Windsor Castle, Summer 1429
Windsor Castle, Summer
THE CARDINAL FALLS into our trap and leaves for France to fight the French and their new champion, and we make a visit to the king at Windsor.
On the advice of Bolingbroke and Southwell, my lord tries to befriend and pet his nephew the king and lend him books from our growing library.
But the boy has been spoiled from birth and is cold and suspicious with my lord’s awkward jollity.
John Somerset, his tutor, encourages him to study the new learning, the sciences from translated books and the Arabic philosophers, telling him that his uncle is the greatest scholar in the kingdom.
Duke Humphrey boasts that his library is bigger than that of Oxford University.
The studies are so close to magic and even dark arts that I think them unsuitable for a young boy, especially one as sensitive as the little king.
They will not improve his education by terrifying him with alchemy and horoscopes and the rising of the dead.
But this is the expertise of the Oxford men; they all study old magic texts.
‘Learning can’t hurt him,’ the queen says. She is embroidering today; she has a great altar cloth spread between her and her ladies as they sit in the window for light, overlooking the river, each of them working on a different piece.
I pretend to be interested and accept a needle and a thread of green silk and set to work on some lowly blades of grass at the bottom of the picture.
‘No, it’s not that learning can hurt him,’ I explain. ‘Just that he is a child of such imagination!’
‘He only studies holy writings,’ she says vaguely. ‘I don’t see all his books now that he lives apart from me.’ She looks wistful. ‘Of course he has to be raised as a king, but I don’t see why I can’t live in his house.’
Owen ap Maredudd comes in abruptly, unannounced, and recoils slightly when he sees me. I raise my grey eyes to his face and look at him blankly, as if I can’t quite place him. He has a sealed letter in his hand.
‘Your Grace – this, marked urgent, from France,’ he says quietly, and holds it out to her.
‘No tray?’ I ask clearly.
He hesitates and looks at me.
I turn to the queen. ‘At Bella Court, my servants hand my letters on a silver tray. Do you not require that?’
He colours; he bows to her. ‘I beg your pardon,’ he says awkwardly. ‘It’s urgent.’
She takes it from him, breaking the seal and opening the letter.
‘It’s from the Regent of France, John Duke of Bedford,’ she says.
‘God save us all. He writes that the dauphin, my poor brother, has been crowned at Reims Cathedral by the girl they call la Pucelle.’ She drops the letter to her lap and bows her head in prayer for a moment.
‘My poor brother must have lost his wits like our father,’ she whispers.
‘God forgive him. Some common girl, who thinks she sees visions and hears voices, has crowned him, and now he is calling himself king of all France.’
I lean forward and put my hand over hers. ‘Nobody blames you for your brother,’ I promise her. ‘Everyone knows that there is madness in the Valois family. Nobody blames you for your husband’s death at your brother’s hands.’
The letter is shaking in her hands. ‘I was supposed to bring peace to England and France and now my brother has stolen my son’s crown . . . and some kind of witch is helping him!’ she exclaims.
Owen steps forward and puts a hand on her shoulder, as if he is allowed to touch her.
She looks up at him imploringly. ‘What can I do?’ she whispers to him. ‘What can anyone do?’
‘It’ll end in a battle,’ he tells her quietly. ‘But the English will win. They always win when it’s desperate. Don’t cry, Ca— Don’t cry, Your Grace. The king’s coming to see you, and you don’t want him frightened by your tears.’
I hear how he bites off her name, as if, to himself, he calls her Catherine.
I look sharply into his face, and I see the same tender look that he used to turn on me when we were alone.
It is unmistakable. I will never forget it.
It was how he looked at me when he loved me – and that is how he’s looking at her now.
I’m staring from him to her; I cannot believe he’s looking at her with such love, and she is allowing his gentle hand to touch her.
At once, from that one look, I know, I am certain, that he loves her, as much – far more – than he ever loved me; and I jump to my feet, not knowing what I am doing.
The thread in my hand rips at the tapestry and tears at my sewing.
One of the ladies exclaims and catches it from me; I round on her, holding the needle as if I would stab her with it.
‘Cramp!’ I gasp, to explain my sudden jump.
I hold my side as if I have a pain to excuse me moving away from the ladies to the open window.
I do have a pain; but it is in my heart, which is hammering with rage, and in my cheeks, where I am biting the inside of my mouth to stop myself screaming, and I can feel hot tears burning my eyes.
In the cool air from the window, I rub my face on my sleeve and feel the little diamond buttons scratch my cheek.
I have a mad desire to scrape my skin with them and turn a bleeding tear-stained face to Owen and curse him for a heartbreaker.
I am certain that he is in love with Queen Catherine; I would swear that it is so.
Now, I am sure that there is no slut in Wales, no marriage forced upon him.
He didn’t refuse me because he was promised to another woman; he refused me because he wanted to stay with the queen, to serve her as a single man, her servus, to give her this – this devotion: the gentle touch of his hand on her shoulder, a lifetime of loyal service.
Slowly, the heat of rage leaves me; gradually, my heart calms. I press the back of my hands to my hot cheeks and check them for bloodstains, to see that I have not scratched my perfect skin.
I hear the ladies murmuring among themselves that the dauphin has posed a great challenge to the English; that now the little king’s coronation must surely happen in England, even if it is not safe to go to France; that it will take a lot of arrangements, and there will be much to do; and that it is not so long since the last coronation of his father; they will probably draw the same gowns from the royal wardrobe – and a hundred other little pointless remarks.
I turn back to the room and sit beside the queen again. I whisper: ‘Excuse me.’
I feel Owen looking at me, with the knowing scrutiny of a former lover.
He will know that something he said or did made me quite mad for a moment – but will he know that I have guessed he is in love with her?
I don’t look at him; I don’t want to meet his brown eyes that will never crinkle with that warmth for me again.
‘Are you quite well?’ the queen asks me. ‘A glass of wine? Warmed ale?’
‘I am quite well,’ I said. ‘A little spasm.’
‘Someone sticking a pin in your wax image!’ someone says, and the ladies-in-waiting cackle like a coven.
‘That’s just what it felt like!’ I smile. ‘But I have no enemies, thank God.’
‘Amen,’ the queen says devoutly.
‘Indeed, I have won a friend that I think you lack,’ I say spitefully.
She looks at me warily. ‘I hope I have no enemies?’
‘Your mother-in-law, Queen Joan of Navarre,’ I say.
‘She has gifted me her beautiful royal chapel, all the copes and hangings and cups and plates, a great Bible, and a stone altar. I am going to install it in Bella Court. It is quite the most beautiful chapel I have ever seen, and she has given it to me. Did she offer it to you and you refuse it? I can’t believe she gave me the preference? ’
Catherine bows her head. ‘I am glad for you,’ she says meekly. ‘She did not offer it to me; I am glad you have space for it, and I am sure your confessor will be a better spiritual guide than hers was – in that very chapel.’
‘Her confessor?’ For a moment, I have forgotten.
‘Friar Randolph, who was accused with her of treasonous witchcraft, ill-wishing against the king my husband,’ she says, her voice like a clear little bell in the silently listening room.
‘He has just now been killed in the Tower in a brawl. He was imprisoned for life and served ten years; he was there when I first came to England as a bride, he was accused by my husband the king.’ She pauses, as if she is considering.
‘I do hope she didn’t give you her chapel because she knows that her wizard will never now use it for an unholy mass. That would be a poor gift indeed.’
‘Of course not!’ I say, but she has bested me. ‘Of course not!’