Westminster Palace, Spring 1429 #2
I talk to the queen about her lace, about her son, about his studies and his unendingly boring prayers.
Graciously, I include the other ladies in our talk; I turn my head from one to another courteously, listening to each one in turn as she stumbles through banalities.
The queen’s colour fades, as she realises my new greatness is no laughing matter for her, and when she glances at Owen, to confirm a remark about the king; there is no bright conspiratorial gleam between them.
When the messenger comes to say that the lords are leaving the privy council, I rise to my feet, for the moment of my greatest happiness: everyone, even the queen, stands to say goodbye to me, and all the ladies have to curtsey to me, the royal duchess.
Owen ap Maredudd offers his arm to take me to the front door.
I had not thought that he is bound to do this, and I am reluctant to walk beside him in case he speaks to me.
I lay my fingertips so lightly on his sleeve that I can barely feel his muscled forearm below the soft leather, but even this slight touch releases a wave of forgotten desire that rushes through me.
It is as if my body does not know that we have parted forever and that I despise him.
My body does not know that he is my enemy; my body still adores him.
I have to force myself to keep my feet steadily walking, my head up, my eyes forward, not glancing sidelong at him.
I have to remember to breathe quietly and steadily and to still the rapid thudding of my heart. I try to give a little bored sigh.
‘I am very happy for you,’ he says quietly. ‘England’s most beautiful duchess.’
He could be reciting Greek, the words are so meaningless to me; but his voice and his lilting accent make me catch my breath in desire. I won’t look at him.
‘I was grieved at our last meeting,’ he says, his voice very low. ‘You went away so quickly, and I know you were angry – rightly angry. I nearly wrote, but I was afraid of putting words on paper. And I didn’t know what you would want to hear from me.’
We are nearly through the gardens and courts of the palace, nearly at the river stairs where my husband will be waiting for me. We have only a moment to be alone together, and the moment is slipping away.
‘It doesn’t matter,’ I say icily. ‘What can you say to me now?’
‘Ouch!’ He laughs. He laughs as if we are still friends; he laughs as if we are both adventurers, ready to risk everything for love, set on a course of ambition and joyously diverted. He laughs as if we understand each other very well.
I turn a pale face towards him. ‘I mean it,’ I say venomously. ‘I am a duchess now.You cannot speak to me unless I invite you to. And I will never invite you.’
At last, I have shocked him. He tightens his arm, pressing my hand against his side, as if he would hold me close. ‘Eleanor . . .’ he says. ‘Before God, I did not mean to hurt you. I would have told you I was promised; but it was not my secret to tell.’
I pull my hand from his grip, and there is my husband the duke – slight, ineffectual, but far richer than this man that I loved so passionately.
I turn my back on Owen without another word and walk down the steps of the pier to where my husband waits, by his barge, with his royal standard flying, and I think: Owen ap Maredudd, you watch me go, you damned liar, and be very sure that you will never have a woman like me in your bed again.
I am a duchess now, and you are a commoner.
I was your only chance to rise and now you are nobody.
And worse than a nobody – you are in royal service, and I am a royal duchess; you are all but my servant, and I will see you brought low.
He steps to the side of the pier. He takes his velvet cap off his russet head; he bows to my lord. He looks at me, he smiles a little, and he whispers, ‘ Ffarwel.’
THE NEXT TIME I visit the queen, he is not present. That is one good change. There are others. She rises when I come in, and she kisses me as a sister-in-law. I curtsey to her as a dowager queen, and all her ladies curtsey to me. She says: ‘How we observe these formalities!’
‘Of course we do,’ I say smoothly. ‘How else, would you – as a dowager queen – be shown the respect that your husband deserved?’
That’s the last she says about formalities, and after that, she treats me as she should, as a duchess, as a royal sister-in-law, as an honoured visitor to her court.
I doubt she likes me any better than when I was a nobody.
I am still her equal in blonde-haired beauty, and now she envies me, for I am a royal duchess while she will be a widow for the rest of her life.
She can be sure of that; I will make sure of that.
I will remind my husband of her rudeness to him; I will make sure she never has permission to marry anyone unless it is some distant prince who will take her away from her son and from our country.
She is still making lace; I pretend to admire it and say that I wish that I had the time myself.
‘You must have seen beautiful lace at Valenciennes,’ she remarks, as if to remind me that I was Jacqueline’s lady-in-waiting and on a military campaign.
‘Oh yes,’ I say. ‘I bought so much that I’m still using it up on trimming my linen. And the wonderful tapestries! I have ordered so many for our new house.’
‘I’m longing to see Bella Court,’ she says politely. ‘They tell me you are planning a palace.’
‘My lord has exquisite taste.’ I do not say that we can afford to build a palace since we have persuaded the privy council to pay us a greater fee than ever paid before. ‘But where is Owen ap Maredudd?’ I ask, in pretend surprise. ‘He always seems to be dogging your heels?’
Her colour rises; I am instantly alert. Does she know that he has some slut that he has to marry? Has he been forced to tell her that he is promised, or betrothed, or whatever state he is in?
‘Don’t tell me he’s gone back to Wales!’ I say, laughing. ‘I thought he was ashamed of Wales!’
‘He’s about his work somewhere,’ she says quietly.
‘You know he’s married?’ I cannot resist leaning forward to whisper. ‘Some secret wedding? He hopes to keep it secret?’
Her hands move among the bobbins of the lace on the pillow, faster. She is twisting them at random, ruining her pattern. ‘Does Duke Humphrey say so?’
‘Everyone says so,’ I tell her. ‘Some slut in Wales.’
‘Oh, Wales!’ Her hands are suddenly stilled.
‘Look at the mess I have made of this,’ she says, in a quite different voice.
She lifts the pretty cushion with the half-made lace, the bobbins on the threads and the pins marking out the patterns and she hands it to one of the maids-in-waiting: ‘Mary, you must put it right for me!’
‘What were you thinking?’ the girl scolds. ‘This is all wrong.’
‘I was talking and didn’t follow the pattern,’ Catherine excuses herself. She turns back to me, smiling. ‘Did you say a slut in Wales?’ she whispers.
Her eyes are bright and eager; she looks ready to laugh, when I thought she would be furious.
I cannot understand the changes in her mood, she must be as mad as her father the French king.
Why should she be so anxious when I said he was married but then amused that I say his wife is some Welsh drab?
I narrow my eyes and scan her face. ‘I believe so.’
She shrugs. ‘After all, he’s a handsome young man,’ she says. ‘He can marry where he wants.’
‘No, he can’t. He is in royal service; he has to have permission. Did you give him permission?’
‘I did not,’ she says, but she does not look angry. ‘I will have to ask him if the rumours are true.’ She looks as if her laughter is bubbling under her slight smile.
‘Yes, you should ask him,’ I say irritably. ‘My lord would advise you to punish him if he has overstepped his place. My lord will send him back to Wales in disgrace for you.’
‘There’s no need,’ she says pleasantly. ‘I can run my household.’
‘The king, my nephew . . .’ I repeat this, so she can hear my claim on her precious son: ‘The king, my nephew, should not be exposed to ill-discipline in the royal household,’ I say pompously, ‘especially not lewdness.’
‘Of course not,’ she says, opening her blue eyes very wide, as saintly as a nun. ‘You need have no fear of that. This is a most honourable household, and the king, my son, is very fond of Owen ap Maredudd.’