Crown in Candlelight (35 page)

Even the coronet felt easier on her brow, it was a new beautiful diadem with high arched florets. She raised her eyes, for the first time in her life surveying the assembled nobility as more than an equal. To where her mother stood she sent the captive scorn of years. I am free of you, terrible Isabeau, even though bound by memory, for I still remember that night when I lay at the gate of death and you played cards. You cannot hold or touch me now. I have an army at my side. Oblivious, the Queen-Mother stood smiling, next to Philip of Burgundy in his doleful black.

As it was Trinity Sunday there was an interminable anthem during which Katherine and Henry stood, then knelt, and stood, and were anointed, kissed and blessed, until the ceremony was finally over and it was time for the wedding feast. The sun had dipped and a swallow, which had caused a distraction by its swooping irreverent acrobatics, flew to roost in the mouth of a stone lion. Katherine thought light-headedly: Once I was ragged, frail and dying. Now I am Queen of England. The swallow has found her a nest where she may lay her young, and tell them that she once saw
me
!

The pantner came with his long towel draped about his neck, bearing on his outstretched left arm the seven loaves of eating bread and the four trencher loaves, and carrying the vast salt-cellar for the royal table. He set down the two knives with their haft outwards before the carver, and took out his own knives with which he shaped the plates from the round trencher loaves, squaring and smoothing the edges. Kneeling, he received the slice of bread from the assay loaf, and the ewerer came forward with two basins, straining water through fine linen and testing it as fit for the washing of royal hands. Plainsong grace filled the hall.

Katherine and Henry ate from the same dish. Food had never tasted so good to her. At one moment, seeing how little he ate, she stopped and looked at him obliquely. He said: ‘The banquet is to your taste?’

‘Ah yes, my lord. I was very hungry.’

She glanced round the assembly and saw that Humphrey of Gloucester was absent. Unreasonable, to feel such relief. She drank ale. The hot weather had turned most of the wine to vinegar. Shyly she raised her goblet to Henry, and he returned her courtesy with a smile so preoccupied it dampened her spirits for a moment. Then she thought: I am fanciful, I make much of little. And why should I fear Gloucester, who has done me no wrong? I see Jacqueline there with red eyes for love of him. My fear was misdirected on the part of that inner counsellor of mine. The dish before her was refilled with the fourth part of the first course, a Crustade Lombard. Eagerly she bit into the crisp pastry, tasting the succulent fruit and beef marrow within.

‘You eat heartily, Katherine.’ The ale had gone to her head, just a little. She said: ‘Does that displease your Grace?’

He frowned. ‘No, no, certainly not. You are so slender, Katherine.’

She looked quickly away, and saw the swelling curves of Anne of Burgundy, brought here for her betrothal with John of Bedford to be negotiated. She said foolishly: ‘It grieves me that my lord finds me uncomely.’

Almost before the words were out, he said: ‘Dear Katherine, you misjudge me. If you only knew how pleasing I find you!’

She smiled again. He put his hand on hers, saying softly: ‘Why, even the angels …’

‘Your Grace,’ Louis de Robsart was kneeling at the dais. ‘Word has reached us that the Duke of Bedford is in Paris.’

Henry’s hand left hers at once. She felt the lack of it, and for comfort, took more pie. It had lost its savour. She slipped it beneath the damask cloth where a hound’s furry jaws snapped it up. She started on a hot bread roll stuffed with cinnamon and Corinth raisins.

‘And what is the situation in Paris now?’ Henry asked.

‘Paris is yours, Sire. Even now they drive the last of the Armagnacs from the streets. The river is silted up with Dauphinist corpses. The City’s anxious to receive you and the Queen.’

‘Ah!’ Henry’s brown eyes gleamed. ‘Then we’ll go there with all speed. Katherine! Welcome awaits us in Paris.’

She fluttered her fingers in the perfumed water by her plate, and dried them on the surnape. She edged the clean hand towards Henry’s, and he held it again.

‘When do we go to England? I long to see England.’

‘And England longs for you, Madame.’

‘I’ve seen nothing. You have seen so much, so many cities, counties, peoples.’

This amused him. ‘My dear! I’ve seen blood and mud and sickness. One battlefield’s the same as any other, one dead man like the next. At Harfleur, my friends died a dog’s death.’

A great dish of raw fruit in syrup came with the next course, a subtlety of spun sugar. There were early golden plums, grapes and green figs. The tartness pleased her palate. She offered a washed fig to Henry. ‘They’re delicious.’ He was about to decline but saw her disappointment. He ate the fig.

‘I will serve you, my lord.’ She busied herself snipping grapes, splitting open the yellow plums and placing them in his hand.. He indulged her, and she, able to eat no more for the moment, took pleasure in watching him.

‘Tell me about the last campaign,’ she said.

‘It was successful.’ He was surprised that she should want to hear. ‘But I did not think Rouen could withstand us for so long.’

He looked sharply at her; she had lost colour.

‘Too much food?’ he asked, ready to motion to a page for napkins. ‘You feel sick?’

‘I didn’t want to hear about Rouen,’ she said faintly. ‘I heard what was done with the babies.’

He was silent for a few moments. Then he said: ‘Put it from your mind. You will have babies of your own, God willing. So think no more, Katherine, of sieges and leaguers. They are not your concern.’

‘And there is peace in England, where I may go with you. Soon?’

‘As soon as possible. But I have campaigns to finish and the crucial part is yet to come. And then—my life’s ambition, my work for God—to drive back the Infidel …’

Pain, unexpected as a night assassin, speared his bowels. I should not have taken the fruit. Down, damned pain, cursed legacy of Harfleur! I thought I had you outmatched long ago. Die, intruder on my wedding-day! He closed his eyes and broke into a pallid sweat. Katherine was afraid. She glanced towards her mother, who lolled, cup in hand, against the shoulder of Philip of Burgundy, to his obvious embarrassment. Was her protector already brought low? She said softly, ‘Harry …’ in uncertain accents, stressing the last syllable. He drew a deep breath and opened his eyes. The sight of her anxious face stirred him sweetly even in pain.

‘Be easy, Madame,’ he said. ‘All’s well, dear wife.’

Thomas, Duke of Clarence leaned across.

‘I’ve arranged jousting as part of the festival. I trust this will please the Queen’s Grace.’

Henry shook his head. ‘No time, Thomas,’ he said, each word an unguessed-at effort. ‘There’ll be jousting in earnest. At Montereau, at Sens.’

At Sens lies my debt to the Archbishop. Thus he thought as later, Henri de Choisy, stammering-pale, came with a score of priests and noblemen to bless the bed where Henry and Katherine lay naked, the stiff brocade drawn to their chins, their bodies straightly moulded as if in effigy. Her long dark hair lay outside the coverlet like some rich reposing beast. Her breathing was swift and soft; he heard it through the long ritual prayers. The sacred wine and soup was brought and they sipped from it, token gestures, Henry fearing sickness and Katherine already sated.
‘Benedicat Deus corpora vestra et animas vestras.’
Incense swirled and lodged in the bed-hangings. Three times the holy water fell, dampening the bed like rain while they lay stiffly together. He called
me
slender! Katherine thought, feeling the sharp hip-bone against her under the mounded clothes. I must make him eat, cherish him. He is all I have.

Musicians were playing softly outside the antechamber. There was the harp-note again and the voice with the wild, barely controlled merriment that had cheered her in a dark moment, now coiling about a psalm. Jacques, her father’s comforter …

‘You have given me my bride,
Monseigneur Archevesque
,’ said Henry as de Choisy snuffed candles and prepared to withdraw. ‘Soon I will restore yours – the diocese of Sens – the Church!’

Darkness covered the chamber. The faint music ceased. After a while she said: ‘Is all well, Henry?’

As he did not move or speak she felt for his hand. He caught hold of her quite roughly, grazing her face on his cheekbone, holding her close, still silent.

‘Is all well?’ Hers was the loneliest, the last voice alive in the world. ‘Harry?’

Then he said: ‘All’s very well, dear Katherine.’ She lay waiting, knowing yet not knowing what to expect. She had heard vaguely of discomforts and ecstasies, neither of which occurred now. His extreme thinness worried her. She liked his kisses and returned them ardently, all the time thinking:
Freedom
. I am a Queen. Unassailable. The thoughts so redeemed her that there was no room for disappointment. She drifted to a light doze, and after some time heard him say:

‘When I have done, there will be no Infidel left to conquer!’

And she, who had been followirg her own half-dream, said: ‘To think you might have married my sister!’ But Belle should not hang sorrowing above this marriage-bed: She said candidly: ‘She had no good word for you … because of Richard. She was wrong, Harry.’

Sainte Vierge!
he
is
ill. From head to foot he was filmed with sweat. An intermittent rigor shook him. She leaned on her elbow, wishing for a light. She touched her lips to his eyes and tasted salt.

‘It was not my fault,’ he said, his words dragged out. ‘Don’t speak of Richard or my father, or of Courtenay who died for me, or Oldcastle and Badby whom I put to the flame. If you love me, Katherine, do not speak of the past. All my life I’ve fought with ghosts. Give me your hand … such a strong hand. If there is any mercy owing to me, be my comforter.’

‘With all my heart,’ she said steadily, ‘I give you my love, Harry. We will do well together.’

The pain had him again, it was so fierce she could almost feel it in her own nerves. Carefully she drew his head on to her breast, and with her soft toes began to rub his horny, freezing feet. He lay, teeth clenched, willing the pain away. In the pitch darkness red flashes danced, each flash a pain. I cannot be ill. With Montereau and Sens and Paris ahead I have no time to be ill. The porcupine emblem of the Armagnacs danced redly on the black, quilled with agony. Katherine whispered: ‘Your physicians …’ and he said as violently as the pain permitted: ‘No! For God’s love, it’s nothing … don’t take your arm away, it helps me.’

She was coughing, a little dry cough, and he thought: poor Katherine! what a travesty of a wedding-night! What demon sent this plague just now? It shall be close between us. She will not tell; God willing, I may trust her. One word to the Armagnacs of this weakness and I am lost … or Philip … he should not know, he might think it a diplomatic illness and lose faith …

‘Pain is good for the soul,’ he said, as it ebbed a little and he lay cautiously still. ‘I shall fast tomorrow. Then, sweet wife, I’ll do more justice to your beauty …’

‘Sleep, Harry,’ she said. Her arm was numb, but she held him closer. The cough had parched her throat. There was wine on the night-table but nothing would move her from his comfort. This was not the loving she had witnessed between Jacqueline and Gloucester, but suddenly she was glad, proud to hold with tenderness rather than be held in such a storm. Jacqueline was mad with love … her two husbands had both been very young. Humphrey, like Henry, aged by comparison … fascinating … Jacqueline had undressed her tonight, whispering, don’t forget! Madame, ask if I may go with you to England … sleep was forming a circle about her. Within it, Jacqueline’s face shimmered and pleaded, she pushed it away, there was no time. Later, she’d ask him … the face returned and she stroked the soft hair reassuringly.

In his fevered sleep, Henry felt the caress. It drew him down and away to a place he had not visited for years. The great warrior was a child again, in the arms of Mary de Bohun, his dead mother.

Two days later, in a litter drawn by eight white horses, one of Henry’s wedding gifts, she accompanied him and his army to Sens. The horses were not perfectly matched, and, paradoxically, this enhanced their perfection. One was dappled like a pearl, one white as a snowbird, one had a freckling of black on its quarters and one was whiter than whiteness, with pale blue eyes where the others’ were dark, sad and generous between long lashes. Between an armed escort, the horses bore her
charrette
smoothly along. She looked out on the pale moving river of their grace, and adored them.

She had prayed that he would not leave her behind. Last night she had lain alone while he, somewhere unknown, conferred with his ministers. Then word had come for her to make ready. She understood his preoccupation with affairs. Yet she obeyed with joy, glad to be travelling through fair weather past terraces of vines, only sorry he was not nearer. She had come this way before, in a false life, a nightmare now powerless to alarm. Ahead she could see his standards, the blue and gold of France and England quarterly, with France Ancient borne by a pursuivant as a mark of respect to King Charles, who, drugged with music and poppy-juice, rode in a closed litter far behind. Isabeau too was travelling in an equipage far less glorious than her daughter’s. Her suggestion: that Charles should come to Sens. Henry had agreed. There was always the danger that the Dauphin might attempt his father’s abduction. The French royal household was on the move.

Some of the ladies had never been far from the court. They treated this expedition as a holiday. The presence of so many strong men had gone to their heads. Giggling mingled with the hoarse shouts of the commanders and the soldiers’ oaths. Pages ran alongside with packs of small Italian greyhounds, and falconers bore peregrines and hawks on ribboned rods. Katherine knew without doubt that this would annoy Henry. His own party, jogging urgently ahead of the long cavalcade, seemed segregated from frivolity by a wall of steel-clad men. She knew that this enterprise was important to him. The Archbishop of Sens, with his priestly attendants, rode near him, where she longed to be. Instead, she had for company Jacqueline, weeping or laughing, beside herself with excitement and private frustrations.