Wife to Henry V: A Novel (46 page)

They sat together in the Queen's chamber while the fire blazed and he roasted the chestnuts he had picked up in the park The leaping flames cast a warmth upon his face so that he looked less angel and more boy. She was filled with exaltation because he was so beautiful. He would win more victories than all his captains, all their soldiers!

She allowed him to sit up late and fed him with sugared grapes and with frosted ginger and little cinnamon cakes. He ate sparingly at first, as though he were doing something wrong; but soon the natural greediness of children had its way and she was glad to see it He told her about the crowning and how his foot had pricked with pins and needles so that he had been hard put to it not to wriggle lying there before the High Altar. And he told her about the feast and how he had asked the cooks to fashion the sugar Virgin in the likeness of his mother.

“And did they?” She could find it in her heart to weep, knowing her unworthiness to stand model for the Virgin though made but of sugar.

“I cannot remember. I was out of the body.

“Asleep?”

He shook his head.

So he still fell into angelic trances! Disturbed, she led his thoughts in another direction; and soon, like any other boy with so great an adventure before him he was asking about the land he had never seen and which belonged to him; and about his grandmother Queen Isabeau; and about the uncle who called himself King of France.

“France is so sweet a land,” she said, forgetting how it was torn and hunger-stricken and poor; and how, even in Paris, grass grew in the streets; and how in the dark night empty houses were destroyed for the sake of wood to kindle fires. “I wish I were there.”

“And so you shall be,” he told her. “You shall go with me. You shall ride a white horse, high up where everyone can see you; and you shall ride right in front with me. And this time you shall see me crowned; and that will be a better crowning for you to see, because it's a French crowning. And you shall sit next to me at the feast and everyone will be glad I am King because you are a princess of France.”

She smiled at that, pretending that they both believed it; pretending that Gloucester and Beaufort would allow it; pretending that because of his crowning Harry was indeed a King.

She asked who was going in his retinue.

“My uncle the lord Cardinal, of course; and my lords of York and of Norfolk; and my lord Governor—” he made a little moue of distaste. “And more barons than I can remember—half the Council, I think. And the army—” He shrugged, pretending it was not glorious for a boy to carry an army unto France, “a great, great army—” Truthfulness got the better of him. “And yet not so great an army! Not above a thousand lances and three or four thousand bowmen.”

“It sounds a great many.” She smiled.

“Not so many as should be, my lord Warwick says. It wasn't easy to make them come. Men are more afraid of the devil than of God.” She saw his gentle face harden. “It's the witch you know, the witch of France. She dares to take upon herself the Word of God.” She could hear Netter in his voice and wondered how much had come from himself. “But the girl hears Voices,” she said trying him. “The Saints speak with her, she says. And why not? They speak to you, don't they?”

She saw anger spark in his blue eyes.

“Of course they do. St. Dunstan and St. Edmund. They say I am King of France and my cause is just. Saints cannot lie; so her voices come from the devil.”

“Yes.” She was glad of the firmness in him. “And her witchcraft is the worse because she betrays her King.”

“Her King in heaven,” he said quickly, “and that is worse. It is the worst thing in the whole world. And when she is caught, I am to see her burn.” His childish face was alight with ecstasy.

“And you would like that?” And how could she have supposed him weak? He was all his father's son.

He nodded. “All Christ's enemies must burn. So we make them His friends and save their souls.” The gentleness was on him again.

She found it hard to part with him. She stood watching him ride away, a lonely little creature in the midst of his train. She was troubled too, that she must hide her secret from him. A boy needs brothers. And a man? A man even more; a man's brothers are his shield and his armour, Harry's father used to say, and his father before him. With all her heart she wanted her boys to serve their King; she wanted the King to advance them; expected it. But that was for the future. It was now she had to think of, now—this child lonely and frail and unchildlike; at times frighteningly unchildlike. He had no friends. Between him and the palace boys there was a distance. They owed him duty; but, had he not been King they would never have bothered with him at all. And he knew it. He needed his own flesh-and-blood about him, warm flesh-and-blood. She saw him turn his head and wave before he was lost to sight.

The King, God save him, had made a fair crossing; he had been a little sick. He had disembarked at Calais mid-morning—St. George's.

“A proper day for an English King,” Catherine said and gave the messenger extra silver. °

He had mounted horse and gone to heat mass at St. Nicholas A proper thing for any King, French or English,” Tudor said-but Catherine scarcely heard; she was drinking in the details of her son’s welcoming.

France had met glory with glory; or so it seemed, until she counted over the names of those who had ridden to meet him—the Count of Bonneterre, the lords of Roy, of Beaumont, of Escaillon—small fry; and Master Pierre de Cauchon, Bishop of Beauvais, representing the Church. But not Burgundy; not one of the great nobles; not one great prince of the Church. Cauchon, she remembered had not too savoury a reputation; his flock had turned their shepherd out of his diocese. Well, it was early days yet. They were waiting, Philip and the others, for Harry's entry into Paris.

But the entry was, it seemed, delayed. The times were troubled Tudor told her; the little King was safer in Calais, safe from the enemy, safe from marauding brigands. And the air was cleaner, too blowing in from the sea.

* * *

It was May now and the King was still enjoying the sea breezes. Catherine fretted at that; fretted, too, that Philip had not come to kiss hands, had not so much as set eyes on his sovereign. The little King, it seemed, was likely to enjoy his sea breezes for some time.

The presence of a little boy calling himself the King of France was eclipsed by a far greater excitement.

The witch had been caught.

“Now Jesu and His Sweet Mother be praised!” Catherine said, walking joyful with Tudor beneath the hawthorns. And when? And how? And by whose hands? She could not get her questions out fast enough.

“At Compiègne. Dragged from her horse by an archer—no-one stirring overmuch to save her. She's in Luxemburg's hands.”

“Then she's Philip's prisoner—he's Luxemburg's overlord.”

“Does it matter?” Tudor said. “She'll be exchanged.”

“Never. She'll burn. Philip has sworn it.”

“He's not one to burn money; the girl's worth her weight in gold.”

“And who will pay it? Not my brother. He hasn't got it and wouldn't pay it if he had.”

“I cannot, nor I will not believe it,” Tudor said.

Catherine waited only for the news—and with her all England. The first question, even with her, was not of the King but of the Witch.

The news was good. The girl was safe in Burgundy's hands.

* * *

Master Pierre Cauchon had appeared in Burgundy's camp. He had offered on behalf of England—whose toady he was—ten thousand livres of gold for the girl.

“A King's ransom.” Catherine let her basket of roses fall.

“Exactly.” Tudor was dry. “The good duke has sold.”

“What matter?” she shrugged. “We have her now.”

“Exactly,” he said, as before. “The good duke gets his money—and his revenge, not from his enemy but from his ally, from England. Watch my lord duke!”

The Witch had been taken to Rouen.

“Now it is the end of your Saint,” Catherine said exultant in the summer sunshine. “Now she is fast-locked in the dark cell; now she cannot stir for fetters and all her angel voices cannot save her.”

He looked at her for the first time without love. Unseeing, she chattered on. “Yes, and there she shall stay until she come to her burning. And no-one in France will lift a finger.”

“The Church,” Tudor said grey, knowing he lied, yet lying for his own heart's comfort.

“Her soul—if it can be saved. Not her body. There's no other way and you know it. The Church will burn her. And the University of Paris will burn her, it has already instructed the Inquisition, so my mother writes. For, if not a witch,” she laughed, “why then she's a heretic.”

He looked at her as though pleading mercy, not so much for the girl as for her own soul. But there was no mercy as there had been no pity.

“You are forgetful,” she said and smiled above her anger. “The witch has tried long and long enough to rob my son of his crown.”

“Yes,” he said. “Yes...the King. I had forgotten him. They've taken the King to Rouen; and the girl's his prisoner. King and prisoner lodged within the same walls. There will be clemency; there must be clemency. It's the custom.”

She laughed at that. “Your wits are out, my friend. The King is in Rouen to be present at the trial and for no other reason—except to watch, as I hope, the burning.”

He felt sick to the soul. His pity embraced both the girl who must burn and the child who must watch her agony.

“It is not in Harry to show clemency to witches and heretics,” she said and she was smiling still. “His father's son! Praise be to God.”

He wondered that she could take God's Name upon her lips.

* * *

The Church had found the girl guilty.

Even then Tudor, that merciful man, could not believe it.

“The Council of Catholics examined her before ever she was allowed to put foot forward; they found her cause good and the girl pure,” he said.

“Then the Council of Catholics has altered its mind. And how could they help it? No need to raise the question of witchcraft; heresy—she's convicted herself over and over again.”

“Poor child,” he said, “poor young thing. Against all the wisdom of the Church, she ignorant and untaught...and alone.”

“Holy Church and the Inquisition; England and France, wrong, all wrong—only Master Owen Tudor in the right! The girl will burn and the sooner the better for all of us—including herself. If she's a saint, the quicker she'll get her heavenly crown. If she's a witch, the quicker she'll join her paramour the devil. Whichever way it goes she should be well-pleased. As for me I care not at all as long as she's out of the way and my son's crown is safe.”

He looked at her wondering that he had ever loved her, knowing full well that he would love her again.

He found himself often on his knees these days beseeching God's Mother for the soul of the poor young thing in prison. And, God forgive him, not for her soul alone, but for her body, her tender young girl's body.

For one brief moment he thought God had heard him. The girl had confessed; she would be pardoned. Then he knew that man's cruelty had prevailed. The girl had proclaimed aloud her soul's truth. She must burn.

He found himself praying that God would take her before the burning; wondered whether the girl herself would thank him. Had she not said she would endure her passion for the sake of the Passion of Christ? But one thing he was certain of; though in France, the poor and the humble prayed for her deliverance from the fire, he must be the only soul in England that prayed with them; perhaps it was because he was not English. Whichever way it was, he would keep it to himself—in Rouen the English had burnt a woman for speaking well of the girl. He had no mind for the fire himself.

* * *

In the early days of June all green and gold, Catherine had the news for which she longed.

The Witch had been burnt at the stake.

“Praise God,” she said again; and now it was without triumph or joy; it was as though she were praying.

He looked at her all devout with her prayers. For what did she thank her God? For a young girl hatefully dead? Not even the mercy of a swift fire. A spiteful arrangement of tall stake and green wood; and yet no whimper when the bitter flame began to bite; nor any unkind word, not even against those who sat at a comfortable distance—butcher Cauchon and smug Beaufort, the hypocrite cardinal, weeping their false tears. Why had they not wept before for the poor young thing starved and poisoned? Raped too they said; and she unable to lift her chained hands in protection. Such imprisoning and such dying! And even in the slow fire no complaint. She had, in her last agony, bidden those about the scaffold move, lest the flames hurt them. She had asked for a cross. And
Jesus
she had said.
Jesus
and no more. And the young head had fallen forward; and it had been the end.

And here was Catherine, his dear love, gloating over the news—each shameful, pitiful detail.

“Harry will have seen the burning,” she said when she had sufficiently thanked her God. “He was very sure he should have the stomach for it. God grant he did not shame his father!”

He looked at her; he wanted to say, For what do you pray? For the cruelty of a young child's heart?

“Which Father?” He could not keep his tongue from asking.

* * *

Now the messengers rode in daily.

The lord King was well and sent his loving duty to his dearest mother.

“And the crowning?” she asked. “What of the crowning?” My lord of Bedford would not allow the King to go to Paris yet. The roads were not clear of the enemy; and, in the countryside through which he must pass, the Witch's influence might linger.

“A week, a little week since the burning,” Tudor said. “It's oversoon to talk of lingering. There will be many, I think, who will remember the girl all their lives...and the manner of her dying.”

“Memory is short!” she shrugged, and it might have been Isabeau speaking. “And what could more quickly wipe away the dark memory of the Witch than a fair young child? If that is all...” and she smiled.