Crown in Candlelight (40 page)

She began to tell her rosary. The entourage rumbled over the flat fields of Leicestershire and the town, a welcoming party at its gate, came into view. Katherine saw Henry’s standard. Old dead feuds fled her mind, as if Margaret had never embarked on the telling of them. Her carriage halted, and maids congregated to dress her hair, Master Feriby’s minions came running to drape her in fresh, scented furs. A man with thick golden hair knelt to clothe her feet in sweet soft leather. Then Henry’s horse bore him boundingly towards her and Leicester seemed the comeliest town in Christendom, Lollards or no Lollards.

Owen, uncaring in the deathly sickness of his love, raised his eyes to watch the royal embrace.
I have touched her feet
. I could have kissed them, and have had my lips cut off. No punishment. There’s no heart in me ever to kiss again.

I must somehow get over this. It is only because she is unattainable, because I can’t have her. It is nothing of the kind. I love her.
Am byth
. For ever.

Pontefract, rising starkly from the frigid moor, seemed even more forbidding than Nottingham’s gloomy rock, where they had travelled soon after Easter. Their welcome continued, but more discreetly. People shouted less in the north. Near-foreigners themselves, continually harassed by Scottish raiding parties, they regarded anything foreign with some suspicion. Yet she smiled, bowed, did all that Henry advised, and warmth, more genuine for its initial reticence, eventually surrounded her. She prayed at countless holy shrines, gave and received gifts, listened to the recital of Henry’s conquests on every city street and village green. She lay one night at the Augustinian priory of Nostell, then made her way to Pontefract, Henry continuing northwards. Immured in this fortress was someone she wished to see. It crossed her mind that it would be easy to secrete funds and information to this important captive: her own cousin and brother-in-law Charles of Orléans. It was in her power to betray Henry of Armagnac. And by his trust, she knew that he paid her the greatest compliment of her life.

As he embraced her farewell, there was an extra dimension in his concern, shared as yet by a secret few. Then he lectured her physicians, to see that she was warm and watched and rested, and rode away with backward looks, lovingly mystified as at the sight of a miracle.

She was escorted up a stone spiral, passing by round pillars strictly functional and lacking in ornamentation. She entered a well-furnished room that took her back instantly to the tragic castle at Blois. Everywhere there were the devices of Orléans, the peacock feathers and broom on the hangings, the pineapple and the porcupine, spiked, nervous, arrogant. A great fire burned in the hearth. Charles sat in the window. He had put on weight. She would not have recognized him as the keen youth who once wooed Belle with such tenacity. His secretary, Antoine l’Astisan, looked much as on that ride to Blois years ago; time had merely turned him grey. Charles rose, bent his knee, then embraced her. He did not seem overjoyed to see her, unlike l’Astisan, who shed tears at sight of her. Plagued by memory, he thought:
Grâce à Dieu
, she is happy at last! Would that my master could be also …

‘Well, Kéti,’ said Orléans. ‘By St Denis, you are fine.’ He stroked the sleeve of her rose velvet gown.

She hardly knew what to say. She asked if he were content at Pontefract.

‘Well enough. Windsor bored me, and the Tower is fiendishly hot in summer. The north suits my mood. This place is full of ghosts, to howl with me in my dolour. I have my faithful Antoine, my servants, my chaplain. What should I lack?’ His laugh was like a dog’s shrill aggression. He was changed.

Don’t ask me to intercede for you, she thought, wondering if he had heard of her success over James of Scotland’s liberty. You are different. You would be only too ready to lead Armagnac once more against my lord. She looked about at the flamboyant peacocks and the quilled stormy emblems.

He said: ‘Have you made a tour of this place? Shall I summon my guard and have them show it to you? There is a room at the base of this tower where Henry Bolingbroke had Richard done to death. What irony that both husbands of Madame should end their lives in this fortress!’

‘Your life is not ended, Charles.’

‘It might as well be. Marshal Boucicaut and the Duke of Bourbon are also here. We never meet. Boucicaut is half-mad, and the Duke unwell.’

‘Do you still write poetry?’ Katherine said uncomfortably. His face was glazed with melancholy. She thought of James of Scotland—captivity seemed to breed verse.

‘Yes. Mostly of Madame. I wish I were with her in Paradise.’ He sat down heavily at the table and Katherine joined him. ‘Night and day my thoughts never stray from her. And you, your Grace?’ he said, with an edge of malice. ‘Where is your great lord? Why is he not here with you?’

‘He has gone on, to pray at York, and to St John at Beverley.’ She pronounced it
Bevair-lee
, and Charles’s malice stretched into a smile.

‘You are quite the Englishwoman. And yet the conqueror leaves you here alone. Doubtless he visits his paramours in the North.’ This was so ridiculous that Katherine burst out laughing. Even if Harry had the inclination, he certainly had no time.

‘No, Charles. I do not ride with him.
Je suis enceinte, tu sais
.’

‘Ah,’ he said gloomily. ‘A child, Madame died from a child. My daughter, widowed herself now. Death blew his stinking breath upon my princess. My love killed her.’

‘I shall not die from a child,’ said Katherine.

‘A child can kill,’ he said. ‘I loved Madame. Now she lies in the Célestins, lapped in quicksilver and fine linen, but still mine!’

He began to weep. L’Astisan filled a cup with spiced ale and set it before him. With a sweep of his hand Charles knocked it away. It spilled over some sheets of manuscript on the table. The coloured inks ran and shreds of gold leaf floated on top of the liquid. L’Astisan looked despairingly at Katherine.

‘Shall I leave you?’ But Charles caught her hand and held it. They sat silent.

‘Do you remember how we met in the Sainte-Chapelle?’ His head was bowed over the ruined illuminations. ‘She was always my love and I was hers.’

‘She loved King Richard,’ Katherine said. She did not intend to hurt him. It was the truth.

‘It was a child’s love,’ he said. ‘She was maiden when she came to me. Richard loved only Anne of Bohemia.’

‘I wonder …’ said Katherine softly.

‘She will be mine in Heaven!’ He rose violently and went to the window, looking out on the wild sweep of moorland. ‘What do you care? These old passions do not touch you. You have betrayed your own country!’ She looked at his bowed shoulders, portly as those of an old man, and said, in angerless pity:

‘What did my own country bring me but fear and strife? As for love, and Paradise, I have thought on these things, and if it’s true there will be no taking or giving in marriage, neither will there be ownership! Charles …’

‘Then who shall have whom in Heaven?’ he asked sadly.

‘We shall all be one love, having expiated our sins.’ She went and laid her hand on his shoulder. ‘Charles, remember her words—I have never forgotten them. Love is the only candle in this dark old world.’

He did not reply.

‘Think of eternity!’ Katherine said. ‘In the merciful bowels of Christ, think of eternity!’

‘Not your words,’ he said, soft and savage. ‘The conqueror’s words to your father. You are his mammet, Kéti.’

‘I am his dear companion,’ she said.

Still looking through the window, he said: ‘I was glad to learn that your brother murdered Jean sans Peur. He who struck down my father in the dark of Paris!’

‘Your father! My uncle!’ cried Katherine. ‘Charles, let’s not quarrel. The past is gone. When I return to Paris I’ll have Masses said at Belle’s tomb in the Célestins for you.’

He turned, his face radiant under the tear-tracks.

‘You promise?’ To l’Astisan: ‘Give her Grace money, much money. And a great choir to sing for her? Kéti, make it soon!’

‘As soon as my baby is born and I can go to France,’ she said. ‘I promise. Now show me your poems before I leave you.’

One was so lovely it brought tears despite her new tranquillity.

The torch is set of piteous sighs

Which was with sorrow set aflame,

The tomb is made also the same—

Of careful cry depicted all with tears,

This which is richly writ about,

That here, lo! lieth without doubt,

The whole treasure of worldly bliss …

She kissed him, and gave him her blessing. Then, thoughtfully, she descended to her own apartments. What a heritage of love was in that poem! If Belle were not dead, one could envy her … She found herself longing for Henry’s presence, after the near-frenzy of Orléans. Little sounds from the lodgings of others blew down the cold halls of Pontefract: Jacqueline laughing, someone scolding a servant, someone singing. Sounds that touched her ears and were cut off like dreams at daybreak by stone pillars or a labyrinth of galleries. The scolding and the laughter faded but the singing followed in her mind. She retraced her steps to its source. That same gay, wild, tenor-bell of a voice, but with all its gaiety gone, replaced by an anguish like that of Orléans’s poems. Through an open door she looked where the singer sat with a lute across his knees. He sang on, moving her to think: never did I know that Jacques could sing like that! He did not see her. His eyes stared ahead. Whatever sunlight there was in the grey chamber had rushed to gather about his head, in the gold hair curling at his temples and brow and touching the tanned face and the blue, blind-looking eyes with gold.

The chatelaine at her waist swung as she halted and. its keys made a sound. He was on his knees as if poleaxed. She said: ‘You have a pleasing voice, Jacques. One day you shall sing for me.’

Grief, rage, and longing filled him.
Annwyl Crist
! I knew I was nothing, but not that I was invisible! I have sung for you night after night, morning after morning, at your door and the great ceremonies that crown your life! I have brushed your gowns and guarded your furs, I have practised in pursuit of your pleasure until my throat was raw and my fingers half-crippled. I have thought of nothing but you. I can’t remember a time when I did not think of you. Once you sent me away because my melodies made you sad, but you do not know that all my songs come from a dead heart. That because of you I am no longer a man! When I tried to lie with Jeanne again it was a frightening failure. When I tried to pretend that she was you, it was an unspeakable sacrilege. For my dream is you, and I would sleep for ever. Last night I had a dream, Cathryn (for that’s your name, your only name, in my tongue, the best tongue, the language of the gods)—that you and I stood together on a mountain and you rested your face, chilled by the Welsh wind, upon my heart, and you were mine, and
Duw annwyl!
I wish I were dead.

He looked up fearlessly into her eyes. Part of the essence of his look broke through her innocence.
Sainte Vierge!
she thought.
Comme il est féroce!
She turned away, saying: ‘I’ve disturbed your good music, I am sorry. Continue, Jacques,’ and left, a little disturbed herself. He looked as if he hated me.

From her apartments she had a view of the bailey and the main gate of the castle; outside tall trees were struggling into leaf. She felt a slight queasiness, and touched her belly wonderingly, it was so slender and tight, hard to imagine a tiny manikin stood there, with Henry’s eyes and close-cropped hair. She caressed the place where its heart might be. She smiled in ignorant bliss. A movement on the hill-brow behind the trees caught her eye. Riders, coming fast. King’s men! He could not have returned so soon. What pleasure if he had! She waited, hands still clasped on her belly. The coloured banners floated down the hill in the wake of the galloping horses. They were tired, they wavered and strained for home as the gate was raised. John of Bedford was out in the bailey talking to the dismounting men. Henry was not with them.

Bedford came to her in a few minutes. His face was quite grey. Something has happened to Henry. I cannot support it. I can. I must. I am his wife, a queen.

John of Bedford said: ‘The news is very grave,
ma reine
. The King is on his way from York. We are all to go south immediately.’

He looked so devastated that she had to ask: ‘For God’s love, my lord, what’s happened? Is the King well?’

‘He is well. But our brother of Clarence has been killed in France. The Dauphin was triumphant at a great battle near Baugé. And now all that Harry conquered stands in jeopardy.’

Letters. Letters. He dictated more than two score letters to a frantic scribble of clerks; instructions to all his captains who still held the French possessions so dearly gained. She sat quietly, listening to his rapid words which illustrated his diplomacy and grasp, his memory for detail, his skilled discrimination and judgement of approach. A soft letter to a pliant, easily-flattered castellan. A letter which threatened death to one who understood severity. But always the same message. Keep my conquests safe. Guard them with every arm you possess, with every strategy within your power. A team of fast couriers, every hour upon the hour, departed to take ship at Dover or Southampton. If he could have thrown his heart across the Channel he would have done it. After hours of vital deliberation and instruction he turned to Humphrey of Gloucester, to Bedford, and to Katherine. She knew that this meant France for him again, sooner than had been anticipated, and that she would be parted from him for some time. The coming child meant too much to him to risk her health on the journey. And parts of Upper Anjou, deemed his securest possession, were, if rumour ran correctly, once more awash with blood.

When the last courier had gone, he dismissed his counsellors and went with her to privacy. She took his face in her hands. He kissed her.

‘My dear companion,’ she said.

‘The knight I mourn most is Sir Gilbert Umfraville.’ He looked wan and sad. ‘There was a knight, Katherine! He fought so mightily on Artois plain, the archers loved him. That fool brother of mine. God rest his soul, thought he could dispense with the archers at Baugé! The Armagnacs cut my best fighting force to shreds, captured my noble Sir John Holland and Somerset, killed Umfraville …’ He sat down heavily, staring grimly ahead.