Saint-Ghislain, Hainault, Spring 1425
Saint-Ghislain, Hainault, Spring
MY LADY WILL escort her husband to Saint-Ghislain, where she and her mother will make their formal farewells to him. The Mons city council is coming too, hiding their delight at seeing the back of him and the dogs of the English army.
I do not want to tell her yet, but I too am going to London.
I want to withdraw her jewels from the royal treasure house.
I want to collect her furs from the royal wardrobe.
I would trust no one else to bring the right brocades and damasks and furs.
And more than anything else, I want to make sure that Owen ap Maredudd sees me as a woman at the heart of heroic events, a heroine as great as any in the old storybooks.
I want to tell him that the duke did not fail Jacqueline; and she rose to the challenge of being his lady.
I was with her at every step. I want him to know that I was not afraid of my horse but rode out, a heroine, like the lady I serve, and now I will be at her side at the greatest celebration of chivalry the world has ever seen.
There is no time for me to tell her that I am determined to go home to England with Duke Humphrey and the army, not when we ride out of Mons, not when we enter Saint-Ghislain to loud cheers, not when we break our fast and listen to a long Grace in Latin before a huge meal – as if the Hainaulters are feeding us up to march over their border without stopping.
I am going to tell her after the breakfast, when we retire for me to pin her hair and straighten her gown before she goes out on the steps to make a formal and public farewell to her husband. But her mother comes too, her face like thunder, and there is no chance for me to speak.
‘Don’t you dare to think of going with him,’ the old lady says to her daughter as I pin the gold net over her russet hair.
‘I don’t,’ she snaps back.
‘If you take my advice, you’ll settle with your cousin Philip before the joust at Paris. It’s madness to put your entire future on someone riding against a warrior like your cousin.’
‘It’s not “someone”,’ Jacqueline replies. ‘He is my champion. He is my husband, one of the bravest knights in Christendom, brother to a king who never lost a battle. And he will win.’
‘This isn’t a fairy tale!’ her mother wails. ‘You can’t throw down your inheritance, your own country, as a gauntlet in a challenge. Who does this? Who imagines it’s real in these days? Who believes it was ever real at all?’
‘I do!’ Jacqueline says, with her bold fierce pride.
‘That’s exactly what I do.’ She twists her head from my pins and stands.
‘I believe in honour,’ she says fiercely.
‘I believe in chivalry. Two great men are going to end the conflict in the greatest way possible, and I am proud to depend on my husband’s courage and skill in the tournament for my entire future. ’
I could almost cheer her passion. ‘I do too!’
‘I beg you . . .’ her mother begins.
‘Come on,’ Jacqueline says to me and strides out of the room, so fast that I have to run to keep up with her.
‘I have to tell you something—’ I say.
‘Tell me later,’ she throws over her shoulder.
So it is only when my lady is holding her husband’s hands as he kneels for her blessing before he mounts his horse that I have any chance to speak.
She bends down to him and gives him the kiss of fealty; he rises up and kisses her on the mouth as his wife.
The army roars their approval, and the two of them smile and acknowledge the cheers.
They are beautiful, standing side by side, so proud and so courageous.
I wish I could never leave her, but I know that I am going now.
I step forward and say quietly: ‘I will bid you farewell also, my lady. I’m going home too.’
She turns on me. ‘What?’ She is so suddenly pale and shocked that I can hardly bring myself to nod and smile cheerfully.
‘Yes, I am.’
‘You can’t,’ she says simply. ‘Nell, you can’t leave me.’
‘I have to,’ I say. ‘I have to order all the things you will want from London; I have to collect your fees, your jewels . . .’
‘Eleanor, you can’t leave me, just as Humphrey goes,’ she says.
She drops his hands and turns to me, suddenly pleading.
‘You know I have no friends here; you know that my own friend is . . . You know how loyal she’s been to me .
. .’ She glances around at Jehanne de Warigny, who is white-faced and red-eyed at the loss of her lover.
‘No, I really do have to go,’ I repeat. I had no idea she would plead with me. I didn’t think she would beg me to stay; I thought she would be looking ahead, to the tournament, to her victory. ‘I have to go—’ I start.
‘Why?’ the duke asks.
‘So that it is real!’ I burst out like a child.
‘I want to tell them at court—’ I break off.
There is only one person I want to tell: Owen ap Maredudd.
I am determined to tell him that he was wrong about the duke and wrong about Jacqueline, and wrong to stay in the royal nursery like a coward and not to venture out with me.
‘I want everyone to know that this is a Quest,’ I say desperately.
‘It’s as grand as the Holy Grail. It is a real thing. ’
Humphrey laughs and catches my hand. ‘You’re a dear loyal child,’ he says.
He smiles at his wife over our clasped hands.
‘Let me take her home. She is our trobairitz, our minstrel. She will tell people how it has been, how we are; she is witness to this great adventure. And then she will come to Paris with your gowns and jewels, and tell the world what a triumph this is.’
‘It’s not the Holy Grail, you know,’ Jacqueline corrects me gently.
‘I know, I know,’ I say. ‘But it is a wonder. And I want to tell people that it is a wonder.’
She laughs. ‘Ah, Nell, shall I send you back to England to tell my friend Queen Catherine that I am not her faithful lanky friend but a modern-day Guinevere?’
‘Yes,’ I say. ‘His Grace is certain to win. You will have your lands; you will be a new Guinevere. They will tell stories about you – and I shall be your lady at your side and your trobairitz, telling your story.’
She trusts me. She has so few people to trust in her life – not her turncoat mother, not her faithless friend – but she trusts me.
She turns to her husband to ask him a favour: ‘Will you take Eleanor, my dearest friend, safely home to England and bring her back to me at Paris?’ She smiles at me.
‘I know you are no Morgan le Fay, a pretend friend who works against her lady with dark and secret arts. You are my Lunete; you are my dearest, you will always be my true friend.’