Crown in Candlelight (34 page)

Katherine, in the turret window where she had moved for better light to thread her needle, stared down at them. That was love, then. She would learn more of it herself in three days’ time. Now it was like a scene in an illuminated romance, and equally unreal. Yet she watched with deep pleasured interest, and her blood grew curious.

‘Don’t stop,’ said Thomas Harvey, entering the room at Troyes where Owen was practising. ‘I like to watch you dance. How are you so light on your feet?’

‘I don’t know.’ Owen wiped the dew from his brow and sat down. Thomas Harvey, the King’s Servitor, came further into the room, accompanied by Robert Waterton, the royal valet. These were the two most able men in the Household. Owen liked them. Others in the main were so unfriendly that often he preferred his own company. He was a man between two camps, craftsman at music and Esquire of the Wardrobe but accepted by neither. He was once and for ever a Welsh upstart brought in on the King’s whim. Snaith Fidler, Pyper and Tromper talked darkly about Guild laws, old precedents, seeking ways to discredit this unqualified usurper who sang and played better than any of them. The quiet, favoured, solitary one. Now he had learned to dance. He had picked up the skill rather than being taught by the royal troupe of entertainers. It challenged; it needed great physical stamina. He had begun to improvise. In secret he was fashioning an illustrative medley to accompany the ballad of Culhwch and Olwen. It involved the portrayal in swift succession of the giant, the knight, the shell-hooved horse, the fighting-Boar, the flowing-gaited Princess. He was very unsatisfied with his attempts. As in his life, he had come so far and no further.

He dwelt in a busy hive, rewarded with scant praise. Apart from his minstrelsy, he was responsible to John Feriby, Clerk of the Wardrobe, together with Tom Tunbrigge and Robert Spore, Yeomen of the Household, William Topnell, Master Tailor. He helped to oversee the laundering and ironing of the royal linen, the preservation and repair of the silks, cloth of gold and Dasmascus, the sendal and fine Holland shirts, the cloth of Rennes. The hundred pairs of hide boots and Spanish leather shoes, the turban-shaped chaperons which Henry, hating their Infidel connotations, seldom wore, and the beautiful mantles with their starry emblems. When in London he went with others into Chepeside for murrey and wool, for tawny satins and for coffers of ermine and swansdown and fox. The armour was not his responsibility, nor the crowns, the heavy collars and carcanets, the precious rings, but he knew the King’s taste, and he had discovered an instinct for fashion, colour, in both men and women—what flattered, what concealed, what enhanced. So he learned, and drew on growing expertise, and sang, and danced his secret dances, pounding out their intricacies until his feet bled and the sweat ran in rivers as heavy as at the Harfleur palisade. A strange existence. Although most of the men were hostile, there were, he had discovered, unlooked-for, most delightful compensations.

Thomas Harvey was gazing out of the window. There was mead-owland and trees as far as the moat and walls of Troyes. Wandering, coiffed head turning in unmistakable search, was a small slim figure.

‘I can see Blanchette,’ he said.

‘Oh,
Duw!
’ said Owen.

‘She’s looking for you. And she was there yesterday and the day before.’ Waterton joined him at the window.

‘You weary of them very quickly,’ he said. ‘She’s crying. Oh, she’s weeping, Owen!’

Owen got up. ‘I’ve work to do,’ he said.

Duw!
How they wept. Always it ended like this, inevitable from the moment they sought him out, so pretty and graceful with their rounded bodies and their honeyed accents and their delicious difficulties in pronouncing his name. It was fatal to smile at them or speak to them other than distantly or formally. When the first smile, the first word had been exchanged, they made themselves irresistible, with their longlidded downturned glances, their little folded hands, their pampered feet. French girls, English girls, Flemish girls. He could remember only half of their names. He was initially amazed how quickly they came to him. It was not something of which he was particularly proud. Not all were light or wanton, but he knew without doubt that after only the shortest time he would be in their beds, or they in his, or shining and naked as a peeled almond in the meadow-grass or wherever his search for pleasure bore them. They brought him rapturous well-being, and consolation in black days when Snaith Fidler was particularly rancorous from the belly-gripes that had plagued him ever since Harfleur. They brought him the burning salt of consummation, then dropped him to the little death. He enjoyed and relished them charmingly, giving them no promises, and then swiftly forgot them in work, or singing which was joy, not work. And then they cried.
Duw annwyl!
how they wept. Marie, Blanchette, Alys, Odile … their tears alienated him by the thought that what had begun so prettily should end in bitter tantrums.

‘She’s gone now,’ said Waterton, coming away from the window. ‘Someone will make you weep one day. Owen Tydier.’

Owen said: ‘I doubt.’

‘I see your eye is better,’ said Harvey, grinning not unkindly. Ghislaine’s brother had sought him out. Owen’s eye had been closed for days by the enraged fist. He had knocked two of the brother’s teeth out and then had seen the knife drawn on him. Thanks to Ghislaine, he was still alive; she had hurled herself screaming between them to protect not brother but seducer. Ghislaine was now a nun, somewhere near Chinon. No, he was not proud. Neither was he ashamed. It happened. It was so.

‘I must go,’ he said. ‘It’s nearly sundown.’

The Guild members were furious when Henry had appointed Owen to make music for the mad King. Only by the knowledge that they too might play afterwards had they tolerated the idea. Owen had been happy to oblige. He saw little of Henry at close quarters yet always they met in what, save for the chasm of blood and birthright, could have been friendship.

‘Do not play too loudly,’ Henry had told him. ‘The slightest noise affrights him. He’s very ill these days.’

So, at sunrise and sundown, daily at Troyes, Owen sat before the small glacial figure, feeling the corns on his fingertips harden as interminably he played harp or lute and sang.

While on the dais, Charles rocked and trembled and sometimes smiled, and Owen’s mind, detached, pursued the latest steps for his dance … there was a place where they were unjust, ill-matched to the beauty of the first sight of the giant’s daughter:

And her eyes! their look

Was lovelier than the thrice-mewed hawk

And her breast was softer than the sun,

Where she trod, four white clover flowers

Grew beneath her feet.

All were longing-filled and she was called …

Olwen. A special dance for her, lithe, fragile, yet bounteous with power, for Olwen can change the world.

The softest ripple glided from the strings, dewdrops on a spiderweb of sound.

Pastourelle en un vergier,

Ouy complaindre et gémir,

Disant’las! en quel dangier

Me fait amours maintenir
…

King Charles’s lolling head struggled upright; he croaked out, breaking the song:

‘That’s pretty, Jacques.’

‘Your Grace is mercifully most kind.’

Why ‘
Jacques
’? Owen always wondered. Some dim memory, perhaps, some dead minstrel. Anyway he had trained himself to respond. He looked with pity at the forlorn figure on the dais. Charles’s eyes constantly dilated, then retreated as if from some awful foe. A King! thought Owen, and remembering Glyn Dwr, princely even in age and bitterness, and Harry, immoveably majestic, a little contempt joined the pity. Ease my soul, Jacques. Sing the
Magnificat primi toni
.

Owen sighed: But Snaith Fidler the others were listening behind the screen, so he struck the first chord and then the doleful inverted second, and began the chant. On the back of his neck he felt a draught from the opening door; it blew through the turgid chamber and with it came the scent of lilies and honey and rosewater. He heard the hushed movement of silk gowns and the rough drag of a brocade train across the tiles. As Charles’s attention had wandered, he halved his chords and sang more softly still.

Out of the tail of his eye he saw the ladies approaching. He recognized Jacqueline of Hainault and Queen Isabeau. The nun he did not know, nor the princess who walked beside her. Christine de Pisan, the Italian poetess came with them, wearing a white habit. The foremost figure, seen previously only at a far distance, was unmistakably identifiable by the splendour of her robes. King Harry’s betrothed.

The fine strong profile came level with him, and the body held rigidly against the stress of the train. Playing mechanically, he studied her. She was dreadfully weary. There was a film of sweat on her long throat. Very recently she had rearranged her coronet, pushing it back; an angry red weal showed on her forehead. Her thick dark hair fell slightly tangled, below her hips. She halted before the dais. He could have touched the great carved jewel on her left hand. He deplored the colours chosen for her gown; that murky green and harsh gold trim sapped what little colour she had and threw up heavy reflections. He approved of the red in the train; it brought up the lights in her hair … Suddenly, insanely, he was reminded of Hywelis, who had loved him and let him go.

The perfume was Katherine’s. It circled him as she knelt slowly before the King. Queen Isabeau’s voice, loud and nasal, drowned the harp’s plaint.

‘Dear lord and husband! Here is your daughter, come to bid you adieu! Give her a blessing for tomorrow’s wedding day!’

Charles smiled wistfully. ‘I have no children. I have always longed for children. Who are you, maiden? How gay you look! But be careful—stand away from me …’

Gay was hardly the word. Owen played some wrong notes. Her left hand where it had touched the tiles had bestowed a damp oval mark. The perfume changed subtly. It was like the feral smell of Madog, chained and moon-howling, yet far from unpleasant.

‘Kiss your father!’ cried Queen Isabeau.

Owen could see fresh sweat gather in the Princess’s palm. His heart began to beat thickly, in almost painful strokes, as after too much wine or love-making. Her fear became a powerful elemental and whirled him with her into it. He stopped playing. She mounted the dais and embraced the King. He squirmed from her. She persisted, deliberately kissing him on the lips. When she descended from him he was maggot-white and staring.

‘I warned you, lady,’ he whispered, ‘none should touch me. Go away, before you do me mortal hurt.’

‘Oh, my father!’ said Katherine in a terrible voice, and bowed her head. Jacqueline of Hainault burst into sobs, the nun began to tell her beads, Isabeau gave a loud cluck of impatience, and Christine de Pisan unfeelingly took out her writing-tablets and began to scratch a memoir of the moment. Owen thought desperately: Princess, don’t weep! He found himself trembling. This was real grief, not the petulant tears of infatuated women; real fear, primal and rooted in an old deep agony … her face was sliding into defeat. Smile, Princess! His mind impertinently urged her, and, racked by wild sympathy, the urge infected his harpist’s fingers and he did a terrible thing.

There was a nursery rhyme that Megan at Glyndyfrdwy used to sing while baking, and the knaves would join chorus. Even Gruffydd Llwyd would wag his beard to it. Glyn Dwr had sung it to his grandchildren. It was called
Dinogad’s Petticoat
. Dinogad’s father went hunting for marten’s fur to gown his little girl …

Whistle, whistle and whistle again!

Then we’ll sing-o, a lusty strain,

To his dogs so swift he’d whistle and sing—

Gaff, Gaff, catch him then, bring!

His voice cracked on the last note. The loud merry echo hung above him like a sword. Every pair of eyes swivelled to his face. He smiled, giving a little shrug that said: Demons possessed me! and met all the eyes like a fool. Some were outraged; the King was rocking about with his hands over his ears. But Christine de Pisan was looking at him with professional interest, and Katherine was smiling.

Why, she’s like a child! He smiled back. The damage was done. No more serenading the royal madman, and Harry doubtless displeased. Their smiles tangled together in a bright shaft of sunlight, although it may have been relief lighting up the glum chamber with an excess of illusion. Then she turned away, still smiling, and left with her womenfolk, while physicians took over the room with their astrolabes and herbals and blood-irons, crowding about the dais. Owen picked up his harp and departed. The lusty tune’s ghost lapped him round.

That smile! I would have her dressed in rose, or saffron, or pale amber, or in dark gleaming silk to complement her skin and eyes. I would like to make her laugh. Gaff, Gaff, catch him then, bring!

Belle, my sister! this is no betrayal. She raised her hand in asseveration before Henri de Choisy, Archbishop of Sens. Sparklets streamed from the great betrothal ring. The shadows in the Cathedral of St Jean lifted and ran like water under the prying sun. That bright sun had shone during all these predestined days and now, like a benign relation, waited to see that all was accomplished. Crystal voices meshed and hung upon the final anthem. Henry’s hand shook slightly as her own rested in it.

He is as anxious as I that all should go with dignity, befitting this joining of nations. We are all nervous. The Archbishop’s voice is unsteady as he pronounces the blessing. His eyes are still suppliant, he is ashamed to sue for favours to a foreign invader. I do not share the shame. Belle’s little loving voice is stilled for the moment. She called Henry terrible names and his father was a creature vile beyond belief. Yet all is past and gone. I am Henry’s wife. I have no experience of the world or of men. Yet this is my man, my husband. He has ravished my realm, but he has bowed to me. And I must, at last, consider myself. Belle, whom I love, whose old grudges I was asked to share; Belle, whose portrait’s colours are darkened by time, may have been a little blinded by hatred. For in his way, I think this is a gentle man.