with this so-called marriage. No, never blame him, it was kindly done. Had your proud Welshman turned his coat and become a national, then this marriage would have been true; and you might well have found yourself a widow and your child fatherless. And that would not have been the worst of it. They would have thrust you into the darkness of a dungeon...and your child into a darkness deeper still...the darkness from which there is no return.” She came over, put a hand upon the shoulder of the weeping Catherine. “God is kinder to us poor fools than we deserve. Why were you such a fool, Catherine?”

“I was not minded to have my child a bastard.”

“A royal bastard is not to be sneezed at. My lord Cardinal Beaufort was at one time not far from the throne itself. And my lord Exeter—he didn't do so ill in honours, neither.”

“There's another child to be thought of,” Catherine said, very low. “There's Harry. How would it seem to him, his mother playing harlot?”

“Less to be frowned on, I think, that the King's mother marrying her servant. Humphrey is the scandal of Christendom; you would be worse—you would be its laughing-stock. No, you must reconcile yourself, my girl. Thank God for your escape and pray Him that no danger comes from this marriage that is no marriage.”

“I had hoped, how I hoped!” Catherine wrung her hands.
“One day all will be bright and simple and clear
, I kept telling myself. But the years go by and nothing is bright and nothing is simple and nothing is clear. Six years since Henry died and I must not marry. Why may I not marry? Why may I not live with my love as his wife? What danger could I be to anyone? Married to a humble squire, even my faint, reflected glory's gone forever. Or does Humphrey keep me still to bargain with? A man takes a bride of fifteen, sixteen, seventeen—twenty perhaps. But twenty-seven! My childbearing days grow less; who would take such a bargain? It is unkindness in Humphrey, a womanish spite.”

“A woman's spite. It's Madam Paramour you must thank—and I like the name. Humphrey himself, there's a certain kindness in him if it doesn't quarrel with his own advantage. But if you want kindness in him you must keep in well with Madam Paramour. You were not over-sweet with your new sister, so you tell me. She's swollen with spite. But in this case it isn't only Madam Paramour that's all hot for a scandal. There's Humphrey himself—he'd know how to make use of it. He's always short of money; he wouldn't be at all sorry to help himself to your property once you were safe in prison. It's been done before.”

“This is a hateful year and I shall never forgot it. The harlot made my sister; and Jacque and I cut off from honesty forever.”

“Forever's a long word. And it's a bad year that doesn't bring some good. There should be consolation, at least, from France now Salisbury is to sail with the new armies. Monsieur the Dauphin may well find himself dished and served and ready to be eaten.”

“Who knows what tomorrow may bring?” She shrugged, hopeless. It was unlike her, this despondency; Johanne, for all her efforts, could not cheer her.

* * *

The quiet of her life was ruined. Even at beloved Windsor she was full of fears. She had reached for the flower and run her hand upon the thorn. Her marriage was no marriage; yet it could bring as great a danger. Humphrey's new edict had not been framed for nothing; he must already have suspected something. And it would not be long before he knew all. Madam Paramour would come spying out the land—and how could one refuse her, the Queen's new sister? She would come again and again until she had wormed out the secret.

Now at night she would awake crying out that Gloucester's men had come to take her lover; and could not be quieted until Tudor lit a candle and she looked again upon his beloved face.

Even in daylight her nerves were on the stretch; she would find her whole being bent to listen; she would start at any sound however familiar. She would go wandering, hungry for the sight of his face. What would it be like to go seeking and never find? She feared, too, for the little Edmund. One day she would ride to fetch him home and find him gone forever. She was wild, sometimes, to pick him up and carry him away where no-one would ever find him. Why not? He was no King but a child; and her own. Of the King she saw little; my lord Warwick did not desire it. But what she did see filled her with pity for his pale, unchildlike face.

* * *

It was August in Windsor. Tudor came to find her with the news that Salisbury had sailed for France. Bedford and Burgundy had given him his command; he was to lay siege to Angers.

For a while she forgot her daytime fears—the news from France was glorious. It was swing high, swing high, indeed. Everything was being won back—above thirty towns and castles; and Salisbury had burnt the countryside as far as Chinon where her brother played at being King.

“Good,” she said, “good!” And forgot it was her own land they burnt and ravaged; her own blood that flowed. She was light-hearted, gay with news from France. But at night she wept quietly beside Tudor; or she would awake to find herself feeling for him in the darkness, crying out her old fears.

In October, so lovely a month, with the red leaves drifting and the river running brown, she heard that Salisbury had turned back from Angers; he was marching on Orléans instead. She lifted a face all glowing with the news.

“A breach of faith,” Tudor said, grave. “It can come to no good. My lord Bedford promised the town should be spared as long as we keep its Duke a prisoner here. It was a solemn promise made to Orléans' bastard.”

“John never broke a promise in his life, I think.”

“Then Salisbury had broken it for him.”

“If what you say is true—” and her bright face was overcast, “then you are right about it coming to no good. You cannot cheat my bastard cousin of Orléans and not pay for it. Dunois is a charming person—he's gentle and he's honest; but he expects honesty from others. And certainly he's not to be cheated.”

“Now the English—” and she noticed again how he never said
we
, “will have Dunois and his captains buzzing like hornets.”

Tudor was right on both counts. Salisbury had acted against his orders. And Dunois buzzed like a hornet.

The Orléanais had burnt the countryside for miles around. They fought from the walls with live coals, with quicklime, with boiling fat. The town was well garrisoned and fighting-mad.

Salisbury paid the price of his disobedience. A splinter of gun-stone carried away half his face and he died in agony...three days a-dying.

That troubled her. Salisbury's handsome face shot away; debonair Salisbury miserably dying! It moved her more than the thought of thousands who died as wretchedly that her son might wear a crown that was not his to wear. Salisbury's face she knew; as for the others, both French and English, they were vague, amorphous; armies, merely.

Salisbury had stirred up a nest of hornets, indeed!

Dunois, furious, so they said, had sent to Burgundy—to Burgundy that arch-traitor—asking him to take the town under his protection. Catherine cried out with pleasure at the news. Orléans in the hands of Burgundy! Dunois might as well have given it to the English straight away. Her cousin Dunois was not very clever.

That she, herself, was not very clever Tudor did not tell her. Surely she must know that Dunois would never hand Orléans to Orléans' bitterest enemy! Couldn't she see this for what it was—a ruse to set Burgundy and Bedford openly quarrelling?

And it succeeded.

* * *

At Orléans things had come to a standstill. Bedford and Burgundy were at loggerheads. Burgundy had gone off in a fury and was cooling his heels elsewhere; hunting they said.

“Hunting when he should be fighting—fighting for his King?” Catherine's eyes were purple with anger.

But who is Burgundy's King?
Tudor was not the only one to ask the question. For, if Burgundy was a-hunting, might not his quarry be peace with the Dauphin? That was a question they asked, too. It was a rumour Tudor kept from Catherine. She was awaiting, with growing impatience, news of the fall of Orléans. “Nothing happens. But nothing, nothing, nothing,” she complained. And she was not alone in her complaining. No-one had been appointed to Salisbury's command. The English sat doggedly alone, outside the city; the Orléanais sat doggedly within. She was getting bored with the whole tiresome business, she said. Orléans must certainly fall; why then didn't it come to terms? It could do better for itself than waiting to be taken.