The Queen's Lover (30 page)

Once everyone who was anyone was inside, there were the speeches--sometimes barbed, sometimes tense, though with their intent so veiled in diplomatic words that Catherine was only vaguely aware of why the French negotiators at her uncle of Burgundy's tent were whispering. She felt, blithely, that it didn't much matter anyway, since the outcome of the talks was now a foregone conclusion; and it was only natural that men who'd fought each other for so long would feel suspicious of each other when they began to talk again. Her mind was elsewhere. At midday there'd be the walk across the boards to her mother's little encampment; and, waiting inside, Henry.

No one seemed to see him come or go. No one mentioned the arrangement; no one indicated, by the merest gesture or eye movement, that they were aware of it. Her mother's servants would quickly serve Catherine and Henry food, then vanish. After that, there'd just be the music playing outside, behind the tent flaps, and the two of them, alone with each other. They'd laugh breathlessly as Henry pulled the cloth down and opened his arms to her; they'd melt together, leaving the food untouched on the platters, and all the responsibilities that had been loaded on her shoulders for so long would slip off, like a shiver of silk.

She couldn't believe the freedom of it. She'd thought she would need to run away somewhere to know freedom, but it had been here all along, waiting for her to find the right goal, something that would make every door open effortlessly, as they were all opening now...She'd never been so happy. She'd never felt so needed. His eyes never left her. She'd find him gazing at her with pleasure in his wide-set eyes, as she stretched languorously out on the cushions or shivered with pleasure at his touch, or eased herself up his body, kissing his chest. Just looking. He didn't talk much, and she was happy
with that, too; it was part of the joy of being with him that the careful, watchful weighing of words didn't matter.

Once or twice she folded her hands on his chest, feeling safe with the steady rhythm of his heartbeat below her, and, looking up, asked him, "Will I like England, do you think?"

He only laughed. "Like a kitten," he replied softly; and, the next time, "Do that again; with your hands under your chin...you look adorable." And he'd kiss away her words as if they were nothing; a kitten's mewing.

She'd forgotten already that she'd once imagined him otherwise; that she'd been disappointed at the sight of him. She couldn't think of anything else anymore but being with him.

There was only one moment when she'd felt uneasy with Henry. It was on the day when, lying on the cushions, he had wanted to talk to her. When he'd asked, with a curious look, "They say your brother Charles is at Melun--just nearby--asking for talks with your cousin of Burgundy; doesn't anyone on your side think to say yes to him?"

She'd known Charles' army had seized Melun. ("Spite," Maman had said crossly, when she heard her favorite castle was in enemy hands; "he did that out of spite.") But there hadn't been any request for talks that Catherine knew of. Burgundy hadn't said a word about Charles wanting talks.

"Are you sure? What would those two have to talk about?" she said blankly. "They hate each other."

She didn't like the look Henry was giving her: calm, carefully assessing, and mildly amused, as you might be watching a cockfight or a peasant behaving uncouthly.

"They're cousins; they're both of France. So they might have many things to talk about, no? They might want to join forces to stop me marrying you, for instance..." he said, raising an eyebrow.

Alarmed, she breathed, "No!" and "They couldn't do that, could they?" She so wanted the future she saw opening up for herself now. She was already enjoying the first feelings of safety and companionship that this new relationship with Henry would bring her more of. She wanted to get away into the warmth of a life where she and this man would know each
other well enough to tell each other all their secrets, all their innermost thoughts; a life full of children talking and laughing; a future in which the walls wouldn't look mockingly back at her in silence. She didn't even want to hear the possibility that Charles--the hateful, violent person Charles had become--could cheat her of that future.

Henry only laughed. "One never knows," he replied lightly. "Does one?"

She could imagine--vaguely--what was worrying Henry. They always said he and his brothers and uncles, the Beauforts, ruled and conducted their war together, in perfect unison. He must find it almost impossible to understand the hatred between the French royals; in particular, the one he'd be most aware of, between her brother Charles and her cousin Burgundy.

She couldn't begin to explain the ambivalence and suspicion that tainted every relationship in her own family, to someone who didn't understand families being that way. She didn't understand herself where all the complex feelings came from. She just knew they had always been there, and always would be; and, in her turn, she didn't really believe the English royal family could be so perfectly united. Deep down, she thought, surely those English brothers and uncles must all harbor quiet hatreds for each other, too.

Henry's face turned up in an inquiring, unemotional smile. "But don't
you
worry about what Charles wants?" he asked, quite kindly. "After all...he's your brother. You grew up with him. And he'll be King of France one day. If there's to be a good, lasting peace between France and England, wouldn't you say he should be part of making it?"

She shook her head fiercely. "Why should there be peace talks with Charles?" she asked. She was reasoning with herself as her words rushed out. Of course she wanted a good, lasting peace between France and England; that was what she told herself every day. Seeking the blessing of peace for her country was the reason for seeking out this marriage. But why should Charles--the hateful, violent person her brother had become--get a chance to spoil everything now? "Charles isn't the King--just a
son. My father's the only king you need to talk to," she went on hotly, ignoring what they both knew to be true--that the negotiations were being led, for the French, by the Queen and Burgundy, not the sick French King, who wasn't, in reality, in any sort of state to conduct peace talks. "All Charles should do is come back to my father and ask his forgiveness for leading an army against his King. He should ask my mother's forgiveness, too. For putting her in prison."

Catherine paused. Assessing how she must look to her lover, she became aware that her face was flaming and her teeth had clamped tightly together. She must seem much too angry, she thought, making a conscious effort to smile and shrug and move her body languidly closer to Henry's.

Then, letting herself trust that everyone, deep down, understood the quiet rivalries and hostilities that must seethe away at the heart of every family, she laughed a little and looked into Henry's eyes. "Though my mother might not forgive Charles so easily," she added, with an attempt at merriment. "Naturally...after all those months in prison...he's caused so much harm; though she too...it's hard to explain. But she's still so angry that she's spent weeks saying that Charles is no son of hers, for doing what he did, and no son of our father's either."

She laughed again at her last line. She knew she meant partly to signify her own exasperation at the hugely exaggerated spite that was so typical of her mother. She waited for Henry to understand that and laugh too. But his eyes were gleaming. She'd got his serious attention now. He didn't offer any comment on the motivation of a mother who would, out of sheer malice, question the legitimacy of her own son's birth--and, by doing so, admit she must have been an adulteress. Henry was much too interested in what Isabeau had said to worry overmuch about why.

"Is she saying that? Really?" he asked intently. "The Queen of France, saying Charles is a bastard?"

Suddenly Catherine saw that statement through his eyes. If the only male heir to the French throne was a bastard, and his father's royal blood didn't run in his veins, there was no male heir
to France. That left the way open to...anyone, really...to seize the French throne. No wonder the King of England, here to negotiate a peace settlement after winning most of northern France on the battlefield, had eyes that had started to gleam.

Her laugh faded a little. There'd never been any real talk about Charles being a bastard; that wasn't the impression she'd given, was it? It had all just been Isabeau's hyperbole, hadn't it? "It's just her way," she added faintly, feeling suddenly unpleasantly compromised; associated with her mother's jibe and trying to shrug it off. Perhaps he
really
didn't understand how unhappy families fought among themselves? Perhaps things really were different among the Lancasters? "We don't pay any attention, really...She often says things like that..."

Henry began to nod. He began to dress, too. "Quite, quite," he said, nodding a little too fast, looking both disappointed and, at the same time, slightly amused. "Just her little joke...I understand." Still, he went on grinning while he dressed.

He bowed as he prepared to leave the tent. "But still," he said, almost to himself, from by the flaps, "if only she'd meant what she'd said. About Charles. It would have made everything so much simpler." The grin--almost a smirk--that he couldn't quite keep off his face broke out again. "Till tomorrow," he said, through lips trying hard not to open into a laugh, and was gone.

Catherine had spent her mornings in the tent dreaming of the meeting to come. She'd spent her afternoons in a new dream of sticky honey kisses and whispers.

And so, on the last afternoon of the week, she was surprised to find her mother, turning around at the talks to touch her arm and whisper a comment, not giving her the usual pleased, mischievous look Catherine had come to expect--the look of a sensualist who'd successfully introduced her child to the pleasures of the flesh--but muttering, with narrowed eyes and an angry quiver to her jowls, "What is the man thinking? Did you hear? They have to offer
something.
We can't just..."

But Catherine hadn't been paying attention. "What's the matter?" she whispered.

But her mother shrugged her off. She was staring balefully at the English speaker: Henry's brother, John of Bedford. She was listening hard, and breathing hard. She didn't want to be interrupted. After a few more bass phrases in Latin, which Catherine, despite Christine's best attempts, wasn't expert enough in to follow properly, Isabeau raised her hand.

The English delegation, sitting fanned out around Henry at the other end of the table, went quiet. Heads went forward; a couple of men leaned around Henry's throne and whispered.

Miserably, Catherine realized something was going wrong.

"My lords," Isabeau said, in formal, clipped, furious French, "I beg your forgiveness. But the Princess my daughter is indisposed and wishes to be excused. Perhaps, while she makes her departure, the rest of us might benefit from a short pause in which to gather our thoughts?" She prodded Catherine, who, startled to be dismissed, but obedient, rose from her chair and eyed the French tent's entrance. Isabeau fixed Henry with a steely gaze. He stared coolly back down the table at her. She snapped out her final words: "An opportunity to meditate on the virtues of compromise?"

Henry nodded, but not in a way that suggested he was about to discover the virtues of compromise. He was drumming his fingers on the table. He didn't look at Catherine as she began, very slowly, to make her way toward the daylight.

She was almost out when the Duke of Burgundy stood up. Under his hooded eyelids, her uncle's eyes were the color of flints. He stood very tall and straight. He, too, stared at Henry.

"We can't agree to what you w-w-want," he said, with ice in his voice. But he'd started stammering. "There's no point in being here unless you agree to l-l-look for other ways. We can't dismember France to satisfy y-y-you."

There was an ominous silence. Catherine stopped in the doorway and looked back. She saw Henry sit up straighter too, and, very slightly, shake his head. But the men-at-arms, so close now that she could smell the wine and greasy meat on them, were already moving aside to let her out. She could do nothing but step, blinking, into the daylight.

She was already outside when she heard her uncle's next words: still quiet, but trembling with pent-up anger. She could imagine his eyes now.

"Change your demands, or there'll be no point discussing a...m-m-marriage either," he grated.

And then there was chaos.

She heard a chair overturn, and a furious shout from the other end of the room--in French, not Latin, but she knew it was Henry's voice. "Don't try to dictate terms to me!" it yelled, and she heard a fist bang on the table and the shuffle of paper falling. "You have no choice! You'll do what I say, you bloody fool, or I'll chase you out of France, and your King with you--and have the girl anyway!" And now there were chairs bashing down on the carpets everywhere, and everyone was on their feet, shouting and jostling and pushing at the enemy, wherever they saw the enemy in the uproar, and Isabeau was struggling up from her throne, with a dreadful look on her face, and yelling, "Quiet! Quiet!" but no one was listening.

The men-at-arms at the tent flap weren't standing to attention anymore; they were staring in with terror on their faces. Catherine stood behind them, thanking God her uncle of Burgundy had had the sense to make sure everyone was disarmed before they entered the conference tent.

Inside the tent, Henry of England was advancing on Burgundy down the side of the table, so fast and dangerous that he seemed to be about to hit him. Then, as if remembering himself, he raised his arms high in the air instead and walked on past. He stopped at Isabeau's throne and bowed.

"Madam," he said, through gritted teeth, before walking out through the French entrance, straight past Catherine, so close he could have touched her, so close she could almost feel the dark wind in his wake. He didn't see her; or if he did, it didn't make him stop.

The uproar went on for a second more. Then the rest of the English delegation walked out too, through their own door, led by John of Bedford.