Crown in Candlelight (54 page)

The surf crashed hungrily on the strip of crystalline sand, swirling away to leap against jagged rocks and fill the pools at their feet. Out to sea, above the zircon glitter, fulmars drifted against a sky pure as porcelain. Cormorants, like sentries waiting dourly to be relieved, sat on the ancient pinnacles of rock. The day was full of colour and change, wind and sun working subtle alteration on the red sandstone cliffs, the shining stones that littered the beach, the rock-roses and heather growing up the headland where the Bishop’s Palace and the Cathedral of
Dewi Sant
stood. Both were built of the same indigenous stone, a breathtaking mosaic of lilac and saffron and dark grey. A lovely light fell over all: on the silken sand, the birds and flowers, the golden-haired man and the pale child who walked together, a little apart from the young priest and the servants going behind them beside the sea.

Here was a pebble of purple dolerite, almost perfectly round, and warm. Owen picked it up. A jewel for your Grace, he said, and laughed. Everyone thought them mad, to walk like this in the dangerous sea airs, but Henry had desired it.

Henry took the stone. At the same time he curled his fingers round Owen’s so that they went hand in hand, the smooth orb chafing between their palms. The King exhaled, a long shudder. Safe, he thought. Safe, for a season. He glanced up covertly at the merry mouth, the bright, breezecurled hair. The whole face so right, so comforting. Owen wore the Red Dragon of Cadwallader, the royal House of Wales, blazoned on his tabard, and a beautiful cloak. A few moments ago he had half-drawn this over Henry’s shoulders lest he take cold. Safe. For how long?

Owen felt the jealous eyes of the young chaplain on his back. This priest had filled Henry with spiritual grace until it bordered on mania. Does he consider me a corrupting influence? A little smile touched his mouth. If he only knew! I’m the last in the world to harm this child. My life is his, if only for the blessed womb that bore him. That womb which I have twice filled and shall again. My lovely Edmund. My little Jasper. My beloved Cathryn. He squeezed the hand of Cathryn’s son. He saw the dark eyes looking up, full of trouble.

‘What is it?’ he said softly. ‘Your Grace is tired? Shall we return to the manor? You can play with my sons again. But beware Jasper. He may be only twelve months old but he’s a monster. He bloodied my nose yesterday with his fist. He’ll be a fighter, and Edmund a poet!’

Henry smiled dolorously. ‘Jasper is a fair name. It comes from the Greek.’

‘It’s a stone,’ said Owen, squeezing the hand again so that the pebble warmed between them. ‘A hard, bright, crystalline stone, opaque and invincible. Jasper will grow up strong to serve your Grace.’

At the thought of the future sudden irresponsible joy filled him, shattering as the surf on the toothed rocks. And then he felt a tear fall on his hand and saw Henry’s head bent. Joy was replaced by chill, glory by vainglory.

‘I think your Grace is weary,’ he said gently. ‘I think you haven’t yet recovered from the rigorous time in France.’ He felt the hand in his grow icy. He knew that here, after nearly two years, was the nerve of agony, the canker that must be excised here on the bright sand and thrown to the greedy surf.

‘They made you watch, didn’t they?’

The black brimming eyes reminded him so much of Charles of Valois in his desperate madness. (
Ease my soul, Jacques
.) Silently they walked on and came to a broad flat rock, glittering with barnacles and veined with fossils. Owen sat down, and the King folded his trembling legs and perched beside him. A few yards away the escort hovered out of earshot, the priest’s mantle blowing like a flag of doom.

‘Talk, Harry,’ said Owen. ‘Talk it all away until it is gone for ever. Jeanne d’Arc is in Heaven now. Talk, and speed her on her way.’

‘Master Tydier,’ said Henry, trembling, ‘you’re the only one in the world who believes this. Save for that soldier—he cried out: “Before God, we have burned a saint!” A saint—’ he said bitterly ‘—so that I could be crowned King of France! When all I wish is to enter the Church and be saved from my sins.
Mea culpa, mea maxima culpa
…’ He hid his face, weeping. Owen longed to take him in his arms. The priest was watching. It would be unwise.

‘Tell me,’ he said, looking out to sea. Haltingly the dreadful detail unfolded. Everyone had expected to see a livid fanged demon brought into that square at Rouen. Instead they were faced by a pale young girl with the marks of torture and ravishment upon her.
La Pucelle
had female parts after all; several of her guards had discovered this fact, with some violence. She had gone to the pyre so bravely that many discovered shame for the first time in their lives.

‘Not one sigh or cry. Only at the last when the wooden cross they had given her burst into flames, and then—
Jésus, Jésus
, and I longed to run away but my uncle held me still and told me it was just and right and a sacrifice to my sovereignty in France …’

‘Bedford was unkind?’ said Owen, amazed.

‘No, he’s never unkind. Only full of policy. He said it was expedient and unavoidable that the Church should have handed her over to the secular arm, to himself and Philip of Burgundy.’

‘Because she was a light and an inspiration.’ Owen lifted the King’s hand to his lips. ‘Harry,’ he said tenderly, ‘Harry;
bach!
Bedford was right in his convictions. You see, she did have power unknown to mortal man.’

‘They said,’ whispered Henry, ‘that she could read men’s thoughts, that she picked out Charles in a crowded room where he’d disguised himself—that she told him things none on earth could have known …’

‘Yes,’ Owen said slowly. ‘In my life I’ve known two people like that. They’re always either doomed or persecuted—or else used. They can see beyond this world.’

‘Where were they?’ Henry lifted his face at last.

‘Why, at home. At Glyndyfrdwy.’ The Lord, with his dreams and his horses of the wind. And Hywelis. Why do I still call it home? My home is where Cathryn is. Yet I still call it home.

Henry was looking calmer. Owen went on: ‘You must remember always that Jeanne had to be discredited. Every rule was broken to this end and there were, I believe, grave judicial errors—provocation, fraud, false witness. Because she had fired the morale of France to such a degree, coming as she did from God, it was not enough to ridicule her power. She had to be shown as a heretic. That’s what I believe.’

Henry whispered: ‘So … I was not the instrument of that good woman’s death?’

‘Harry! You, who are without fault? Who told you this?’

Gloucester, he thought. He looked closely at the King’s face.

‘When did you hurt your mouth?’

‘Gloucester speaks unkindly of my royal mother,’ said Henry with sudden wildness. ‘I love my lady mother! I miss her still, when I’m not with her. And I love you, Master Tydier! Do you love me? Do you?’

Owen slid from the rock and went on his knees, spoiling his finery beyond repair in the salt pool. He took the King’s hands between his and bent his brow, saying:

‘I am your liege man for ever, most noble sovereign lord. I pledge you my life, and the lives of my descendants. To our last breath.’

‘We thank you,’ said Henry formally, and gave another shuddering sigh. ‘Before we left London, I wrote a psalm, one night when I couldn’t sleep.
Domine Jesu Christe, qui me creasti, redemisti, et preor-dinasti
…’

‘Construe, your Grace, my Latin is inferior.’

‘O Lord Jesus Christ, who hast created and redeemed me and hast brought me to that which now I am, Thou knowest what Thou wouldst do with me; do with me according to Thy will, for Thy tender mercy’s sake. Amen.’

‘Amen.’
Duw
, poor child, with such a fatalistic philosophy. He thought of his own sons: Edmund at two so fair and lively and already singing, and Jasper, brawling from the cradle. Sadness filled him, enhanced by the memory of those unstable Valois eyes. He rose.

‘Look at the sea, Harry. We could walk across that blue and green and white—what sights we’d see—mermen and dragons and ghostly ships and Neptune roaring up to salute us with his trident, and a million fishes swimming to form his crown—’ he heard the rare, almost painful laughter beginning—‘and then of course’ (ruefully) ‘we should fall off the edge of the world.’

‘It’s time for his Grace’s private prayers.’ The young priest, crow-gaunt, was beside them, leading the King away. More prayers, thought Owen, relinquishing him. Prayers won’t save that one. (What a heathen I am.) Only love. Then he heard the sound of more laughter, rich and glorious, this time and saw his Cathryn coming along the beach. Quite the carline wife, with her skirts held up, her hair blowing. The most sparkling thing on the shimmering bay. The little white dog was leaping beside her, and her women were panting to keep up. Edmund, blue-eyed, golden-haired Edmund, rode high in Guillemot’s arms. Jasper, with his fierce little dark face, was against Joanna Troutbeck’s agitated breast, trying to wriggle out of a fur robe. Owen went forward and took him. The women’s protests rose like the seabirds: it’s too cold, against nature, they will die from these airs! And his own woman, crying: ‘Pouf! Let them breathe deep, it’s wonderful!’ coming closer, now leading Edmund by the hand. The entourage drew away with disapproving shrugs at this madness. Edmund’s eyes were fixed wonderingly on the myriad shells at his feet. ‘Play, then,
bébé
,’ she said, releasing him.

He hadn’t seen her all day. He hadn’t been with her as much as he would have liked lately. Not half as much. A further discretion had been forced upon them by the presence of the King and his servants. He set Jasper on the flat rock. He kissed the tiny furious face. He took Cathryn’s hands. He looked down at them. She still cuts her nails very short, he thought. He remembered the hands, the nails of Charles of Valois, like talons, the talons of a wild injured hawk. He understood this severe cutting of her nails.

‘
R’wy’n dy garu di
,’ he said. ‘
Je t’aime, mignonne
. I love you, my sweet darling.’

‘Your hose is all dirty,’ she said. ‘You look a villain.’

‘I’ve been kneeling. A private oath. Nothing to do with you, Cathryn. What mischief have you been up to?’

The little dog frisked at the edge of the waves, leaving tiny trefoil prints instantly smoothed by the sea’s soft iron. Jasper crawled along the rock.

‘I have been to see the Bishop of St David’s. He is
gentil
, we talked of Archbishop Chichele and he showed me the building that Chichele did for Harry. The carving’s beautiful. And he told me the legend of
Dewi Sant
. Did you know that St David brought little fires from heaven? To shine round those who are soon to die?’ And she laughed. ‘To remind mankind of their mortality!’

Owen said: ‘Yes. I know.’

‘Also we spoke of the Cardinal. Beaufort told the Bishop I was coming here.’

‘Beaufort approves,’ he said. ‘This
congé
was one more little shaft against Gloucester.’

Gloucester. They had kept away from Pembroke Castle; it belonged to Gloucester.

‘We’re far from home,’ she said.

‘But we must go back.’ Back to Hertford. Privacy. The maids were coming to take the children, still convinced that they would meet their death through the mad sea airs. Soon we’ll be going home. Not Glyndyfrdwy.
Home
. He drew her behind a great rock. Out of the sight of the others.

‘Our home is in one another.’ He held her very tightly; she fitted her body to his. He drank the salt from her lips, kissing her until she sighed for breath. The maids were bearing away the children. She twisted in his arms to look after them.

‘They are the most beautiful children in Christendom,’ she said.

He released her for a moment. He must speak to her about Harry. Poor tormented Harry. Gloucester had struck him. But not now. Not today, when she was so happy. Later. Much later. He came back to embrace her again, touching her soft breast, closing his eyes against her sea-scented hair, wrapped in the essence of the deathless dream. The entourage was disappearing—the children, the priest, the servants, the King. This was such a lovely little sunbright cove, flanked by the great purple and saffron rocks. A cave, made magical by shadow and sunlight. He took her hand, began to walk with her towards the mouth of the cave. He looked back at her once.

‘You are mad,’ she said.

‘See, the sand is dry. My cloak’s warm. Everyone’s gone.’

‘You are truly mad,
cariad
,’ she said. The sand was dry, silk-soft.

‘Yes,’ he said, straight-faced. ‘I was kicked on the head by a horse. At Corbie. Ah, lie back … Cathryn …
fy nghariad
. My sweet love.’

Such a beautiful place, he thought, lost in the dream. This will be the most beautiful of all our children. He laughed softly; the roar of the surf tore his laugh away and flung it into the teeth of destiny. Tempting it.

Hywelis dampened the fire. The smoke rose ochre and ebony, diminished to pearl. It wafted about the ruined chamber. Madog, fourth of his line, was irritated by the fumes—he got up and strolled away.

‘My father,’ she said softly, kneeling. ‘Are you pleased with me?’ His face appeared. He looked so young. Davyddap Llewellyn ap Hywel was with him, both eyes clear and bright. He was smiling. Owain Glyn Dwr was smiling. She had to bend very close, her own eyes streaming, to hear their words. The barrier between the spheres made them very faint.

‘I am well pleased. Have I not returned to you the torque of Maelor?’

She touched her neck. The feel of the heavy gold was reassuring. She had found it in moonlight, washed, after all the years, from the mountain stream into the peat-hag. She had needed it last night; the black one had come again. Furious beyond belief, strong as a thousand devils. So far Hywelis was the stronger. The black one was envenomed by Edmund, by his health and beauty. This morning Hywelis had noticed a few white threads in her red hair. The black one had come in the form of a furred serpent. So strong. ‘Father,’ she said. ‘My father.’

‘Continue, Hywelis.’ The fine falcon’s face, so young, smiled at her. ‘Breed your foxes, girl. Draw your pentacles and say the charms I give you. Have I not returned the torque of Maelor?’